U. of Chicago: Is University Strength Declining?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Chicago ✅
241

@Cue7 What the? You just posted about how UChicago hasn’t maintained its “ranking” from 1925 as evidence of decline. 1925!

Over the years you personally have started separate threads complaining or fretting about:

  1. the use of Early Decision in admissions to the College,
  2. the architecture of the North Dorms,
  3. UChicago now has a (minimal) fraternity presence,
  4. fundraising falling short in your view,
  5. intelligent football players are choosing to come to Chicago over Ivies,
  6. the layoff of some hospital administrators,
  7. too many kids at the College from top prep schools,
  8. an inadequate “sense of collective identity” in the College,
  9. that one year when applications to the College went DOWN - how “disappointing” you said,
  10. the fact that applications to the College have gone UP too fast - “something has been lost” you said,
  11. the University president’s pay,
  12. graduation rate for African Americans,
  13. when the director of admissions at Georgetown criticized admissions at UChicago,
  14. a decision to downsize one of the five campus coffee shops in favor of more student advising space,
  15. changes in the Common Core,

and of course this gem: “U. of Chicago: Is University Strength Declining?” :slight_smile:

You complain about low Payscale rankings while also fretting about any changes that would improve Payscale rankings. You complain about grade inflation at the College while fretting that the lack of grade inflation at the College is hurting graduate school admissions chances.

The only thing that all of these threads and opinions have in common is that whatever the subject, Cue7 thinks the sky is falling and UChicago is failing, fading, dying, doomed. For you, there can be no silver lining at the UofC - only enormous, impenetrable clouds.

Tens of thousands of potential students peruse these boards each year. I would not be surprised if your fretting, complaining, baseless speculation and general Eeyore-ing have directly convinced thousands of them not to consider UChicago.

242

@ThankYouforHelp
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Do you know anything about the University of Chicago’s college? If so, you’d realize that the ambivalence you capture in my posts reflects perfectly the ambivalence so many alums feel about Chicago (especially from my cohort in the 90s).

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What you see in my threads is the dissonance so many alums (myself included) feel - it’s what happens when you have a school with Harvard-like aspirations and Emory-like resources - a school where a good chunk of the population has a love/hate relationship with the school at best, and more often a grumpy, worried outlook about the institution. On the one hand they applaud a mute selective admissions process, and on the other they worry about the campus climate. There isn’t anything more true about the not so far gone Chicago past than that.
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So, if I scared off potential applicants, it’s only because they’re getting a real taste of the discourse that blasted through Chicago’s halls for decades.

243

Put anther way @ThankYouforHelp - many Chicago alumni, on the one hand, rebuke what Harvard represents as an institution, and, on the other hand, envy tremendously the juggernaut it has become. My posts reflect that dissonance.

244

Yes, I am an alum. I graduated from the College in the 1980s. That is why I know how much better it is now than it was back then, in virtually every single way possible. That is why I am happy to be sending my child there next year. I would not have been happy about her choice if she was considering attending the College of 20 years ago - she had plenty of other great options to choose from. Her sister chose a top LAC, and that was a great fit for her. UChicago - the UChicago of Today - is a great fit for daughter No. 2.

I don’t lament a mythic “campus climate” of the past because I lived that climate, and it sucked back then. I have visited campus several times recently, and I know several students at the College now, and the overall climate is so much better and healthier now, it barely even compares - not just in the College but overall.

One of the biggest problems the UofC had back then was exactly that “grumpy, worried” outlook that you indulge in. It is self-sustaining. The same dorm party could happen at the UofC or at Michigan or Yale or Georgetown, but the UofC students would decide that the party sucked while the Michigan and Yale and Georgetown students would decide that the party was Totally Lit. I know this because I went to parties at other schools and compared.

You have fun and enjoy life because you want to have fun, you expect to have fun, and you like the people you are around. That is the direction the College is taking today. That older, perpetually negative outlook has been shrinking at the College in recent years, but kernels of it still remain, passed down from the most disgruntled upperclass students to some of the newbies, especially in certain dorms. That is natural. Deep attitudinal changes take time - but the process has come a long way. The students have gotten happier, and without losing their academic focus or career success.

Academic purity doesn’t require suffering for the sake of suffering. You can be nerdy and hardworking and sometimes overworked and still have frivolity and happiness and decent food and nice dorms and parties and dating and sports and outings and all the joys of college. Our rivals like Yale and Princeton have known this fact for years. UChicago finally figured it out, and took major actions to improve student life and career services and all those other things that exist side by side with the academics. This was expensive but necessary action, and as a result, change has come, and the change is a GOOD thing, even if some oldtimers fret about it.

What is especially annoying is how some people are doing their damnedest to keep negativity about the UofC alive on this particular message board. Don’t you realize that by endlessly carping about everything you can think of and downplaying every possible bit of good news on this extremely popular message board, you are perpetuating the worst of those attitudes? Who do you think reads your posts? You may be arguing with Chrchill in this thread, but thousands of timid high schools students are lurking, reading your speculative complaints or out-of-date opinions and taking them as gospel because they reinforce preexisting negative stereotypes about the University. People who go to college expecting a bad time usually have a bad time. People who think a college is miserable rarely apply.

Look - I’m not asking you to be a mindless cheerleader for the school - God knows we have enough of those. But open your eyes and step forward a couple of decades. The University is doing well. The College is doing more than well - it is on a roll like it hasn’t been on since 1925. It fully deserves its extremely high US News ranking. The students who are lucky enough to go to the College now now are getting old UChicago quality without old UChicago misery, and in general, they are thriving. Academics are top tier, they have their choice of internships, and they get career opportunities equal to anyone. People want to come to the College now because it has become a genuinely good place to be, not just because Jim Nondorf is somehow tricking them.

If you want to complain about the medical school or something, go ahead. But failing to acknowledge the positive ongoing transformation of the College does a service to no one.

245

actually Stanford is the only university that is strong in all fields and grad schools. Harvard has mediocre engineering.

246

my niece has U of Chicago and Princeton as her top picks… that would not have happened 10 years ago.

there is no doubt that U of Chicago is currently recognized as a top school by top high school applicants.

247

This is a spirited debate and shouldn’t be discouraged on account of any timid high schoolers who might be lurking and reading. If they are scared off by the discussion here, they probably would have had a very tough time surviving the very vibrant atmosphere of discussion and debate at UChicago.

248

This debate may be spirited. But it is a tempest in a tea cup. Here are the facts.

  1. UChicago College is red hot for top high school graduates. It has tremendous momentum and has become infinitely more hospitable to undergraduates. Its climb in USNWR is a major asset irrespective of ranking limitations. Whether it is ranked 3 or 4 or 5, it is one of the handful of clear elite undergraduate institutions in the US. .
  2. The Law and Business Schools are powerhouses. They love the College grads. For Undergrads who seek either law or business , UChicago college is a fabulous path.
  3. Medicine is the clear weak spot. But UChicago is not the only tippy top school which is not equally prominent in all fields.
  4. UChicago continues to be top 5 in the US in world university rankings.
  5. Its Midwestern charm and location is a fabulous city make it a great environment and alternative to Ivies and LAC.
  6. The College provides amazing pre professional and internship opportunities, with counseling literally from day one.
249

Don’t worry @ThankYouforHelp. My daughter attended one of the most prestigious private high schools in the states.
UChicago was the dream school of many of the seniors this year. Six were accepted, all incredibly smart and nice kids, and all are attending UChicago in the fall (that is remarkable considering that the top seniors, around 20% of the class, were accepted into 6 or more top universities. For example, 5 were accepted into Yale, and only one is attending).
UChicago is on the rise, and one opinion won’t change that.
Besides many other factors that put UChicago competing with other great schools, their spectacular campus next to that amazing city is hard to beat.

250

Well, for one thing, I think the UChicago board has the best mix of thoughtful posters who take the time to produce well-written posts.

251

To me, the funny thing about this thread is that, for my family, what was appealing about UChicago was precisely that it is NOT like Harvard and Stanford in certain crucial respects. Chicago will never be Harvard or Stanford – but it can (continue to) be a very attractive alternative to that model – as long as it doesn’t get obsessed with emulating H&S rather than building on its own strengths.

Chicago has always been a school built primarily around intellectual life. It wasn’t a rich kids’ school; it wasn’t a network-factory. It has been a school that valued exploration and discovery even (some might say especially) when the payoffs weren’t immediately obvious. And a school that has had the courage of its convictions even when those convictions weren’t popular/mainstream. The idea that Chicago’s primary focus should be rising above Harvard and/or Stanford in the USNWR rankings is such a betrayal of the school’s own history and self-interest that it depresses the hell out of me to watch these endless threads rooted in that premise. Rise or fall – regardless of your answer, it’s still the wrong question.

252

Right on, @exacademic !

253

this thread really puts U of Chicago in a very good light… and any applicant who reads it is not going to be scared off in the least… they are more likely to apply. that being said the impact of CC on college admission choices is minimal at best imo. Rather it is the admin at U of Chicago who have done a stellar job the past couple of years of getting U of Chicago in the discussion for top applicants.

btw… I hear Princeton this last year was pimping for students with a large marketing outreach program:) and prior to that Harvard was advertising for applicants on Facebook to boost their numbers.

254

No, it doesn’t put Chicago in a very good light (and neither does the meteoric rise thread). Both make UChicago look insecure and status-obsessed. Which, FWIW, doesn’t correspond to my impression of what students and faculty currently at UChicago (vs alumns or parents of students who haven’t even matriculated yet) are actually like.

255

Let’s play True or False.



*UChicago students today are generally happy *. True.


  • UChicago students relive the misery of the past during Winter Quarter*. Somewhat true IMHO.



    Alumni and parents are most often here during O-Week (Fall Quarter) or Alumni Weekend (Spring Quarter). True.



    I see why life at UChicago is more fun today than in the days of yore. I still think the aspects of the school with which alums/parents interact most, and the periods during which they do so, skew their impression of the College. The administration knows this, and doesn’t mind; parents and alums pay tuition and make donations. This is of course an oversimplification, and YMMV, but that’s my $0.02 on the causes for these discussions.
256

I disagree, @exacademic at #253. The concern that the quality of the academic side won’t keep up with the increase in reputation that the college has recently enjoyed is legit. Rankings are the merely the most efficient way to assess that quality. That’s one very nice advantage of looking closely at them. Of course, they are also yesterday’s news in that they reveal the impact of past changes (say, from last year or the past few years, rather than things going on right now or in the near future). It is worrisome that some departments have been slipping and w/o definite news about how that direction is going to be reversed, it’s reasonable to worry that the college will be affected eventually.

For those who think this is somehow a manifestation of being status-obsessed, I merely point out that all the happy conversation about UChicago on this and other venues is highly correlated with its climb in the rankings. Should it slip, will all the happy talk continue? To me at least, both the rankings and the conversation seem to be impacted by real, underlying factors.

As for being insecure - let’s hope so!

257

Lots of comments here…

First off, @ThankYouforHelp thanks for your thoughtful post. I’m glad you look forward to having your daughter attend Chicago’s college. If you look at the arc of my posts, however, you’ll find that I currently don’t doubt the College’s vibrancy. I contest administrative decisions (especially the move to ED), but, of late, I’ve come around to the contemporary view. Also, you list posts I’ve made over the course of YEARS (at Chicago, these topics might be discussed over the course of a WEEK - and someone who brought these up over years would hardly be labeled an eyore). And, by Chicago standards, I don’t think my skepticism and criticisms have been that unusual. This is Chicago, after all - we’re trained to be skeptical and critical, always. Sitting around talking about how amazing Chicago is seems like the most un-Chicago thing in the world to do. Externally, we critique vehemently, and, internally, many of us recognize the tremendous value of the place.

Additionally, I can’t believe your comment about my posts potentially scaring off applicants. If these posts scare them off, that’s a good thing - the discourse here doesn’t hold a candle to what actually happens at Chicago on a daily basis (I hope).

The implication that I should quell my speech, on the other hand, is disturbing. The Chicago solution to viewpoints that may be unpopular or unwarranted/unsubstantiated would be MORE informed/substantiated speech - not urging the speaker to stop. You and others have expressed the view that I simply stop posting my viewpoints, and, again, that’s disturbing. Not a trend that I hope blossoms on this board, and CERTAINLY not a trend I hope develops at Chicago itself.

Finally, to other posters, aren’t some of you speaking out of both sides of your mouth? Let’s be serious, if Chicago had stayed at #15 or even slightly dropped in USNWR, and instead of Nondorf they hired some other guy who didn’t applications inflate as aggressively (so we were at, say, 15% accept/50% yield instead of 8% accept/70% yield), would we really be talking about a “meteoric rise”? They could build the arts center, build new dorms, expand the faculty, etc. etc. but if we were at, say, #17, would as many people still be singing the college’s praises as vehemently? Would we be talking about it as a realistic competitor to HYPS? Would those who critiqued the U. be told to stop “fretting” as quickly?

258

U of Chicago now has the second highest SAT score of any university… only behind Caltech.

Yes they have benefited with improved marketing and exposure… (Princeton is now making a big push into marketing following U of Chicago’s lead btw) … but they are also getting and admitting higher quality applicants.

So it’s more than a rise in rankings… the increased selectivity is having a positive material impact on the caliber of its student body.

259

Assuming this^ is true, I would attribute it to (among other things) (i) there being fewer lower-stats athletes recruited for big-time sports at a D3/UAA school like UChicago than at the Ivies/Stanford and (ii) a push by UChicago to increase the proportion of high-stats applicants admitted who are also full payers (which is what you would expect to happen if you admit a substantial majority of the class ED, since ED applicants effectively give up the right to compare fin aid offers).

Anecdotally, at a number of leading prep schools I’m familiar with, UChicago has in recent years become one of the top destinations for students - no doubt because of the many positive changes noted upthread as well as the marketing from UChicago and its increased emphasis on recruiting these kinds of applicants. The kids who go to UChicago from these schools seem to me to be generally academically top-quartile-to-decile - and often one-percenters. They tend to get crowded out of the limited spots HYPS allots to their schools by the connected legacies (who generally are also high-stats and wealthy), the vals and sals (yes, I know some go to UChicago, but mostly they want HYPS, in my experience), the occasional recruited athlete and academically elite URMs.

260

I enjoyed @Cue7 's Apologia Pro Vita Sua at #256. I have to admit that his style is, as he says, very much in the spirit of the place we are discussing. However, in the Chicago classrooms I most remember there was always a teleological question framing any discussion: What is the purpose for which we do these things? This is what I seek and don’t find in Cue’s discourse. Rather, I find H and S held up as idols before which we must all bow down because - I am not sure why, except that they are so great. Ugh. This adulation of big god–like institutions is very unChicago.

In his apologia Cue says with some justice that his own gadfly spirit of rebarbative argumentativeness is the true Chicago. There I’m with him, and indeed I admire his tenaciousness and courage on this board. But what’s it all about? His arguments always point to a thoroughly transformed place dominated by fraternities, the sporting life and swaggering cool rich kids. There will be no spiky original thinkers in that group. Yes, he mixes into his various critiques other themes (the inconsistencies of some of which were pointed out by @ThankYouforHelp ), but he doesn’t really have his heart in them. His heart belongs to Harvard. There at least he has no ambivalence.

O.K. I’m being argumentative myself. If I’m misrepresenting Cue’s vision of the College he will tell us.