If you want to impress your Grandparents, tell them you went to Harvard.
If you want to impress your peers, tell them you went to Stanford.
If you want to impress your Grandchildren, tell them you went to Chicago.
The bubble is strong in Hyde Park.
I predict, JBS, that your kid will quickly acquire the habit of all us Aristotle-quoters - palming off our bright ideas on the immortal Stagyrite! It works in a U. Of C. crowd but not anywhere else.
I think University of Chicago has always had a better reputation internationally than Yale and Princeton. So has Berkeley. “HYPS” is an undergrad-focused American construct.
@exacademic As someone who lived both in Asia and Europe growing up, I observed that HYPSM and the Ivy League have a very strong reputation outside the US. People are not conscious of the acronym HYPSM, but if you tell them to name the best US universities, almost all will first mention some of all of hYPSM. Most people know by name Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Yale and maybe to a lesser degree Princeton. They also know the ivy league as a group but most can’t name off the top of their heads schools after HYP, but with some digging they find out.
HYPSM is not an American construct. These are the schools with the biggest recognition internationally.
I have lived in Asia and extensively in Europe and travel there a lot. UChicago and columbia are better known than Yale and Princeton. Moreover, Dartmouth, brown, Cornell and penn (except wharton) and All LAC are totally unknown.
“we Chicago-lovers (everyone on this board except those NU guys who wandered in a while back)”
rotfl on this one.
“Not all desirable things, Aristotle tells us, are the ultimate end for which we act”
And yet Aristotle extolls eudaimonia. That all people (and by extension groups of people an society) must strive do and live well. The path to arete is through more leisure, not just more work (technically to Aristotle education is leisure but it it is more like hard work at UChicago).
@FStratford Gorgeous!
Good addendum, FStratford. The Stagyrite never fails us. The conflation of leisure and work in the educational experience may be a medieval accretion, yet also seems insightful. Wouldn’t Aristotle have simply extolled the maximal expression of our powers in all the endeavors that make us most human? To put these sentiments more pithily, Crescat Scientia Vita Excolatur!
Analysis of Aristotle and latin phrases? Now this sounds like a real Chicago thread!
Well, crescat sciential vita excolatur happens to be the motto of the place. Roughly transmitted it means that if you truly believe Economics is a science you will win a Nobel. That’s what we thought it meant, at any rate.
@JBStillFlying - I always thought crescat scientia vita excolatur (the school motto) meant “knowledge grows, exalt the Reg.”
No?
Actually it’s, “And here, see where the two lines cross? That’s why the poor will starve.”
Bringing this back around, should Chicago want to be grouped with “HYPS,” why not be more transparent about it? Why play hide the ball? As no one here is sure what the direction is, and recent decisions (switch to ED/ED2) just elevate confusion, why not present the plan?
Here’s a statement, that could be presented at any (or all) of the big alumni receptions/alumni weekend events:
“Given current momentum, the goal for the College is clear: to match the size, opportunities, and structure found at the finest coastal universities, but to fuse this with Chicago’s distinctive approach to education.”
How hard is that? Then, if Chicago grows to 1600 or 1700 per class, and build more dorms close to campus, expand sports teams, whatever, I wouldn’t complain. The goal is clear.
Why play hide the ball?
They are not hiding the ball. If anything they have been very obvious. Anyone is welcome to look up the size (population, acreage, physical plant) of the major private universities, figure out what UChicago’s size should be (undergrad, prof. schools, PhD programs), see what the previous trends have been and go from there. Perhaps UChicago doesn’t want to LIMIT itself to where others are and that’s why it doesn’t make any such statements as you suggest, @Cue7.
I’m hearing* they have room for 1700 incoming. And if yield hits around 75% that’s what they’ll have. Anyone else have a thought?
There’s something really messed up with the premise that acreage is a good indicator of the optimal number of students for a college.
Uh, did someone say it was? Acreage obviously has to be a factor, as the top private uni’s, to my knowledge at least, haven’t yet invested heavily in online learning (to name one example of an alternative). But just as obviously, acreage can be all over the place (for instance, a nature preserve would add significantly). That’s why you ALSO need to look at physical plant, etc. Also location (forgot to add that).
It’s the uni’s job to come up with the optimal number. CC posters are merely taking an estimated guess based on knowable factors pertaining to the comparables.
Where has that plan been enunciated? Here are the plans I know of, that I linked to upthread:
The Sonnenschein Plan (in the 90s): increase size of class to 4500, reduce core a bit, more student spaces (i.e. new gym, some new dorms)
The Boyer Plan (in 2008): outlined in Dean John Boyer’s 100+ page treatise “The Type of University We want to Become”: increase class size to about 5000, keep educational structure constant, have 70% of undergrads in dorms
Where are the specifics on the new plan? Is the goal a class size of 1700? Is there a master plan somewhere?
Not sure anyone here will be privy to any UChicago long term plans, they may choose to make them public as they have in the past or not.
@Cue7 I have no insider information whatsoever but I would guess the Master Plan of College would have to tie in with the major fund raising of the entire U of C. In other words, the Master Plan will be a moving target. While College is important, it is not the only division in the entire U of C. As you pointed out in another post, the Biological Science Division and Pritzker needs a lot of financial help. Zimmer and his successor will need to balance all the balls in the air. I don’t think that there will be a fixed Master Plan.
UChicago will not release admissions data until Fall. This per Maroon. Any thoughts?