@marlowe1 - I beg to differ - come time for a capital campaign, it’s of great help to have the sons and daughter of the powerful ready to support the cause. The huntsmans and perelmans have given, combined, more than a billion dollars to penn.
Having some super rich and powerful can then Pave the way for others from less means. Top schools (like Yale) have been doing this for generations, with little to no harm in the intellectual firmament of the place.
Chicago didn’t, and it has suffered because of it.
(Some cases in point - Ed Levi, a Chicago grad and former attorney general, had a son who went to… Harvard college, and then Stanford law school… James Comey a Chicago law grad we all know enjoyed his time in Hyde park, but sent none of his many children to Chicago undergrad… The Obama children spent the bulk of their lives in Hyde park, but it’s doubtful any will attend the college. Beloved Ted o’neill’s daughter grew up on campus, and then went to… Yale (undergrad, followed by northwestern law school. There are so many others with Chicago ties who spurned the college - the rockefellers - almost none had any degrees from the school Rockefeller built - Arne Duncan went to the lab school, rahm emmanuels kids go to the lab school, but let’s see if any go to the college… I could go on and on…)
Let them come, by all means, but don’t court them or lower standards for them. If I felt that was being done the University would never see another nickel from me. It would no longer be the University of Chicago.
@Cue7 - Not really sure that having the offspring of multi-generational “power families” grace your hallowed halls is something all that brag-worthy. Generations of great thinkers - now that would be different.
Also, FYI - Joe Biden attended Univ. of Delaware and Syracuse (law). Perhaps you are thinking of Archmere Academy? The Bidens are well known there.
I’m not saying lower standards @marlowe1 - I’m saying find 100-150 or so a year - from around the world - who come from power but also make the Chicago standards.
Surely our eager beaver marketers (ahem, admissions counselors) could find such a small number, year after year?
@Cue7 reminds me of the ancient Israelites who clamored to be like other nations, not understanding or appreciating their own unique and special status. Not saying that UChicago is the promised land or anything but still . . .
I’m not clamoring to copy anything else, @JBStillFlying - my goal is Chicago education with Harvard brand - and that combination is like nothing else out there, I assure you that.
Also joe Biden did not go to Penn, but I believe two of his sons and one of his granddaughters are grads of its college. So he had a multigenerational connection to the school - and just opened a political think tank - the penn Biden center, with the university. He hasn’t hurt their ability to bring in donation dollars - not at all.
(Same thing, say, with the kennedys at Harvard - the patriarch didn’t attend, but loads of his offspring did.)
Why would UChicago want or need a Harvard brand? As @marlowe1 would say: fie on you! And a pox on thy house while we are at it.
BTW, Pres. of Princeton’s kid is at UChicago isn’t he? That’s what I heard (as long as we are dredging up names . . . ). Also Scalia had a kid or two graduate at least from the law school. None of these are as cool as the Kennedy’s or Biden’s but they definitely are influential in their fields.
Reminds me of the old saying when we arrived in HP many years ago: A Harvard, a Yale and a UChicago grad all walked into a room filled with beautiful furniture, exquisite artwork and important people. The Harvard grad felt right at home and immediately commanded everyone’s attention. The Yale grad produced an interesting lecture on the famous artists and furniture designers whose works adorned the room. The UChicago grad re-arranged all the furniture and artwork so as to make the flow and conversation work much better.
No one remembers Charles Percy, but he was prominent in his day - a rich guy who entered politics, became a U.S. senator and with some luck could have become President. Still, he was a pretty big deal when his daughter married Jay Rockefeller at Rockefeller Chapel. The reception was at Ida Noyes. I watched the beautiful people come and go from a point of vantage on the Midway. Percy got his start as a poor kid attending the University and living in BJ, where he financed his education and more than that by setting up a laundry service. He kept a soft spot for his old school and served on its Board of Directors. That’s the sort - or at least one sort - of kid the University needs, someone without family wealth or prominence but with the native smarts to benefit from a unique education. No dynasties permitted, no feeble-minded offspring encouraged! That’s pretentious Eastern decadence talking.
The Pritzkers are a pretty prominent family, in Chicago and around the world. The two generational leaders who most built up the family fortunes were Abram Prtizker and his son Jay Pritzker, both of whom graduated from the College. I’m sure there have been other family members, too, and Jay had two siblings, one of whom got a degree at the Law School and the other of whom taught at the Business School.
A past president of the Board of Trustees is Jim Crown, CEO of the Henry Crown & Co., a privately held investment firm in Chicago. Jim is Henry’s grandson. One or another Crown name is on numerous buildings on numerous campuses across the country, including prominently the older of Chicago’s two athletic buildings, and also one of the houses in South Campus. Jim and his father, Lester, were also among the very first financial backers of Barack Obama, and Jim was national finance chair of Obama’s 2008 Presidential campaign.
As far as I know, few (maybe even none) of the Crowns actually attended the University of Chicago. Henry left school in 8th grade, Lester went to Northwestern and Harvard Business School, and Jim went to Hampshire and Stanford Law School. (There are lots of others, and a whole next generation; I don’t know where most of them went to college.) But that doesn’t seem to have stopped them from supporting the university.
I bet there are other Chicago families like these with many ties to the University.
@JHS - of course a lot of powerful families have supported Chicago - this is true of any top school. My question, though, was what power families have multi generational ties to Chicago’s college.
I think you’ll agree, a family tradition of attendance at a particular school can be helpful institutionally. Usually top schools have a handful, and the tippy top have scores.
What are Chicago’s? No pritzker attended the college, and same for the crowns. Same for the rockefellers, or other power families with strong ties to the school - obamas, etc.
I’m sure you could name ten such families with Yale college ties right off the top of your head. I could maybe even do the same for northwestern. What about at Chicago?
The college for many decades was a shadow of it’s original - and current - self. Most alums of today are from the grad programs - those sending their kids to the college are doing so because they understand the unique benefits of a UChicago education. While the college now has the needed - and welcome! - support structure for its undergraduates, it’s obviously not a coddling safe-space designed to nurture the unthinking. Scions of wealth and privilege will have the same curriculum - and be held the the same standards - as everyone else. That’s the Chicago way. They really have to be a good fit.
I agree @JBStillFlying - but are you saying that throughout Chicago’s history, not even a few families of the powerful bought into the Chicago college way, for multiple generations? Because I can’t find ANY, really.
And I’m surprised because, my thought is at least 100 or so kids of the powerful would be attracted to Chicago’s approach per YEAR, and I don’t really know of any over decades.
I didn’t think I would ever say this, but on the “multi-generational College Attendance thing” I completely agree with @Cue7.
I think Chicago has finally realized this and has started giving legacies a strong preference. I know this will annoy a lot of folks, but I think having multiple generations of a family attend the same college, helps the college tremendously while building some great bonds within the family. If it were up to me I would “affirmatively recruit legacy kids” to Chicago and even have a target number for them.
The one prominent family with UChicago connections I do remember mentioned from a while ago was “Walgreens”. I think they had some family members attend, but that may have been long time ago.
I know Bill Gates’ son visited campus at UChicago and Vandy. Not sure where he landed.
It will take a generation or two of consistent effort on the University’s part to fix this. Penn used to have this same problem. Most of the influential families in Philadelphia and its suburbs wanted to send their kids to HYP, but I think over the last 50-60 years, they have slowly fixed this.
The issue is will UChicago succumb to public shaming for giving legacy kids affirmative preference in admissions. The winds of change are definitely blowing against this trend, so Chicago may be too late to the game here. If the administration is smart, they will just obfuscate this issue and keep saying “It could be considered”, but never admit to giving legacies any strong preference. That way, they can have their cake and eat it too
@pupflier - it’s not just legacies, it’s specifically the rich and powerful. Chicago would be helped by building and cultivating these dynasties.
It’d be great if Bill gates son attends. But don’t hold your breath.
Also, are you surprised you agree with me here? The admin puts up smoke and mirrors, but I think I pretty clearly articulate what they want to do. I just have a protracted timeline and push for ideas that are far less risk averse and defeatist than two rounds of early decision.
Public shaming against legacy? Oh come on. God forbid they take some admissions policies that aren’t outright antagonistic to applicants and don’t serve only in the school’s own self-interest. What horror.
Criticism of legacy admissions policies are well deserved. MIT should be the model here, not the elitist bastions of the American aristocracy we call the Ivy League.
Unfortunately for anyone with any hope in some actual attempts at egalitarianism and fortunately for obsessive UChicago boosters that cheer the fall of any school outside Hyde Park - Zimmer and Nondorf have already emphatically decided who they want to emulate.
Why should MIT be the model for Chicago, @HydeSnark ? MIT is still a niche school - it doesn’t pretend to be a liberal arts university with specialties in areas like English and art history.
If Chicago wanted to be like MIT, it should cut all its programs except STEM (And some soc sci). Oh and guess what? It’s easy to be more egalitarian when virtually all of your majors and specialties are bankable for your graduates.
Also - for the record - I don’t think zimmer and nondotf are evil people who are scheming to create the most inequitable version of the university of Chicago as possible. Rather, they are following the green - and guess which university is the best at getting the green?
(I just dispute the admins methods and timelines - I suspect their goal is the same as my own.)
@HydeSnark If Chicago ever made an open statement like “Yes, we give strong preference to legacies, and encourage them to apply”, the leftist socialist press will basically lynch Zimmer and Nondorf.
Bullpucky. Giving preference to legacies is how HYP built up their massive endowments and became the golden elite of higher education. Sooner or later one of these generational attendees is going to hit it big and when that happens the school is going to reap the benefits. Legacy admissions is criticized by mainly socialist leaning activists and quasi educational hacks like William Deresiewicz who want to “stick it to the man” in some form or the other. They want preferences, just not legacy preference. That’s all.
And thank God for that. I would never want to attend the UChicago College of the 80’s or even the 90’s.
Let’s be realistic here. The reason that the scions of the powerful families in the Midwest didn’t send their kids to the College wasn’t because of admissions. It was because the College had a well-deserved reputation for being a less enjoyable place to be than its peer schools, and they had other options. I’m not talking about the academic rigor - many children of the wealthy and powerful welcome that. I’m talking about quality of life. I’m talking about lack of support services, lack of career services, lack of social life. 18 year olds who arrived at the College a few decades ago were expected to contend for themselves like 27 year old PhD candidates.
As the College has become a far happier and more supportive place, it will draw those families naturally. You don’t have to bend admissions for them. Frankly, bending admissions won’t help much because kids like that always have other options, good options. To get them to come here they have to WANT to come here. Now they finally have good reasons to want to come here.
@Cue7 As I said in my earlier post, the two most important Pritzkers, Abram and Jay, were both alumni of the College, and Abram’s other children both had close ties to the university. I don’t have a lot of information about the next generation – mine, roughly – or the one after that; I would be really surprised if there weren’t a College alum or two somewhere in that mix. The Pritzkers certainly count.
In my professional life I have gotten to know several generations of some very rich families. The young scions in such families are seldom much inclined to studiousness. They have generally not seen the need to work up a sweat about that sort of thing or else are not really capable of it. They are not the sort who seek a challenging academic environment even if they have, as they seldom do, any real curiosity about the underlying subjects of study. Therefore it doesn’t surprise me that Chicago has never been a magnet tor such kids and probably never will be - unless it sells its soul. In any event, I largely agree with @ThankYouforHelp that some of the rare members of this tribe who actually have brains and a desire to learn might in future come to Chicago given its rise in popularity and less anhedonic reputation.