Not at all strange ; they are tied in USNWR … and let’s compare further. Yale leads in law by a tiny bit. CHicago leads in Business by a lot. Yale leads in medicine, but is a low top 10 at best. Uchicago by far ahead of Yale in physical sciences and some discrete humanities – English and anthropology. Yale leads in arts and some humanities and social sciences. They are comparable in most social sciences.
Bottom line: each has strength and weaknesses. They are complimentary … merger ???
Interestingly, moreover, Uchicago is consistently ahead of Yale in the recent world university rankings.
@cue7 At #510 No one can accuse you of not thinking big. Some of these ideas have merit, but aside from that, they are true substantive proposals. With all the brickbats that I and others throw at you on this board (though you must admit that your polemical style encourages that reaction) I take my hat off on this occasion.
For the most part the question of feasibility of these projects is above my pay grade. I also have reservations about some items. Chasing celebrity kids - absolutely not. A mega student union sounds good in principle, but it would be like a Walmart coming into the neighbourhood and destroying all the small, ad hoc and deeply personal spaces on or about campus that generations of Chicago students have developed in which to jaw with each other, blow off steam and conduct romance. It goes further than Aristotle would allow in privileging the pleasure principle and is not consistent with echt Chicago culture. I could probably get behind a smaller scale version, however.
Underlying everything and hence making me queasy about the details is your notion of the Harvard-Stanford model of gigantism, wealth (both of the institution and the students who attend it), brand recognition and prestige with the general public. Ugh. I can accept that Chicago has already and should in future make some moves in that direction, but going the whole hog would be to fatally dilute the true elixir of a Chicago education and the student culture that is bound up with it. There will always be serious and intellectually ambitious kids (some of them even athletes!) who choose Chicago for these very reasons. Some of them will also want to know that student life outside the classroom is also vibrant, but what happens IN the classroom should always be in future as it has been in the past the focus of everything.
Re Chicago vs. Yale: My wife and I thought our children’s educational experience at Chicago was very equivalent to ours at Yale. (We were both in Directed Studies, so we had something very similar to the Core, just not as universal.) Where we thought Chicago differed was (a) the lack of a sense of direct connection to the centers of power, and (b) the house system barely worked for our children, while the college system was central to our experience (even my wife’s who only lived on campus three semesters). Notice, however, that we didn’t think Chicago was better or more intellectual than the Yale we attended. Yale was extremely intellectual, at least at the time, at least in our circles (which were pretty divergent and spanned a lot of the student body).
@HydeSnark – the houses didn’t work for our kids because they were too small to produce a critical mass of close friends, and because the housing wasn’t good enough to stay on campus for. When I graduated from Yale, I had lived and eaten 2-3 meals a day, with my classmates in my college for four academic years. I didn’t know everyone in my class in my college super-well, but I felt like I was good friends with at least half of them, and there may have been only 5 or 6 I didn’t know at all. And I had a lot of relationships with people in the classes on either side of me. I understand that’s true of Chicago, too, if people stay in housing. And maybe they are staying in housing more now. When my kids were there, no one stayed in housing more than two years unless they were effectively being paid for it (or unless they were in Snitchcock).
Things that the size of colleges vs. houses did, that made a difference to experience: Our own dining hall, not a table someplace. Our own sports facilities – squash courts, indoor basketball, volleyball in the courtyard fall and spring. A full complement of intramural teams. Weekly parties, official (“Master’s Teas”) and unofficial (a standing Tuesday night kegger starting at 11:00 pm), plus occasional officially sanctioned mixers. A drama society. Our own singing group, which included people from Glee Club and college-wide a cappella groups. A real quality progression in housing by class – seniors had unbelievably great rooms. My senior year, as part of a quad I had my own 300 sq’ bedroom with a gorgeous view. Advising that was college specific. My major advisor was associated with the college and was around frequently. I knew him before he became my advisor. We all dealt with the same dean; her secretary knew each one of us really well.
This just in: new US News Children’s Hospital rankings have UChicago’s Comer’s Children Center in the top 50 in only ONE specialty - (neuro and neurosurgery - it came in at #42).
In contrast to that, Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago (affiliated with Northwestern U) came in 7th overall, and was in the top tier for 10 specialties.
So NU’s children’s hospital is in the top 10, UChicago’s children’s hospital isn’t even in the top 50.
How does Chicago make up this ground?
@Cue7 Lets say that UChicago Medicine is not top (I have my doubts). And? It is amazing in other areas.
Harvard is ranked #34 in engineering, and maybe even worse in other areas… So? Is Harvard less amazing because of that?
We all agree that in Medicine uchicago has a huge gap to cover.
@Chrchill and @“Cariño”
The question isn’t whether UChicago Med has a gap to cover - it’s HOW the school can make up ground. How can you go from a top 50 children’s hospital (and probably a top 30-40 general hospital) to top ten?
Also, re the question about Harvard engineering - want to know how Harvard is planning on improving its flagging program? With a $400 million dollar donation. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/04/education/john-paulson-gives-400-million-to-harvard-for-engineering-school.html?_r=0
(And note, an engineering school is much smaller than a medical plant - a $400 million donation to an engineering school is like giving $2 billion for a medical plant.)
Without having read some of the recent posts, I just wanted to throw some information out there that may or may not be relevant. I was looking through the audited financial statements of some of UChicago’s peer schools, specifically at the pledges receivable section of each. I was surprised to find that Chicago not just performs well, but also outperforms some schools that seem like they would have pretty good fundraising prowess. I’m not great at formatting, so here goes the list:
- Harvard—2,134,220,000 USD
- Stanford—1,357,508,000 USD
- Columbia—627,259,000 USD
- Chicago—612,672,000 USD
- Yale—567,946,000 USD
- Northwestern—263,423,000 USD
- Penn—242,849,000 USD
- Dartmouth—211,455,000 USD
- Princeton—178,280,000 USD
In fact the data surprised me so much that I kind of doubted the validity of using pledges receivable as a metric, but apparently that’s what Yale uses internally to gauge fundraising. Again not sure if anyone will find this interesting, but all for the increase and diffusion of knowledge!
Is there some sort of non-profit equivalent of the working capital turnover ratio to gauge how well those receivables get turned into cash? A school might be very aggressive in booking receivables (and hence revenues) but have a longer-than-industry-standard of turnover or higher-than-standard write-off. Would think you also need that kind of analysis to examine the strength of fundraising. Guessing Development is not as interested in that as the auditors would be 
@Cue7 Uchucago just a major med/life science donation. Med may have to be a relative weakness for a while for Uchicago. It does not seem to affect much of its overall college and university standing, just as engineeringnhas had zero impact on Harvards standing. BTW, with Harvard now turning into a bastion of extreme egalitarianism, hyper political correctness and possible abolition of all clubs, many like myself may not be donating or making good on pledges. Chicago seems both more deserving and needy !
Best Hospitals in Chicago, Ill.
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-chicago/1954996-u-of-chicago-is-university-strength-declining-p36.html
1 Northwestern Memorial Hospital
2 Rush University Medical Center
3 Loyola University Medical Center
4 Advocate Christ Medical Center
5 NorthShore University Health-Evanston Hospital
6 Northwestern Medicine Central DuPage Hospital
7 Advocate Lutheran General Hospital
7 University of Chicago Medical Center
■■■!?!?!? What happened? UofC Medical Center dropped four spots from #3 to #7 in one year. It was #1 not that long ago!!
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