Three of their highest-ever placements in the rankings have occurred in the past 5 years (#16 in 2013-14, #20 in 14-15, and #14 in 15-16.)
Usually, Chicago’s sports program earned a rank somewhere between #40-#50.
@exacademic might say we’re attracting sportier nerds. It’s an open question whether these athletes are nerdy or not, but it’s unquestioned that, outside the D1 years, Chicago currently has more athletic talent on campus than ever before.
Quite the contrary, @exacademic - it’s a little known fact that MIT is quite sporty amongst D3 schools. It has 30+ varsity teams, while Chicago only has 20, and the slight hooks it gives to athletes are a good way to recruit URMs, first gen students, etc.
Moreover, MIT has finished in the top 10 of the rankings for the past few years, primarily because it has so many sports. It’s more likely that it can do well in niche sports like rifle and fencing (two varsity sports it actually has). MIT picked up its recruiting in the mid-2000s, and has done extremely well in the rankings ever since.
If anything, it speaks to the caliber of the Chicago athlete that the school ranked highly with many fewer sports teams at the varsity level.
Re nerd cred - I stand by what I said before, there’s never been less of it on campus!