A Little-known Uchicago fact

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Chicago ✅
21

@DunBoyer

Good points but, in some ways, the U. has already passed you by. Chicago’s (relatively) new head football coach, who came from Dartmouth, had the following when asked about being ok with athletic mediocrity: “The University of Chicago doesn’t stand for mediocrity - it stands for excellence, and that’s where we want this program to go.”

Chicago is already giving likely letters to athletes, and I imagine the gap in SAT scores between athletes and non-athletes is widening. Further, D1 programs like those in the Ivy League do NOT give athletic scholarships, even though they compete at the D1 level. So, no need for Chicago to give them out.

Further, the school is undoubtedly emphasizing varsity athletics more - it actually has a very good (top 15) athletics program now, with some sports that are flat-out excellent - men’s and women’s soccer, the tennis programs, etc.

I imagine, for sports like Crew and Squash, having D1 programs won’t actually require much of a compromise - these are usually the most “elite-friendly” sports because they tend to attract (or generate) academic high performers. Also, Chicago’s new AD is from Princeton, so there is an obvious move to raise the sports profile of the school. What I offer is just the next logical step.

Relatedly, sure, Chicago’s position in finance/consulting is strong, but @DunBoyer you do realize - elite athletes are coveted across tons of industries. Many employers just like recruiting top-flight athletes. This would help with med school placement, those going into HS teaching, those who want to coach sports, pretty much anything. It’s not just finance/consulting, by any means.

Virtually the only oft-traveled industry that wouldn’t care would be PhD programs. Outside of that, most places like the allure of the elite athlete (all else being equal).

I haven’t seen any arguments that negate the good having some (not many) elite athletes that ALSO invest in Chicago’s education around. Cost and supply are two possible considerations, but the sports I list aren’t excessively costly, and there’s enough supply of good squash/crew types to make Chicago competitive. Heck Chicago’s club squash program already IS competitive.

22

DunBoyer: An 8 minute mile time ain’t so bad! :slight_smile:

23

@Cue7 - what data are there to support your assertion that employers and med schools like recruiting top-flight athletes? I could see that being a top flight athlete at a rigorous school predicts good time management and personal discipline, but does that really translate to admission/employment offers?

24

Here’s some info for you @MindLife





https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/63456/





And that applies to any field that values “team work” time management, competitiveness, ability to grind, etc. So - almost all the popular post grad fields for elite grads.



UChicago should get in on this game more.

25

That piece diagnoses a pattern in a single industry (finance) and chalks it up to the existence of an old boys’ club more than anything. The author (a former investment banker and consultant) is deeply ambivalent about the entire trend, noting that all the skills you list can be developed in other ways, and sees little reason to grant a special status to athletes. To wit, his concluding paragraph:

Wealthy bankers who once played lacrosse/polo/squash etc. like to hire students who are like them in most respects. That’s hardly new, but it doesn’t suggest athletes are better bankers, or that these (unofficial) hiring criteria have inherent value. It just suggests members of our society’s most powerful groups reward behaviors that are common among their in-groups. I’d guess members of Princeton’s eating clubs are often hired by alums of their clubs, but that doesn’t mean UChicago needs eating clubs.

Beyond the practical matter of costs and benefits for the university, there’s also a moral dimension to this question, because attending the U of C is one way to access wealth and power in the U.S. If the financial sector, as a powerful institution of our society, arbitrarily grants one group a privileged status, should universities, as gatekeeper institutions, favor that group? If polo players and yacht aficionados were only as white or wealthy as the country as a whole, this might be a harmless question. As things stand, arbitrarily rewarding participation in sports that are especially common among wealthy whites is hardly the act of a meritocracy. In another age, you could (and many did) argue that WASP men should have an edge in college admissions. American society (including laws, the job market, political institutions, cultural norms, etc.) certainly favored WASP males, but that doesn’t mean colleges were right to do the same, and it doesn’t mean we should do so now.

That’s aside from the assumption that increasing the 40% of our graduating class who go on to finance/consulting positions is a desirable goal. This isn’t a new debate, and I’m not going to relitigate it here.

In conclusion, Big Bertha’s return to Chicago is long overdue. Better still would be a dignified burial on Northwestern’s turf - perhaps under the football field.

26

@DunBoyer







You capture the old Chicago zeitgeist well, but this ship has already sailed. The post grad numbers (40% - 40%! - go into fin/consulting) show this. Now it’s just a question of how far into the water Chicago wants to go.





And the question isn’t whether elite athletes make better bankers, it’s whether they have heightened success in getting these positions. And they do.



And the old boys network rules much more than finance…







The best route for institutional success is to link to privilege, wealth, and power. For any self interested institution, this pull is irresistible - as it should be with such self interest.

27

“The best route for institutional success is to link to privilege, wealth, and power.”



The easiest route is to take the path of least resistance and help the upper crust maintain its position till kingdom come.



We could also cling to the outdated notion that success should be measured by the contents of students’ heads as well as their wallets.



And, perhaps, the notion that a leading university should benefit all classes of society. ‘Crescat scientia; vita excolatur,’ and all that jazz.



Call me melodramatic (and you’d probably be right), but I don’t think there’s anything noble in bestowing unnecessary advantages on groups that already benefit from a bevy of advantages that the structure of society makes necessary. There’s nothing wrong with making money, or even with working in finance or consulting, but giving certain applicants an advantage by virtue of particular traits for no reason other than their value to the old boys’ club at Goldman is lazy. There was a time when being black meant three strikes against you in white-collar professions, or being a Catholic limited your opportunities in many walks of life. The most efficient way to seek out privilege and power, for a university, was to favor white Protestants. Was that the right thing to do?



In some areas, the university can’t help but favor privilege and pre-existing advantage. Wealth means access to a better education, more resources, and a robust network - which leads to better grades, higher test scores, fully developed talents, more interesting experiences, etc. No university wants to admit students with bad grades, low scores, and an utter lack of talent or interesting traits, so we accept that these things will help the white upper class more than poor non-white families. At other times - for instance, when deciding whether to give squash players a leg up against musicians or those with full-time jobs - the university does have a choice. The fact that the white upper class dominates high-status occupations shouldn’t grant any special value to our arbitrary preferences.



All of which is my roundabout way of saying that not only should we give Big Bertha a covert burial at Northwestern’s football stadium, we should arrange for the drum to rise from its grave on a game day - as a few MIT students once did with a pyrotechnic balloon: http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/blog/2012/11/16/day-mit-crashed-harvard-yale/. That’s got to be worth at least 50 points - maybe more, if the Scav judges are so inclined.

28

@DunBoyer





I’m not arguing with you - I’m just saying it appears Chicago has already made its decision. It’s heavily using an admissions program (early decision) that has been proven to benefit wealthy applicants. It’s focusing on sports more. Its advertising it’s placement success in areas like business, politics, and law, to applicants and families. It’s sending a huge chunk of its graduating classes to Goldman jp Morgan and other banks. It’s wooing applicants with glimpses of power and standing - receptions at fancy places, talks by rich alums. Just look at some of @BronxBorn posts.





What exactly are you arguing against? It seems like some of what frustrates you has already happened. It might not be “right” but it’s the pragmatic thing to do.

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@DunBoyer: “Push back! Argue! Resist false inevitableism!” That’s our fight song, with or without Bertha.

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@Cue7 you ask “What exactly are you arguing against?” I think it’s obvious. It’s your statement “UChicago should get in on this game more.” Why? The only argument in favor here is either to help its graduates play the game in finance (is that UChicago’s mission?) or to become richer as an institution - and by richer I mean $$, not intellectual riches. Now I have no stake in this game except a kid who chose to go to UChicago (and who is enjoying crew!). But to me, an emphasis on athletics because athletics are a portal to the old boys’ network is misguided for a University that seeks to maintain a reputation as an intellectual powerhouse. It’ll be a sad day when UChicago lowers its admission standards for recruited athletes further in order to play that game.

31

But @MindLife - Chicago is already doing the bulk of this. It’s admitting athletes with lower standards, using likely letters, recruiting harder at prep schools, having admitted student receptions at fancy places with rich alums and boasting about placement at banks (look at @BronxBorn posts, etc.



UChicago has absolutely already gotten in on this game. I’m suggesting another pretty small step - nothing major.



So what’s the issue? We can do all of the above, but once we go D1 in squash all is lost?

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@Cue7 my friend. I am all for privilege, wealth and power. Good looks as well. That’s how you become more Harvard like …

33

Hah - I haven’t seen the Chicago student body at large for a while, but I imagine a varsity crew team would add some attractiveness to the class.



That’s the subtext in hiring too - many places like hiring pretty people, and elite athletes tend to be fit and often attractive. Why not have some model-like Chicago thinkers in future classes?

34

In September 1963 some of us saw this thing coming and took action. We disrupted a game between the Chicago “football class” and a now forgotten opponent by conducting a sit-in on the 50 yard line of Stagg Field. @Cue7, was this monumental action still remembered in your day, which must have been three decades or so later? Did you curse us for delaying the inevitability of the stealthy return of privilege, wealth and power via the introduction of a multitude of photogenic athletes with good networking abilities and minds correctly directed to matters of prestige and brand? There were those at the time who saw our struggle as quixotic, and they may have been right. There were others who saw it as simply ridiculous, and they too may have been right. The poor athletes just wanted to play a football game, and they were also undoubtedly right.

But a curious inside story lay behind the event. Jim Vice, who was then Dean of Students, told the Class of '67 at a talk he gave last month at the reunion that he had had one vital piece of information that he had dearly longed to impart to us protesters: the University had already taken a decision that Stagg Field was to be wiped from the face of the earth and be replaced by a mammoth research library. He thought that that information would have assuaged the passions of the mob sitting on the 50-yard line. We will never know. Vice’s lips were sealed. Amos Alonzo Stagg, at over one hundred years of age, still lived: it would have broken the old man’s heart to learn that the place of his glory and triumphs, the field named for him, was soon to be no more. And so the storied protest on the 50-yard line proceeded, blindly but, in the end, perhaps presciently. As T.S. Eliot has said, “history has many cunning corridors”.

35

@MindLife Couldn’t have said it better myself.

@Cue7 I’m not arguing that 40% of the class in consulting/finance is 40% too much. Having some well-heeled alumni keeps the university financially stable, and makes a number of amenities than benefit all students possible.

However, at this point, it’s hard to argue we desperately need more wealthy students who’ll go on to become consultants or investment bankers. A recent article (link below) shows that the top 1% and the bottom 40% account for similar shares of our student body. Moreover, the data covers students born between 1980 and 1991; it doesn’t reflect recent increases in the student body’s wealth, which may well have exacerbated this trend.

Article: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/01/18/upshot/some-colleges-have-more-students-from-the-top-1-percent-than-the-bottom-60.html

Using another metric (% of Pell Grant recipients) and more recent figures (from the 2014-2015 academic year), our socioeconomic diversity is lower than almost any top 25 college’s, though Notre Dame and WUSTL save us from ranking dead last.

https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/economic-diversity-among-top-ranked-schools

If an attractive polo player from the 1% comes to Chicago, is hired by Goldman Sachs four years later thanks to traits he brought with him as a first-year, and goes on to live comfortably - as he would have done at Yale, or Princeton, or Tufts - what exactly has the university done for society writ large? A U of C education isn’t what makes students physically attractive (if only!), makes them play polo (though YMMV), or makes their parents wealthy (not with tuition what it is). Is it thanks to the university that such students fare well? And if so, is it because of what they’ve learned here, or because they have a “prestigious” alma mater?

What’s certain is that the university can help those whose backgrounds open few doors succeed, and teach these students lessons that’ll serve them well for decades. I think the U of C should continue to seek out students who might not find the same opportunities elsewhere, in keeping with the idea that we all benefit when students’ success isn’t determined by their parents’ income (to say nothing of their looks or athletic prowess). The College’s recent focus on attracting students whose background gives them every advantage is hardly consistent with this view.

I speak as someone who’s only here today because things weren’t always so. I come from a comfortable background, which made every step of the way here easier, but my mother did not. Like much of this country, her family didn’t have vast influence, they couldn’t pay full tuition, and she didn’t play polo or rule the squash court. Fortunately, the university valued nothing more in her day than a student’s commitment to learning and intellectual curiosity. They gave her a chance, she made the most of it, and that gave me and my siblings opportunities she never had. Intellectual curiosity still matters, and the College still values talented students, but other factors play a larger role than they once did. Had my mother applied under similar circumstances, things might have gone differently. If today’s Brave New College no longer has room for students like her, I think that’s a shame.

I don’t see D1 squash or a larger lacrosse team as the root of all evil, but these would be two more steps on the university’s current path - which I think is the wrong one. Whether implicitly (by marketing to prep schools and the global elite) or explicitly (through Early Decision and need-aware international admissions), the university is putting material self-interest ahead of its stated mission. If standing athwart history, yelling “Stop” while Levi Hall embraces this change is quixotic, call me quixotic. Every Quixote needs a windmill, and this is mine.

36

@marlowe1 I hope I would’ve been right there on the football field, but I can certainly sympathize with Dean Vice. A glance at Stagg’s biography can only reflect well on the man. Until I looked through his Wikipedia page just now, I didn’t realize that - in addition to leading the Maroons to gridiron success - he coached the baseball team during a period that spanned three decades. Not to be outdone (albeit posthumously) by the likes of Bo Jackson, he even tried his hand at basketball - as a participant in the sport’s very first game, and later as a coach (in addition to full-time duties leading the football team).

Many of us have a lot on our plate - particularly when caught unawares by finals week - but I suspect Stagg wouldn’t bat an eye in our place.

37

The percentage of the class going into finance has grown, but at the same time, the College has gotten significantly larger. I suspect that in terms of numbers, there still are more “pure Chicago intellectuals” at the College than there have been for decades.

38

This link shows University of Chicago’s overall athletic standing in 2017 for both mens and women sports.
Chicago finished in 15th place.

Of interest, schools with much “sportier” reputations finished below U Chicago such as football power Mount Union, lacrosse power Salisbury, and other strong academic schools such as Washington & Lee, Bowdoin, Carnegie Mellon, Franklin & Marshall, and Bates.

There is no doubt that these rankings evenly weight sports like football and tennis, and a win in women’s soccer will add as many points as a national championship in men’s basketball or hockey, but nevertheless, Chicago fields enough very successful teams to finish in a prominent position.

Finally, the addition of women’s varsity lacrosse is a brilliant move by the administration at Chicago. Typical recruit has high test scores, high grades, comes from top prep or public school, and usually in the Northeast, an area right in Chicago’s HYP’s peer group backyard. From financial point of view they are usually full pay, so very easy on the budget.

http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/nacda/sports/directorscup/auto_pdf/2016-17/misc_non_event/June1FinalDIIIOverall.pdf

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Considering that Chicago has three times the undergraduate population of some of the schools you’re comparing it to it’s not a big surprise.

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A college’s undergraduate population, unlike a high school’s enrollment, has little to do with the competitiveness of a varsity sports program.

The reason is a large D3 like Chicago recruits the same number of varsity athletes, per team, as a smaller school like Amherst. Walk ons from the non-recruited athlete population rarely impacts championships over the long term.

Hence, student population is totally controlled for in the study. The same control is in place at the D1 level, as the smaller Stanford overcomes the much larger Ohio State.

http://thedirectorscup.com/2017/06/stanford-captures-di-learfield-directors-cup-for-2016-17/