<p>The new (2013) U.S. News Graduate School Rankings are out.</p>
<p>The Business School tied for #4. The Law School remained #5. And the Medical School was up 2 spots to #10:</p>
<p>Best</a> Medical Schools | Top Medical Schools | US News Best Graduate Schools</p>
<p>Another strong showing for Chicago in graduate rankings, although I still think it deserves to go higher for business. I would very much like to see Chicago at the #3 position next year, hopefully tied only with Wharton.</p>
<p>I think Chicago’s law and medical school rankings are fair enough. As short-term feasible goals, Chicago should try to beat Columbia for #4 in Law, move to #3 in Business, and maintain its position in the top 10 for Medical. That, together with a move to #4 in the US News College Rankings, would put Chicago in an ideal position in the rankings and allow us to move on to bigger and better things, like fundraising and attracting the best researchers, politicians, businessmen, etc. to the University. (Which, as I understand, we’re already doing, but perhaps we’ve become a bit too focused on rankings. Rankings should be seen as a means to an end - a reason for alumni to give to the University, a reason for the best of the best to attend the University, and a reason for the best researchers and professionals to come to the University in teaching and research capacities.)</p>
<p>I would like to see the Business School and Law School ranked in top three. In general I agree with you @phuriku but the Law School is definitely under-ranked at #5 (historically it’s been in the top 3 most of the past century in other major rankings and even U.S. News has ranked it #2 - #4 in the past.)</p>
<p>Businessweek, of course, ranks Booth #1:
[The</a> Best U.S. B-Schools of 2010 - Businessweek](<a href=“Bloomberg - Are you a robot?”>Bloomberg - Are you a robot?)</p>
<p>Forbes ranks Booth #3:
[The</a> Best Business Schools, 2011](<a href=“Forbes List Directory”>Forbes List Directory)</p>
<p>Malcolm Gladwell has the good sense to rank UChicago Law #1:
[Malcolm</a> Gladwell publishes alternative law school rankings – lawyrs.net Legal news](<a href=“Law firm news and more | BigLaw”>Law firm news and more | BigLaw)</p>
<p>U.S. News Law School Rankings over the years (showing UChicago as high as #2)
<a href=“US News Law School Rankings Over the Years Forum - Top Law Schools”>US News Law School Rankings Over the Years Forum - Top Law Schools;
<p>Nowadays at least, it seems people rank Chicago in the 2nd tier of law schools with Columbia and NYU after Harvard, Yale, and Stanford. So I think it would be a good first step to get Chicago to the top of the 2nd tier, and then after a few years of heavy recruiting, sneaking into that 1st tier. If Chicago can capitalize off the Obama administration and get a lot of the players in that administration (back) on campus, then that would do wonders for the perception of the Law School and the Institute of Politics.</p>
<p>Note that in the 90s and early 00s, the Law School lost a lot of its key faculty to Harvard and the like. That’s part of the reason why Chicago is no longer as elite as it was. Remember, we gave up people like Kagan because they had sullied themselves by actual interaction with praxis (as opposed to pure theory) during the Clinton Administration. We’re still paying for those mistakes, as we should be.</p>
<p>Also, about that time Columbia and NYU gamed the rankings by intentionally cutting their class size and thus admit rate to boost their rankings. (Before that it was always Yale, Harvard, Stanford, and then UChicago–from a prestige point of view, though UChicago frequently outpublished all of them, which is another way of ranking faculty.)</p>
<p>How important are the rankings?</p>
<p>UChicago was founded in 1892 and by 1915, when the first known University ranking was conducted UChicago was #2 in the U.S. – the fastest rise ever by any university – but nobody outside academia knew it (because these rankings were scholarly works, not published by a major news magazine like U.S. News.)</p>
<p>[HathiTrust</a> Digital Library - American men of science; a biographical directory. … 2nd 1910](<a href=“http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015039431930;page=root;seq=607;view=1up;size=100;orient=0;num=593]HathiTrust”>http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015039431930;page=root;seq=607;view=1up;size=100;orient=0;num=593)</p>
<p>[HathiTrust</a> Digital Library - American men of science; a biographical directory. … 2nd 1910](<a href=“http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015039431930;page=root;seq=603;view=1up;size=100;orient=0;num=689]HathiTrust”>http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015039431930;page=root;seq=603;view=1up;size=100;orient=0;num=689)</p>
<p>(From James Cattell’s “American Men of Science.” Although mainly a biographical dictionary, Cattell groups his names by institution, beginning with the 2nd edition in 1910. Therefore there was an immediate tendency to rank the schools according to the number of ‘leading men’ in each field they had produced.)</p>
<p>UChicago’s position as one of the top two universities in the U.S. was confirmed by the first outright University ranking in 1925 by Raymond Hughes and again confirmed in his 1934 ranking:</p>
<p>[HathiTrust</a> Digital Library - Report of Committee on graduate instruction.](<a href=“http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015062738482;page=root;view=image;size=100;seq=4]HathiTrust”>http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015062738482;page=root;view=image;size=100;seq=4)</p>
<p>But glad to see the Medical School (back) in the top ten, which should give it a boost.</p>
<p>On the subject of what the best law schools are…</p>
<p>Although this article is ostensibly about the fact that Loyola students are more likely to make partner at big law firms that UChicago Law grads, if you look at the chart in the article you will see that actually UChicago grads are more likely to make partner (better ratio) than grads of any other top law school except Harvard:</p>
<p>[Are</a> Graduates of Elite Law Schools ‘Too Good’ for Biglaw? Above the Law: A Legal Web Site ? News, Commentary, and Opinions on Law Firms, Lawyers, Law School, Law Suits, Judges and Courts](<a href=“Are Graduates of Elite Law Schools 'Too Good' for Biglaw? - Above the Law”>Are Graduates of Elite Law Schools 'Too Good' for Biglaw? - Above the Law)</p>
<p>Ration of First-year Associates at Top Law Firms to New Partners:</p>
<p>1) Harvard 4.49
2) UChicago 5.12 (87 first-year associates and 17 new partners)
3) Yale 6.0
4) NYU 6.43
5) Columbia 7.11
6) Penn 8.13
7) Boalt 8.38
8) Stanford 10.5</p>
<p>(Stanford had the worst ratio of the top schools.)</p>
<p>truth123,</p>
<p>Thanks for all of these updates. I’m sure that a lot of prospective students as well as alums appreciate your work on CC --</p>
<p>This was a solid year for UChicago - especially for its medical school. I think both the B-School and Law School are ranked right around where they should be. As others have said, if you look at the faculty UChicago lost over the past 10-15 years, it’s pretty mind-boggling. One of the leading constitutional scholars (Cass Sunstein) left for Harvard, as did Elena Kagan, etc. So, UChicago Law isn’t quite up there with the biggest hitters any more. </p>
<p>Now, the medical school did well this year, but this performance requires a little bit more analysis. About ten years ago, UChicago made a concerted effort to decrease the class size, maintain or slightly drop the size of the faculty, and focus on admissions metrics to inflate the med school’s rank. So, as you can see in the ranking, while all the top 10 med schools have great admissions stats, UChicago is toward the very top with a 3.8/12 GPA/MCAT split. Moreover, by dropping the size of the class, UChicago’s faculty/student ratio is one of the best in the nation. Also, as faculty has not increased in size at all (and may have decreased slightly, actually), UChicago does very well with NIH funds per faculty member. Essentially, by decreasing its size and focusing on admissions metrics, UChicago rose through the rankings. </p>
<p>At the same time, the numbers that I think are most important - peer assessment and assessment by professionals - UChicago trails its peers considerably. UChicago has a 4.0 peer assessment and 4.3 Residency Directors assessment. That’s by far the lowest total in the top 10, and lower than top 20 schools such as Vandy and Cornell. </p>
<p>These scores best illustrate that, at least amongst peers, the med school is UChicago’s weak link. The law school and b-school are extremely well regarded by peers and judges/employers, but the med school’s peer scores are more in line with a top 20 school, rather than a top 10 school (which is exactly what UChicago was for most of the time). </p>
<p>Also, UChicago’s relatively weaker position in the med school world comes out when you look at hospital rankings and med specialty rankings. Harvard, Hopkins, Duke, etc. all tend to do very well in specialty rankings (like internal medicine) and hospital rankings, but UChicago does not. It’s top 20 or so for some of these rankings (internal med #18), and not even in the top 20 for others (pediatrics - unranked). </p>
<p>My question here is, is it possible for UChicago to improve? Unlike law school and maybe even b-school, gaining notoriety for great research (and thereby improving peer scores) takes a great deal of cash. UChicago has made itself smaller and is jetissoning certain practices (like ER) while focusing heavily on other niches (like cancer). All of the other top med schools are very good at a much wider array of medical specialties and research areas, and this probably leads to the other schools’ much stronger peer assessment scores - all sorts of faculty members associate strength with all of Harvard’s departments. Faculty members focusing on cancer may think of UChicago highly, but those in other areas might see it as a top 20-25 school. </p>
<p>So, again, with med school, I’m not quite sure how UChicago can improve itself, and there are significant weaknesses in its practice areas. As its maxed out on the “easy” factors, I’m not sure how it can rise up in the more influential factors - such as peer assessment scores (and, in another us news ranking, hospital rankings).</p>
<p>thanks @iloveuofc glad you like it!
@cue7 you mention everything except the new faculty the medical center has hired and the new facilities it has constructed, as though they are irrelevant. Faculty does tend to be the core of your program after all. and cutting edge labs help attract them.
despite your claim it is impossible for the medical school to improve it continues to climb in the rankings.</p>
<p>Truth123:</p>
<p>The investment in new facilities and new faculty certainly helps, but we also need to note the significant gap in assessment scores at this point. For peer assessment, for example, UChicago earned a 4.0. Most of the other top 10 schools are in the 4.4-4.6 range, with the very best schools (i.e. Harvard or Hopkins) around 4.8. </p>
<p>As I’m sure you know, this is a pretty significant gap. It’s hard to make up .1 or .2 in peer assessment, let alone get the .4-.5 increase UChicago would need to be on the same field as most of the other top 10 schools. Hopefully the investment and increase in faculty will be a step in the right direction, but the peer assessment gap is quite large right now. If you speak to physicians and med school professionals, UChicago has a good reputation, but it’s not in the same class as the reputations for the b school and law school, which are essentially preeminent. </p>
<p>For these reasons, I’m not sure if UChicago med can get much higher in the short term. Perhaps more importantly, as a major research institution, it needs to address and invest in the med plant as an area that needs considerable improvement. Quite frankly, for a school that wants to be a tippy top research institution across all fields, a peer score of 4.0 in the medical school world is low. Sure, the school is taking steps to strengthen its programs, but I’m not sure if the peer assessment gap will close any time soon. Improving a reputation can take a lot of time - it’s a lot harder than improving admissions stats. </p>
<p>Besides that, UChicago seems to be doing well. The Harris School dropped a bit, but the b school and law school continue to have strong showings, as did most of UChicago’s graduate programs.</p>
<p>As we all know, there are a million issues with rankings. As long as UChicago is ranked in top 5 for law and business I feel that it helps more than it hurts. </p>
<p>There are three main ways of ranking law school faculties–reputational surveys, faculty publishing (which faculty publishes the most in the top law journals), and citation accounts (which faculty is cited the most by other scholars in the top journals.)</p>
<p>One of the main defects of reputational surveys is that they are subject to ‘halo affect.’ The tendency to mention certain schools, ‘just because…’</p>
<p>While subjective reputation surveys place UChicago at #5 (or #2 or #3 historically) objective measures such as citations or publications place the school at or near the very top.</p>
<p>This study (below) on page 16 shows this very clearly in their ranking of law schools by various criteria and has an excellent discussion of many of the various issues concerning the rankings.
[Ranking</a> Law Schools: Using SSRN to Measure Scholarly Performance by Bernard Black, Paul Caron :: SSRN](<a href=“http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=784764]Ranking”>http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=784764)</p>
<p>Anyway, so I wouldn’t get too hung up on believing U.S. News reflects ‘where a school really ranks’ until you have seen the how the schools stack up based on various criteria. (Columbia and NYU law schools rank noticeably below UChicago by most measures in the study.)</p>
<p>Again, I am not too concerned because I think in general U.S. News has been helping UChicago more lately than it’s been hurting it, no matter how much it may under-rank the school in any given field.</p>
<p>Let us not forget the rankings are a game–and a self-fulfilling prophecy.</p>
<p>The good news is UChicago Law just snagged someone from Columbia:
[Musical</a> Chairs: Chicago Poaches Prominent Professor from Columbia Above the Law: A Legal Web Site ? News, Commentary, and Opinions on Law Firms, Lawyers, Law School, Law Suits, Judges and Courts](<a href=“http://abovethelaw.com/2012/03/musical-chairs-chicago-poaches-prominent-professor-from-columbia/]Musical”>Musical Chairs: Chicago Poaches Prominent Professor from Columbia - Above the Law)</p>
<p>UChicago Law will be just fine, as will the b-school. I’m more interested to see how the med school does in the years ahead - that’ll be the bigger challenge for UChicago.</p>