Isn’t it strange how prestige shares at least one aspect with pornography: we may not be able to define it, but, we think we know it when we see it. :))
I feel like Harvard and Amherst aren’t spending too much time crying about their #2 spots.
(Well, maybe Amherst, but mainly because of which specific school is at #1 on that list)
Hannibal Lecture is probably the best villain, but I would not encourage my kids to hang out with him…
Likewise for the USNews rankings.
@nrtlax33 thanks for the info from Times Higher Education, but I am certain their “Instructional Expenses” not only includes graduate expenditures co-mingled with undergraduate expenditures, it also includes some component of research expenditure, which can be huge. The reason is there is accounting guidance from OMB and NACUBO (National Association of College and University Business Officers that lets Universities do exactly that. You can read about how it works in this piece by a former http://www.changinghighereducation.com/2016/08/the-high-cost-of-funded-research.html
Again, most of this has nothing to do with undergraduate education, and indeed, undergraduate tuition is used to help subsidize both graduate study and research.
@Fisherman99 “Some schools, like Northeastern, Georgia and USC, are ranked ahead of their academic reputations/quality. Others, like Wisconsin, Illinois and Texas (and many other top state schools), are ranked below their general academi…”
I’m about to fix that.
I don’t know when UChicago imposed (or started proclaiming) a 19-student limit for Core classes. I suspect the number is not a coincidence. However, even when I attended (which was before the USNWR rankings even existed), the Core classes were quite small. Sorry I don’t have historic numbers, but as I recall, class sizes in the teens were not unusual.
Not only were undergraduate classes ~typically rather small, the caliber of instruction generally was quite high. Here are a few prominent professors who taught undergraduates in the years I attended, or after:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_McKeon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Maclean (Quantrell Award recipient for excellence in undergraduate teaching)
http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/940526/cronin.shtml (Nobel laureate; Quantrell Award recipient for excellence in undergraduate teaching)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subrahmanyan_Chandrasekhar (Nobel laureate)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Kolb (Quantrell Award recipient for excellence in undergraduate teaching)
http://www-news.uchicago.edu/releases/03/030425.levitt.shtml (John Bates Clark medalist; Quantrell Award recipient for excellence in undergraduate teaching)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A1szl%C3%B3_Babai (Gödel Prize laureate; Quantrell Award recipient for excellence in undergraduate teaching)
https://news.uchicago.edu/story/william-h-mcneill-world-historian-and-distinguished-scholar-1917-2016 (Erasmus prize recipient; National Humanities Medal recipient; Quantrell Award recipient for excellence in undergraduate teaching)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Weintraub (Quantrell Award recipient for excellence in undergraduate teaching)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Mearsheimer (Quantrell Award recipient for excellence in undergraduate teaching)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Pavel (Quantrell Award recipient for excellence in undergraduate teaching)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertram_Cohler (Quantrell Award recipient for excellence in undergraduate teaching)
Per IPEDS data, UChicago has a very high level of instructional spending per student.
Last I checked, using FY2015 data, it was over $85,000/year (compared to about $40K for Northwestern, $25K for Cornell, $18K for UVa … $7K for CSU-Fresno.) The spending levels, the USNWR class size numbers, the online course enrollment numbers, anecdotal reports, and personal experience generally seem to align.Which is not to say you’ll never experience big or poorly taught classes at UChicago (or other research universities that claim strong class size numbers).
As others have been discussing, spending per undergraduate student may not be wholly reliable in terms of comparisons, depending on accounting practices. Among other things, Chicago has a medical school, so if some of the medical school spending “leaks” into the spending per undergraduate student, that number could be exaggerated. Also, unqualified acceptance that higher spending is better means rewarding inefficiency, whether or not any given inefficiency actually improves student experiences or education.
By default colleges in high cost areas will spend more per student. A simple student campus bus in SanFran probably runs triple to one in College Station.
It is easy enough to poison the well of college performance data by speculating about this or that way it may not be wholly reliable. Well, ok. I, too, strongly suspect the numbers aren’t always wholly reliable. And it’s important to consider context so you aren’t relying on apples-to-oranges comparisons.
So what should the true numbers be? What data sources are more reliable than the CDS, IPEDS, NSF, etc.? When multiple metrics and rankings (and anecdotal reports, and personal experience) tend to point to similar sets of top colleges, what better evidence (or data sources) point to significantly different results? I know about confirmation bias. I’ve been looking for contrary evidence for years. So far, I’m not finding much evidence that many students have crappy academic experiences at many “top” colleges, or that there is a big set of low-ranked hidden gems with distinguished professors (who all love teaching undergrads), consistently small classes, fantastic outcomes, and excellent financial aid. And I don’t care much about 5 or 10 position differences (which I think should be irrelevant to choosing a college).
If UChicago’s $85K/year ISPS is inflated by med school costs, then how do we arrive at the right number?
Georgetown University’s Instructional Spending Per Student is about $30K/year. It, too, has a med school (and a law school). But if Chicago’s true number is closer to $30K than $85K, that still is much more than spending per student at many other colleges. And remember that med schools typically only enroll about 100 students per class. At UChicago, Pritzker enrolls ~400 out of a total university enrollment of ~16,000.
My daughter will be a sophmore at UChicago and she was very impressed by her freshman teachers. I have friends who attended years ago, and their children attend now, and they say that the focus on the undergraduate experience is much better than in their day. I don’t think teaching is the issue at UChicago, but student support services is.Also, spending per student is probably skewed by their campus police spending. They certainly aren’t spending on student counseling or support services which are sub par per all the negative publicity about this last year.
That $85K UChicago figure is for instructional spending per student. It shouldn’t include campus police costs. It would tend to be driven up by smaller classes, higher faculty salaries, and maybe by better classroom/lab facilities (though I’m not sure exactly what is included in the IPEDS numbers).
Yes, local costs of living or inefficient spending might play a role, too. If you suspect the latter accounts for much of the difference between UChicago’s $85K and CSU Fresno’s $7K, go visit a few classes at both schools and see if you don’t notice any quality difference. Depending on what you’re looking for, maybe you truly won’t.
@nrtlax33 “But most people don’t transfer in college. If you don’t like it after you try it, too bad, you are stuck with it”.
Why are you stuck? Even if most people do not transfer, many do. As far as I know, Chicago has a very high freshman retention rate. If your scenario were true, wouldn’t you expect a lower retention rate?
My understanding is that this is one of the major reasons why some students develop mental problems or even commit suicide. Some have low GPAs so they are unable to transfer out to their target school. Some have parents who want to “save face” so they don’t allow their kids to transfer out. My kid found this old video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYN9h2zYgIQ) very funny and can’t stop laughing when watching it. If your kid is there, you might not find it to be funny. You should let your kid watch more of those UChicago videos to subject him/her to “stress tests”. If they don’t care, they are likely to be good candidates for UChicago.
What objective data (not anecdotal) are you aware of in order to back any of this?
UChicago was the only school we were initially interested in which does not announce its admissions statistics. Upon further investigation, you will know it admits up to 79% of its students at EDs. We don’t do ED. Then in the summer of 2016, this was aired – https://www.today.com/video/mental-health-policies-at-universities-draw-increasing-concern-708889155922?v=raila&
We also extrapolated some data from https://www.chicagomaroon.com/2014/02/18/communitys-role-in-supporting-survivors-of-suicide/ and focused on this part
OK. Not a good fit. Did not apply.
Smiling face, genuine happiness, and healthy lifestyle are among the top priorities for us when choosing a college.
Also read this – https://www.chicagomaroon.com/article/2018/7/3/academic-leave-left-dark/
Just remember that UChicago is not forthcoming with any information. If you are finding a business partner, would you choose this kind of partner? Don’t expect any objective data from them. They don’t even want you to know how many students are accepted at EDs.
If you would like to see survey data, the most comprehensive student survey recently done by WSJ/THE put UChicago at #499.
You decided Chicago was not a good fit , that is fine, but none of this is objective data. I am happy that your kid found a place that meet your expectations. It is easy to find anecdotes like this for or against any school.
This thread is already way off topic. If you really want to warn the CC community about Chicago as your recommendation to subject my kid to some stress test and many of your posts seem to suggest, maybe you should start a thread with the title “Beware, do not apply to University of Chicago” and list all these points. Many others will disagree but at least people can share their views on this subject. By the way, where is #499?
College rankings generally don’t try to assess general happiness. They don’t look at crime rates, suicide statistics, or other student health data. This is one reason why, after you’ve built an initial college list, it’s a good idea to schedule overnight visits so you can judge the campus atmosphere (and personal fit) for yourself. But I agree, it would be good to have convenient collections of related data.
It’s true that UChicago does not publish a Common Data Set (just as, for years, they did not use the Common App). Very unfortunate. They seem to like doing things their own way. On the following page for example you can find links to Enrollment Statistics, which cover some of the information found in the CDS (sometimes in less detail, sometimes in much greater detail):
https://registrar.uchicago.edu/page/enrollment-statistics
A link to admission statistics is near the bottom of the page.
No, I don’t see a break-out of ED results.
Keep in mind, UChicago did not even offer an ED option until 2016-17.
The Chicago Maroon also has published entering class statistics.
https://www.chicagomaroon.com/article/2018/1/9/class-2021-numbers/
https://www.chicagomaroon.com/article/2018/5/3/university-chicagos-acceptance-rate-plummets-7-2-c/
These surveys cover information you won’t find in the CDS (for example, about religious identity and politics, alcohol/drug use, family income and education status).
@nrtlax33 must be referring to the “engagement” scores here:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/explore-the-full-wsj-the-college-rankings-1536187754
Vassar gets the same number. So do Middlebury, Macalester, Davidson, and Holy Cross.
Schools with worse numbers include Williams, Earlham, Princeton, Kenyon, Bryn Mawr, Hendrix, William & Mary, Amherst, Caltech, Grinnell, Truman State, and Dickinson.
Colleges with top scores include Dordt College and Oklahoma Baptist University.
The NSSE has conducted very detailed surveys of student engagement. They apparently have resisted attempts to use the results for college ranking. I do think some of the information they cover (e.g. student reading loads, number of writing assignments) comprises an interesting complement to what you get from USNWR, Forbes, or the CDS. The rankings tend to focus on who gets in, the resources available to them when they’re in, or what they do after they get out. Not so much on what’s going on with the classroom and campus experience while they’re there.
I prefer the NSSE questions (which tend to focus on objective numbers like, “how many 5-page papers did you write?”) over the WSJ questions (which ask open-ended opinion questions like, "to what extent does the student’s college or university support critical thinking? ") With the latter, how do we know that students at Dordt College and Princeton apply the same definitions and standards?
But whether it’s USNWR or any other ranking/metric/survey, you almost always can come up with confounding factors that might make the numbers less than 100% reliable (let alone appropriate to your own needs).
Thank you @tk21769
@ccdad99 : Please read http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/21704956/#Comment_21704956
I have heard that a large number of UChicago freshmen are required to walk 0.7 miles one-way to their closest dinning hall. If someone is unwilling or unable to walk 0.7 miles possibly in freezing cold every day and every meal and has not committed, it is better to quit now. Walking that far to food is part of the package, just like core curriculum. Eating is very important. A lot of people find happiness in their food. “Ramen of Happiness” 
(https://suggestionofmotion.com/blog/japan-osaka-shiawase-ramen/) :-/ :-/