<p>Hehe - just last night I heard on the news "the defending Super Bowl champions won their opening game" and I thought, I wonder what team they're talking about.</p>
<p>I even watched the Super Bowl (I think). Despite hundreds of millions of dollars and unbridled media frenzy, it's a case in point of in one ear out the other regarding relevance to my life. Probably similar when most people hear about colleges.</p>
<p>Same for me. And the World Series winner was??? I have no clue. I'm pretty sure LSU was the football champ.</p>
<p>Defending Super Bowl Champ is the New York Giants. LSU is collge, Super Bowl is NFL.</p>
<p>World Series winner was Boston Red Sox</p>
<p>
[quote]
ou don't think that there are indefinable characteristics that make one person less likely to graduate from Chicago than another? You think everything can be reduced to simple numbers that the student submits on the application?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I'm not asking for perfection. Like I've always said, no school will ever have a 100% graduation rate.</p>
<p>On the other hand, if Harvard, Yale, and Princeton can boast of a 95+% 6-year graduation rate, why can't Chicago do the same? Hence, evidently HYP have managed to figure out how to admit a significantly smaller percentage of people who won't graduate. Why can't Chicago do the same? </p>
<p>
[quote]
I don't get it. What, pray tell, might be one of these magical indicators
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</p>
<p>Again, I don't think it's that hard. One indicator would be your high school. For example, if your high school has a known history of producing a disproportionate percentage of people who go to Chicago and then don't graduate, then clearly something is amiss: either that high school does not properly prepare people for the rigors of Chicago, or poorly prepared students just happen to go to that high school in the first place, or whatever. But the point is, Chicago doesn't have to care about why. All it has to know is that it should admit fewer people from that high school in the future.</p>
<p>Similarly, auto insurance companies have figured out that, for example, older women who live in suburban neighborhoods (as compared to young men in the cities) tend to be less costly to insure because they get into fewer and less costly accidents. Do they care why that is the case? No. They're not sociologists. They don't care why. All they have to know is that it is true, and hence, can afford to sell insurance to older suburban women at a lower premium. </p>
<p>I don't think this is a very complicated point to grasp. The truth is, companies have been using statistical behavioral data mining for decades to determine what products we are likely to buy. For example, Internet advertising companies track your surfing in order to determine statistically what ads are most likely to catch your attention. I am simply saying that university adcoms can take advantage of the same statistical tools that firms have been using for decades. </p>
<p>
[quote]
No, it means that a randomly chosen Chicago student is 2% less likely to graduate than a randomly chosen Cornell student. Nothing more, nothing less.
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</p>
<p>Uh, no, the question is regarding who is likely to not graduate, and clearly the randomly picked Chicago student is not as safe as the Cornell student.</p>
<p>I'll put it to you this way. Putting on your seatbelt only increases your chances of surviving a car trip by only a minute amount, because the vast majority of car trips do not result in accidents. So maybe my chances of surviving a particular car trip increases from 99.99% to 99.999% by wearing my belt. {After all, I've taken thousands of car trips in my life and have never once been in an accident.} Hence, one could argue that my chances of "survival" have increased by only 0.009%. But, flipped the other way, it also means that my chances of survival have increased by 10x. There's an entire order of magnitude * difference between a 0.01% chance of survival and a 0.001% chance, so much so that many states actually make seat belt use *mandatory. </p>
<p>
[quote]
What you fail to realize is that we're talking about probabilities here. So while a statistical regression analysis might reveal today's average UChicago admit to have a 90% chance of graduation, the admits in 2001 or 2002 might have had, say, an 85% chance of graduation. Is that really an egregious example of the university putting its needs ahead of its students'? There are plenty of universities with a graduation rate below 85%.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Uh, no, I realize that fact just fine. What you fail to realize is that we are not comparing Chicago to the average school. We are comparing Chicago to its peers (or, at least, its desired peers). If all you want to do is compare Chicago to the average school, then obviously Chicago is better.</p>
<p>However, I think we can agree that Chicago does not want to be compared to just average schools. It wants to be compared to the very best schools. And, at least when it comes to graduation rate, Chicago falls short. </p>
<p>Hence, it all comes down to who your comparison group is. Does Chicago want to be considered a true peer of schools like HYP? If so, then it needs to be competitive with those schools. If not, then fine, but then that means we have to concede that Chicago is not really comparable to schools of that caliber and should not be spoken of as such. We can then say that Chicago is better than the average school, but is not really comparable with the very best schools. But is that really all you want from Chicago?</p>
<p>
[quote]
NU is way more visible, if only because they have Northwestern Med right on the miracle mile and even I've learned how to spot a Northwestern logo (or maybe it's Northern Illinois?)
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, yeah, exactly, and that gets down to a matter of marketing. It is the duty of the administration to market a school properly, and if that means - as you put it - putting a med school on the Miracle Mile, then do that. Let's be honest. Whether we like it or not, the reason why Harvard is so prestigious is because the administration has consciously and effectively marketed the mystique of the school over the decades. Harvard's a nice school, but I don't think it's that great, but I think we can all agree that, whether we like it or not, the power of its brand name is immense (which is why I would agree, in reference to the OP's question, that Harvard is overrated). The real question is, why can't Chicago market itself like that? </p>
<p>Honestly, Chicago has so many advantages, at least, relative to Northwestern. Chicago is located downtown in one of the most dynamic and interesting cities in the world, and not just in some preppy suburb. Chicago has clearly won far more Nobels than Northwestern. Chicago has entire schools of thought named after it, ,i.e. the Chicago School of Economics, the Chicago School of Sociology. I don't think Northwestern has a single school of thought named after it. Heck, not even Harvard has an entire school of thought named after it, and Harvard is the undisputed king of university marketing. </p>
<p>So, given that Chicago has all of these strengths, why can't Chicago market itself better? Why is Chicago usually seen by common people as just a no-name city school? Or seen as not having the brand name of even Northwestern? </p>
<p>
[quote]
The administration would LOVE if students stopped copyrighting "Where Fun Comes to Die" and slapping it on the backs of t-shirts and sweatshirts and selling them to current students. A lot of students find it ironic and funny, as it is a motto that we made up, rather than a phrase that somebody else put on us. That's important to point out. When it's the students poking fun at themselves, it's hard to take it seriously.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I don't know if it's just a matter of poking fun and jokes. Seems to me that it's fairly serious, or at least is seen to be serious by many prospective students. Again, why would you want to go to a school that has a reputation for harshness and low student satisfaction, if you can go to a comparable school where the students are happier (or at least are perceived as happier)? </p>
<p>
[quote]
They're not a good fit, even at one I had "priority" admission status to. That's not a bad thing: there were a lot of schools that turned me off, too. I wasn't a good fit. Chicago may be "risky" and it may not be as "preferred," next to another school, but I guess in your mind, sakky, this leads to it being underrated?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, basically, yeah. Whether we like it or not, schools tend to be rated on how desirable they are to students. If many students don't really want to go to a particular school (as evidenced by Chicago's relatively low yield rate), then that tends to mean that that school may be underrated, particularly if the school has numerous latent strengths as Chicago does. </p>
<p>Let me offer you an analogy. Consider a guy who is smart, funny, attractive, and knows how to talk to women and treat them like queens and basically be every woman's dream boyfriend/husband...except for one problem: he's shy. He feels very uncomfortable introducing himself to women and breaking the ice. I would argue that this is a guy who is clearly underrated (by the women). He can't get a date not because he's not a great guy, but just because he can't get the initial conversation started. Compare that guy to somebody who treats women like garbage, who's not successful, who's not very smart or interesting... but is highly extroverted and very very good at using pick-up lines. A guy like that is surely going to get plenty of dates. I would argue that a guy like that is clearly overrated by the women, as they don't even give the first guy a chance. Sad but true. </p>
<p>
[quote]
I'm sure administrators are very aware of this status, particularly with the (controversial) move to the common application.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, there's a big difference between being 'aware' of such a status and actually wanting to do something about it. I suspect that some (maybe most) Chicago administrators actually like the ways things are and don't want things to change, for they believe that those students who don't want to go to Chicago shouldn't be there anyway. In other words, you blame the customer. It reminds me of how the UNIX computer companies used to dismiss Microsoft Windows as just being a "toy" operating system that "serious" computer users would not want to use, and then couldn't understand why Microsoft took over the market as those UNIX firms went bankrupt. </p>
<p>
[quote]
To me, Chicago is just "rated." Every university or college is just "rated." Yes, there are terrific schools that don't get the attention they deserve-- William and Mary, Pomona, Rice, Wesleyan, and on and on-- but the simple truth is that most people in the country aren't going to know them, aren't required to know them, and the students who find out about them have a wonderful time there.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, to borrow from George Orwell, every university may be 'rated', but some are more 'rated' than others. Harvard, like I said, has an illustrious brand name that even the common people have heard of. Like I said, I think the Harvard brand name is largely overrated, but we can't deny that its power; let's be honest, to the common person, the Harvard brand name is clearly far more powerful than the brand name of UChicago. I don't think that's a close call at all. So, again, the question then becomes, why can't UChicago develop a brand name like that?</p>
<p>
[quote]
So, again, the question then becomes, why can't UChicago develop a brand name like that?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I don't think the issue is really, "can it develop the brand name?", its "why won't it take the steps to do so?", and you seem to sum up pretty nicely in your response that administration/students generally discourage the branding of the university,myself included.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Honestly, Chicago has so many advantages, at least, relative to Northwestern. Chicago is located downtown in one of the most dynamic and interesting cities in the world, and not just in some preppy suburb.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>U Chicago isn't in downtown Chicago. </p>
<p>
[quote]
Chicago has clearly won far more Nobels than Northwestern. Chicago has entire schools of thought named after it, ,i.e. the Chicago School of Economics, the Chicago School of Sociology. I don't think Northwestern has a single school of thought named after it.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Naaah, just the Northwestern Mafia :-). </p>
<p>
[quote]
So, given that Chicago has all of these strengths, why can't Chicago market itself better? Why is Chicago usually seen by common people as just a no-name city school? Or seen as not having the brand name of even Northwestern?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>U Chicago could, if they wanted to. They don't care to. They don't consider investing in efforts to make themselves more known by the common Joe Schmoe in Chicago a worthwhile use of their funds, apparently. Which is their prerogative, of course. </p>
<p>Part of their self-conception is that they ARE a school that not every Joe Schmoe knows about. </p>
<p>There are two different types of elite marketing, you know. One is "mass elite" (everyone recognizes Harvard as a great college, Rolex as a great watch, Mercedes as a great car, etc.) and the other is "privileged elite" (only those really in the know know how great U Chicago is, that Audemars Piaget is an excellent watch, that a Delorean is an excellent car, etc.).</p>
<p>I would hate to see U Chicago try to turn itself into another Northwestern, personally. There's room for both brand images in the Chicago higher-education market -- two elite schools, one with a more "traditional" college experience and one with a more quirky, intellectual experience. Heavy-handed branding is inconsistent with the core equity of a quirky, intellectual experience, from a marketing standpoint (I'm a Kellogg alum too, LOL). </p>
<p>And why does U Chicago need to "brand itself better"? Its two core audiences -- high performing high school seniors / potential applicants interested in a certain experience, and the world of academia -- are pretty impressed with it. Why market to Joe Schmoe? What's the point?
Might as well ask why Deep Springs College doesn't have a multimillion dollar ad campaign on national TV.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Whether we like it or not, the reason why Harvard is so prestigious is because the administration has consciously and effectively marketed the mystique of the school over the decades. Harvard's a nice school, but I don't think it's that great, but I think we can all agree that, whether we like it or not, the power of its brand name is immense (which is why I would agree, in reference to the OP's question, that Harvard is overrated).
[/quote]
</p>
<p>What's the greatest painting in the world?</p>
<p>Most people would answer the Mona Lisa, right? It's certainly the most famous, most celebrated, iconic, most people (even those not educated about art) would recognize it, etc.</p>
<p>I read an article someplace (and I'm sorry I don't have a citation) that put forth the thesis that it isn't necessarily that the Mona Lisa is the world's greatest painting, but that SOMETHING needs to own the mental space of world's greatest painting, and it might as well be the Mona Lisa. So once that filled the mental space of "world's greatest," it became the icon. </p>
<p>I think Harvard is much the same. I would put it less at the foot of actual Harvard marketing, and more in the land that SOMETHING needs to own the mental space of America's greatest college, and it might as well be Harvard. Once it got entrenched there, it's awfully hard to move. But I'm not so sure that I can say Harvard's marketing is any better or worse than any other elite school.</p>
<p>One of the primary reasons Chicago appealed to me so much was because it didn't name-brand itself. If anything, "Where Fun Comes to Die" and the Uncommon App (now Chicago supplement) and the Core worked as wards against popularity.</p>
<p>Ever see that movie about the girl who was trapped between being popular in high school and being herself? Yeah? I think Chicago, while it's becoming a more appealing school, is still not playing the popular game, because if it did it wouldn't be itself. I defend Chicago a lot here (of course I'm quite emotionally attached to it), but nobody asks me to make the case that it's the best school for everybody. It isn't. So when posters try to argue against it by suggesting it has some shortcomings that prevent it from being the best school for everybody ever, it sounds to me like somebody observing that the sky is blue.</p>
<p>But I feel that for the people who come here, at least the ones I keep on bumping into, Chicago was the right choice for them. And what matters more: what people who don't go think of the school, or what the people who attend think of it?</p>
<p>If Chicago did play this popularity game to an extent that it changed the feeling of the school, I'd pack my bags. I hear there's a small school in Portland that graduates some of the brightest students in the country, and the students there don't give a flying whiff what you think of it.</p>
<p>
[quote]
the Harvard brand name is clearly far more powerful than the brand name of UChicago. I don't think that's a close call at all. So, again, the question then becomes, why can't UChicago develop a brand name like that?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Like pizzagirl said, that question should be rephrased: "Why is Harvard such a cultural phenomenon, a metonymy for every other elite school out there, and why isn't any other school, not just Chicago, able to stand on its own merits? "</p>
<p>Even the fact that you're using HARVARD in this example says something powerful about how much the HARVARD name is known and recognized and is the knee-jerk choice for a school to pick on.</p>
<p>you guys love to argue about nothing. Put it this way, I expect any educated person to have a rough knowledge of good/prestigious schools (ie they hear Columbia and realize its a top school or hear Duke and know its very good). Just because it really is part of our culture and it is an experience that many people undergo through both themselves and their kids...Yet, I would want any top employer (as they do) to have a definitive idea of top schools. I don't care if my plumber or cab driver knows my school, but I do care if my parents educated friends do for what it matters. I don't think there is a question that applying for a job on wall street from Dartmouth is looked more highly upon than applying from Michigan or Hopkins. Thats just what it is...certain schools hold a better reputation.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Uh, no, the question is regarding who is likely to not graduate, and clearly the randomly picked Chicago student is not as safe as the Cornell student.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I think you're misinterpreting basic statistics. The graduation rate does not give your likelihood of graduating, or any randomly picked student; graduating is not a random event. The correct interpretation (which may be a matter of words here) is that if you picked a random student from a given class at Chicago (in this case, for simplicity, the class we have data on), it's slightly more likely that you'd find a student who didn't graduate at Chicago than at a school like Cornell.</p>
<p>Thus, it's not as though you're necessarily "safer"; it's just a matter of probability of finding such a student. (If the data are this close, you can't really draw conclusions; but if it was, say, 30% vs. 90%, then you could probably give some good explanations as to why one has a lower graduation rate.)</p>
<p>gradatgrad: "This article strikes me as arrogant and I don't agree with you painting me into that corner. It sounds like the author feels guilty about not being able to converse with his plumber and tries to paint elite educational institutions as failing with regards to practicality, when in reality it is he who has failed to expose himself to certain aspects of society and the world around him.</p>
<p>Personally, I can talk to my plumbers. I have an uncle who is a plumber; he does quite well for himself. My father worked the better part of his career in a warehouse.</p>
<p>I wouldn't expect a warehouse man or plumber to know Dartmouth, though my father and uncle certainly do. I would expect someone who spent a decade in college to know it."</p>
<p>Perhaps you're right about the article, in retrospect it does come off as arrogant. I do, however, still disagree with you about the doctor not knowing about Dartmouth issue. I take it a little personally because I'm well on my way to becoming a doctor. I put so much time, effort, and energy into knowing every little detail about the human body in order to be a competent physician, it bugs me that someone would dismiss me as a physician because I might not know where a certain college is located, or know other trivial pieces of information that they think is important. You should cut people some slack, because you do come off as pompous.</p>
<p>Bescraze, I disagree with you. Michigan is held in the same esteem as Dartmouth on wall street...particularly Ross. I cannot think of a single Investment Bank or Consulting firm that does not recruit heavily on campus. All said, Wall street firms hire well over a hundred Michigan undergrads annually.</p>
<p>I agree with Alexande, Michigan is top notch all around. I can't think of a possible reason that Dartmouth can be seen as better, except that Dartmouth was old enough, and in the Northeast, and so it was part of the Ivy League. Michigan is a national and international powerhouse, and to say something like their grads are at any disadvantage is simply untrue. Same goes for Hopkins. What is it with Dartmouth on this thread, anyway? Are people really this enamored by the Ivy League, that no matter how spectacular another school is, it can never be as good?</p>
<p>Well, besides, the argument is always "...but if you go on Wall Street." Well, yeah, that may be true. But so what? Is Wall Street like, the only place where one can find gainful employment? Or make money?</p>
<p>What all the people who are drooling over employment on Wall Street seem not to realize is that Wall Street makes its money financing and investing in real companies that employ real people and provide real goods and services to real people in real cities and towns -- and my, those people are employers too! Like Microsoft in Seattle! Or P&G in Cincinnati! Or (insert company of choice here)! Who would be so unsophisticated as to think that employers are only found on Wall Street or in NYC?</p>
<p>
[quote]
Who would be so unsophisticated as to think that employers are only found on Wall Street or in NYC?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Bescraze. :)</p>
<p>
[quote]
I think you're misinterpreting basic statistics. The graduation rate does not give your likelihood of graduating, or any randomly picked student; graduating is not a random event. The correct interpretation (which may be a matter of words here) is that if you picked a random student from a given class at Chicago (in this case, for simplicity, the class we have data on), it's slightly more likely that you'd find a student who didn't graduate at Chicago than at a school like Cornell.</p>
<p>Thus, it's not as though you're necessarily "safer"; it's just a matter of probability of finding such a student. (If the data are this close, you can't really draw conclusions; but if it was, say, 30% vs. 90%, then you could probably give some good explanations as to why one has a lower graduation rate.)
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</p>
<p>Uh, no, I think you've or you've misunderstood basic English, or you've misunderstood the interpretation of basic statistics. What you have stated regarding random students is exactly what I said.</p>
<p>You then say that that has nothing to do with your particular chances of graduation. The problem is, how do you know what your particular chances of graduation are? The answer is, you obviously don't know, so the conservative thing for you to do is treat yourself as a random student. Similarly, I could tell you that, in general, smokers have a greatly increased chance of becoming sick. Now, that fact doesn't tell you what your specific chances are of becoming sick. You might well be one of the few lucky ones that can chain-smoke 3 packs a day and still enjoy perfect health. But how do you know that? You don't, so the safe thing for you to do is not smoke if you don't want to be sick. </p>
<p>Otherwise, we might as well throw out the use of any statistics at all. For example, the average person will be safer if they wear seat belts, but anybody can say that they're not "the average person", so why bother wearing them? The average person will benefit if he exercises more and eats better, but everybody can say that they're not the average person, so why not just gorge on cake and potato chips all day long and never work out?</p>
<p>
[quote]
U Chicago isn't in downtown Chicago.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Fine, Southside. It's still in a far more dynamic urban environment than Northwestern ever will be. </p>
<p>
[quote]
U Chicago could, if they wanted to. They don't care to. They don't consider investing in efforts to make themselves more known by the common Joe Schmoe in Chicago a worthwhile use of their funds, apparently. Which is their prerogative, of course.
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</p>
<p>Exactly - they could, they just don't want to. But if they do that, they will simply have to put up with the fact that they will never have common man's prestige. You can't have it both ways. </p>
<p>
[quote]
Part of their self-conception is that they ARE a school that not every Joe Schmoe knows about.
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</p>
<p>I happen to think that's just trying to make a virtue out of necessity. They don't have mass-market prestige, and so they try to position themselves as not ever wanting it in the first place. It's sour grapes. </p>
<p>
[quote]
There are two different types of elite marketing, you know. One is "mass elite" (everyone recognizes Harvard as a great college, Rolex as a great watch, Mercedes as a great car, etc.) and the other is "privileged elite" (only those really in the know know how great U Chicago is, that Audemars Piaget is an excellent watch, that a Delorean is an excellent car, etc.).
[/quote]
</p>
<p>The major difference with that, of course, is that, even among those "in the know", Harvard is still generally seen to be better than Chicago, with perhaps only one exception (Economics). Let's face it: Harvard clearly beats Chicago when it comes to cross-admit yield (because Harvard beats everybody when it comes to cross-admit yield), and I suspect that even if we were to somehow examine only those students "in the know", Harvard would still clearly beat Chicago. After all, the Harvard student body has a higher SAT score, higher percentage of students in the top 10% of their high school class, which indicates that Harvard garners a significantly more academically qualified student body than does Chicago, and these are precisely the people who you would expect to be 'in the know'. </p>
<p>
[quote]
Heavy-handed branding is inconsistent with the core equity of a quirky, intellectual experience, from a marketing standpoint (I'm a Kellogg alum too, LOL).
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</p>
<p>Why is it necessarily inconsistent? You still have control over admissions. You can admit or deny whoever you want, so if you want to continue to admit that quirky class, you can still do so. But what better branding will do is draw a better applicant pool in the first place, which will therefore give you a better chance of admitting the particular student body that you actually want. </p>
<p>Besides, we're not really talking so much about 'quirkiness'. We are simply talking about people who don't even graduate. Uvalove himself admitted that Chicago recently admitted a bunch of students who really weren't that good, but were brought in just for financial reasons. Who is Chicago really helping when it admits students who aren't even going to graduate? I wouldn't call that 'quirky', that is, of unless you are going to say that 'quirky' implies a higher chance of not even graduating. </p>
<p>Look, you can still have the quirky class, but one that is still highly likely to graduate. If your graduation rate is significantly lower than that of peer schools, then that should give prospective students pause, and rightfully so, for I would suspect that most students - yes, even the quirky ones - still want to graduate. </p>
<p>
[quote]
And why does U Chicago need to "brand itself better"? Its two core audiences -- high performing high school seniors / potential applicants interested in a certain experience, and the world of academia -- are pretty impressed with it. Why market to Joe Schmoe? What's the point?
Might as well ask why Deep Springs College doesn't have a multimillion dollar ad campaign on national TV.
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</p>
<p>The point is exactly as I described above: you would draw a larger and more qualified pool of applicants. From that applicant pool, you can then architect whatever kind of student body you want. But to do that well, you have to have a high quality pool.</p>
<p>Right now, Chicago is not really getting the 'quirky' applicant pool. Not exactly. Instead, it is getting an applicant pool that isn't as qualified as its peer schools and who don't really want to go there. That's why Chicago's admissions percentage is almost 40% yet its yield is less than half. That means that of its applicant pool, quite a lot of them get in (hence, are an entire 40% of the applicant pool really "quirky"), but of those acceptees, most of them choose to go elsewhere. How is that consistent with a 'quirky' strategy? I think that is far more consistent with a story of a school that just isn't seen as being as desirable as its peers.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I think Harvard is much the same. I would put it less at the foot of actual Harvard marketing, and more in the land that SOMETHING needs to own the mental space of America's greatest college, and it might as well be Harvard. Once it got entrenched there, it's awfully hard to move. But I'm not so sure that I can say Harvard's marketing is any better or worse than any other elite school.
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</p>
<p>Oh, I'm quite sure that it is, because you then have to ask how did Harvard become that one school that occupies everybody's minds? After all, this is not like paintings by dead artists who obviously can't market their works because they're dead. Harvard and every other school would love to be able to become entrenched as 'the one'. But at the end of the day, Harvard won the prize. Why Harvard? Why not Yale or Princeton or MIT or Stanford? Heck, why not Oxford or Cambridge, when in fact, it used to be Oxbridge just a century ago? They were all fighting for the prize, yet Harvard came up with it, and I don't find that to be a coincidence. </p>
<p>I'll give you another example. Let's talk about Stanford. Stanford is one of the youngest schools in the world (founded in 1891), and was generally considered to be a regional backwater school of little repute up until WW2, yet just a few decades later, is regarded as an elite school. Again, I would argue that that's not luck, but a matter of savvy marketing. I think we can agree that Stanford has a better brand name than Chicago does. Stanford is probably the only school outside of the Northeast that has managed to cultivate something close to mass-market brand-name prestige (note, I still don't think they're very well known by the public, but other than HYP, they're the closest). </p>
<p>So maybe it's too much to ask for Chicago to be able to match the brand name of Harvard. Fine. But I think I can reasonably ask why Chicago can't match the brand name of Stanford.</p>