NIH research funding is a reasonable metric for measuring the strength of a research university’s life-sciences programs. Changes in the annual number of Supreme Court clerks per year – not so much, at least not over any period of time as short as a decade.
FYI, here’s the new USNWR ranking for medical schools. Pritzker dropped I believe from #11 to #15 in one year, marking its second decline from #10 in 2015.
Don’t get me wrong. I think the University has made significant progress in recent years. However, BSD, which encompasses the medical school, is particularly problematic at this point.
Funny all this emphasis that is placed by USNWR, especially when it comes to medical school. Get a medical directory for Cleveland Clinic or Mass General. They are two of the best hospitals in the world. Look at where their doctors were educated. They don’t coincide with the rankings of medical schools.
For supposedly really bright students, this focus on rankings is discouraging. Research how the rankings are developed. Assess the relevance of the criteria. Then decide.
USNWR actually does a pretty good job of reflecting the perceived reputation of each school. I think Pritzker’s ranking might have been artificially inflated in the past few years. As a soon-to-be physician myself, I can assure you that rankings and reputation matter very, very much in medicine.
The point here is that we can’t selectively pay attention to the rankings only when it’s convenient to do so. We can’t focus on or mention USNWR only when it produces the rankings we’d like to see (College, B-School, Law School) and ignore it when it doesn’t show my beloved alma mater in a positive light.
Residency director score ranking:
Harvard, Hopkins, UCSF
Stanford, Penn
WashU, Duke, Columbia
Michigan
Cornell, UCLA, U of Wash, Vandy
Northwestern, Yale
Baylor, Emory, U Chicago, Pitt
Mayo
UTSW, UVA
NYU, Oregon, UCSD, UNC
Brown, Case Western, Dartmouth, Gtown, Sinai, Rochester, USC, U of Wisconsin
Indiana, Tufts, Colorado, Iowa, U of Minnesota
Boston U, Ohio State, U of Alabama, Wake Forest, U of Utah
Miami, Einstein
Physician peer score ranking:
Harvard, Hopkins, UCSF
Stanford
WashU
Penn
Columbia, Duke, Michigan, U of Wash, Yale
Vandy
Cornell, UCLA, U Chicago
Northwestern, UNC, Pitt, UTSW
Emory, UCSD
Mayo
Baylor, NYU, Colorado, Iowa, Wisconsin
Sinai, Oregon, Alabama, UVA
Case Western, Dartmouth, Minnesota, Rochester
Brown, Indiana, Ohio State, USC
This should come as a small relief to @Cue7 and others who worry about medical and biological science at U of C: more funding for U of C Medical:
Good read on Zimmer’s accomplishments and goals as his contract is extended through 2022.
I think Zimmer has been a great leader for UChicago for the past decade. Of course the accomplishments listed in that statement are contributions by many people (like the Odyssey program) his leadership cannot be underestimated however.
Interestingly Zimmer is not popular among students (my daughter’s cohort) . I can understand different people (different generations) have different opinions and priorities. For the University’s survival and growth I am glad what he has done during the past decade, almost.
@eddi137 YMMV, but as far as I can tell suspicion of Zimmer stems from two key dynamics.
- The university is trying to save money - which means cuts to many departments, efforts to raise tuition as fast as possible, and more. This stuff does have an impact, and it's never popular. The university also has the occasional conflict of interest pop up in the process (one trustee was also the CEO or owner of Aramark, a company that has a horrible reputation and did a poor job running campus dining halls. They weren't fired until last year. Hyatt Hotels (owned by another trustee) has bought several pieces of university real estate as facilities/satellite dorms have been closed, and not everyone is convinced those deals are kosher.
- The university's response to many campus activists - whether they want fairer treatment for the surrounding community, changes to university amenities, or for the president to step into the debate on a contentious national issue, is by turns dismissive and disingenuous. I can't say I agree with all those demands; for instance, the university is a sanctuary campus in all but name, but some students want Zimmer to use that specific term - which he refuses to do, possibly because that would draw unwanted attention to the university's policies. Even so, declining to respond to most demands (and leaving student government virtually powerless) isn't always popular.
I have heard the Aramark was not a popular dinning experience and did not know the sales of University real estate.
As far as I know the tuition has been raised 4% yearly, which is comparable to its peers. Of course I do not like the high tuition (across board nationwide) since my daughter does not qualify for FA (got merit which is equivalent to 20% discount). Unless a very rich university (Princeton in mind) others have to keep balance between students tuition and faculty salary. I remember a few years back about 50% students were on FA. I think when the tuition increases the FA increases accordingly. The actual tuition increase is mostly spread among non-FA students, which is still not good.
I do not know a lot on campus activities currently. What I can see and judge is that if the University is on the right track, or if the University still will make difference down the road 15 years, 50 years later. From the limited list in that statement I can see the University is on the right track and hopefully still will make difference down the road. If so its leader should be given credit, otherwise the leader will be criticized.
The $100M donation to UChicago Medicine (and the new partnership with Google) are undeniable bright spots. They key test, though, will be how Chicago’s reputation in this area improves in the years ahead.
As @Poplicola noted, in terms of physician peer scores, residency director scores, and NIH funding, UChicago is roughly in the top 20. No other school with realistic aspirations of being top 5 overall is this low in these areas.
For my arguments against Chicago as top 5 to stop, I’d want to see it in the top 10 for NIH funding, peer scores, etc.
Remember, a century ago, many thought Chicago was #1 in the country (not top 5 or top 10)
Through this lens, any conversation about Chicago is still a talk about decline.
@Cue7 I agree with you. And I am puzzled why Uchicago medicine is that low as compared to its elite Law and Business schools where it is top 2-4, and it’s global leadership in physical sciences, social sciences and humanities. How/why did medicine get so neglected compared to the rest?
Tuition (and other fees) have grown by a rate comparable to other schools. I agree this isn’t great - price increases have outpaced inflation considerably. FA has kept pace - mostly. The 3rd/4th-years I’ve discussed this with have seen FA remain quite stingy, and been squeezed more as time has gone on.
In the future, I suspect the biggest contributor to higher out-of-pocket costs will be ED - a.k.a. affirmative action for the rich and the very poor. Because most low SES families aren’t as informed about options like ED, or the kind of financial aid they’ll get at UChicago (this has certainly been true in my experience as a tutor in Washington Park), few look past the $74,000 sticker price and apply ED. In the long term, ED will lead to a more affluent student body and less financial aid. That’s good for UChicago’s credit rating, but not for applicants.
It’s a great question - I don’t know why medicine is comparatively lower than pretty much all the other major Chicago departments. Does anyone else know?
It’s a noticeable weakness in comparison to the preeminent schools/departments that surround it.
Any other posters know why this is the case? Was it mismanagement by a particular CEO? Bad administrative initiatives? What?
Here’s a hunch: Medicine is an intensely practical field not unlike engineering. That’s not the strength of the University of Chicago. In almost all the disciplines at which it excels, including even its professional schools, its great thinkers - the cause of its prestige and high rankings - do highly theoretical work. A hospital is a very big business with lots of small moving parts - worthy, mundane, industrial, but inimical to the true uninhibited maverick spirit of the University of Chicago. It should have gotten out of the healing business long ago, but it probably now has too much skin in the game to gracefully do that.
meh…late but delete
@Cue7 : NM, I have a question not knowing as much about UofC. Does it house a substantial amount of biomedical research in institutes essentially run by the U that do not necessarily belong to the school of medicine or the graduate schools? Like Harvard’s medical school alone does not receive that much money in comparison to a lot of its peers, but we know that it hosts many institutes that are separate that could receive monies from the NIH. I am just wondering if it is fair to use this metric of money going directly to the med. school as showing strength of NIH funding/big name PI in biomedicine. Why must they be actually housed in the medical school and not other units?
Also, what do people think about the “rise” of the College at UofC, are people mostly claiming a rise due to a change in popularity and admissions, or have other things beyond quality of life and admissions policies changed that make it better than say a decade ago. Because some schools who follow that admissions trend seen by UofC look kind of naive or foolish (as in people are only attributing their rise as a function of the improvements in admissions and disregarding any other serious changes that truly benefit undergrads). Like do current students in the College view the academics as previous cohorts did, or do they view it the same or less? If it looks like any other schools, the rise may be more so a rise in marketability.
@bernie12 Yes I find some of the metrics used to judge the institutional health of U of C questionable at best. However I don’t know much about the school so I really can’t say.
I do wonder if this precieved “decline” particularly pinpointed toward the medical institution of UChicago is the result of UofC being in the tip top tier (top 5) and struggling to keep innovative pace with it’s peers with only 1/3 of it’s peers endowment. That would make more sense.
UofC, although on a different level, does remind me of Vandy in it’s fast rise up the rankings that corresponded to a fast rise in popularity. Maybe it’s not sustainable and more of a trend/fad like Duke in the 90’s. But I feel as though UofC always had the infrastructure indication of it’s current ranking. Again all speculation and I don’t really know, besides it’s still in the very top tier.
Duke isn’t a “fad”(it did the work outside of the undergraduate units to stay super relevant even among its very top peers) but what can and does happen over time it seems is a convergence in the admissions numbers (app number and rejection rate) among those very top tier schools (and others). Like honestly, once you hit 30k after hard work, you shouldn’t plunge forward to get more apps. It is basically unnecessary if you are a top 10. Duke and similar level schools have solidified a base of the “type” of student they tend to admit and draw and as long as that “type” is producing good results, they are doing well. I know some were worried about UofC college’s admissions scheme started in 2008 (10, don’t remember, but it was described in certain publications how they revamped the marketing) could change the profile the students who matriculate and perhaps change the undergraduate culture, but I really doubt it, or it would take a while. But the undergraduate college and the other university components are different. In some of the other important units Cue mentions, it is hard to compete within that tier without a matching endowment of the competitors. You have to settle for a very innovative way of doing it based upon the comparatively limited resources or just fall behind. Luckily Chicago technically has enough resources and a culture that can allow it to compensate with the former in some cases and has an awesome history with graduate education. If the administration and faculty are concerned about these things as well, I am sure they know what to do.
The problem is with the medical school only. Uchicago continues its eminence in numerous academic subjects ranging from English to astrophysics, economics, area studies and history and everything in between. The Business school has been consistently top 2-3 and law school 4-5 for a long time. The college has risen dramatically in ranking in the last 10 years or for many reasons, including special emphasis on undergraduate education and quality of life; extensive academic advising and pre career opportunities and advising, acceptance of the common application and a sophisticated targeted marketing effort.
This just in. UChicago Law ranked second in Above the Law Ranking, following 4th place is USNWR. Law and Busiess schools are both killing it. Medical school needs to follow suit …