Legacy at Harvard is basically meaningless without an extra diversity factor of some kind or mega mega donations. It is folly to waste the early ticket on Harvard due to a one parent legacy unless the candidate could reasonably hope to get in without it. If there are two perfectly identical applicant, the legacy may get the nod. But when are there ever two identical candidates ?
@DeepBlue86 Yale ? Is that a lock company ?
QED
From the 2015-2016 financial report, some details on the University’s financial picture that may be relevant to a lot of discussions here.
Link to the report: https://finserv.uchicago.edu/sites/finserv.uchicago.edu/files/uploads/Documents/pdf/F_551669_RESTRICTED_16_UniversityofChicago_FS.pdf
- The University has $1.16 billion in unfunded commitments to various partner institutions between 2017 and 2026, as part of its investment plan. Most of this was in the form of planned investments.
- Debt payments on principal due each year from 2017 to 2021 (combined totals for the University, Medical Center, and Marine Biological Laboratory): ~$58 million, ~$74 million, ~$43 million, ~$59 million, and ~$105 million, for a total of just under $340 million.
- The University, Medical Center, and MBL had a total of just over $4.5 billion in debt. Of that amount, $3.6 billion was in the form of long-term bonds with fixed interest rates (these range from 3.2% to 5.5%). The other $900 million was made up of variable-rate lines of credit, all carrying interest rates of 0.9% or less. The University also has interest-rate swaps on the latter as a hedge against a spike in the cost of borrowing. Total interest payments in 2016 amounted to just over $90 million.
If we assume the $1.16 billion in planned investments are evenly spaced out (granted, this is just a guess) this puts the University’s investment and debt servicing expenses at approximately $275 million per year. Planned payments to pension plans add another $15 million, for a total of $290 million in non-operating expenses.
In FY 2016, operating revenues for the University (including UCMC and MBL) exceeded expenses by about $40 million.
All told, currently planned operating costs, debt costs, and investment payments should require an average of $250-300 million a year in net payouts from the University in the short-to-medium term.
That’s not the whole picture, of course; new capital projects (like a dorm at 61st and Dorchester, the new hotel nearby, and - down the line - a replacement for Max P that isn’t slowly sinking into the ground) will mean further outlays and higher debt costs. And the University is likely to increase spending - partly because lots of initiatives have room to grow, and partly because U.S. News considers higher spending in its rankings. But it’s a snapshot of the financial situation at one point in time.
On the plus side, the University’s ongoing capital campaign has brought in $3.9 billion since 2014 - an average of $1.3 billion a year in donations. The pace of fundraising was enough to prompt the University to increase its target from $4.5 billion to $5 billion earlier this year. After a dismal FY 2016, university endowments in general have done well so far - at the end of 2016, median returns stood at 4.4%. This trend was driven by high returns in global equities, so it’s likely UChicago’s endowment overperformed the median; while the average endowment invests 12-13% of its assets in global equities, that’s the floor of UChicago’s range (12-32%) and the University’s long-term strategic allocation is 22%
Endowment performance: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-28/college-endowment-six-month-returns-boosted-by-global-stocks
UChicago endowment report: https://annualreport.uchicago.edu/page/endowment
Despite recent credit downgrades, driven by the University’s aggressive debt-fueled spending and a bad fiscal year 2016 for endowments everywhere, the University’s financial situation looks very healthy in general. Donations from the capital campaign could easily sustain higher spending on capital, investments, and operating expenses, and the endowment appears to be back on track. In fact, under present conditions, we’d be in a decent position even if the University lost every dollar of federal funding it’s slated to receive ($365 million last year). Though that would, of course, be a massive shock to the system and a serious challenge in the medium to long term.
I’m no auditor, so take all that with a grain of salt.
Barring a substantial drop in rankings, a white supremacist rally led by actual students, or the elimination of the tax deduction for donations to not-for-profits, I wouldn’t expect fundraising to drop noticeably. At worst, the University’s most aggressive projections for endowment growth and pie-in-the-sky construction plans may be out of reach for the time being after FY 2016, but that’s hardly a portent of impending doom.
I think this is worth bearing in mind when we say that UChicago needs to do this or that to keep the University’s balance sheet healthy and fund continuing improvements to university programs, new construction, and an expansion of services.
If the goal is to catch up to HYPS, by tripling their endowment growth in the medium to long term, that’s a different conversation - and I think it’s fair to question whether that goal is worth the trade-offs.
I just got an email containing the following phrase “1800 of your closest friends.” That seems to me to be confirmation that the class is at least 1700+ (1750+ if their following proper rounding procedure) and possibly even bigger.
That number must include O-aides? Are they just playing with us at this point?
@DunBoyer - isn’t the goal to catch HYPS? Unless I’ve missed something, that’s unmistakably Zimmer’s mission - to be in the top handful of US Us.
And, speaking even more practically, I think Chicago wants to win in its little battle with the top non-HYPS research Us - Columbia, UPenn, Hopkins, Duke, etc. I’m not sure how it’s doing there - it may be ok against Penn, Duke, and Hopkins, but I suspect that it does not have an edge on Columbia, in terms of cross-admits, fundraising prowess, draw power, etc.
When looked at in isolation, UChicago’s financial health and strategy look good - but you have to look at this through the right lens.
@Cue7 I think Chicago surpasses Hopkins, Duke, NW for cross admits, yield, fundraising and draw power but not Columbia or Penn. It is right around equivalent those schools if you look at a composite of these metrics.
Any school that wants to be truly considered on the same breath as HYPS has to do something completely extraordinary to break out of that lower elite tier and create a competitive advantage. offer something that the rest of HYPSM really don’t. The bar is set impossibly high though.
Look at Stanford for example. maybe it was more or less always considered top 5, but its long-term investment in building silicon valley and being at the forefront of tech propelled it ahead of places like Yale or Princeton. That is a one in a billion situation though. Any school that wants to break into the HYPSM league has to create a similar competitive advantage in some area. There is no other way to do it really imo.
Revamping the admission process, using ED, ramping up the marketing, increasing scores etc can propel and establish a school in the top 10, like it did for Columbia and Penn 2 decades ago and for Chicago about a decade ago, but once you are in there are other forces that come into play. As history has shown, the same strategy won’t propel a school to be considered on par with HYPSM.
@Penn95 - you make good points but I think you undervalue Columbia in comparison to Chicago and Penn. the New York City location is huge - in a way that makes surpassing Columbia (unless your HYPS) really difficult. Disregarding questionable parchment data, Columbia looks more popular and more selective than Everyone but HYPS, and certainly nationally and globally, being in New York offers a draw that other urban Us can’t match.
And from a fundraising standpoint, Columbia raised what, $6B in comparison to Penn’s $4.3B and Chicago’s anticipate $5B? Even when adjusting for size, that eclipses what Chicago and Penn have done. Moreover, it still seems to have an edge in selectivity and general draw.
To sum, I don’t think we can group Chicago or Penn, good as they may be, with Columbia - if for nothing else, because of its location and current prominence. Columbia is a big, near HYPS level dog.
@Cue7 I think making up lost ground relative to HYPS is a good, achievable goal. If everyone’s endowment doubles over the next X years, it will have a much bigger effect on our ability to fund new facilities, programs, etc. than it will on HYPS’ capabilities. Right now, UChicago is easily on track to narrow the gap - to maintain or widen the existing disparity, HYPS would have to outraise Chicago by a factor of 3-4. At the moment, this translates to a cool $3.9-5.2 billion.
Catching up, except in the long, long term, would require outraising HYPS by eye-popping amounts over a sustained period of time - by enough, for long enough, to make up a decades-long head start. And probably some good luck on the investment front. There are probably ways to do this (though most start with telling the laws of basic economics to go jump in a lake). But this involves more trade-offs in other areas. Take North, which was done on the cheap compared to new dorms at Yale (for instance). Or, more importantly, monthlong turnaround times for simple requests and (last fall) aid packages delayed well into Fall Quarter because College Aid is understaffed.
To all intents and purposes (bad analogy incoming), this is like Brazil trying to catch up to the US’ GDP/capita (they aren’t, as far as I know, but probably wouldn’t mind that happening). The gap between the two is going to narrow over time, because one side has far more room to grow and needs far less growth to increase its GDP as a share of the other’s, but trying to actually pass the U.S. in 10 or even 50 years is a goal that requires big sacrifices elsewhere. You might achieve the necessary short-term growth by chopping down the rest of the Amazon, legalizing child labor, and welcoming the organ-harvesting industry with open arms. But is the added growth worth it?
(To be clear, I don’t see any of the University’s recent moves as the functional equivalent of legalizing child labor. I simply question if the marginal financial benefits are worth the cost.)
@Cue7 I would say you could because both schools (Chicago, Penn) have clear competitive advantage in certain areas over Columbia. Imo Columbia, Chicago, Penn complement each other and when you include Caltech they have the full gamut of capabilities like HYPSM, just at a lower prestige level.
Sure Columbia’s location is a major draw and it has its advantages but I don’t think it places it in a different league. Also I do not think it makes it more selective. I can tell you that there are for example many international students who are definitely not qualified for the ivies and who just apply to Columbia because it is in NYC. And that is true for domestic students too. Being in NYC gives Columbia more applicants than you would expect for an ivy of its size, but it doesn’t necessarily make it more selective. Also I don’t think the location advantage is that huge anymore. Nowadays with high-tech communication and transportation the added benefit of being in NYC is significantly lower imo.
@Penn95 - yeah I’m not just talking about just students though. In terms of recruiting battles for faculty, fundraising dollars, general glitz and glam - Nyc has an it factor that other cities don’t have, and it gives Columbia an edge. Remember, Columbia is of similar size to penn (and a little bigger than Chicago) but it is a notch above in terms of fundraising, clearly, for example.
I’m not saying it’s In a different league - just that in more cases than not, it out duels penn and Chicago. I don’t see any data that disputes this. I don’t mean it wins all the time - just that overall, when looking at fundraising dollars, selectivity (perceived or not), etc, Pennsylvania and Chicago are in columbias rear view mirror more often than not.
@Cue7 I think when you look at yield (and specifically RD yield) the schools have been equally desirable, same goes more or less for cross-admit battles. If Columbia was perceived significantly more selective/prestigious there would be a clear delta in these figures I think. I think Columbia’s acceptance rate is so low mainly due to New York.
For fundraising maybe it is true that Penn should be performing better given the number of billionaires, but the difference is not big (about $40mil last year) and I don’t think the difference with Chicago is big either after adjusting for its size. But yes I would give Columbia a slight edge due to location and the fact that it doesn’t suffer from a generic name problem like Penn and Chicago.
@Penn95 do you now how many colleges are name Columbia, not to mention companies…
The dinner invite says “all 1700+”
The class cookout says "all 1600+
@Penn95 - again, I’m not just talking college students. I think if you look at faculty hires and recruiting battles for faculty, overall recruiting for PhD students, recruitment for high profile staff, etc. Columbia wins more than its fair share, given everything that NYC has to offer. Also note, it’s not just alum who donate to a college - and being in NYC helps Columbia win over lots of dollars - NYC just has so much more concentrated wealth than Chicago (or definitely Philly), so it gives Columbia an advantage. Remember, alums only make up a fraction (maybe 30-40%, actually) of overall donor dollars.
Again, it’s so much more than not having a generic name. Heck, MIT sounds pretty generic (indistinguishable from, say, NYU, to me), but obviously it’s a great brand.
Remember, college students are just a part of the overall picture. The RD yields may look similar, although I imagine Columbia still has an edge here, even though all schools try to obfuscate their actual selectivity.
I’d say in terms of student selectivity (maybe it’s close but Columbia still has an edge), faculty recruitment, fundraising dollars, location, strength of brand, and general stature, Columbia is a notch above. Remember, merited or not, it still scores better in peer assessment rankings, and this is in part because of its higher profile nature.
Again, it might be nice to try and group Columbia with Penn and Chicago, but, if you do that, you might as well group Northwestern and Hopkins in there too (something I have no problem doing, but I sense you like to establish distance between, say, Penn and Northwestern). If you think Columbia and Penn are close in selectivity (what with a 6% accept rate vs. a 10% accept rate at Penn), I’m not sure why NU (with like a 11% accept rate) and Penn aren’t similar. Especially because the schools are comparably wealthy, and NU actually has good forward momentum (it’s hospital system is ranked #13 to UPenn’s #10, it’s close in business and law rankings, and I imagine it’s med school ranking will close the gap some, given all the forward thrust there. It’s engineering is also on par, as is its college of arts and sciences, etc. If you group NU with Chicago and UPenn (and other non-HYPMS schools), I have no problem keeping with your take on CU and UPenn.
@CU123 That is very true but I feel it ends up working to their advantage because the word Columbia itself is not generic and for some reason it sticks in peoples heads. It is just a nice sounding brand that sticks more to peoples heads.
@Cue7 I dont agree that in faculty in recruitment Columbia wins. It vastly depends on the field. Where do you base that general assertion?
The reason why I d say Penn and Chicago are closer to Columbia than Northwestern is the fact that their yield rates are very close, while NW is much lower. Also their overall rankings in various fields are consistently higher than NW. As i said i do not consider acceptance rate that important of an indicator, given Columbia’s location. Imo ability to retain admits during RD is much more telling of where a school stands than acceptance rate.
It is now 11:30pm, and I write this the night before sending my daughter to UChicago tomorrow with my wife, and the following thoughts come to mind:
- What is it about UChicago that causes this level of intense navel-gazing?
- Is my daughter destined to become a navel gazer as well, or is there some intervention we can do to keep that from happening? Or is it simply a lost cause?
I think we can conclude with certainty that the class size is between 1600+ and 1800+.
College Confidential is only a microcosm of people affiliated with UChicago. The typical UChicago student doesn’t dwell on the school’s rankings. They’re too busy doing their work, etc.