Loyola University Chicago

I was excited to get back on the campus of Loyola University Chicago – a favorite of mine. The main Lake Shore campus is in Rogers Park, directly on Lake Michigan. The setting is truly stunning. There’s a total of 5 campuses in and around Chicago, and the university has an inter-campus shuttle system. The Lake Shore campus is the hub and houses the liberal arts and STEM programs. The Water Tower campus, about 20 minutes away, houses the business program. The Maywood campus is an hour away, and it’s where the nursing students do their clinicals, so it’s important to know that they’ll need a car. The Retreat and Ecology campus in Woodstock, IL is used for research and retreats. The piece de resistance is the campus in Rome, 15 minutes from the Vatican. Here, students can spend a semester abroad studying under Loyola adjunct faculty.

Loyola Chicago is an urban institution, but it has a campus - and it’s gorgeous. Housing on campus is guaranteed for two years, and there are a lot of apartment complexes for students adjacent to campus where most juniors and seniors live. Volleyball and basketball are very strong spectator sports here, but the city of Chicago is also a big draw outside the classroom.

While Loyola offers many majors, it’s ranked #17 in the US for nursing. The NCLEX pass rate was 95% last year, and clinicals are available all over Chicago in addition to the Maywood campus. And they’re building a new nursing and science building which is to be completed in 2028. The good news is that if your application is competitive for Loyola, it’s going to be competitive for the nursing program; the bar isn’t any higher. They’re hoping to see A’s and B’s in science classes and an average weighted GPA of 3.88.

Some fun facts:
·      Students applying in undecided can apply into nursing or engineering once they start at Loyola, but there will be some credits to make up.
·      They offer a first-year program on the Rome campus but it’s best for non-STEM students, as sciences aren’t available there.
·      The School of Communications is adding a Sports Media major.
·      In the School of Education, students are observing in classrooms their first semester.
·      They are seeking more engineering students.

Merit scholarships are generous at $20-34K and 10 students receive full tuition scholarships. The opportunities here are amazing, the setting is great, and the campus is gorgeous. You must come and see it for yourself!

Loyola University Chicago checks a lot of boxes for a lot of students. With about 12,000 undergraduates, it’s that elusive medium-sized institution that’s so popular right now. Situated on Lake Michigan on the north shore of Chicago, it offers a mostly contiguous campus in a major US city. Merit scholarships are exceedingly generous. And as a Jesuit institution, undergraduate teaching is what they do well. But for some reason, Loyola Chicago has just not made it onto the national scene; it remains a local gem with an 80% acceptance rate. I can’t tell you why. US News and World Report ranks Loyola’s nursing program at #26 nationally, the undergraduate marketing program at #19, and the undergraduate accounting program at #21. That doesn’t sound regional to me.

The colleges and schools that offer undergraduate degrees are Arts and Sciences, Business, Communication, Education, Health Sciences & Public Health, Nursing, Social Work, and Environmental Sustainability. Who would expect a whole college of environmental sustainability in Chicago? They offer degrees in Environmental Policy, Environmental Studies, Environmental Economics, as well as Environmental Science, with several tracks available. There are also opportunities to complete a Master of Public Policy or MBA within 5 years.

Interestingly, Loyola was the first university in the Chicago area to achieve carbon neutrality, and 100% of electricity used on campus is powered by renewable energy. Some other really interesting majors include Bilingual/Bicultural Education in the School of Education, Information Systems and Analytics, Human Resource Management, and Supply Chain Management in the School of Business, and Neuroscience in the College of Arts and Sciences, with 2 tracks: Cognitive/Behavioral as well as Molecular Cellular. Neuroscience is a hot new major, and when pursuing this, students need to understand whether they’re pursuing hard science or psychology, as programs differ immensely at various institutions. At Loyola Chicago, I love that the distinction is clear, and that students have a choice.

What I was most struck by during my recent visit to Loyola Chicago was the million-dollar view of Lake Michigan. It’s an absolutely stunning piece of real estate. If you do nothing else, take a virtual tour of campus. Add the beauty of the campus to the size, the location and the academic opportunities, and maybe you can tell me why Loyola Chicago is overlooked by so many outside the Chicago area.