<p>Pr review rankings. Out of curiosity, how can UChicago go from highest academic rating of 99 to 86 in one year? Is Pr on crack? Do you think Chicago can compete academically with selective LA colleges or not?</p>
<p>Are u kidding me? UCLA is a piece of **** compared to Chicago. No offense to UCLA... Berkeley is probably comparable.</p>
<p>I believe they meant "liberal arts", not "Los Angeles"</p>
<p>How? because PR rankings are meant to draw attention and stir up controversy - all the better to draw traffic to the website which will lead, hopefully, to business.</p>
<p>Because they're completely arbitrary and without merit, that's how.</p>
<p>That is a crime. I've heard PR numbers change like stocks in market. What is Northwestern's number?</p>
<p>Nothwestern's number is 77.</p>
<p>Pr rankings are meaningless.. they go up and down annually. </p>
<p>If you prefer hyper-individualized, hand-holding attention, go to a small liberal arts institution.</p>
<p>If you require the resources of a world-class University.. how can you even ask such a question about a catch like the University of Chicago?</p>
<p>Well, I happen to know that some institutions with the "hyper-individualized, hand-holding attention" require slightly more work than UChicago (Swarthmore), and send more of their students to grad schools. I think there is something to be said to be required to do independent research in every class, and to have profs with enough time to grade papers carefully and to grade on communication skills (i.e. class participation and presentation). Because all those communication skills that are harder to improve at a big university are real-world skills.</p>
<p>Hey, I didn't mean to be rude or arrogant. It is true that on average, a higher percentage of the smaller, elite liberal art schools went on to get ph. D's in the past 30 years. But the original question was whether Chicago can compete academically with those same smaller liberal arts colleges. Here my frustration betrays itself. Of Course It Can. The University of Chicago, whose undergraduate college has historically had nearly one-fourth of its Bachelor's degree recipients continue on to receive doctorates over the past 30 yearsputting it first among all universities in that respect.</p>
<p>I would not be surprised if Swarthmore, a school that I have heard nothing but wonderful things about, has a program comparable to Chicago's. But hell, you can ask anyone in academia. It is highly unlikely that any undergraduate program entails a <em>more</em> rigorous and educationally meaningful workload than that of the University of Chicago. </p>
<p>To imply that Chicago's professors do not spend enough time carefully grading papers, or that Chicago's classes do not count in discussion participation, compared to any school at all, is outrageous. If you want to do research at Chicago, there are some of the best grad schools in the world right on the campus. No one's stopping anyone from doing research at a RESEARCH university.</p>
<p>To compare a small liberal arts college with 1400 students to a research university of over 4000 undergrad and twice as many grad students is unreasonable to begin with. But I must come to chicago's defense as far as grad school placement goes. I don't know where your information comes from, but Chicago's known as the 'teacher of teachers.' I assume that by swarthmore sending "more" of its students to grad school, you mean a higher percentage. But that doesn't seem to be the case either:</p>
<p>"For a 30-year period beginning in 1951, the following institutions had more than one-eighth of their graduates go on to receive the Ph.D.:"</p>
<ol>
<li> Harvey Mudd College</li>
<li> California Institute of Technology</li>
<li> Reed College</li>
<li> University of Chicago</li>
<li> Massachusetts Institute of Technology</li>
<li> Swarthmore College
Source: Change magazine, Nov./Dec., 1986"</li>
</ol>
<p>Umm... that link is for law school faculty and students, yes? I think UChicago's grad school is more highly ranked than their undergrad. I'm interested in Biology, btw. UChicago may not have the best undergrad program in ecology and organismal bio -I'm not sure.</p>
<p>sorry. here is the real educational quality ranking for undergraduates by the same guy, Brian Leiter. it was just hard to find. </p>
<p>in any case, the majors that you are looking for - ecology and organismal biology - are very specific and were not brought up in the original question. i am saying that in general, uchicago has no problems holding its own against any smaller liberal arts school. </p>
<p>"One of the U of C's particular charms is that the sky's the limit for undergraduate education because undergrads can enroll in nearly any graduate class, and with a little administrative paper-pushing can find themselves in classes from the Law School or Business School as well. Sure, Gary Becker doesn't teach undergraduate economics, but one of our contributors took his price theory class as an undergraduate anyway (and did darn well). Others of our conspirators have worked for a number of Professors on the 6th floor of the Law School (where the Law and Econ folk hang out). The quality of the teaching wouldn't be what it is if the grad environment weren't drawing a lot of them there. Heck, the quality of the grad school means that we attract much better grad students, which means that the T.A.'s and Grad Student instructors are that much more special.</p>
<p>The undergrads at Chicago aren't the ghost in the machine they were twenty years ago, but I'll admit they still don't run the show. And that's the point. You can be guaranteed a number of people at Chicago who study your subject and know a heck of a lot more about it than you do, and by your third or fourth year, they're often willing to rub elbows or trade arguments with you on a semi-regular basis. The undergrad education at Chicago isn't designed to coddle or cuddle, but rather to awe.</p>
<p>Now, I won't bother trying to convert this into an argument that Chicago should be at the top of all lists. Some of us simply know that the U of C is the best college in the states, and who wants to compete for a higher ranking so as "to increase the number of gullible, status-conscious drones present in next year's incoming class"? All the same, I think it's a mistake to put the U of C's style of little-fish-big-pond education below that of Swarthmore's, Amherst's, or Williams's. The graduate nature of the institution bestows innumerable benefits on the students who want them, as they can find many ways to be treated like graduate students. "</p>
<p>disclaimer: of course, i don't think a couple places on rankings matter.
<a href="http://magazine.uchicago.edu/0110/features/abuse.html%5B/url%5D">http://magazine.uchicago.edu/0110/features/abuse.html</a></p>
<p>i bet i'd have been happy at swarthmore also. but i love my school. i love my school. i love my school.</p>
<p>Yeah -I know UChicago is a good school. I just happen to be very liberal and politically active, so I can't help wondering if I would have made friends and been awed more by people at Swat. And I thought Swat's seminar program was really cool. However, I'm going to give UChicago my best shot. If things don't work out, maybe I could transfer again. (Although since it's harder to get into Swat than UChicago, that's not at all certain...) Thanks for the info, btw</p>
<p>Also, could you tell me about the SS and English core? Quality as compared with higher-level UChicago courses? Challenge? As far as my SS interests go, I'm definitely interested in more general, broad-base studies and learning HOW to think about issues such as democracy in practice and how to write 10-20 pg papers, rather than specializing as an undergrad. The one concrete thing I liked about Swat curriculum (besides high student-teacher interaction) was that it emphasized broad-based learning, so I'd like to be able to replicate that at UChicago.</p>
<p>So what are the schools that have high numbers (>95) in PR? I already think PR ranking is ridiculous. Just want to know how ridiculous it is. </p>
<p>newmassdad,
Like you said, it does draw my curiosity. :) After all, my alma mater scores only 77. I thought it was like 90 something not that long ago; maybe some virus wiped out many professors.</p>
<p>Aren't the ratings based, for the most part, on returned student surveys? I doubt these are scientific samples so there is going to be a great deal of potential variability.</p>
<p>Totally -I do know, however, that certain schools (like Swarthmore) seem to have been on the top 10 list several years in a row (I think). So I wonder what that means?</p>
<p>College ranking reminds me of college football ranking. :) Lately, human poll has seemed more accurate than the BCS poll which includes human poll and many other factors such as strength of schedule (which however has plenty of subjective element). What kind of championship game BCS has given us in the past couple years? A lopsided one with an overrated team. Had we gone by human poll only, we'd likely have had more competitive championship games in the past couple years. Chicago would be ranked higher if we just go by peer assessment score. Simpler and probably better!</p>