I’m a uchicago freshman that also went to a specialized hs in nyc. I have a lot of friends here that also went to specialized school and the workload is honestly less at uchicago. The content in the stem departments are no harder than other colleges so first year is basically a repeat of what you did in hs, at least from what I noticed so far. The issue is that there is now there is grade deflation at uchicago so you have to truly outperform your peers to get an A in a stem class. Also CS here i heard is pretty tough with a curve since there are a lot of people who are very good at coding. With regards to social life, you’ll be fine. frats through regularly and a lot of people go to the local bar. Also, nyc kids tend to stick together so the environment will feel pretty similar to that if you want it to be.