University of Chicago -- The Meteoric Rise

Thanks for “enlightening”

@Chrchill ,

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@Chrchill : Congratulations on having your child accepted at Chicago. Both of my kids went there, and they and their parents all loved it. We loved the education they got, we loved the culture of intellectual rigor and respectful, open-minded discussion, and we loved some of the fun stuff, too. And we agree that Chicago becoming a little bit more like its Ivy peers is not such a bad thing, as long as it preserves some of the stuff that makes it different in a good way. Which so far we think it has. (Both of us parents went to Yale in the mid-70s. Our children’s experience at Chicago was very much like ours at Yale in most respects. Which was good, because we loved Yale.)

That said, if you think Chicago is an anti-PC paradise, you have another think coming. As at substantially all elite universities, the faculty and student body are overwhelmingly to the left. The difference vs, some other universities is that, on the whole, they are both a little bit less far to the left than elsewhere – the median is a few meters right of where it may be elsewhere. There are strong (minority) conservative voices in the faculty and student body. And because there is such a strong culture of civil, evidence-based, rational debate, people tend to shout and to sloganize at one another less than seems to happen elsewhere. Not that they never do it, but less, and it doesn’t seem to grab the imagination of a critical mass of the students when it happens. People actually listen to each other’s arguments respectfully, look for common ground, adjust their positions to accommodate others’ strong points. But . . . in the end, it’s a very liberal place. Including the conservatives – they tend to be libertarian in orientation. You would have a hard time finding a lot of people who oppose marriage equality or abortion rights there.

One interesting feature of Chicago is that it is a place where you can criticize Israel without a bunch of professional ADL types jumping down your throat screaming about anti-Semitism. There are a number of Chicago professors who have been much appreciated by their colleagues at Chicago, and who are regarded there as thoughtful, rigorous scholars, who came under constant, ad hominem attack from pro-Israel people when they went elsewhere – Rashid Khalidi, Nadia Abu El-Haj, and John Mearsheimer (who has not left Chicago, but is a lot more controversial outside Hyde Park than in it).

Also – Jim Nondorf came to Chicago in 2009, not 2010. He’s very, very good at what he does, that’s for sure. (Also a former Whiffenpoof and member of Skull & Bones. He was passed over to run the Yale admissions office in favor of Jeffrey Brenzel in 2005, and he’s been making Yale rue that decision ever since.)

John Boyer has been working to improve the College experience steadily for the past 30+ years, 25 of them as Dean of the College, which is pretty unprecedented. He has had the support of four different presidents, including the current one, who when he was a young math professor at Chicago was also a strong advocate for improving the College. It has been a long, hard process, which has steadily gathered momentum, and really borne fruit in the past decade. It wasn’t the result of any new policy on Zimmer’s part – every administration in the past 40 years has been working towards the same goal.

Very informative. Thanks. I am all for a vigorous debate as long as it is civilized and does not degenerate into intimidation or worse. There is a line beyond which criticism of Israel is a ruse for antisemitism. It is not easily definable. But like pornography, you know it when you see it.

I’d just say that U of C is one of the last American universities that prides itself fostering an environment where rigorous and self-critical intellectual inquiry is expected and valued – among undergrads as well as faculty. It’s not a left-right issue. It’s about how to learn/teach/think/understand better.

I went to Harvard seeking (and finding) that kind of atmosphere as an undergrad. DD was looking for the same thing, but was deeply skeptical of Harvard (and downright dismissive of Stanford) in that regard. She was pretty confident U of C would deliver and, one quarter in, feels very strongly that she chose the right school (despite – not because of – the Ellison letter).

Law School has always been ranked very high.

http://www.prelawhandbook.com/law_school_rankings__1987_1999

Columbia Law was ahead of Chicago for the past 10 years. Last year for the first time in a long time they have been tied at 4. But this is splitting hairs. The top 5 schools consistently have been ale, Harvard, Stanford, Columbia and Chicago. These are the most influential law schools. They offer superb employment prospects for their graduates…

The last time I cared about law school rankings, which was approximately 30 years ago, I would have ranked Columbia in the bottom half of the top 10, meaningfully below Chicago. Columbia had been literally decimated by a Stanford raid on its faculty in the late 60s that catapulted Stanford into the upper echelons at Columbia’s expense, and NYU’s aggressive expansion and hiring was eroding Columbia’s pre-eminence in New York. Columbia has recovered and is stronger now than it was (and New York City can handle two strong law schools). Chicago’s faculty was amazing. In a sense, in the 1980s Chicago was hurt by its own success – a whole bunch of its amazing faculty wound up as federal judicial appointments or in other roles.

I attended the College in the 1980s. Outside of the academics, it was a miserable experience. I entered with a class of about 800, and graduated with a class of about 500. The missing students burned out academically, or gave up from depression, or simply transferred away - and the school did not care one bit. There was no effort to make it someplace that 18 year olds fresh out of high school could be comfortable and thrive. In short, they treated college freshmen as though they were 30 year old post-docs. No wonder so few applicants wanted to go there. The massive quality of life changes over the past couple of decades at the College and in Hyde Park have been extraordinarily welcome and necessary. From what I can tell, the College students now are much happier and more successful - but still have the nerdy intense academic focus that is the U of C’s special niche. That’s a win-win.

Likewise, I see nothing wrong with marketing - when it is honest marketing. In this case, the U of C has always offered an elite academic experience, but it suffered from extremely low recognition among high school students (and what recognition existed was a largely negative perception). Part of that was not being part of the hallowed Ivy League, part of that was the lack of high profile sports, part of that was lack of outreach, part of that was the lack of a distinct university name that stuck in people’s minds. Add up the reasons, and it was a perfect storm where the U of C was not on the radar of the overwhelming majority of excellent potential applicants whom it would have served well.

The last factor always has interested me. I wonder if Princeton would have the instant name recognition it has if it was still called the “College of New Jersey” like it was back when the U of C was founded. I wonder if Johns Hopkins would have the instant name recognition it has if it had been named the “University of Baltimore.” I wonder if the U of C would have had a very different path historically if it had been named Rockefeller University, or Harper University, or Hyde Park University from the very start. I guess it is too late to make that kind of change now, but I think it still might be a good idea.

Nondorf has done a great job at overcoming a lot of history and putting the U of C right where it belongs in terms of admissions - desired by top students just like Yale and Columbia. If I ever met him I would buy him a beer - even though I know that I personally would not have a chance to get in the way I did in the 1980s.

Wait a sec. There are right of center ideas that UChucagi champions like free market economics, efficient markets, political economy that are big in the law school, b school and economics department. And we have the professors to back this claim too. So yes, UChicsgo is to the right of Berkeley, HYPS. In this regard and a beacon for fiscal conservatism The social sciences though are left of center but they have less superstar power than the 3 departments above. The Divinity school is to the right of Harvard’s, but really it’s just more welcoming of other faiths so it’s not right of center. The pure Sciences are apolitical… Near Eastern studies are superstars rivaling the economists… But really it doesn’t translate to anything right vs left.

Net net I think UChicago is libertarian, not right or left.

But that’s a personal opinion.

And the majority of students are left of center, except perhaps in the b and law schools.

ThankYouforHelp–as a parent of a current student I appreciated reading your thoughtful post about your time at UChicago and after. I was wondering if you would comment on something I wonder about. Do you think UChicago’s location in the Hyde Park right now is a net benefit, net detriment, or neutral and why? What do you think about the future?

“I wonder if Princeton would have the instant name recognition it has if it was still called the “College of New Jersey” like it was back when the U of C was founded. I wonder if Johns Hopkins would have the instant name recognition it has if it had been named the “University of Baltimore.” I wonder if the U of C would have had a very different path historically if it had been named Rockefeller University, or Harper University, or Hyde Park University from the very start.”

I totally agree with above. UChicago’s name is a little generic and a little confusing. Some people say University of Cambridge or University of Oxford sound right, which I concur. But their naming effect is way different than Chicago’s.

Cambridge and Oxford are small cities. The universities in them dominate. When people hear Cambridge they will first think the university most of the time then the city itself.

While Chicago is so big - a world class city. The universities in it cannot dominate. When people hear Chicago they will first think the city then other things else. The same naming effect goes with other universities with state name in them.

Princeton is a city too but small. People will not think the city first (even they know) when they hear Princeton most of the time. I think had Princeton been called University of Princeton it would have had the same name recognition.

Too bad UChicago will stick its name with Chicago. However Hyde (w/o Park) University would do. LOL

Find a naming donor. Bill Gates Universty. :(|)

Re naming a university - do you all think Univ. of Pennsylvania faces the same problem?

If people are that ignorant, I would not care about their opinion in the first place … But I do agree that it would have been much better had it been named Rockefeller U originally

No please. Even as rich as Gates today the University is worth more (at least down the road). I have heard the idea of Rockefeller University was floating during the founding of the university but failed.

Companies came and went, so did empires. But great universities are a very few entities which can stand time, see Cambridge.

Sorry, Rockefeller U is already taken, albeit not until a few years after UChicago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockefeller_University

“Re naming a university - do you all think Univ. of Pennsylvania faces the same problem?”

Of course. They probably should have called it Benjamin Franklin University.

But being in the Ivy League automatically creates its own name recognition and prestige. Probably half of the schools in the Ivy League are only there by happenstance. Harvard, Yale, Princeton easily could have chosen to invite, say, Amherst, Williams and Colgate rather than Brown, Cornell and Dartmouth. But they didn’t, and all the other Ivy schools have benefited greatly from the association with the Big 3.

:ThankYouforHelp–as a parent of a current student I appreciated reading your thoughtful post about your time at UChicago and after. I was wondering if you would comment on something I wonder about. Do you think UChicago’s location in the Hyde Park right now is a net benefit, net detriment, or neutral and why? What do you think about the future?"

I think it used to be a detriment, back when living in cities was not in vogue. Chicago, Columbia, Penn… all of them were hurting in the 1950s and 60s as people fled to the suburbs, and all of them have done much better in recent times as people have again learned the benefit of living in cities. I would say Hyde Park is a benefit now, and it is going to be an ever larger benefit in the future.

“If people are that ignorant, I would not care about their opinion in the first place …”

If I’m a college, I certainly care about whether the nation’s high schoolers have heard of me or think good things of me. If they haven’t, I would not dismiss them as ignorant, I would educate them - just like Jim Nonsdorf has done.