<p>Ah, the perils of sourcing to Wiki.</p>
<p>Well, tortoise, if it helps, I believe JM Coetzee was a visiting professor at UChicago from 2002 - 2003, and he’s on the official count for UChicago nobel prize winners. Coetzee received the nobel prize in 2003, for work that had nothing to do from his time at UChicago, and he has no degrees or training from the school.</p>
<p>To me, that’s weak sauce.</p>
<p>Look, this is a pretty dumb conversation to start with. Measuring “Nobel Prize Winners” isn’t terribly interesting in and of itself. It’s really a proxy – and not a very good one – for faculty excellence and excellence of educational experience. The fact that Chicago has a lot of them by any measuring stick confirms what everybody should have known already: Chicago has had an extremely strong faculty and attracted strong students throughout its history. Diddling with the Nobel-Prize-measuring metrics doesn’t change that either way.</p>
<p>Agree with JHS. I think this whole thing is pretty meaningless. People can hate he school all they want. No need to feed the ■■■■■.</p>
<p>I just want to debunk Cue7. Coetzee has been teaching here since 1996. Also, I want to point out that UChicago is actually pretty stringent in its metrics. T. S. Eliot was not counted as a Nobel affiliate even though he was part of the Committee on Social Thought.</p>
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<p>[John</a> M. Coetzee of the University of Chicago receives 2003 Nobel Prize in Literature](<a href=“University of Chicago News”>University of Chicago News)</p>
<p>Dude, I am not a ■■■■■. I am just trying to uncover as much information as possible. I do this with all the schools I am applying to. I had concerns about Penn being confused with Penn State and I aired them on the Penn forum. I must say that the responses I received there were far more accommodating and less derisive than the ones I received here (barring responses from mature and secure posters like cue7).</p>
<p>PMCM18 delineates my sentiment pretty well.</p>
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<p>Please do not deliberately provoke those who are on this forum. If you are genuinely interested in finding out more about this school, don’t deliberately, and immaturely, ask questions in a provocative and rather incendiary way. Thanks. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, I am getting out of this intentionally inflammatory and divisive nonsense.</p>
<p>OP, I don’t think you can equate the title of this thread and your first post with this one, which was started after Cue7 posed it as a suggestion (post 8): </p>
<p>Thread posted on Penn forum: “How often is Penn confused with Penn State? “</p>
<p>First post: “Do the people who matter know the difference?”</p>
<p>The more I read the inane responses of the OP, I get the impression this individual may be a reincarnation of another ■■■■■ who has been roaming around the “top schools” forums to feed his/her inferiority complex.</p>
<p>Moreover, I could see this question being posed for someone who is truly interested and applying to schools like University of Cambridge, Chicago, Columbia or Harvard (schools that have historically been Nobel winners)…but the evidence reveals this individual is “not” applying to the above schools as seen from his previous posts for “chance me” threads.</p>
<p>So the conclusion is, not only does UChicago have as many Nobel laureates as it claims…it actually has more. Nice to know.</p>
<p>Ah, Divine Comedy, I stand corrected - I picked Coetzee out because I thought he’d only been at UChicago a year - just by my own memory, but it certainly looks like he’d been there longer. </p>
<p>Tortoise, if you’re interested, here’s someone UChicago counts as an affiliate who was at UChicago for just one year:</p>
<p>[William</a> H. Stein - Autobiography](<a href=“http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1972/stein-autobio.html]William”>http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1972/stein-autobio.html)</p>
<p>Stein was a visiting professor at UChicago in 1961.</p>
<p>Also, I agree with the above posters (JHS and Divine Comedy) that nobel winners is just a very rough proxy for what we already know - the school has excellent faculty. My issue, though, at least some time back, was the school marketed this fact quite vigorously, and I think it’s pretty meaningless. </p>
<p>To me, it’s like if some top school bragged about yield - we already know the school is desireable. </p>
<p>I guess my larger point, at least when I think back and remember my research into the school, is that the nobel prize-winner point was a bigger part of the marketing scheme. It seemed a bit too much like “look look! we have accomplished academics here!” Seemed needless, especially because the actual metric is so loosey-goosey.</p>
<p>Outstanding sleuthing, Cue7. Alas, I believe you said LESS than a year–eg, visiting professor leaves in a huff mid-appointment, but they claim him as a Nobelist anyway. </p>
<p>Truly, this is one of the great threads of all time…</p>
<p>So can we all just agree this DOESN’T REALLY MATTER and start preparing for whatever consequences this year’s US News rankings may bring (we’re bound to be visited by some spiteful posters if Chicago stays the same or somehow goes up)?</p>
<p>Tortoise,</p>
<p>It’s the meaningless stat that UChicago admissions has at the very top of their faculty description page:</p>
<p><a href=“https://collegeadmissions.uchicago.edu/academics/faculty.shtml[/url]”>https://collegeadmissions.uchicago.edu/academics/faculty.shtml</a></p>
<p>Frankly, while UChicago thinks it’s uncouth, I’d much rather they boast about a US News ranking than this weak nobel laureates ranking… They were doing it 15 years ago, and it seems as if this poor marketing schtick has continued.</p>
<p>UChicago has a great faculty. We get it. Harvard is a sought-after college, but you don’t see the schools ad comm boasting about its 80% yield rate, especially because that statistic, in and of itself, is sort of weak.</p>
<p>(Also, I have no idea whether Stein stayed at UChicago for less than a year - as his bio only lists one year - 1961 - as his time at UChicago, it’s possible that his visiting professorship was for only a few academic quarters, and not a full year. We can safely say he didn’t stay for that long, but rack 'em up! Another UChicago “affiliate” wins a nobel.</p>
<p>Harvard, etc. use the same weak metric as well, but they certainly don’t feel the need to market it in the same way.)</p>
<p>Cue7, I like your style, but now you’re sputtering.</p>
<p>Let’s keep this thread going. Like I said, one of the very finest ever.</p>
<p>For that matter. let’s extend it to examine the wince-inducing efforts of places like Duke, which claims 17 “associated” laureates. (Cue laugh track.)</p>
<p>Actually Duke claims 19 ‘associated’ laureates but at least they don’t use this number as advertising fodder. Nice pun with the ‘cue’ laugh track.</p>
<p>Tortoise:</p>
<p>My issue isn’t with the metric (it is what it is, and as you pointed out, many schools use it). My issue is that UChicago makes such meaningless, grand proclamations and boasts about this topic.</p>
<p>You mad bro?</p>
<p>Indeed, iameinstein, you are correct: Duke does not use its 19 “affiliates” as “advertising fodder” (except in press releases, fund-raising propaganda, etc. But let’s agree not to count that.) Perhaps Duke’s overall modesty on this score can be traced to…</p>
<p>a) The fact that the Nobel committee has never awarded the prize to a Duke faculty member so…</p>
<p>b) It reaches 19 through the kind of “affiliation” claims–eg, someone got a master’s there 30 years ago–for which UChicago gets ribbed. But then it…well, it stops at 19. For a self-styled major research university that fancies itself in UChicago’s league, yes dear, that is a bit awkward.</p>
<p>So, instead, Duke sticks with advertising fodder that’s much more germane to academic excellence. Like Blue Devil spirit!</p>
<p>Again, outstanding and important thread. Among the finest. Let’s keep it going…</p>
<p>Tortoise: why the snarkiness toward Duke?</p>