“On the coasts” says it all. Why are coastal elites so unwilling to stray beyond what they know? There’s a big wide world out there somewhere between Manhattan and California.
Hey, I’m a pretty coastal guy, and I would put Chicago ahead of Columbia and Penn, despite having a good deal of love for Penn. (Columbia, not so much. I think Columbia gets a lot of mileage out of New Yorkers believing that they are in the center of the universe, and since Columbia’s there it must be pretty great, too.) There is a wonderful intellectual subculture at Penn, but it’s just that: a subculture. Wharton is a great undergraduate business school, which in my mind firmly consigns Penn to being less than first-rate.
How about this:
50 Hardest Colleges To Get Into:
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CalTech
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MIT
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Harvard
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UChicago
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Yale
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Rice
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JHU
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Olin Coll. of Eng.
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Harvey Mudd
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Princeton
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Vanderbilt
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UPenn
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Stanford
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Brown
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Northwestern
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Columbia
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WashUStL
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Williams College
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Amherst College
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Duke
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Dartmouth College
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CMU
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Cornell
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Swarthmore College
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Tufts
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Pomona College
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Notre Dame
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Haverford College
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Claremont McKenna College
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Georgetown
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Carleton College
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Northeastern (Boston)
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Colby College
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Middlebury College
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Cooper Union
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USC
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Wellesley College
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Webb Institute
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Barnard College
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Hamilton College
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Emory
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Wash & Lee
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UCal-Berkeley (low SAT scores 1260 - 1480 & student teacher ratio of 20:1)
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Tulane
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Vassar College
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Davidson College
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Grinnell College
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Michigan
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Colgate University
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Case Western Reserve
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/09/11/hardest-colleges-to-get-into/40090323/
@StanfordGSB00 at #39 - not my fantasy, as my prior post made clear. However, let’s look at “research.” Most academics I know go by Shanghai (ARWU) and I tend to go by CWUR as well (no academic, it’s just what I tend to do).
Generally speaking for national research rankings:
- CWUR places Columbia (#4) and Penn (#7) higher than Chicago (#8). All are higher than Yale, Cornell and NU.
- However, ARWU - the one cited by academics I know - places Columbia at #6, Chicago at #8, and Penn at #14. Penn also listed below Cornell, Yale, and JHU. And NU.
ARWU provides a more convenient grouping for divisions so going with that (world rankings only):
- Science (non-Life/non-Eng): Columbia #12, NU #16, Cornell #17, Chicago #18, Yale #20, JHU #23, Penn #47(!)
- Life (non Med): Yale #8, JHU #12, Columbia #13, Cornell #17, Penn #22, Chicago #49(!)
- Med: JHU #5, Columbia #7, Yale #10, Penn #16, Cornell #24, NU #27, Chicago #43(!)
Addendum: US Rankings Per USNews for Med - Research Only: JHU #2, Penn #3, Columbia #6, Cornell #9, Yale #13, Chicago #16, NU #19
- Social Science Research: Chicago #1, Columbia #6, NU #11, Penn #13, Yale #17, Cornell #24, Penn #29, JHU < #50
Turning to the Professional Schools other than Medical, USNews National Rankings has the most popular and up-to-date rankings. They also rely on peer review which incorporates some assessment for research strength.
- Business: Penn #1, Chicago #3, Columbia #6, NU #6, Yale #9, Cornell #15
- Law: Yale #1, Chicago #4, Columbia #5, Penn #7, NU #10, Cornell #13
- Public Policy/Affairs: Chicago #10, Columbia #21, Cornell #35, JHU #39, Penn #60
Finally, turning to the Arts and Humanities (USNews Global Rankings): Yale #4, MIT #11 (Oh Yes!), Columbia #14, Chicago #16, Penn #17, Cornell #30, NU #36, JHU #72
Summary - in terms of “research”, UChicago seems to hold its own against Columbia, Penn and most others we’ve been discussing in all but Life and Medicine. This is no surprise. That basically means that students considering UChicago in most disciplines aren’t going to dismiss the school due to reputation or weakness of the academic subject. Nor will they select the school specifically for a particular discipline (outside of Econ, perhaps). So, if UChicago does, indeed, consider itself as placed higher than Columbia or Penn (or the others we’ve been discussing), that’s probably due to other specific factors.
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@FStratford: You might consider offering @Publisher attribution for having compiled that list.
Sorry hard to do that from a mobile browser. Yes, Publisher compiled it and I cut and pasted it.
I will try to answer this question on how Chicago may be better than HYPSM without relying on rankings which I find kind of tiresome
To attempt this I will use the argument used by Anthony Kronman in his very interesting book, " The Assault on American Excellence"
The basic premise of this book is that a Democratic country requires an intellectual aristocracy to serve as a counterweight to the herd mentality in a democracy and act as a bulwark against the tendency of majority tyranny
Kronman contend that American educational institutions used to provide this intellectual aristocracy based on their ability to protect dissonant voices and non conformists, but they don’t do so any more
To the extent that any University produces this aristocracy and protects them and does this better than others, it is a “better” institution than it’s peers
To evaluate whether Chicago can lay a legitimate claim to that title, let’s examine the four aspects here
- The administration
- The faculty
- The curriculum
- The students
I would argue that given the chaos occurring at Harvard and Yale and even at Princeton, Stanford and to a lesser extent at MIT, Chicago’s current administration is clearly better at protecting and nurturing this intellectual aristocracy than it’s peers. The other administrations for whatever reason are unwilling or unable to do so
I think Chicago’s faculty is still more intellectually diverse and protected from being forced to tow the politically correct line than at other schools
The curriculum at Chicago as evaluated by the website whatwilltheylearn.com does more to advance this intellectual aristocracy more broadly than HYPSM which all get dismal grades here
Finally Chicago attracts a different kind of student (though this may be changing)that actually enjoys pursuing this path of becoming an intellectual aristocrat instead of a predominantly vocational path
If you agree with Kronman’s premise and he is at Yale, so this is not some Chicago booster, then Chicago has been and continues to fulfill its core educational mission ( though it is not clear for how much longer) of building a critical element to thriving democracy better than any HYPSM school.
These schools used to do it, but don’t do it well anymore,
It’s a complicated and subtle argument but Kronman’s natural intellectual aristocracy premise clearly sets Chicago apart
I’ll tell ya, there’s always a lot of discourse on the subject of UChicago’s ranking. I’m from CA and have never known any grads from there, so I’m ignorant on this subject. Why is that?
– Chicago is definitely a Tony Kronman kind of school. But I think current students will tell you that most of the difference between how Chicago handles free speech issues and what has happened at Yale and elsewhere is illusory – a lot of show for the press and alumni, but the same kind of reticence on the ground.
– That difficulty of admission list is craaaazy! Johns Hopkins, Rice, and Harvey Mudd > Princeton? Colby and Northeastern = Carleton and Middlebury? WashU > Dartmouth and Cornell? Yikes!
– Sorry. MIT has an admirable arts and humanities program, but it isn’t better than Chicago, or Penn, or Columbia, or Cornell. Or probably Northwestern, for that matter.
@sushiritto at #47 - you can probably best answer that one. However, something must have brought you over to this thread. Perhaps a desire to learn more. Welcome!
@sushiritto its because UChicago grads dont talk about their school that much, compared to football crazy schools or the east coast schools.
California actually has the third largest concentration of UChicago alums after New York and Illinois. So there is lots in CA
@JHS I think its because the “difficulty” is not just about the usual acceptance rate but also about SAT scores. Not sure how they weighted each but it looks like SAT has a higher weight- which would explain UChicago > Yale.
- Yale University
• Acceptance rate: 6.9%
• SAT scores at 25th & 75th percentiles: 1,460 and 1,580
- University of Chicago
• Acceptance rate: 8.7%
• SAT scores at 25th & 75th percentiles: 1,480 and 1,580
@FStratford Define “hardest”. I would claim that Julliard is likely the most difficult college to get into, despite having an acceptance rate which is slightly higher than Stanford, since you are not only required to look good on paper, but you also have to demonstrate how good you are in person. Fake SATs or fake athletic profiles do not work when you have to demonstrate that you are excellent in person.
Then you have the service academies which you did not include. Those require more from applicants than does, say, Yale.
Of course, a place like Caltech or HMC has a lot more self selection of applicants than Harvard does, since Harvard is the chosen reach school for kids with a very wide array of accomplishments, while fewer will apply to Caltech or HMC unless they are already really good in math or engineering.
You also missed College of the Ozarks, Alice Lloyd College, Limestone College, and others, all with very low acceptance rates, but the selection is not based on the same criteria that are used by the popular colleges whose names are constantly mentioned here.
Basically, acceptance rates most strongly indicate popularity, which is often the result of, or enhanced by, successful branding and advertising. As demonstrated by a number of colleges I mentioned, “popularity” is not always due to high level academics, but to other factors.
@JBStillFlying Well, I’m certainly not reading the “What’s My Favorite Product at Aldi’s” thread. :lol:
I enjoy reading the discussion on the Alabama thread too, that’s somewhat new, but Chicago seems to get its share of grief for some reason. Every year. Same thing. But hey, don’t let me interupt. I’m enjoying the back and forth.
@FStratford Not sure where in CA, it’s a big state. I’m located in Silicon Valley and I don’t think UChicago grads are popular here. 
UChicago doesn’t make the Top 25 here:
https://qz.com/967985/silicon-valley-companies-like-apple-aapl-hires-the-most-alumni-of-these-10-universities-and-none-of-them-are-in-the-ivy-league/
Shoot MIT barely makes the top 20, I guess Californians don’t think much of it either.
gee, I wonder how Apple would be so stupid to hire UC-Berkeley people when according to one poster on this page who decided to bore us with yet another useless ranking, Berkeley was singled out as having “low SAT scores” and a “student teacher ratio of 20:1”
Well, actually 19.6:1.
But now back to the OP, which is about the UChicago and another “useless ranking”, the USNWR. ?
@MWolf I dont want to define hardest. The publication that was linked to already did
@sushiritto I am also in the SF Bay Area. Maybe you can start by trash talking UChicago at work or within your circle of friends and see who responds?
Wait, wait, wait. I completely forgot. A relative of mine is starting grad school at UChicago. I love UChicago! Does that count? 
That counts, I think. lol.
I was half serious about the trash talk comment though. It’s weird but typical UChicagoans dont get riled up, so sometimes its fun to start talking about with the “where fun comes to die” thing, and see how they react. Usually, its a very subdued “yeah, but…” It’s how I found out that 3 data scientists in my work area are from there too.