We are a tad hooked into the academic side of these three schools, and - in terms of time series and history - the undergrads are NOT lower quality than they were once upon a time. What they may be is less inquisitive and more transactional (I do this major to get this job . . .). This will depend on major field, of course, and the perspective that Elite has is specifically tech-related. But on all the objective metrics, the direction has been up, not down.
My hubby is a Duke and Chicago alum and knows for a fact that despite his smarts, he wouldn’t be able to get into either school now on his metrics of 30 years ago, even adjusting for grade inflation at the high school or the more “aptitude-oriented” SAT of those days.
@EliteCulture331 - New York’s draw has been strong and consistent for a while now - why would penn’s accepted student pool be declining now? New York is just as popular as ever now, so why would the pool be in decline right now? This doesn’t make sense. Why wouldn’t Penn’s popularity just be fairly consistent - rather than in decline now, and then on an upswing?
and @foosondaughter 's point about Div. 1 athletics being the reason UChicago now has higher scores would be much more valid if the Ivy’s just switched to Div. 1 athletics, but that is obviously not the case.
@BrianBoiler UChicago doesn’t have the “public’s attention”. 3 years ago? Sure to some extent. The Dean’s Letter on Safe Spaces caught people’s attention, but Princeton is the #1 school in the nation according to the holy book of rankings. It gets plenty of attention year after year.
I think in order to have a rational discussion about higher education, you first have to accept that far greater forces that intellectualism and culture shape the prominence of certain institutions. Stanford wouldn’t be Stanford without Silicon Valley. Same can be said for Berkeley. This is an especially pertinent point for non-Ivies who are trying to compete with the big boys.
@BrianBoiler Ivies are D1 which is definitely a draw for student athletes. Attending Princeton to play football gives a student athlete many more options than playing football at MIT. For example, the incoming starting QB for Princeton was given offers by Arizona State and a few other Top 20 D1 football programs but chose Princeton. With that said he still intends to play in the NFL.
Far be it from us to attempt to change your opinion. Your student should definitely go right ahead and apply to whatever school the other people at the cocktail party recommend or the strength of the college football team. Sounds like a good fit.
@Cue7 Perhaps a decline in reputation? Traditionally the decision has been Columbia versus Penn, but since probably 2013 or so, Columbia has become the more appealing school because of location and “prestige”. Remember Penn used to be ranked #4 when Columbia and UChicago were 8th and 9th respectively back in the mid to early 2000s.
Personally, I don’t group Penn in with UChicago and Columbia. It’s closer to Duke in my estimation. I see Columbia and UChicago and Caltech (C^3) as right below HYPSM at the moment.
Oh, it’s becoming more clear where the lack of understanding comes from. A person who believes tradition begins at 2000 simply doesn’t have enough history to understand when the rankings began in the 80s, UChicago and Duke were ranked 5th and 6th with Columbia and UPenn at 18th and 19th respectively.
If you stop by to visit UChicago, please be sure to wear your Canada Goose jacket. There is a special reception for people in the know who wear their haute couture.
@EliteCulture331 I certainly understand the draw of D1 athletics. My son was recruited by D1 and D3 schools before choosing UChicago. That was not my point. My point was the fact that a school is D1 has no impact on the argument that was given. That argument was that UChicago’s rise in SAT scores over HYSPM is not a valid argument because M tends to be math high and HYSP have D1 athletics. My counter to that is, if that was the case, HYSP have always been D1 before UChicago passed them on test scores (my last check showed only Cal Tech with higher SAT scores) and after. Therefore the fact that they are D1 does not change the fact that over the past 15 years UChicagos average test scores passed them by.
BTW, why would you choose to call yourself EliteCulture? I read all of your posts in an elitist East Coast accent like your real name is Buffy or Biff.
I really need to stop reading these [honestly labeled - I was certainly warned!!] threads. I sometimes slip and do it because this board is so slow this year for some reason, and because in these threads, there pops up the occasional interesting sliding-off-topic discussion of something more substantial than a fine-grained analysis of “reputation” and rankings and arguments about whether the school is selective or not and whether its apparent selectivity is a mirage due to this or that tactic or change (none I care a bit about, as opposed to the actual quality of the education there). But it just makes me so sad. (Marlowe, where are you?)
From a parent who had never heard of U of C in the late 70s, but applied regardless because it even then had high SAT scores, which I thought meant something at least; who chose the school currently ranked #1 for college and came later to wonder if I would have been happier at a more intellectual place like U of C; who attended U of C for professional school, despite having been offered admission to the then higher ranked #1-#3 professional schools and was indeed happier than in college, whose friends mostly graduated (or didn't, but with no big cost to their careers or strong feelings of affection for the place) from U of C college; who enthusiastically recommended U of C college to a DD who could have chosen the #1 or the other #3 ranked school in the country instead (or gone free to many top 20 univerisites and LACs); whose DD is - so fortunately - deliriously happy there, intellectually, socially, extracurricularly, artistically; and who loves the City of Chicago, over New York, over California, over most anywhere; but who understands that U of C and Chicago are not everyone's cup of tea - what of it?
You are hitting it out of the park, Lea, without help from me.
We are experiencing here the overpowering odor of coastal snobbery, proudly flaunted. UCDS takes many forms. Incomprehension of how a worthy, intense, dorky school like Chicago could suddenly have got so popular is one of them. It breeds resentment. Everyone knows that there are all these other schools on the seaboards that are by right more desirable than this place of no-fun in a cold and gritty midwestern city. Could it be that being in the center of the country and drawing a crowd of earnest strivers could be a feature, not a bug (as they like to say in the Valley)? Impossible!
Harvard test scores are dragged down by the development admits. Something close to 10% of the class are special admits (“Dean and Directors List”), and there are a lot of dullards in there.
Definitely. My Harvard friends tell me they have a special code they use to talk about the development admits behind their backs without cluing them in that they’re being insulted. They (sarcastically) respectfully call the dullards the Cultural Elite.
Excuse me, but as a bona fide, dyed-in-the-wool East Coast elitist snob, I am happy to report that true East Coast elitist snobs have a great deal of regard for the University of Chicago, stopping short only of accepting the proposition that it is superior in every respect to universities on the Amtrak Corridor or in the Bay Area. We elitist snobs think it’s a peer of those universities, with areas of special strength and relative weakness, like all of the others. We elitist snobs don’t particularly care about “the public’s attention,” either.
– The idea that anyone will go to Penn because of its proximity to New York’s tech industry. New York area kids will keep going to Penn, as they always have, because it’s pretty close to home while being far enough away.
– The even sillier idea that anyone is going to Cornell because it’s in the NYC tech zone. Has that person ever seen Cornell? Cornell is a really important institution in New York, but it has suffered greatly from the resurgent popularity of large cities in the current generation.
– The proposition that Amazon’s PR move will fundamentally change Washington and New York.
– The proposition that “Berkeley wouldn’t be Berkeley” without Silicon Valley. Stanford wouldn’t be Stanford without Silicon Valley, but Berkeley was Berkeley a century before buying a house in Cupertino became problematic.
– While it’s true that Chicago isn’t New York or London, it’s also true that no one mistakes Chicago for Philadelphia, either, not to mention Durham, Providence, New Haven, or Ithaca. Chicago is a major draw.
@JHS my apologies if your name is really Biff or to your close female relative who may be named Buffy. I think, living in Doylestown, PA I may also be considered an East Coast elitist snob, although I grew up in the Indiana heartland.
I’m still shaking my head how one company announcing that it is moving its second HQ to NYC and DC can establish NYC and DC as a second silicon valley (which I think would go to Seattle, then maybe Durham)? I really can’t think of one NYC college that would be considered a top CS or Engineering institution. Washington’s best is probably UMD. Philly’s best is probably Drexel.
The weather at Stanford and the sports at the ivies are attracting the high caliber students? And the proximity to Silicon Valley and NYC wall st is driving the decisions to go to schools by geography? Those are very generalized conclusions based a couple of anecdotes.
We are becoming, if not already, a global society, and geography is not going to hinder students from choosing Chicago over its peers.
Some of the other ideas expressed by @EliteCulture331 are like 3 decades old, but things have changed and UChicago has arrived.
Well, my Dad went to Harvard and my Mom to Wellesley and so I guess we would qualify as the “coastal elite” mentioned here. Neither of my parents are really keen on me attending their alma mater even though I have legacy status at both schools, which means I will most probably be an unhooked applicant in the early rounds to my yet undecided top choice, which is a little scary. I mean, they won’t prevent me from applying or anything, but they genuinely don’t believe those are the best schools for me to get a robust undergraduate education today.
Interestingly, if you hear them talk nowadays, you might mistake them for UChicago groupies. UChicago is called the “Think Tank University” in our home. So whatever the school is doing in terms of positioning and branding vis-a-vis other schools, seems to be working at least in our home.
@EliteCulture331 I like to go with what the professors at each school tend to think, not random people, as the result of that type of poll simply has too many (east coast?) biases. Here is a link to a poll of colleges who think its peers are. I eliminated any college that did not think of the other as its peer, (e.g. ASU might say its peer is Harvard but not vice versa.)
Here is the list where both UChicago and school below thought as each other as peers. Seems fairly accurate to me even though the poll is just a poll and will have imperfect results (especially since some colleges didn’t respond).
This does not make sense: “This is only going to be exacerbated by the fact that over the next few decades SF Bay and NYC will have a duopoly over tech talent.”
Bold prediction there, that is not based on facts.
This “duopoly”, if it ever existed, would have peaked in 2000 when the bubble burst. The SF Bay Area generally and consistently accounts for at least 40 to 50 percent of all technology investments or all venture investments made in the United States in any given quarter or year for the past half a century. NYC calls itself number 2 sometimes but this hides the fact that this #2 means nothing because it accounts for anywhere between 12 to 25% depending on the timeframe one looks at - a small fraction of SF Bay Area investments. And NYC’s share is not rising; maybe some years there is a blip.
I dont see this “duopoly” in tech you describe happening anytime in the next century. There is SF Bay Area, and there is the rest. NYC metro is often bumped out from the #2 spot by Boston and L.A. - especially if San Diego is lumped in with it. NYC growth barely registers when compared to growth in Austin, Seattle… and a whole list of other cities that include Chicago.
