Apples and Oranges

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Chicago ✅
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<p>Cue7:<br>
If you look at this thread, you see that BonnieNewJersey said something positive about her daughter’s experience with UChicago name recognition. You came back with “but, but, but, did she enjoy it? David Axelrod didn’t!”. On the other thread, you were so intent on no one getting the idea the Hyde Park could possibly be a good place for a college student to live that you had one parent worried that her D wouldn’t be able to get her prescriptions filled. </p>

<p>You aren’t the only person in the world who has experienced multiple schools. Between my husband and myself, and now my S, members of my immediate family have spent significant time, either as a student or faculty member at Harvard, Yale, MIT, Caltech, UMD, USC, UChicago, a university in Europe, and my current employer that I’d rather not name. </p>

<p>My S is having a great experience overall at UChicago. Which isn’t to say nothing could be improved and maybe it would have been even better somewhere else. But a lot of life is about your attitude. For example, I think it was just fine for my S to start at UChicago anticipating a good experience in his lovely new dorm rather than bemoaning the fact that the housing setup is even better at Harvard and Yale. </p>

<p>Lighten up and give the CC readers a little bit of credit.</p>

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<p>Motherbear:</p>

<p>All I can say is that, of late certainly, UChicago seems keenly interested in where it places in the market. Certainly when I was there, this wasn’t the case. Now that it is (and now that the school is competing more aggressively with students considering many, many options) it’s worth presenting critiques and as much information as possible.</p>

<p>Again, my UChicago experience - especially in terms of the education - was fundamentally transformative. It’s a world class institution, and I’m willing to boast about the academic opportunities until the cows come home. </p>

<p>At the same time, there are other facets of the school worthy of close scrutiny. I still think there are key areas where the school needs to improve, and prospective students need to be cognizant of these areas. If the administration is focusing on this, students certainly should be. I still think Dean Boyer sets the tone for where the College wants to go, and, to get there, lots more difficult questions need to be asked.</p>

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<p>Cue7 – what are some of the more important of those questions?</p>

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<p>So, of principal note, I think it’s important to note that, for a long, long time, UChicago was not a college for everyone (or for the bulk of high achieving students). It was a very specific, inward-facing kind of a place. For some, especially those concerned with academic pursuits, it was paradise. For those intent on going to professional school, engaging outward, etc., there were probably better places out there. I think it’s hard, then, to argue that it had broad appeal up until very recently.</p>

<p>Currently, the school is enjoying a boom in interest and in administrative ambition. Through this, there are open questions about whether the school can indeed meet the interest and aspirations of a more broadly-minded applicant pool and (ostensibly) student body. Some questions are:</p>

<p>1.) What is UChicago’s success rate with professional school placement? What’re some detailed statistics for recent classes on this front, for med school, law school, etc.? Other schools provide this information publicly. UChicago should do the same.</p>

<p>2.) How is Hyde Park changing? UChicago, in the past, felt like a bit of an island. Students looking for basic retail amenities had a hard time (it could take 30-45 minutes, say, to get a pair of flip flops), and getting downtown could take some time. Now, being on an island can be good - especially if you’re surrounded by some of the best bookstores in America (which is the case in Hyde Park). Again, though, such a set up isn’t for everyone. Has this changed? If a student on campus wants to get a burger at 5 guys, or pancakes at a diner late at night, how long would such a trip take? My suspicion is that Hyde Park still feels much sleepier than the typical college town/neighborhood, especially in comparison to many of UChicago’s urban peers.</p>

<p>3.) There are rumors of both grade inflation and grade deflation. Can the university release statistics (as seen at other schools such as Princeton, Brown, and Yale) on average GPA, either by major, or generally? How does this compare with peer schools?</p>

<p>4.) Why does UChicago struggle with fundraising? While this doesn’t have an immediate impact for college students, recent figures indicate that UChicago lags behind many of its peers in terms of general fundraising. Long-term flagging in this area could adversely impact the level of research done on campus. </p>

<p>5.) Can UChicago’s career office provide detail statistics (like other schools provide, such as Penn) on immediate outcomes for UChicago graduates? Where do the graduates go? Where do they go based on type of major? What employers are the most popular?</p>

<p>6.) Why is the College still seeking large classes (1400+) when a dorm (Pierce) is closing? </p>

<p>Overall, I think UChicago is a wonderful school, but, at least outwardly, it’s changing (or, at least, boasting of changing) quite significantly. Such change, then, deserves careful scrutiny. For a long time, the goal of the College was to train scholars. That was it. It was a wonderful place to study if the goal was to be a scholar, and perhaps as a first step toward a PhD. The College seems to be broadening its goals, and it’s success on the ground with such efforts is still very much open to questions.</p>

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<p>Thank you Cue7. The questions you pose are all excellent. I know it is not possible to have a senior Chicago official address them here so I went to the UC web site looking for a strategic plan, or something resembling a strategic plan, to help me find answers to the questions. So far no luck in finding a written statement of what Chicago intends to become and how it intends to get there. I will keep looking. </p>

<p>But speaking of outcomes of recent graduates, I did find these statistics in the placement web site, see:</p>

<p><a href=“https://careeradvancement.uchicago.edu/about/outcomes-data[/url]”>https://careeradvancement.uchicago.edu/about/outcomes-data&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>At graduation, 35% of 2011 graduates had not found a job or graduate school or had not started looking for a job or graduate school. Does this seem high to anyone else? What am I missing?</p>

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<p>Perhaps Axelrod wouldn’t have mentioned “a kind of frustration” with his years at the U of C if he had thoroughly enjoyed his time here, but there’s no reason to interpret his answer as meaning anything beyond the political. All he’s really saying is that the university didn’t offer as many practical opportunities as he’d wanted (and one alum recently wrote an interesting piece that questions even this claim: [Campus</a> politics, then and now ? The Chicago Maroon](<a href=“http://chicagomaroon.com/2012/12/04/campus-politics-then-and-now/]Campus”>http://chicagomaroon.com/2012/12/04/campus-politics-then-and-now/)). </p>

<p>And for what it’s worth, I happen to like Hyde Park quite a bit.</p>

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<p>Kaukauna:</p>

<p>It’d be of use if UChicago started offering comprehensive details such as this:</p>

<p>[Career</a> Services, University of Pennsylvania](<a href=“http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/careerservices/undergrad/reports.html]Career”>http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/careerservices/undergrad/reports.html)</p>

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<p>Thanks to all for your advice. But I wonder why so much negativity? Especially when I compare with the Apples & Oranges posts on WUSTL. I think that I have learned quite a lot from the posts here at UC.</p>

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<p>Agreed. UPenn’s site is excellent. UChicago has a ways to go. I’m still baffled by the extraordinarily high % of recent graduates still looking for a job or graduate school.</p>

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<p>Looks like I have lost control of this thread. Enjoy - I’m done.</p>

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<p>Be careful interpreting this data. UChicago reports student status at graduation with a 94% response rate. Penn reports status several months after graduation with a 74% response rate. It’s like comparing apples and oranges :slight_smile: </p>

<p>And here’s what you get from WUSTL:
<a href=“Career Center - Students”>Career Center - Students;

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<p>Thanks motherbear332 - 88% is pretty good - right?</p>

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<p>Agreed with Motherbear - UChicago and Penn solicit data at different times, and have different response rates. </p>

<p>This being said, I really like how Penn’s data presents a very broad (but also detailed) picture of employment across class years and even decades. Further, it breaks down employment/outcomes by major, and includes considerable info on salary. It also demonstrates where students are going for graduate school, and notes the most popular graduate schools attended.</p>

<p>It’d be nice if the Penn data would include more than a 74% response rate, but there’s a lot of data there. For UChicago, I’d like to see the most popular employers by industry, breakdowns by major, etc. UChicago’s survey boasts a high response rate, but it doesn’t really provide many details - where are all the folks going, specifically? The Penn data demonstrates many of the possible areas where UChicago’s data could improve.</p>

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<p>(Wash U’s data is nice, btw - very glossy and well presented, but, akin to UChicago’s data, I’d like to see a lot more specifics. Show me where graduates are going, and I’d like to see some data ~5 years out, to get a sense of what students in a given class are doing now [e.g. how many are going to professional school, what the employment paths have been, etc.]. Breakdowns by major can be useful and educational as well, especially if detailed data for many years is provided - one can then get a sense of the general range of outcomes within a particular academic area. For me, while noting limitations in survey approaches, Penn provides the most publicly available data to the interested viewers.)</p>

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<p>Motherbear: You are right, the data is not comparable for the reasons you site. Thanks for the Wash U brocure; it is really good, a tribute to the school.</p>

<p>I think we (recent posters) agree that UC could improve in this area. For families where UC costs are not a problem, maybe its not so much of an issue. For families like ours, where we’re weighing spending +$200k out of pocket versus free for the State University, it’s pretty important information.</p>

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<p>I received great financial packages from both schools, very little difference between the two. So right now after reading both threads, I am looking for reasons not to choose wustl.</p>

<p>Of course, the visit will be the final tie breaker. I’m surprised that wustl could beat out a school like uc, but that’s what is happening.</p>

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<p>

</p>

<p>Precisely. In many ways, this is the whole University of Chicago PR issue in a nutshell.</p>

<p>A culture of constant self-examination, intellectual rigor, and fact- (or data-) based analysis can look like a lot of negativity and unhappiness if you are not the sort of person who gravitates to that. It’s not really negativity or unhappiness; in fact it can be quite joyful.</p>

<p>That said, I think (a) Cue7 is a completely honest poster who is generally very positive about his experience at Chicago, but consistently asks the kinds of questions highlighted above, and (b) he consistently underestimates the extent of changes over the past ten years or so. Which is not to say that he’s totally wrong about any of it, but that things aren’t anywhere near as bad as he intimates. Or at least that’s my impression, based not on data but on the experiences of my children and their friends.</p>

<p>To hit a few points:</p>

<p>Professional school placement. That’s not exactly how my kids and their friends rolled, but with the exception of one very ambivalent pre-med the people who wanted to go to professional school got there, and the people who were gung-ho about the whole thing got to brand-name schools. What was really different about Chicago vs. a place like Penn was how few of the Chicago students really oriented themselves that way.</p>

<p>Hyde Park is not so exciting (except for the bookstores). Everyone knows that. It is not devoid of all-night diners, however. One of my kids liked that sort of thing, and the one he went to all the time (Valois) was very convenient to the area where most third- and fourth-years live, but not necessarily the dorms, especially South Campus. There are a bunch of cheap-ish restaurants students like, just not as many as some other college areas have, but a dearth of bars. It also has some decent culture not directly connected to the University, including a new movie multiplex and live theater.</p>

<p>Grades. Students always complain about grade deflation, but all the evidence I have seen indicates that Chicago is pretty consistent with all but the most grade-inflated of its peers. What it doesn’t have is a culture that particularly admires high GPAs, especially if they are obtained by avoiding intellectual challenge or risk.</p>

<p>There is no secret whatsoever why Chicago has struggled with fundraising (comparatively). For the cohorts of people now in their prime giving years, the baby boomers are their immediate predecessors, the college was (a) very small relative to peer institutions, (b) not very focused on quality of student life, and (c) oriented towards the kinds of careers that lead people into academia and public service more than business and finance. As a result, Chicago’s alumni from, say, the classes of 1956-1985 are smaller, less wealthy, and more ambivalent about the university than the equivalent classes at peer institutions. Hence fundraising issues. But it’s not THAT bad. Somehow Chicago has accumulated a top 10 endowment, and it’s not the residue of any Rockefeller money.</p>

<p>Career services. As far as I know, no one provides as much detail as Penn, and it took Penn years to develop the capacity and reliability to provide that kind of detail. They are VERY proud of it, and justly so. Yes, Chicago’s career services program is years behind Penn’s. On the other hand, it’s way better than Yale’s was when I was in college. And my kids’ friends pretty much all have career-oriented jobs, although it took some of the '09ers some time to get there. The ones who wanted big-bucks finance or consulting jobs, and who put in the time to build their credentials for that, got the sort of jobs they wanted.</p>

<p>Large classes: Pierce housed maybe 120 first years. The last few Chicago entering classes have been around 1,450-1,550. A class of 1,400 – if indeed they wind up with that many – would be more than a Pierce-sized reduction from last year’s class.</p>

<p>Extracurriculars. Cue7 should have mentioned this, but didn’t. Compared to HYP, at least, the quality and vibrancy of extracurricular activities at Chicago is still lacking, although the improvement over the past few years is noticeable. The Maroon is nowhere near as professional as the student papers at peer institutions, and as a result Maroon editors do not necessarily get the kinds of jobs that Yale Daily News or Harvard Crimson editors get. There is a ton of theater and music going on at Chicago, but in general it is more amateurish than at peer institutions, and less likely to lead to a career in those areas.</p>

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<p>JHS:</p>

<p>Thanks for the post and, yes, I completely forgot to mention extracurriculars! I agree very much with what you said re: extracurriculars above, and I’ve mentioned this in past posts. Extracurriculars at UChicago tend to be more muted. This probably reflects the value of the school, where academics tend to be priority #1, and extracurriculars are farther down the priority list. At Harvard or Yale, a major extracurricular (editor of a paper, member of the Whiffenpoofs, etc.) undoubtedly becomes priority #1, with academics placed farther down that list. </p>

<p>So, again, this goes to what a prospective student wants, and the culture the prospective student wants. Academics are still front and center at UChicago, and it’s not necessarily that way for everyone at the other elites or super-elites. I think this fact still distinguishes UChicago from many schools, Wash U probably included. </p>

<p>All of this being said, JHS, I may very well be underestimating the extent the school has changed, especially over the last 5 years or so. At the same time, with all of the continued changes on campus (admissions policy not yet stabilizing, construction for a big new dorm just beginning, considerable turnover/changes in the new “career advancement” office, class sizes still varying, etc.), I still get the feeling that UChicago is very much a school in transition.</p>

<p>The changes may already have seeped into the culture, but I imagine that this will really play out once all the dust finally settles - i.e. in 2016 or 2017. At that point, the admissions policies will have stabilized (I doubt they will drop much below where they are now), the new dorm will be built and the school will probably be able to realize it’s goal of ~70% of students in campus housing, and several Nondorf classes will have gone through and made their mark on campus.</p>

<p>It’s at that point, I think, where we’ll be better able to ascertain what all of this transition means. My gut feeling is that all of this change is overwhelmingly positive, and UChicago in 2017 will be stronger than the UChicago I attended. My skepticism now, however, is whether UChicago is there yet. I still think it’ll be 4-5 more years until they’re the sort of destination they currently purport to be.</p>

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<p>Yeah, but how many of those so-called peer schools have their own circus troupe???</p>

<p>[Le</a> Vorris and Vox (Circus) | UChicago Arts](<a href=“http://arts.uchicago.edu/content/le-vorris-and-vox-circus]Le”>http://arts.uchicago.edu/content/le-vorris-and-vox-circus)</p>

<p>(And note its history… very UChicago)</p>

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<p>Taptap:</p>

<p>Sorry for overtaking this post, but I think it actually serves as a pretty good representation of thought/discourse on the ground at UChicago. The school engages in a lot of navel-gazing, and I’d imagine that, at UChicago, students entertain and explore questions such as “what is UChicago’s mission? What is its purpose?” much more so than at other schools.</p>

<p>Put another way, if you asked a Penn student (or maybe a Wash U student?), the same questions (“what’s Penn’s purpose?”) you might get blank stares, or the discourse probably wouldn’t be as robust. That’s not to say these other schools aren’t engaged in thinking about these questions (they are), but, as you’ve seen here, UChicago students (or affiliated parties, it seems) tend to self-examine and self-analyze (and navel gaze, and occasionally exhibit angst) more often than most (even very accomplished) 18 - 22 year olds. </p>

<p>Couple all this with the fact the school has undergone more transition than any of its peers in the past 5 years, and you’re bound to get a lot of conversation.</p>