<p>start talking about its International reputation.</p>
<p>Been there done that... search the forum.</p>
<p>But... I'll give you a teaser- its pretty kick a$$</p>
<p>Hmm, I think it depends on the country. UChicago certainly seems to have a huge reputation in Japan.</p>
<p>how is it in Japan? How do you know?</p>
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how is it in Japan? How do you know?
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<p>I've actually never been to Japan. However, there are two incidents which makes me believe that the University of Chicago is popular in Japan:</p>
<p>1) I went to California last year for a national Japanese essay contest. When people asked where I was going to attend college next autumn, I'd always simply reply "The University of Chicago", and I'd always get gasps of surprise. I can recall some specific responses such as "Aa, atama ga ii kara ne" ("Oh, you must be smart to be going there") and "Aa, omedetou gozaimasu" with some very low bows. In addition, when I talked to the main judge, who flew in from New York and was supposedly someone very respected in the Japanese community, I told him that I was going to UChicago and he gave me a look of surprise and said "Oh, their Japanese program is probably the best in the nation."</p>
<ol>
<li>My mom worked with United Way for 2 weeks and met a girl who came directly from Japan (and knew very little English). Anyhow, she got sent over here without a car and with no clothes due to some error with the company that was funding her, so we kinda took her into our family. When we asked her if she had heard of the University of Chicago, she would say, "Yes! The Japanese community there is very strong!" We were all pretty surprised that she'd even heard of it, to be honest.</li>
</ol>
<p>So it's probably the case that UChicago is well-known among Japanese people because of its good Japanese language/literature department. I thought at first (from case #1) that UChicago was only popular among Japanese-Americans, but from case #2 and the various Japanese people I've spoken to online who live in Japan, it seems as if it has a great deal of fame in Japan as well.</p>
<p>Are you Japanese?</p>
<p>Yes. I am Japanese (not Japanese-American) and I have never been to Japan.</p>
<p>If international fame were proportional to our departmental strengths, we would have hordes of corpses from long-lost civilizations groveling at our feet. As far as I know, we're one of a few universities in the nation to offer classes in Akkadian, Coptic, Uzbek, and the like.</p>
<p>..kind of creepy vision, don't you think? " hordes of corpses from long-lost civilizations" Brings up visions of the green ghosts in Lord of the Rings III!</p>
<p>Not creepy at all! They would be up all night talking to current UChicago students in their common rooms.</p>
<p>That was more or less my impression. Its domestic reputation is quite lacking, too, but we've covered that one quite a bit.</p>
<p>The aforementioned institutions do have an international reputation pretty much the world over. I would add Princeton though amongst internationals with college degrees, despite its lay prestige lagging outside of the Western world due to its smaller size and lack of graduate professional schools in the big name disciplines. </p>
<p>Yet, Chicago, LSE and Columbia are solidly recognized amongst degree holders in the developed portions of Asia and Europe. I was surprised this summer that in former Eastern Bloc countries most low level white collar types knew the strength of Chicago right away. Incidentally, I was also informed by the passport officer that Milton Friedmans Free to Choose became one of the best read non-fiction books in the region when it was re-released following his death.</p>
<p>It's weird. Location is funny~</p>
<p>hi, Chicago certainly is famous in sweden, for the nobel prizes.</p>
<p>The world goes crazy over rankings, and, if I'm not mistaken, UChicago is ranked in the top 10 by TIMES.</p>
<p>Chicago has a huge, if mixed, reputation in South America, largely due to the "Chicago Boys" (usually used as an English phrase, in Spanish) who populated Chile's finance, industry, and trade ministries during the late 70s and 80s under Pinochet, and who essentially made the case for liberal free-market economics in a culture that lacked any tradition of that. The association with Pinochet's brutal military dictatorship is not positive, but few if any deny the enormous overall success of Chilean economic development during that period, and for better or worse it was branded "Chicago".</p>
<p>A school's foreign reputation is very often derived from the reputation of its graduate schools- which is why Princeton is out and UC-Berkeley is in. Chicago is a step down from Harvard, Yale, Stanford reputation-wise in the world, but certainly top 10 if not top 5.</p>
<p>I think if you are a free-market economist, UChicago is “the” school. Kind of depends on your world perspective. My son would love to go there for grad school.</p>