<p>I know that most of you guys on this forum have only attended one university and that would be U Chicago, but do you honestly believe that the education you guys receive here is significantly better than say Notre Dame, UCLA, or NYU? U Chicago is generally accepted as a very academic university, but what makes it more academic than other schools. Does UChicago cover more material than other universities or do they just have more knowledgeable professors?</p>
<p>I don’t think that’s a question I have the ability to answer, but compared to the (very, very good) education I received in high school, the quality of education I have received here has been distinctly better. Most of my friends at other elite schools (not the ones you mentioned, but in a similar spot on the “pecking order”) report that their college educations have not been as good as their high school ones. That is by no means an attempt at a universal statement about the quality of the U of C education over other schools’ educations, but rather that I think U of C’s reputation of quality education and educational opportunities is merited.</p>
<p>I don’t know UCLA that well, but NYU and Notre Dame have unusual programs (Gallatin, Liberal Studies) in which one might find a quality of education comparable to the U of C in some ways. But in any circumstances, one can find the amazing classes with the amazing professors!</p>
<p>This may not count for much, but a few of my teachers here comment during class how difficult Chicago is in comparison to other schools. This may just be because they’ve become used to an environment of self-deprecation, but it seems they genuinely think that Chicago has a very difficult, top-notch curriculum. The teachers who make these comments have taught at other top schools (e.g., Harvard, Stanford) as well.</p>
<p>^^ That might be true for your field, but in mine, I think that the workload is roughly equivalent to what I would get at another elite institution.</p>
<p>One of my friends who attended U of C last year said the perception that U of C provides a superior education when compared to other top university is because the students themselves claim that the education is better than other universities although they had never attended other universities. She personally believes that the level of education at U of C is in most regard equal if not slightly slightly better than some top universities.</p>
<p>Embedded in this question are three somewhat different questions: What makes one research university “better” than another, and does that matter to undergraduates? Does an elite research university provide a better undergraduate education than other types of college? What differentiates the University of Chicago from other elite research universities? None of them has an obvious, uncontroversial answer.</p>
<p>What makes one research university better than another? Chicago, UCLA, and NYU all have fabulous faculties, benefiting to a large extent from the advantages of being located in a major, world-class city. Chicago has the best general reputation of the three, but I think that a large part of that is based on history. Chicago has been seen as a first-rank national institution since its founding, and (with Michigan) dominating its region in terms of academic prestige. UCLA and NYU (and Northwestern, too) were primarily regional institutions until very recently, and labored in the shadows of Berkeley (and, later Stanford, too), and of Columbia, Yale, and Princeton. There are some areas where Chicago has a clear advantage over UCLA and NYU in terms of faculty strength – physics, math, economics, sociology, and the average ranking (if one could determine such a thing) of Chicago’s departments is probably somewhat higher than UCLA’s or NYU’s. Does any of that matter to undergraduates? Not really – few undergraduates are really in a position to be able to distinguish between the first- or third-best scholar in a field and the twentieth-best (who would still be pretty amazing), fewer still could really take advantage of that quality difference, and even if one of those few wound up at the “wrong” institution he or she would get plenty out of it, including an appropriate grad school placement.</p>
<p>However, there is arguably a significant difference between the students a place like Chicago (or Harvard) attracts vs. places like UCLA or NYU. The elite research universities attract academically-oriented students at a greater rate than other universities – not exclusively, not all-or-nothing, but at a greater rate. So, while an academically oriented student can find plenty to study and plenty of stimulation at NYU, it may be a little harder to find peers (and much easier, of course, to find the Olson Twins).</p>
<p>Then there are institutions, like Notre Dame, that aren’t really comprehensive research universities at all. Like Amherst or Swarthmore, they are primarily in the business of educating undergraduates, not producing PhDs or research contracts. Arguably, they provide a better model for undergraduate education. The professor at the front of the room may not be a world-renowned scholar, but may in fact be a better, more skilled teacher. I think it’s really a matter of personal choice which model a particular student prefers. Some (I, when I was young) really get off on the energy of famous scholars, great grad students, being in an anchor store at the Mall of Ideas; others would rather have more me-and-mommy time with their teachers, and a more intimate environment.</p>
<p>Finally, as among elite research universities, the claims for Chicago exceptionalism are probably pretty weak. The faculty is no better or worse, on the whole, than that of equivalent institutions (although in any particular area one might be able to see differences). There is a culture of civility, cross-disciplinary discussion, and critical thinking among both faculty and students at Chicago that many of us admire, and find qualitatively different from other institutions, but the equipment doesn’t exist to measure those supposed differences reliably. The undergraduates who apply and decide to enroll there may be somewhat more intellectual and interested in pure academics than the students who wind up at Harvard or Yale, who may be somewhat more likely to aspire to be President of the United States (or at least J.P. Morgan Chase). That could be a good thing or a bad thing, depending, but it’s some thing.</p>
<p>S1 has had the opportunity to study at both Chicago and a top Ivy. He felt that the difference was not so much the quantity of the work, but in how the work (in the sciences in this case) was approached, and how much more theoretical inquiry was encouraged at Chicago. Whether that is “better” or not will depend on one’s goals.</p>
<p>I chose Chicago over Columbia and Cornell.</p>