Columbia vs. Chicago

Colleges and Universities A-Z Columbia University
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<p>{reposted from UChicago Forum}</p>

<p>OK, I got into Columbia, Chicago, Georgetown SFS, Middlebury College, and Boston College Honors. My parents are not extremely wealthy (140k/year family, sister in college, as well), but they said that they would get me to whichever college I felt would be best for my education and career.</p>

<p>I am interested in economics and international relations. Columbia, Chicago, and Georgetown are all great schools for these two fields (although Chicago is more towards econ, Georgetown more toward IR, and Columbia somewhere right in the middle).</p>

<p>My general feeling is that my toughest choice is between Columbia and Chicago. I have no doubt I can handle the difficulty of work (although the workload at Chicago may be a little daunting, especially my freshman year).</p>

<p>Any input? I am flying in late April to visit all three schools for the Admitted Student programs, but I would like to have some sort of idea beforehand. Please give reasonable, warranted reasons for preferring one college over another. Your personal feelings (unless you're in the same predicament) are not exactly what I'm looking for.</p>

<p>Thanks a lot.</p>

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<p>I’m in the EXACT same situation! I’m more a straight up poli sci guy though. I agree that the decision is more so between UChicago and Columbia. Personally I like the education (read: core) offered at Chicago, but New York is a much better place to be. So right now i’m leaning towards Columbia. The Ivy League moniker is also very alluring. Idk, i’ll let it sink in for a day before serious thinking.</p>

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<p>

correct.</p>

<p>I’ll let you in on a little secret: We stolen some awesome econ profs from chicago in the past couple of years and that’s one of the reasons Columbia econ is not top top notch.</p>

<p>The workload at chicago is not more daunting, if it is the competition at Columbia makes up for it, all prof adapt difficulty and grades according to class performance. See what each college is like and then decide.</p>

<p>Columbia and chicago both have big cores. Columbia has a better city and area surrounding it, and the students at columbia are more balanced (chicago is skewed to the theoretical, nerdy and quirky kids) columbia has these and it’s fair share of dead practical pre-professional kids, engineers, artists everything in between. In terms of IR and international development work/jobs/grad school placement, I think Columbia would do better. We do better on wall street, which you might end up considering even though you might hate the thought now. In terms of placement into top econ grad programs columbia would do about as well as Chicago, even though chicago has historically had the best econ dept in the world. Come visit, it’ll really open your eyes more than these board probably would. What are you looking for in college, what specific Qs do you have?</p>

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</p>

<p>Just had to chime in on this point because I’ve talked about it with several professors and professionals in the field, including several Georgetown SFS alum. </p>

<p>Like you, I got into Georgetown SFS and Columbia, and I’ve discovered some things: if you intend to pursue a policy-oriented Master’s degree in IR; or if you want to work in the foreign service, with a US government agency, or with an IGO or NGO, then Georgetown SFS is the place for you. You’ll have great professional connections upon graduation, you’ll become friends with professors who are policy wonks if not IR professionals, and you’ll have unmatched internship opportunities in IR and development.</p>

<p>If you want to pursue a Ph.D. in IR, then go to Columbia, where courses and professors are more likely to focus on IR theory and the discursive aspects of international relations/development. </p>

<p>I agree with confidentialcoll about Wall Street placement, though.</p>

<p>I know Georgetown SFS is not your top choice right now, but I’d give it a second look if you want a slightly easier pathway into IR policy.</p>

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<p>btown - </p>

<p>to add another perspective because chicago was a school i considered. a few things to know 1) chicago’s core is not THE core, and i love my chicago buddies out there, but we really can’t say they are the same when you can pick and choose at chicago. columbia has the same courses taught to all students in small seminars - it means you will have the same intensely intellectual introduction as your peers. 2) chicago is an intense place, but not in the same way columbia is - i think columbia will challenge you to negotiate life in ways that will make you more adept at IR. chicago is an intensely academic place, but almost myopically so. students ask questions, but i found it in my experience that it was less because of a desire to understand, but it seemed to be more competitive about it - who could be the most intellectual. columbia is a place where the culture is more mellow and people are not awarded for being pretentious unless they have they can back themselves up. and i found chicago to be very geared toward graduate students as many ugrads even admitted - so it was not quite a supportive intellectual experience. one day at columbia after going to two classes with profs, i really felt they cared, and i think the teaching is what makes columbia not just an intellectually rigorous place, but more directly a place that nurtures this behavior. 2) As for pure IR - you have Kenneth Waltz and Robert Jervis, beyond Nye at Harvard (who is on his outs) they are the titans in IR and rational choice theory. I think Polisci at CU is pretty rockin’, I wish there was more theory, but I’m a picky kid. I think Walsh is a fine school, but in terms of an academic skillset, Gtown is limited compared to CU (my biased opinion of course) because it doesn’t give you anything more than you can get at CU, and then it doesn’t have a solid academic grounding in libarts, in intellectualism. 3) as for pure econ, you are going to be at a wash depending on what you want to do - international economics, development economics you will see columbia right there with their recent hires. 4) money - chicago gives solid merit aid that is tough to turn down, but i know a few students who did and they have not complained about it because the totality of the experience was better at columbia, which i agree.</p>

<p>you can’t go wrong with either of the three. hope that you come to columbia and fall in love.</p>

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<p>That’s really interesting, admissionsgeek. I had actually heard the exact opposite, that Columbia kids engaged in pseudo-intellectualizing, whereas Chicago kids actually had profound ideas. I think that’s something I’ll actually have to experience first-hand on campus.</p>

<p>In terms of education, I think that IR and econ are equally interesting. In terms of a career, though, I feel like econ not only offers more lucrative options (which, admittedly–to my shame–is a significant factor), but also more stimulating ones, at least for me. Maybe this perception will change in college, but the way I currently view professional IR seems so fruitless. Working at the Brookings Institute would be insanely cool, but I don’t think civil service would be for me. Almost every field of business–from consulting to finance to venture–seems so exciting to me. So I guess from a career-standpoint econ is more important to me at this point. However, at least for undergraduate, I place my education far above career options (which is why you couldn’t pay me to get me to attend Wharton over Chicago or Columbia).</p>

<p>One of the major draws of Chicago is that if I go to B-school, Booth would be my absolute dream school.</p>

<p>I guess in terms of specific questions about Columbia: How does the 4-day school week impact learning? How much contact can undergrad students get with professors? Are there any research opportunities for undergraduate students? And is the econ/IR population large enough that I would be “just another econ student”? Do classes ever get specialized enough that teachers recognize you if you’re not the student with MacArthur Genius potential? And finally, are there seminars at Columbia in 3rd/4th year?</p>

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</p>

<p>you’ve been accepted for undergrad, let’s worry about that, B-School is almost entirely dependent on your first 3-5 years of work X, it is hardly about your undergrad degree.</p>

<p>

it’s a 4-day school week and a 6-7 day work week, let’s put it that way. Hardly any different from a 5 day week, except you can either sleep in or work on a Friday, it gives you tons more flexibility, it allows you to travel, many many kids do friday campus jobs and off campus internships. I did so for my frosh and soph years. Friday is usually considered a work day even if it isn’t a school day. Sunday evening too is considered part of the week. It means that the social scene doesn’t go crazy on any one day, lots of kids party on thursday, others on friday, others on Saturday. thursday evenings feel like friday evenings. Mon - Thurs is probably more intense than m-th elsewhere.</p>

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tons, I’ve never come across kids who wanted research and did not find it. Even really mediocre kids get to work directly with a prof if they push. You just need to read about what the prof is doing and show interest by applying for positions or meeting with them at office hours. </p>

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econ and poli sci are individually very big, but more students means more profs. The ratio isn’t bad. You will get professor attention and interaction if you want it. Also as a general rule of thumb: the largest classes of 150-400 are the best. Macro with Xavier Sala-i-martin (350) and Micro with Susan Elmes (150), are arguably the best classes in the whole school, definitely have defined my undergrad experience, made the money worth it, shaped political views, ‘educated’ me.</p>

<p>In other news our Model UN team which has tons of econ majors is one of the top 3-5 in the country. </p>

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</p>

<p>everything gets specialized kiddo, but so do you. it isn’t too difficult to do well in an econ class if you work hard at it, no-one needs to be a genius.</p>

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<p>yes, in all years actually, it isn’t something reserved for the special few. </p>

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<p>In my mind this seals the deal, Columbia hands down. It has the ‘education’ but it packs the pre-professionalism and gets you comfortably speaking Aristotle or climate change with the CEO’s wife (or husband). It also has a greater array of top recruiting opportunities.</p>

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<p>columbia is in a better city, chicago is a better school…</p>

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<p>^no it isn’t, if anything Columbia is a better school. You can go on pretty much any metric from grad school placement, nobel prize winners, research rankings, recruiting on campus, endowment, incoming class profiles etc.</p>

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<p>OK, so your argument is that opportunities after college are better at Columbia. But do you honestly think that students get a better education at Columbia than at Chicago?</p>

<p>I won’t lie, professional opportunities (recruitment, grad school/b-school placement) do matter to me, but I would be remiss to choose a school only on the criterion of post-graduation opportunities. Otherwise, I would have applied to Wharton.</p>

<p>I know that Columbia has senior seminars, which Chicago doesn’t “officially” have, but from looking at course catalogs and enrollment sheets, it seems like Chicago has a lot more economics course variety, and smaller classes once you get past the first year and a half. When are the post-grad opportunities at Columbia (if they really are better) outweighed by smaller higher-level classes, a more distinguished faculty, and the most influential economic school in the past 40 years?</p>

<p>Don’t take my comments as preference for Chicago over Columbia. I’m just playing devil’s advocate, I guess, because I can’t make a decision.</p>

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<p>collegeprep said chicago is a better school, you are talking about the econ dept. The econ dept at chicago is slightly better, but not by much anymore. The classes sizes I’m sure would be comparable, upperlevel econ classes are pretty small at C. Chicago has had more influential economists in the last 40 years, but Columbia stole many chicago profs in the last 5-10 years. The faculty at Columbia is as good as any today. You should choose an undergrad education based on the overall quality of the school and student body + fit. Especially when you’re talking about econ at Chicago vs. Columbia. At the undergrad level it isn’t going to make any difference whatsoever. I’ve loved econ at Columbia so much that I’d estimate that Columbia gives you a better education than Chicago. But I wouldn’t really know how econ at chicago is. Collegeprep was making a completely unfounded and broad statement, which I consider false.</p>

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<p>btown - i really think that Columbia offers the better academic and social educational experience - without question. And as mentioned above - I do like Chicago, but you cannot put it on par with Columbia because it lacks a few factors.</p>

<p>1) the city - columbia’s direct access to NYC means that you learn as much from your neighbors as you do professors, it means you are in the middle of everything, both for career placement, but just in terms of experience. UofC students are in a remote part of Chicago - you are far from the el, you could take a bus to the loop to the el to the northside, students are afraid to walk in Woodlawn, and the race relations of Chicago are really…well, of intrigue, but bothered me.</p>

<p>2) your peers - the profile of a Columbia student is broader than that of a Chicago student and more than likely just as smart/intellectual. Columbia has a top flight engineering ugrad with great arts programs, good departments across the board. This means you will have a very bright, intellectual type student, but with more diversity of experiences at CU. Also as a matter of opinion, you will have more socially adjusted students at CU as well - a friend of mine told me a story of a guy who came up to her in a U of C party and asked for her number, as she was getting ready to tell him, he pulls out a tape recorder. Yeah, that’s Chicago. Columbia is about being very bright, but being able to communicate it - either through the Core courses, or throughout your experience there - you are not allowed to just exist in the background, you will be asked your thoughts and expected to comment. As a result of this environment, students learn to synthesize their thoughts and are effective communicators of their opinions - which is what makes them very well regarded in interviews and job placement.</p>

<p>3) attention to ugrads - UofC loves their professors and their grad students. Whatever love they give the ugrads is far behind, a well known fact, oft quoted by professors and students a like. UofC students I often here them say - well, we work harder, I am not sure how that relates to the fact that profs do not cater to ugrads, but it is usually a response. I do not buy that argument from UofC students because I know I worked my butt off as hard if not harder than some of them. What you will find though, is that Columbia is far more ugrad centered (Denzera can jump on this bandwagon). It really cares about its ugrads, knows they are the center of the university, and caters to them in a lot of ways. Strong advising, impressing upon professors that a big part of their job is working with ugrads, and during my experience I had very strong connections with my professors that have led to incredible postgrad opportunities. </p>

<p>Further because of the community, the close relationships with profs Columbia is the ultimate work hard/play hard environment - and I think it has great payoff. It means that you will learn a lot, bust your butt, and most of the time not realize how much you got done - because you were interning, leading a club, taking 5 classes (one is a graduate seminar), studying for the LSAT and still going out every weekend (if not every night). Your most elucidating conversations will not be in the library, but perhaps at 3am at 1020, or on the roof of Woodbridge looking out at the Hudson River. Education is always an undercurrent, but so is maximization of time and experience - you have 4 years in New York City, it is one heckuva ride.</p>

<p>Also re: psuedo intellectualizing: Columbia is a place where if you dare try to BS, you better know where the closest exit is or someone will call you out on it. It is also an education that is built a lot on reality and not on abstraction. A lot of the issues you will debate will usually have to do with the life of the city, the politics, or the art that are easily accessible to all students. It plays off a common understanding through the Core. I mean I was the first person in my CC class to call someone out if they didn’t do the reading, even before the professor (yeah guys, I was that guy) and it made it kind of hard for someone to half-a s s it.</p>

<p>Some thoughts. I just want to impress that Columbia really offers a lot and most of the arguments I hear Chicagoans make re: Columbia are baseless (like claiming they have a real core when not all students take the same exact courses). And I think for a student that perhaps does not want a work hard/play hard place, that wants the high level abstraction you can get at Chicago, then yeah, I could see them choosing Chicago over Columbia. But under most metrics even students wanting Economics, I do not think it is a better undergraduate option (I don’t think any school offers a better ugrad option than Columbia, so why should Chicago be any different).</p>

<p>But for grad school it is pretty rockin’. They treat their grad students like royalty.</p>

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<p>I’m in the same situation. I want to double major in econ and polysci at either Columbia or UofC. How hard is it to do that at each school? Also, is Chicago more competitive academically than Columbia in terms of students study harder, since that’s the impression I got when I visited?</p>

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<p>columbia students study real hard, but they don’t want you to know it. chicago students are perhaps more proud of their studying prowess. columbia perhaps though is not competitive in the sense that for the most part no one will steal your notebook. but in hard science classes and engineering the curves are real steep so it is really based on how much you study. you do see people bust a lot of time for it, but it is not negative I would say.</p>

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<p>I understand that the city provides opportunities, but I’ve also heard that it detracts from a true sense of campus community? How true is this? And does it detract from the overall college experience? I want postgraduate education, but I don’t want my undergrad to feel like it, too.</p>

<p>Haha, yeah, I know that Chicago kids are really nerdy. I’m not really, but it’s cool with me. I certainly don’t want to be confined to a monastic (read: hardworking and celibate) lifestyle, but I’m also not a fan of the “work hard, party hard” mentality at places like Duke, Williams, and Dartmouth. I don’t have anything against drinking/clubbing, but I also don’t want it to be the cornerstone of my undergrad social experience. Is this actually prevalent at Columbia?</p>

<p>I’ve actually heard that Columbia is even more of a grad school than UoC. The numbers seem to support this (7000ug/16000grad at Columbia vs. 5000ug/10000grad at Chicago). I’ve also heard that the red tape at Columbia is absolutely ridiculous, so how does this affect the undergrad experience?</p>

<p>I’m still a little worried about access to professors. What experiences have you had with getting to know professors (not TA’s)</p>

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<p>1) I think it makes it better - you have the campus and the city, best of both worlds, a city to explore but in the end you have a campus community where you will spend prolly 80+% of your time on campus doing campus activities, studying, hanging out - it will be your base. Some students really love the city and go in full force, but most Columbia students love what it has to offer, but want a community on campus and stay there. </p>

<p>2) Well, Columbia is heavily a professional school, not a grad school. traditional idea of a grad student (Masters and PhD is probably around 6000 in Engineering and GSAS schools). But Columbia has a School of Social Work, Law, Bus, Art, Huge International Affairs, etc., etc., things get skewed because of Columbia’s professional side. Note that Columbia proper is 6.5 student to faculty ratio for the parts of the university that directly affect you. The other schools have their own faculty that is specialized and rarely will affect you unless you want to work with them. And they are all essentially open to Ugrads especially on the Morningside campus.</p>

<p>3) We are more work hard than those schools. Probably academics would be the cornerstone of your experience especially with the Core. Our play hard mentality is really diverse and not defined by a frat party (though they are there), it could mean going downtown (though not everyone does), I think about the MC battles between dorms my frosh year, the halloween parade in Greenwich Village and the the first time I stayed up all night and wasn’t studying. It is a lot of fun. Drinking not necessary, there are tons of things that do not involve alcohol, students get creative and the good thing is most people find a niche of people they are at about the same speed with, but in the end most people try something new at least a few times a semester.</p>

<p>4) Red tape is less Columbia than it is New York City, and Columbia is a victim as much as it is a perpetrator. There are tons of interested parties around the neighborhood and in the city that look at the University’s every move. Fox News loves to catch the Uni with its pants down, the multiple state and city agencies are always poking around. So what Columbia has become is a very cautious place, and cautious by its definition I think is what makes Columbia come across as overly bureaucratic. I don’t think any one in admin wants to have it out for students, but they also don’t want to face a massive law suit. Say if you pay off Mayor Daley’s boys (Chicago) or if you are the only game in town (Dartmouth) wouldn’t be a problem. But as Denzera notes, Columbia is getting increasingly better at this, they often hire consultants to clean up and increase the efficiency of the operation and you can definitely notice the impact. </p>

<p>5) Don’t worry about profs. I am very tight with some of the profs I had at Columbia because they are very approachable. I still e-mail with my adviser, various people were influential in getting me jobs and in advocating for me. I know I can e-mail a professor a few years out now and they will still know who I am and will go out of their way to help me out as they would for any student who just asks. If you go to office hours and start talking about some random subject, you could be invited to do research with a prof, maybe help write a book, next thing you know you have a ticket to go wherever you want. It is that easy, and dozens of stories like mine about it. Students that are shy, don’t ask a prof, maybe have a bad experience with a notoriously ogre-ish person and don’t try again, well they tend not to have the best of times.</p>

<p>Feel free to PM if you have more questions, I can get more frank than on the board.</p>

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<p>I’m not sure how you derive your point of view based on a few hires. Remember, all the universities’ departments are hiring, promoting junior faculty and repositioning themselves relative to everyone else. I did a simple Google search on top economics departments. Despite your opinion, objective rankings are as follows:</p>

<p>from [EDIRC:</a> United States, Top Departments](<a href=“http://edirc.repec.org/usa-top.html]EDIRC:”>EDIRC: United States, Top Departments)</p>

<p>This page provides links to the top US Economics departments in terms of research output, according to Richard Dusansky and Clayton J. Vernon, “Rankings of U.S. Economics Departments”, Journal of Economic Perspectives, vol 12 (1), Winter 1998, pages 157-170. RePEc now also publishes its own ranking, which is updated monthly.
Best departments first.</p>

<p>Princeton University, Princeton NJ
Department of Economics
Harvard University, Cambridge MA
Department of Economics
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge MA
Economics Department
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia PA
Department of Economics
Northwestern University, Evanston IL
Department of Economics
New York University, New York City NY
Department of Economics
Boston University, Boston MA
Department of Economics
Yale University, New Haven CT
Economics Department
Stanford University, Palo Alto CA
Department of Economics
University of California, San Diego CA
Department of Economics
University of Texas, Austin TX
Department of Economics
University of Rochester, Rochester NY
Economics Department
University of California, Berkeley CA
Department of Economics
University of Maryland, College Park MD
Department of Economics
Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore MD
Department of Economics
University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh PA
Department of Economics
University of Chicago, Chicago IL
Department of Economics
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis MN
Department of Economics
University of Wisconsin, Madison WI
Economics Department
University of Virginia, Charlottesville VA
Department of Economics
University of California, Los Angeles CA
Department of Economics
Columbia University, New York City NY
Department of Economics, School of General Studies
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor MI
Economics Department
Ohio State University, Columbus OH
Department of Economics
Duke University, Durham NC
Department of Economics, Arts & Sciences and Trinity College</p>

<p>Top 20% Economics Departments</p>

<p>Please note that rankings can depend on the number of registered authors in the respective institutions. Register at the RePEc Author Service.
Rank Score Institution
1 1.07 Department of Economics, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts (USA)
2 2.87 Department of Economics, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey (USA)
3 3.56 Department of Economics, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois (USA)
4 3.67 Department of Economics, University of California-Berkeley, Berkeley, California (USA)
5 4.53 Department of Economics, Oxford University, Oxford, United Kingdom
6 4.56 Economics Department, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, Massachusetts (USA)
7 5.9 Department of Economics, New York University, New York City, New York (USA)
8 7.32 London School of Economics (LSE), University of London, London, United Kingdom
9 9.94 Department of Economics, School of Arts and Sciences, Columbia University, New York City, New York (USA)
10 10.63 Department of Economics, University of California-San Diego (UCSD), La Jolla, California (USA)
11 11.28 Department of Economics, Stanford University, Palo Alto, California (USA)
12 12.5 Department of Economics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts (USA)
13 13.75 Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (USA)
14 15.05 Finance & Economics Department, Graduate School of Business, Columbia University, New York City, New York (USA)
15 15.85 Department of Economics, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois (USA)
16 15.94 Economics Department, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island (USA)
17 16.31 Department of Economics, University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA), Los Angeles, California (USA)
18 17.59 Department of Economics, University of Warwick, Coventry, United Kingdom
19 19.79 Toulouse School of Economics (TSE), Toulouse, France
20 20.17 Department of Economics, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland (USA)</p>

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<p>Perhaps most comprehensive:</p>

<p>Top 50 Economics Departments in the U.S.:
The following studies were utilized to identify the Top 50 Economics Departments:</p>

<p>U.S. News and World Report. For the U.S. News and World Report ranking of U.S. economics departments click here.
Kalaitzidakis, Mamuneas, and Stengos. For the Kalaitzidakis, Mamuneas, and Stengos rankings of U.S. economics departments click here.
Dusansky-Vernon. For the Dusansky-Vernon ranking of U.S. economics departments click here.
Concatenation of these three studies produced a final list of the following 57 departments (excluding the University of Colorado, it was used for pre-testing):</p>

<p>Top 5 (in alphabetical order)- Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Northwestern University, University of Chicago, and University of Pennsylvania
6 - 10 - New York University, Princeton University, Stanford University, University of California-Berkeley, and Yale University
11 - 15 - Columbia University, Cornell University, University of California-Los Angeles, University of California-San Diego, and University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
16 - 20 - Boston University, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, University of Rochester, University of Texas-Austin, and University of Wisconsin
21 - 30 - Brown University, California Institute of Technology, Carnegie Mellon University, Duke University, Michigan State University, Ohio State University, University of Illinois-Urbana, University of Maryland, University of Pittsburgh, and University of Southern California
31 - 40 - Dartmouth University, Johns Hopkins University, Pennsylvania State University, University of California-Davis, University of Florida, University of Iowa, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, University of Virginia, University of Washington, and Washington University-St. Louis
41 - 50 - Boston College, Georgetown University, Indiana University-Bloomington, Iowa State, North Carolina State University, Purdue University, Rice University, Rutgers State University, State University of New York-Albany, Southern Methodist, Texas A&M University, University of Arizona, University of California-Irvine, University of California-Santa Barbara, University of Houston, Vanderbilt University, and Virginia Polytechnic Institute</p>

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<p>red&blue, say what?</p>

<p>1) the first ranking you list is from 1998. yes, objective ranking for 1998, the world has changed. how are you going to ask for credibility on this site when you use something so old, so pre-facebook and college confidential, so ancient as proof of modern condition.</p>

<p>2) the second ranking you list - has two columbia departments in the top 15, which if you were to combine them you could estimate a rise in its ranking. only Chicago has two in the top 10 (Harvard doesn’t even have two in the top 15). but that is just based on number of citations, which is a good factor in determining prestige, but it is not the only factor. so reading this ranking without other information and taking it as gospel is the dumbest thing you could ever do.</p>

<p>3) Are you really quoting US News? US News offers its rankings exclusively for graduate school (as has been harped on multiple times on this board). It does not make any reference to the quality of undergraduate education at a certain school. There could be significant fall off, or you could presume that the quality is better for ugrad than grad. </p>

<p>Even if we do take this as comprehensive and important, it is not likely that this would be a leading indicator of performance, but rather it would suffer from significant lag to the actual conditions that exist in the present. It is still a very subjective ranking. Most rankings of prestige tend to be overly conservative and maintain the preeminence of well known and established names even after the have fallen (<em>cough Princeton</em>) because a lot of what prestige means is based on tradition. If you had a ranking that all of a sudden put some small school up at the top then people would freak out. Any slow climb (like Columbia’s) will not occur over night, even if the material conditions would suggest a vast improvement at Columbia vis-a-vis peers.</p>

<p>It is like taking a snap shot in the middle of a race and declaring that the hare has won even before the race is over. It will take a few years for Columbia’s present superstar circumstances to become rankable prestige. If you fail to understand this concept, then I hope you are not a budding economist.</p>

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<p>Both are exceptional with regards to representation at the best grad schools.
<a href=“WSJ in Higher Education | Trusted News & Real-World Insights”>WSJ in Higher Education | Trusted News & Real-World Insights;

<p>Nobel Prize representation:</p>

<p>UChicago: 30 Nobel Laureates (Alumni)
Columbia U: 39 Nobel Laureates (Alumni)</p>

<p>[Nobel</a> Laureates and Universities](<a href=“http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/lists/universities.html]Nobel”>http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/lists/universities.html)
UChicago: 17 Nobel Laureates (Affiliated)
Columbia U: 16 Nobel Laureates (Affiliated) </p>

<p>Endowments:
Columbia U: 7.15 billion
UChicago: 5.2 billion</p>

<p>Incoming Class Profiles:
[url=<a href=“http://collegeadmissions.uchicago.edu/admissions/classprofile.shtml]University”>http://collegeadmissions.uchicago.edu/admissions/classprofile.shtml]University</a> of Chicago College Admissions | Incoming Class Profile<a href=“ENROLLED”>/url</a>
[url=<a href=“http://www.studentaffairs.columbia.edu/admissions/applications/stats.php]Admission”>http://www.studentaffairs.columbia.edu/admissions/applications/stats.php]Admission</a> Statistics | Columbia University Office of Undergraduate Admissions<a href=“ADMITTED”>/url</a></p>

<p>UChicago has always been respected as a research powerhouse.
Moreover, Gil Grissom, Jack McCoy, and freaking Indiana Jones all went to UChicago.
You can’t beat that.</p>