One thing Chicago has done really well is expand its presence and brand name overseas in places like China and India which supply a lot of the international students to US undergraduate institutions. This can only help its global brand in the coming years.
Endowment-wise here is the statement from UChicago in 2016
The average compounded investment result for the University over the past five years was a 5.7 percent gain; the average over the past 10 years was a 6.3 percent gain; and the return over the past 20 years was 9.6 percent. Each compares favorably to the market-based, strategic benchmarks used by the University for these periods.
However Ivies have fared better during the past decade. I believe the bottom performers (Harvard and Cornell) have about 6+% annualized return while top performers have 8% annualized return. Recently Harvard has had a new endowment chief to catch up.
UChicago spends 6% of its endowment annually and the absolute value of its endowment is important to day-to-day operations.
Several years ago it was on par with Penn and Columbia and NU. Right now it lags behind them significantly (2-3B). At the current level of 7B it can sustain (to be competitive) for some time but not very long. It needs to grow it significantly since its peers will grow (relative strength is very important).
Maybe it should rethink its investment strategy or bring new bloods.
@fbsdreams @JBStillFlying @vicangie @denydenzig @AshleyMisAwesome OMG I GOT INTO ROSS BBA AT UMICH!!!
@TheShortSon: That is a great program! Congrats!!
Congrats @TheShortSon!
Wow, I was rooting for you @TheShortSon, nicely done!
@eddi137 Yeah, this is a big problem.
From 2001 to 2015, here are the endowment growth rates for some of Chicago’s competitors
Northwestern: 213%
Penn: 200%
Notre Dame: 203%
Stanford: 169%
Princeton: 172%
Yale: 138%
Duke: 133%
Columbia: 125%
MIT 120%
Chicago: 115%
Brown: 114%
Harvard: 103%
Dartmouth: 93%
Cornell: 92%
Unless Chicago fixes this in the next decade or so, it will affect the competitiveness of the University.
I know there are a lot of people who are dismayed by how ferociously Chicago has embraced ED, but I think attracting a more affluent body of students and becoming more per-professional may be the only way to quickly fix its endowment problem, because these students probably have a better chance of becoming successful and contributing to the school.
I don’t think UChicago is at MIT level for bio and chemistry (or geology, computer science, etc). Just noticed some may have a wrong impression that UChicago is top in just about everything
@IWannaHelp - yes, when assessing the schools on the strength of academics for many STEM subjects. According to USNews grad school rankings, for instance, MIT comes out ahead for Bio, Chem, Math (though both top 5 there), Physics (UChicago just out of top 5) and CS. While one can make a case that undergrad isn’t exactly grad school, the strength of that grad program filters down into the undergrad. After all, same profs teach both.
I’d expect that the heavy STEM emphasis at MIT would result in top rankings in those departments. It would be nice to see UChicago ranked higher in bio, chem, and CS.
What’s interesting are the NON-STEM: Economics (MIT = UChicago at #1), Poly Science (MIT slightly ahead there) and Psychology (MIT top 10, UChicago top 20). UChicago definitely dominates in History, English, and statistics (does MIT even have a separate Stats major?).
Some of the particular USNews rankings haven’t been updated in couple of years but pretty sure you see similar results in Shanghai’s categories - MIT totally dominates in the life and physical sciences, UChicago dominates in social sciences but MIT not far behind at all.
@IWannaHelp, with seminal interdisciplinary experiments including the first ever controlled self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Pile-1) and the famous Miller-Urey experiment replicating the primordial conditions under which life on the planet formed (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller–Urey_experiment#Experiment), UChicago’s bio, chem, geology, physics etc is pretty astounding. The list of nobel laureates and their accomplishments is pretty long as well which is to take nothing away from MIT.
@TheShortSon OMG CONGRATS!!!
@CU123 congrats to your daughter ! Graduate schools and employers know UChicago. That’s what matters. Moreover, your daughters friends’ reaction really says more about them than UChicago. USNWR ranking are ubiquitously read by high school kids and parents. There may be some jealously here 
The global reputation of UChicago as a world class leading thought leader in many fields is well established and eclipses most ivies.
I do think that the points made about relative endowment size are a legitimate vulnerability. But they are working on it. The one clear substantive weakness I see is the medical schools.
@Sam-I-Am, what’s interesting is that of the nobel laureates currently on faculty at UChicago, all are in Economics (Fama, Hanson, Heckman, Lucas). Not one in physics/chem/medicine etc. One might say that’s a pretty high bar, but MIT has 10 current members, including one in Economics (maybe two depending on what Merton is doing at the moment).
If nobels are an indication of the current quality of the department, then UChicago might have a bit of catching up to do to make it a science power-house.
On a side note - and I could be wrong here - it seems that UChicago dominates in areas where you don’t have to spend much money outside of faculty salary. Math, economics, business, law are all disciplines where the ideas are written down or put on a chalkboard. Physics might be lab-intensive to some degree, but they have their affiliation with FermiLab for that. Chem/bio/etc. are all lab-intensive disciplines. CS as well? Not sure (that’s relatively new at UChicago anyway so perhaps it just takes time to build the reputation). I realize that some of this discussion has been hashed out on another thread, but wanted to throw in that particle angle of argument.
@JBStillFlying don’t forget Roger Myerson, the Glen A. Lloyd Distinguished Service Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago, Game theory at its finest.
Whoops! Thanks! Make that five economists currently on faculty.
Not sure why @IWannaHelp logs onto a UChicago ED II thread just to plug MIT. Chicago is a great school, enough said.
hahaha @Sam-I-Am. Rivalry. @IWannaHelp attended Northwestern.
Oh, that explains a lot! lol.
Is there rivalry between UChicago and NU? Never heard it mentioned. I have heard the Havard vs Yale one.
A friendly, local, academic rivalry, yes. Since NU is DI and UChicago DIII, it is not an athletic rivalry. Both schools are highly respected.