<p>It seems like some of the laureates that Chicago calls its own have almost no UofC connection. Does the university measure the number of Nobel prizes it has received in a wildly inflationary fashion?</p>
<p>^^
I do not know whether you are a student or a ■■■■■ from another school, but I have noticed that you seem to come to Chicago’s site to question every little thing about this institution and what it stands for. If you, indeed, are truly interested in the institution, I strongly urge you to go to their website and do research like all the other intelligent individuals. You seem to have a chip on your shoulder that is not healthy. If you are not interested in applying to this institution, please go back to the “other” schools you seem to be so interested in. Chicago is interested in students who are “sure” of themselves and not “rank” seekers.</p>
<p>Hi Einstein,
Can you point out who was claimed by UofC and is not related to UofC? Here is the link, reference it.
[List</a> of Nobel laureates by university affiliation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“List of Nobel laureates by university affiliation - Wikipedia”>List of Nobel laureates by university affiliation - Wikipedia)
<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Laureate[/url]”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Laureate</a></p>
<p>The same big brand name like yours, Albert Einstein, was included in the student or faculty list in 6 institutions. It depends how an institution counts it, at its own pleasure. If counted by graduate, only 5 institutes produced over 30 Nobel laureates, Chicago is one of them. The other four institutions are Columbia, Cambridge, Harvard, Paris, no other elites or big names are in the group.</p>
<p>A question like “Is it true that students here have no time for fun?”, while sometimes phrased with very little tact, is at least something appropriate to ask as a potential applicant and even understandable given the school’s stereotype (which alumni and current students can attest to being outdated). More often than not, the people that post it here are genuinely interested in the school but feel hesitant given the existence of phrases like “Where fun comes to die”. Other times, it’s trolls who have some sort of axe to grind with the school that post something along the lines of “Will U Chicago slowly suck all the life force out of my body until there is nothing left but a sad, pathetic academic drone?” Your question is both phrased in such a manner (“wildly inflationary”) and has no purpose, coming from somebody who is supposedly interested in applying, but to provoke a response from the community here. *</p>
<p>Does U Chicago use standards that “inflate” its count? As a proud very soon to be first year, I actually think it does. It uses the same standards as MIT and includes people who were affiliated to the university for less than one year, which no other institutions high up on the list appear to do. I have no right to say how much time a person needs to be affiliated to a university to be deeply influenced by it or contribute a lot to the community, but at least in terms of criteria U Chicago does appear to inflate its numbers. Harvard, for example, at 46 only counts officially its Peace Prize winners and others determined by the Nobel Foundation, so if it were to use the same criteria as U Chicago its official count would go WAY up. Still, the fact is that U Chicago HAS been home to a lot of very influential and accomplished individuals, more so than the vast majority of institutions no matter which way you look at it. Moreover, we don’t even know how many of those affiliates were of the type that stayed for less than one year, but they probably are a very small minority. Where exactly it stands in number of Nobel Laureates “legitimately” affiliated to the university is something that could be highly debatable and shouldn’t really matter to prospective students either way. At the end of the day, your success in college is going to depend much more on your willingness to work hard than the accomplishments of people that at one point walked those halls.</p>
<p>I probably phrased my question wrong, and I do apologize for that. However, having said that, the last poster’s answer was candid and admirable, and I appreciate it immensely.</p>
<p>My hunch is that iameinstein is a ■■■■■. Almost every single thread he started had a negative tone to it. In fact, although it is difficult to prove, I believe he could be someone who dislikes UChicago and possibly jealous about the University or something and posted a lot of negative comments with a different account name and now he simply changed his account name and started with the same old negative threads and tried to serve the same purpose, i.e. to demean UofC.</p>
<p>Passive aggression is a tactic and it is working for him. Instead of ignoring him, we are collectively feeding the ■■■■■.</p>
<p>I love how anyone who questions the university is automatically deemed a ■■■■■. The reason I am asking pointed questions is because I want to figure out whether Chicago is really everything it’s cracked up to be. I do this for all schools that I am applying to so there is no question of bias.</p>
<p>iameinstein:</p>
<p>If you don’t want pointed responses, don’t ask pointed questions - ask open-ended ones. </p>
<p>Also, your post history doesn’t reveal that you ask pointed questions for “all schools” that you’re applying to soon. Other threads you’ve started are:</p>
<p>“Chances at Duke and Penn???”</p>
<p>“Chances at Stanford???”</p>
<p>These don’t really seem that pointed. Instead, they paint the picture of someone who is pretty interested in the above-named schools.</p>
<p>Contrast this to your posts about UChicago:</p>
<p>“Does the UofC really have as many Nobel winners as it claims?”</p>
<p>" Is the workload at Chicago unmanageable?"</p>
<p>“Was this an isolated incident?” (regarding racism on campus)</p>
<p>It doesn’t seem like you’re asking pointed questions across the board.</p>
<p>Try going to the Penn thread and posting threads like these:</p>
<p>“Is Penn often confused with Penn State?”</p>
<p>“Is it true Penn cares more about Wharton than the College?”</p>
<p>See what sort of responses you get. I’d be surprised if you wouldn’t be deemed a ■■■■■ on that forum too.</p>
<p>To answer your original question, UChicago has kind of a vague definition of “connection” to determine its number of nobel prizes. I personally think it’s a bit bogus - it seems like anyone who was at UChicago for any period of time - including visiting professorships - would be added to the school’s tally of Nobel Prize winners. That’s just my opinion.</p>
<p>Cue, I concede that I haven’t made pointed threads about those schools yet, but I will soon enough.</p>
<p>Sometimes CC is better than late night TV.</p>
<p>1) Posting negative threads doesn’t make you a ■■■■■; that’s not what ■■■■■ means.
2) It’s alright to continuously attack something as long as the attack is founded with reason. I don’t know about the OP’s other posts, but this one is founded with reason because all colleges are self-interested, so it’s reasonable to be suspicious of their claims.
3) Based on the wiki article, colleges determine affiliations in different ways. UChicago’s tends to be very liberal in their criteria compared to other schools.</p>
<p>Somewhat liberal, not “very” liberal. As I understand it, the list does include a couple of post-docs who spent a few years on campus way back whenever. But everyone else is either alumni or faculty, current or former. </p>
<p>Move on, folks. Nothing to see here…</p>
<p>What college decides more liberally than UChicago then?</p>
<p>I don’t really know what is so controversial about UChicago’s way of counting Nobel Laureates. The list considers those who are affiliated with the university, and all of them are, whether they were here as graduate students or post-doctoral fellows or visiting professors. Universities can be as liberal or conservative as they like.</p>
<p>It is a lot more honest than what Stanford’s admissions office does. Stanford’s undergraduate admissions claims affiliation with the founders of Google (and HP, Apple, eBay, Cisco, etc) even though pretty much none of them attended Stanford as undergraduates.</p>
<p>My point is that UChicago’s Nobel count is transparent. The school publishes a complete list online and all of them are affiliated with the institution.</p>
<p>I agree with tortoise. There is nothing to see here.</p>
<p>There is no standardized metric for this, so it’s really just a call based on each individual’s judgement. UChicago counts visiting professors who win a nobel - even if they stay for less than one year - as “affiliates.” </p>
<p>To me, this is pretty weak sauce, and that’s just my personal call on the matter. I think a school can count a nobel winner as one of their own if the nobel winner either did his/her undergrad/grad studies at the institution (and i mean formative training, even a masters is kind of suspect), or conducted the bulk of his/her nobel-winning work at the institution. I just feel the nobel winner needs to have some strong connection to the school.</p>
<p>Again, that’s just my personal feeling on the matter. I applied to UChicago thinking this is what they meant when they boasted about nobel winners, and then I saw the actual definition of “affiliate.” I remember thinking then - as I do now - that it was pretty weak sauce. </p>
<p>That being said, a tremendous number of nobel winners have very strong ties to UChicago, and that’s impressive. I just think the “official” count is a bit inflated and weak. Again, just a personal opinion - I just don’t think a visiting professorship of less than a year (unless, I guess, groundbreaking work toward the nobel was done in that short period at the school) should count toward the final nobel count for UChicago.</p>
<p>UChicago’s methodology of counting Nobel Laureates is no more liberal than those of Cambridge and MIT, and I don’t see anyone complaining about their counts.</p>
<p>I didn’t come to this school so that I can brag about this school’s number of Nobel Laureates. I came here because of the Core Curriculum, and it has given me more to my life than anything else ever has. The life of the mind cannot be summed up by something as superficial as the school’s Nobel count.</p>
<p>Cue7, you state UChicago counts visiting professors even if they stay less than a year.</p>
<p>Really? UChicago’s Nobel count includes a number of visiting professors who’ve stayed less than a year?</p>
<p>Would you happen to have the names of these individuals handy?</p>
<p>Divine comedy - I have the same complaints about Cambridge, Mit, etc. Upenn counts Nobel winners the exact same way as uchicago, and its weak sauce all around. </p>
<p>I didn’t go to uchicago to brag about the nobel laureates either. I just wish the School itself didn’t brag about it too.</p>
<p>In that case, this thread could just as easily be titled “Does MIT have really have the number of laureates it claims?” , etc., since they play the same irrelevant game the same irrelevant way. The OP is picking on UChicago simply because it has the misfortune of winning this particular beauty contest.</p>
<p>But I am still waiting to hear from Cue7 about those visiting professors on UChicago’s list who’ve been on campus for less than a year…</p>
<p>Tortoise,</p>
<p>I’m just going off the wiki entry, which states that the official count includes affiliates “for less than one year.” </p>
<p>See: [List</a> of Nobel laureates affiliated with the University of Chicago - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_laureates_affiliated_with_the_University_of_Chicago]List”>List of Nobel laureates by university affiliation - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>I haven’t checked who of the 87 were affiliated with UChicago for less than one year. </p>
<p>Also, maybe the marketing is different now, but in my day, # of Nobel Winners was a big UChicago marketing theme. I remember multiple tour guides, administration, marketing materials, etc. boasting about UChicago’s nobel winners.</p>
<p>In looking back on it, this seems like a school boasting about its yield or something like that. It’s pretty empty.</p>