<p>For some, though, elite in the professional fields does not matter as much anyway. Graduate from any med school, and you'll still be a doctor. This kind of logic was popular among many of my friends, who chose in-state law schools to save money and still become lawyers.</p>
<p>Newmassdad: Of course, the WSJ article was only half-serious, and it does not stand up to (nor was it meant for) serious analysis.</p>
<p>However, I think it is fair to say that Chicago's results were somewhat disappointing. Only nine universities granting undergraduate degrees were represented among the 15 professional schools used as the index, and only four of those (including Chicago) had more than one of its professional schools used. With that kind of advantage, anything below a top-10 finish raises my eyebrows a bit.</p>
<p>"So for medicine, our schools were Columbia; Harvard; Johns Hopkins; the University of California, San Francisco; and Yale, while our MBA programs were Chicago; Dartmouth's Tuck School; Harvard; MIT's Sloan School; and Penn's Wharton School. In law, we looked at Chicago; Columbia; Harvard; Michigan; and Yale."</p>
<p>The full underlying data set was floating around for a while (likely on *********). Perhaps you could find it. Anyhow, Chicago’s numbers were heavily biased upwards by the GSB and the LS draw of students (in the same way that Harvard College and Yale's are by their institutions). Not that I am saying the GSB and LS are bad, but you cannot bet the bank on them.</p>
<p>However, if a student stops by the pre-law office they should still be able to pick up the UChicago admissions numbers by individual law schools which are compiled internally. Even though leading programs lower the GPA standard for Chicago students (for most of the top 14 schools the mean admitted GPA is towards the 25th percentile mark for the student body as a whole), the numbers that get through are nothing special. Indeed, there was a comment on CC a few years back noting how the HLS uptake numbers by school from its brochure would imply Chicago is a peer of Bowdoin or Tufts (which I would argue it is not more broadly). Note: Harvard stopped reporting these after WSJ. </p>
<p>As for going to lesser ranked graduate programs, it is something that a student has to decide for themselves. You can get a pretty clear picture of what your options are going to be like coming out of say a U of I doctoral program, which are enticing to some and dreadful to others. Chicago by the sheer numbers it sends to graduate school though necessarily implies many students favor the former sufficiently to take the plunge. </p>
<p>PS: I don’t think anyone would question the school’s MBA placement, which is quite enviable.</p>