<p>All the more amazing because Chicago is the ONLY university in the top 20 that does not offer Engineering, a very popular program in today’s world!</p>
<p>The names of the Top 20 are certainly no strangers to anyone. </p>
<p>^I completely agree with 4thfloor it is pretty amazing and admirable that UChicago can still be placed in such high regard in the ranking system without offering any engineering programs excepting Molecular Engineering (Minor) which is still in its infancy. </p>
<p>It just goes to show the strength of the world class academics The University of Chicago has to offer.</p>
<p>Doing things well is more important than doing all things (e.g., Caltech). </p>
<p>UChicago will be 4 or 5 for probably the next several years is what I’m guessing. </p>
<p>I hate to be “that guy” who discredits the US News rankings… but I’m just going to say I feel that UChicago’s ranking is slightly inflated (as is Columbia’s) at the moment. They haven’t built their reputation quite just yet (but are doing so very fast). So I don’t think UChicago is a #4 school now, but probably will be soon in the future. </p>
<p>Come on Gucci Girl, everyone and theor grandma discredits USNWR. Its a beauty contest. Youre not unique. </p>
<p>On the other hand, for the oldsters among us, the notion that Chicago and Columbia “haven’t built their reputation quite just yet” [sic] is downright hilarious. In terms of faculty strength and overall resources, Chicago and Columbia have never in the past century been other than top-rank, world-class universities. What happened was that the 1965-1995 period (roughly) was very hard on urban universities located near poor neighborhoods (as Chicago and Columbia were, at least then, and to some extent still). They fell out of favor for undergraduates, an ever-larger portion of whom were growing up in racially and economically segregated suburbs and were frightened by the “inner city.” Chicago also had an apparently-deserved reputation as a place where undergraduates were miserable. But its academic reputation was always absolutely tops (Columbia’s, too).</p>
<p>Over the last 20 years, there has been rapidly accelerating gentrification in some of the areas near Chicago and Columbia, crime rates have declined, public housing has dispersed, and the pendulum has swung back so urban universities are in fashion again. Places like Dartmouth and Cornell are punished for being in the sticks. And USNWR’s methods pretty much bar the best public universities from top-10 eligibility. So Chicago and Columbia (and Penn) have kind of floated back to what was historically their natural level among private universities. (Whether that “natural level” is 4th, 5th, 8th, or 11th is neither very interesting or very important.) In Chicago’s case, a decades-long effort to improve the quality of undergraduate life outside the classroom has also had an impact. </p>
<p>I wonder if Chicago or Columbia can break into the established Princeton/Harvard/Yale pantheon. Does this seemingly unbreakable barrier have to do with the fact that HYP endowments are A LOT bigger?</p>
<p>^In some parts of the world, Harvard and Stanford are at the top, and Chicago is ahead of Yale already.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.shanghairanking.com/ARWU2014.html”>http://www.shanghairanking.com/ARWU2014.html</a></p>
<p>If any school should break into USNews top three it should be Stanford. It is tops in other rankings and should be above Yale at this point and tied with HP.</p>
<p>I would say they are definitively up there. In my sights for grad school. For me, I would choose Chicago over any Ivy.</p>
<p>In terms of academic quality, Chicago and Columbia are already up there in certain disciplines. Prestige-wise, to the common Joe, HYP will always be more well-known. But I don’t think anyone in academia would suggest any discrepancy in quality between Chicago and Columbia and HYP.</p>
<p>I agree. I mean, HYP hire professors that are grads from Chicago, so that says a lot. I have no intention of applying to HYP for grad school, but I will be applying to Chicago for a history PhD.</p>
<p>Right I’m sorry, in my post I was referring to the reputation for the general public, not academic reputation or anything else. Unfortunately where I’m from, UChicago is quite under the radar. I do wonder if Chicago will ever break into HYPSM. I think it very well could in the future. </p>
<p>That’s true. Then again, I suspect that the general public thinks that Duke is a basketball team with a school attached. </p>
<p>As for breaking into HYPSM, that’s a question of endowment. If Chicago gets a few multi-billion dollar donations, yes. If not, no. The question is just that simple.</p>