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It means diddly to me as a student and probably means diddly to you as a prospie.
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<p>How true, the geniuses rarely enjoy teaching (many view it as a distraction from their research), and when they do teach, they are often poor teachers because to them everything is "self-evident", so they do not put much thought into teaching methods and often do not have the patience for people not at their level. Same with elite athletes --- they are usually lousy coaches.</p>
<p>That is a good point, unalove and groovygeek. I really couldn't care less that
Chicago has the most Nobel Prize winners since a lot of them really are bad at interacting and teaching.</p>
<p>From what I can gather...just by looking at the placement of people I know who are going to graduate/professional schools, they do take that into account.</p>
<p>I'm around many pre-medders, who are applying to top 10 med schools, and certainly don't have 3.9 GPAs like many pre-med students do.</p>
<p>As for law, I'd shoot someone an email at the pre-law advising (the info is on the college website) and ask how students do.</p>
<p>haha brown people are pretty defensive about their open curric like my friend said "pass fail doesn't mean im not doing any work jackass!"</p>
<p>The nobel prize people thing is cool too. The famous studies and expts done here are cool. I came out of a chem lecture from which my teacher, a winner of the undergraduate teaching award at UoC, said the Mullikan experiment was done right across the street. Then I walked past the nationally recognized site where enrico fermi set off a nuclear chain reaction. I then did my chemistry homework, and reminded myself that there is an element called fermium... that's real prestige</p>
<p>And then there was this really famous athlete dude, Edwin Hubble....</p>
<p>.... U of C does have a fascinating history. However, as I said before, that doesn't make it a "better" school.</p>
<p>I think UChicago may be the best school, the most idealistic college. The reasons are: Tremendous energy put to undergraduate education and its beatiful challenge to academic inquiries; overall academic strength across natural, social, and humanities as a unversity; number one in nobel prize winners: it is not a joke. So many countries have not won even one nobel prize in science field. I will not name them.; the Chicago School in economics; and awesome, so beatiful campus. I am not a Chicago person. But I have admired Chicago entire my life.</p>
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number one in nobel prize winners
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Nope. That's Columbia as of last year. I've been wondering if Chicago took it out of their brochures.</p>
<p>And the number of Nobel Prizes gained by an institution is rather a (somewhat poor) evaluation of the graduate program of that university. Nothing to do with undergrad at all, really.</p>
<p>Without a continous production of young PhDs, how can a university keep faculty body at their highest quality? Without excellent professors, how can we learn? If you just want a good English speaking teacher, you can listen audio/video, or internet lectures. Learning is something sharing inspirations. It may be very difficult to find an excellent scholar who would enjoy teaching undergraduate material again and again every year until retire.</p>
<p>A university produced 1 or 10 Nobel prize winner (s) and, still, can be evaluated universally as a mediocre school. But, when a university has produced, in a consistent manner over the century period, near 80 in every science field, it must have something awesome in it. BTW, how many winners whole Russia has? Hands Down.</p>
<p>For the Columbia comparison, it seems to me that its numbers are more or less a result of a conglomerate of many different charateristics. And their number itself seems a little suspicious considering if they had close enough ties for many their claimed winners. BTW, does Columbia has something like Columbia school in any field? OTOH, Chicago has one thoroughly maintained theme, that is, a relentless pursuit of science from humanity. I still think UChicago is the best university institution from the modern world history perspective.</p>
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But, when a university has produced, in a consistent manner over the century period, near 80 in every science field, it must have something awesome in it.
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<p>Note that many of the Nobel Prizes UChicago is 'affiliated with' have only been visiting professors. But even then, what if we consider such Nobel Prize winners as Enrico Fermi? Did Chicago produce him? Hardly. It's more probable that he was attracted to the school due to its resources and current faculty than anything else. So having a number of Nobel Prizes certainly does say something about the school, primarily its resources (which can actually be argued to be the most important part of a school) and secondly, the staff on duty at the particular time the Nobel Prize was received. The second can hardly be applied to modern times at UChicago, as we haven't had a handful of Nobel Prize winners lately.</p>
<p>Also, we have to consider the distribution of Nobel Prize winners. I believe that the University of Chicago is affiliated with about half of the Nobel Prize winners in economics. So this shows that Chicago is definitely a huge force in the field of economics, but what about physics? Chemistry? We seem to be lagging behind other leaders in those fields.</p>
<p>Fermi was actually working at Columbia before he came to UChicago, and had it not been for the Manhattan Project, he probably would have never been associated with the school. He was pulled in because of other people here who were working hard on doing whatever they were doing, and because UChicago was seen as a compromise between other suggested sites for the first nuclear chain reaction.</p>
<p>In terms of where Nobel Prize winners went for undergrad, I believe that CUNY (City colleges of New York), Swat, and Harvard top that list.</p>
<p>Basically, I think that Chicago is a marvelous school independently of these factoids. That's why I'm so blase about them.</p>
<p>You do realize Columbia Alums have won more Nobel Prizes than Chicago:
36 vs. 29 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_laureates_by_university_affiliation%5B/url%5D">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_laureates_by_university_affiliation</a></p>
<p>Also look at the last 10 years:
Columbia faculty awarded the Nobel Prize in the last 10 years(1996-2006):[89]</p>
<p>Faculty Affiliation at Columbia Nobel Prize
1.Orhan Pamuk Dept.of Middle East Languages & Cultures Literature, 2006
2.Edmund Phelps Dept. of Economics Economics, 2006
3.Richard Axel Center for Neurobiology & Behavior,A.B.1967 Physiology/Medicine, 2004
4.Joseph Stiglitz Dept. of Economics Economics, 2001
5.Eric Kandel Center for Neurobiology & Behavior Physiology/Medicine, 2000
6.Robert Mundell Dept. of Economics Economics, 1999
7.Horst Stormer Dept. of Physics Physics, 1998
8.William Vickrey Dept. of Economics,M.A.1937,PhD1948 Economics, 1996 </p>
<p>Columbia affiliates awarded the Nobel Prize in the last 10 years(1996-2006):[89]</p>
<p>Name Affiliation at Columbia Nobel Prize
9.John Mather Goddard Institute for Space Studies Physics, 2006
10.Robert Grubbs PhD 1968 Chemistry, 2005
11.Linda Buck Research Scientist 1980-91 Physiology/Medicine, 2004
12.William Knowles PhD 1942 Chemistry, 2001
13.James Heckman Faculty 1970-74 Economics, 2000
14.Louis Ignarro B.S. 1962 Physiology/Medicine, 1998
15.Robert Merton B.S. 1966 Economics, 1997 </p>
<p>Not that this means COlumbia>Chicago...that's an arguement no one can win ;)</p>
<p>I think for number of undergraduates who have gone on to win Nobel Prizes, CalTech, Swat, and CUNY are tops.</p>
<p>Again, this means very little. Fun facts for the college tour, if that.</p>
<p>Actually, Columbia is tops in nobel winners by undergraduate education as well ;)</p>