Columbia vs. Chicago

Colleges and Universities A-Z Columbia University
21

<p>I’m very comfortable in all sorts of social situations. Whether it be a classroom debate, a party, a speech, an interview, etc. I walked into my Chicago interview ready for a good exchange - and hopefully some fun.</p>

<p>My UChicago alumna interviewer was decidedly less poised than other interviewers and, by my own account, a little frightened of a casual, informative conversation. I kept my legal pad out and made notes of peculiar remarks.</p>

<p>(Me) Q: What have your fellow UChicago alums gone on to do since graduation?
A: Well, we don’t do big things. Normally, we stay in academics. I mean, we don’t go into politics or important things like that.</p>

<p>[Note: I want to go into academics. Not important, eh?]</p>

22

<p>Dude, you are talking nonsense. It’s very clear that you desperately want Columbia to have a top 5 economics program. But there is no objective ranking that you can point to which attests to that. In fact, few rankings - anytime over the last 10 years - even put the school in the top 10. It is what it is.</p>

<p>Until the new NRC rankings come up (and even they are based on data collected in 2005 and 2006), we have to make do with this “dated” info. </p>

<p>Furthermore, despite your fervent protestations, a handful of new hires DO NOT move a school from a 10-14 ranking range to 2-5. Or 6 - 8. Sorry Charlie. Like you said, it’s a slow and steady climb. </p>

<p>Maybe by 2012, Columbia will be there. Or maybe they already are, but with all due respect I’ll wait for the NRC to tell me that.</p>

23

<p>Oh yeah, if you’re implying that Princeton has “fallen” (cough, cough) you are truly off your rocker. Princeton is pound for pound, probably the best school academically in the nation. Only MIT and maybe Stanford or Harvard exceed it’s capabilities in such a broad range of disciplines. That was true based on the NRC studies done in 1995, and it’s still true today.</p>

<p>You really are blinded by your loyalty to Columbia. </p>

<p>BTW, Princeton has never been tops in Nobel Prize winners (and they go so far as to include IAS scholars in the count), but no serious reviewer has ever claimed Princeton was anything less than at the tip top of intellectual achievement and research. So much for the clout of Nobel Prizes.</p>

24

<p>regardless of my loyalties, my criticism of you is purely based on the fact that you need to understand how to appropriately use data for your defense. your shoddy argument is essentially broken down to ‘these are objective markers, ergo we should bow to them.’</p>

<p>they are far from objective, they are far from absolute, and in many ways they tell a completely distorted story.</p>

<p>the main disagreements with rankings is that it is impossible to proclaim a significant differentiation between top-tier schools. without question, columbia econ is considered top tier, as the university is as a hole. most support tiering, but even tiering brings up concern because what really divides a top from a second tier school. rankings are at best irrelevant, and at worst destructive. most students in graduate school - for whom the selected rankings are for - would rather study with a specific professor or worry about their funding than concern themselves with data points that have no bearing on their livelihood. if a professor leaves chicago to go to columbia, his grad students more than likely will leave chicago with him - their loyalty is to their professors and not to their students.</p>

<p>which is why columbia stealing young hot shot profs from chicago and princeton is such a big deal. it means that their grads most likely came over to stay with their dissertation advisor, etc., etc. my argument was more theoretical regarding columbia and its proposed placement. in the spirit of concoll, i wanted to make note that columbia is a far more reputable (if that matters at all, i don’t think so) department than at presently valued. so if i am to play your game of ranking - then yes, i can play it better than you because i know what the numbers mean and can establish a well-purposed argument about why present rankings lack actual relevance. </p>

<p>so let’s play this game in 5 years and rewind to today and the material conditions of the present (as reflected by some future index that relies on past data) should indicate an improvement in Columbia’s position. confusing, right, because rankings are that confusing. the moment a ranking comes out, it is already inaccurate, and therefore it is bound by its own fallacies. considering rankings as objective could only occur if they were both comprehensive and could be immediately updated. something that is impossible because the comprehensive is hard to calculate, and the immediate updated is often distorted or imprecise.</p>

<p>further variable selection bias is highly present. subjectivity of evaluators is highly prevalent in USNews especially. and if you are waiting for the NRC to tell you something pertinent about 2009, well you yourself noted that the data was collected in 2005-6, the methodology approved in 2003, and the program itself promised to do ratings every 10 years, something that they clearly are not using. even if we are to use USNews, many times the selectivity information used is already over a year old, the alumni giving or faculty numbers are over a year old.</p>

<p>overall, i would say - we do not have to make use of dated information instead of your “we have to make do” approach. as a ranking lover, you care about information that lacks relevance to graduate life, let alone having a significant import on undergraduate life as there are no metrics that measure quality of teaching at the undergraduate level in any of the studies you have mentioned.</p>

<p>princeton as you mentioned lacks the power of Stanford and MIT. but because of the patronage of USNews et al, it has maintained spots above those schools that are truly undeserved. ad if you wish to reference princeton in this conversation, be fair - what does the AWRU (even by academics often cited as the most credible ranking in the world) say about Princeton? That it is below Columbia. Should I be praising Columbia as being better? I do not think so. At the grad level, each is solid and to each his own. I think Princeton though offers a good case study on why rankings are conservative and in fact bad indicators of present conditions. </p>

<p>At the undergraduate level, I do not think you can compare the experience of Columbia to Princeton’s as they are two completely different. I could go on a further tirade here and why rankings are less relevant.</p>

<p>but the point of this follow-up post is that what you have argued or think you’ve proved is true bullocks. you have no idea what data you are using and as a result your nonsense post is really a disservice. in the end you are the one that looks a bit ridiculous by being such a fervent rankings strumpet.</p>

25

<p>Geek-</p>

<p>You are hilarious. Your posts are truly humorous.</p>

<p>One minute rankings and relative standing is all important to you. Then you claim that rankings don’t really matter. Which is it Geek??? </p>

<p>Re the rankings I posted, I literally did a google search on top ranked econ departments. It presented the first three rankings the search produced. There were all consistent and made the point I expected them to make. Are these rankings backward looking? - sure they are. Are all rankings? - yes sir. If someone says “but we’ve made six great hires last year”, does that mean you’ve gone up in those same rankings — possibly. But until an objective ranking that reviews all peer programs comprehensively is published… the ONLY thing you can claim is that “we’ve made six great hires” LOL. You can’t claim anything more than that.</p>

<p>As a result, you can’t dispute that Columbia’s econ dept is NOT top 5 or even Top 8. Sorry Geek. </p>

<p>You have yet to show one ranking (by any metric) that support the excessive claims which you’ve been making in numerous posts all over this site. Sorry, but you’ve been caught with your pants down. Be an adult about it - admit you are being “excessively exuberant” at best re Columbia’s econ standings.</p>

<p>Time will indeed tell re the merits of Columbia’s recent hires. In the meantime, you’d do well to review what other top departments have been doing re hires. No one is standing still. Columbia won’t press release top people who they’ve lost (if any). School’s never do. And you clearly aren’t reviewing what’s happening in other programs b/c you only have eyes for Columbia LOL</p>

26

<p>red, you don’t get it, which is your problem.</p>

<p>you see, someone can write an intelligent argument that goes over your head and you can play dumb, but it doesn’t mean the argument lodged was not clear and precise. read slowly if you want to get the nuance. i was attacking your rankings claim, by showing you don’t have a clue what the info means, and you come back with your LOL.</p>

<p>if you don’t get the intricacies of what is up. i stated my claim. you can’t follow it, and frankly i am not going to provide sparknotes. </p>

<p>gosh, you are such a kid. and with the same logic i used above, i could probably prove that UCLA or NYU are really top 10 departments as well. so please do not accuse me of bias when you can’t read my post accurately.</p>

<p>and to other people reading red&blue out there, here is his/her MO:

  1. often posts on the columbia board asking about our endowment size.
  2. often posts on the columbia board to decry ‘rabid Columbia supporters’
  3. has some affiliation or love for penn as he is mostly posting on there
  4. seems to possess an inferiority complex of some kind because of the nature of his posts (consider his first post was against Columbia rabble rousing and what he terms Penn Bashing - Columbia doesn’t bash Penn, we just don’t find the school to offer very much an opposite experience at the undergraduate level, the strength of their departments notwithstanding)</p>

<p>add 5) does not understand analysis of why rankings may be flawed, nor can he follow an argument in which someone posits an idea that they may or may not fully believe in order to dismiss or refute their idea. (if you want to know what i really think of rankings, read closer)</p>

27

<p>"On to the Rankings:</p>

<ul>
<li>Small clusters makes more sense for such rankings; absolute pecking-order ranking is almost meaningless for universities *
** These rankings are of the entire organization, not just the undergrad components **"</li>
</ul>

<p>This is what you yourself said on 4/02/07.</p>

<p>I agree wholeheartedly with your nuanced explanation of rankings (particularly point b on the same post). Why is it not here? And if you are a Penn alum, what’s up with the rampant LOLs, you sound like a kid.</p>

28

<p>columbia econ is not top 5. but it’s top 10 for sure.</p>

<p>as noted, there are some serious problems with the rankings you posted.</p>

<p>if you asked economists, rather than google, you would have a much clearer sense of what the top schools are and where others are relative to eachother.</p>

29

<p>Geek, you still haven’t responded to the central point I’ve been making all along…prove your assertions about Columbia’s current ranking. Or stop stating that dribble. You have zero credibility on the issue at all. Your assertions just look plain silly.</p>

<p>Re all the other posts which you mention as “my M/O”, you’re discovered the secret – I am a Penn alum. Tah-Dah!!! You get the prize. </p>

<p>When I write posts, I describe things I know the most about such as Penn. I have detailed knowledge about a number of other schools as well. I also do like to correct silly posts by people like you who make statements that can not be substantiated. And you’ve made a number of them on these boards, but I’m only focused on the econ dept claims b/c they are so egregious.</p>

<p>And for the record, you Columbia ■■■■■■ do indeed bash many other schools. The general tone is “we have more Nobel laureates than everyone else, we used to be the top academically, we used to have the #2 endowment, we used to,…we used to…we used to…” . Now some Columbia boosters like to assert that Columbia is just a hairs breadth behind HYP… rank foolishness if you ask me (you can check any of the posts I’ve made).</p>

<p>There is a meaningful difference on many many metrics between HYPSM and Col or Penn or Duke or Chicago. In endowment, endowment per student (which gets much worse when you strip out med school and prof school endowments from the totals THEN allocate what’s left across the ugrads), total awards & prizes held by CURRENT faculty, research funding per faculty member, academic productivity, etc. </p>

<p>(I’ll remind you of your churlish dig at Princeton as another sign of your foolishness)</p>

<p>Finally, re rankings (which you actually do love when they show data in your favor) - since you didn’t read my last post, I’ll summarize again - I think rankings have some value, but they don’t tell the full story. They need to be factored in with other considerations. Chasing prestige or location (or even for graduate work, one particular faculty member) isn’t the best way to decide on an education. </p>

<p>The best format is for rankings to be clustered as the Center for Measuring University Performance does. Within those clusters it’s more about fit and feel than anything else (for ugrad). For graduate work, its more about the specific nature of the discipline one is undertaking and who relevant groups of leading thinkers in those fields. </p>

<p>villeslacker, if you ask economists about their views on programs you simply replicate the exercise that US News does with its peer reputation surveys. {If you have something current from a broad group of economists from multiple institutions which takes into account all the moves/hires/etc of the top programs, it’d be great for you to post it for everyone to review.}</p>

<p>That’s why the NRC study and the CfMUP studies have so much weight in academic circles – they factor out “general belief/reputation” to focus on measurable gains/losses in academic performance.</p>

30

<p>"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>Geek - as an aside this really made me laugh. What’s all this crap about Fox News and NYC having red tape got to do with Columbia being hard to navigate process-wise. </p>

<p>More foolishness from you. It’s a bureaucratic place. Many Columbia alums have noted that on here and on other sites. </p>

<p>At least you state something that’s actually helpful to the OP —> that Columbia "has hired consultants to clean up the… efficiency of the operation. Finally, a bit of clear eyed truth from you. That took courage I’d bet.</p>

31

<p>red - </p>

<p>dribble, dribble, dribble.</p>

<p>i answered all your questions.</p>

<p>so why are rankings you reference bad indicators of present circumstances - because data is old, because data is not comprehensive. by that simple argument i can claim a whole lot of stuff, all i needed to prove was that the rankings you used to say that columbia was not a top econ department were flawed. that part is easy. now, if you take them as bible, that is your problem.</p>

<p>all we know about you on this thread is that you jump in and post 3 rankings without any of the supportive information that you use elsewhere.</p>

<p>if your purpose is a) to columbia bash because you think we are bashers ourselves, or put us in our place, b) clarify chicago’s economics superiority. then my response is that it holds very little reference to undergraduate life giving us these rankings as they are not undergraduate rankings of the departments.</p>

<p>so i mean, you can use strong words, but i think i have my bases covered. at the end though if you disagree with me, that is fine. i am not infallible, nor do i speak for the universe. i think your approach at first was misguided to interject (particularly when i could not discern your aim or purpose by tossing out relatively irrelevant data points).</p>

<p>and the purpose of data is that it can be manipulated. if i can manipulate it and serve it for my purpose as can you. which is why i look at qualitative explanations to effectuate my opinions. unless you can show me a quantitative survey that powerfully explains undergraduate life, i will hold my breath when it comes to rankings.</p>

<p>and princeton is not more impactful than mit or stanford overall, i think you can agree with that (i think you said as much), so what is up with the dissonance between how people view it actually and the most conservative of ranking measures - usnews.</p>

32

<p>I enjoy watching you flail around. You do indeed provide me with a lot of pleasure. </p>

<p>I don’t have the patience to properly educate you on so many issues-</p>

<ul>
<li><p>how all departments have one set of faculty members so a top ranked econ/ history/ physics/ etc department in grad rankings is generally top ranked for undergrad students as well
{can’t really see how it could possibly be otherwise unless only TA’s do ugrad teaching which most schools have moved away from}</p></li>
<li><p>how Princeton is still a powerhouse in research and teaching which is why they are ranked so highly in grad and ugrad rankings
{they suffer in international rankings which generally heavily weight research funding which favors universities with big academic medical centers (like Penn, Cornell and Columbia) and to a lesser extent engineering schools}</p></li>
<li><p>BTW, i actually don’t care for Princeton as an institution, but it’s academic strengths can not be denied</p></li>
<li><p>Chicago does indeed have one of the best econ departments in the world - in breadth and depth, in faculty productivity and teaching quality [and I don’t at all subscribe to the markets-oriented fanaticism of UofC, but you have to respect their intellectual heft]</p></li>
<li><p>FINALLY, you still haven’t delivered any proof for your assertion that Columbia’s econ ranking has improved… at this point I’ll consider the debate over since you haven’t shown any proof for your assertion.</p></li>
</ul>

<p>Thanks for the laughs. Have a good weekend Geek.</p>

33

<p>educate me?</p>

<p>well, if i need someone to tell me about how to misuse rankings and develop superficial reasonings for prestige, i will be sure to PM you.</p>

<p>when i say rankings are often irrelevant and predictably poor indicators of present circumstances, your answer is to tell me that princeton is good because it is highly ranked. that deserves a real LOL. all that means is that based on the metrics of the ranking system princeton did well, not that it is by all qualitative standards a true powerhouse. </p>

<p>i don’t think you are dumb having read some of your other posts. but i don’t think any of this is funny. i think it just shows how incredibly myopic you are. </p>

<p>and the amount of “faith” you must place on good grad schools being good at ugrad teaching is significant and not absolute. they may correlate, but there is no absolute nature to it. so if we want to talk about shoddy presumptions.</p>

<p>lastly - read carefully - i think CU is on the upswing because of its recent expansion of the department, increasing status of its junior professors and senior professors, and a renewed higher placement of its grads into top academic spots (which has come with a new job placement center for econ). these are all good qualitative indicators that will take a few many years before any rankings will pick up on. it doesn’t mean then that you should wait until the ranking shows CU to be moving up to go to CU, it means you go when the actual conditions are there.</p>

<p>It could be like a fashion trend, the moment everyone wears it, it is no longer cool. The point is to know the trend, and not wait for it to appear on CNN.</p>

34

<p>HAHA. You didn’t disappoint…I knew you’d post a reply last night.</p>

<p>Well… thank you for finally writing what you should have written many many posts ago…“Columbia is a department on the upswing”. The school’s investing heavily in this area because it’s important and because a universities’ rankings in humanities and social sciences seems to be heavily correlated with their standings in economics. Either way, you’d do better to use that type of language going forward instead of the hyperbole you typically spew. Your clear over-the-top love for Columbia should not cloud your ability to give practical advice on this site.</p>

<p>You are somewhat dense however on the topic of rankings. As I’ve said again and again, rankings are lagging indicators of quality. That are a snapshot in time of a number of metrics, some of which may be more relevant to a reader than others. That said, they have some real merit. The can be useful, but need to be used carefully (like a sharp knife –> handle with care). </p>

<p>Princeton is not good because its high in the rankings; it’s high in the rankings because it’s damn good. In faculty quality, research output, alumni in positions of influence, financial resources…it’s tops. In terms of resources devoted to ugrad education, funds for grad students (e.g., stipends allocated to scholars in the humanities), crazy professors who come up with bizarro theories which actually turn out to have serious merit in 5-10 years…it’s tops. I would never want to attend Princeton, but it’s one of the top academic institutions in the nation.</p>

<p>Hope this helps</p>

<p>Anyway, have a good weekend Geek.</p>

35

<p>oh you are such a wise father, you were just trying to get the argument i used on the first post right out of me. </p>

<p>thanks for your benevolence. Nice 180.</p>

36

<p>Chicago has a very clear advantage in economics</p>