<p>Apparently “we all” don’t know that, or Stanford’s rankings would be higher. But feel free to commiserate with others on the Stanford forum if you remain so disappointed in mere magazine rankings that you feel the need to bash other schools on the UChicago forum. Sir, the “superior institution” is calling for you. Answer that call! Cheers!</p>
<ul>
<li>yawn *</li>
</ul>
<p>RML – US News isn’t ranking these universities “as an institution”. It’s ranking them in the only apples-to-apples way that is possible, the portion of them that compete against one another to educate undergraduates, where they are at least reasonably comparable. (Not that I agree with US News on the rankings, but that’s a different story.)</p>
<p>At the college level, a lot of the differences between the institutions become less relevant. You don’t have to consider the effect of owning a hospital (Stanford, Yale, Chicago) vs. owning a whole bunch of them (Penn) vs. not owning one (Harvard) vs. being in a partnership (Columbia) vs. not even having a medical school (Princeton). You don’t have to weigh the relative merits of government schools vs. divinity schools vs. music schools, or small business and law / large engineering (Stanford) vs. big business and law / small engineering (Harvard). If you were looking at whole institutions, places like Princeton, Dartmouth, and Caltech would be more or less out of the running, because they are so much smaller than the others. When you just look at undergraduate education, however, that’s not an issue.</p>
<p>Agree with JHS!</p>
<p>I agree that Stanford is in a different league than Columbia, with 28,000 students and the laowest endowmnet per student in the Ivies, and Chicago, which is a great liberal arts university that is not distinguished in the physical sciences and has no engineering or solid computer science program. Based on student choices, faculty retention and hiring and fundraising/reserach prowess, it is Stanford and Harvard in a league of their own among the other top tier schools. Columbia does not even release their Common Set Data, so who knows if what they submit to USNews is even accurate.</p>
<p>Doesn’t really pertain to the topic, but since when has UChicago not been distinguished in the Physical Sciences? It might not be the absolute top school, but I was under the impression that at least the Physics program was one of the top in the nation…carry on now…</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I know US News isn’t ranking universities as I can see that on their criteria, that’s why I clearly emphasized it on my post. I said, “as a university”. </p>
<p>Even than, I can see that Stanford offers more resources as it is much richer than Chicago. It also is more prestigious, locally or globally. And, as such, are able to attract better students worldwide - both at the undergrad and postgrad levels. Forgive me for saying this, but is there an area where Chicago would beat Stanford? Even in economics which is said to be Chicago’s strengths would hardly compete with Stanford. Students who got offers from both schools almost always choose to go to Stanford, both at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels.</p>
<p>@ RML</p>
<p>Okay then. What is the point of this?</p>
<p>RML: That Stanford has more resources and is richer is a fact. Most likely it is more “prestigious” as a university, in this country and abroad. I don’t agree with the comment about better students. You’d have to define that a little better to convince me. Chicago undergraduates have objectively measurable qualifications which are as good as if not better than Stanford’s undergraduates.</p>
<p>Kalorama, with all due respect the comment about UChicago physical sciences is absurd.</p>
<p>kaukauna, I do not question how high standard the academic teaching at Chicago is. In fact, according to many accounts, it would rival the best of the best schools out there in that area. I will credit that to Chicago’s superb teaching standard – the school does a superb transformation on their students. And, the only schools that I heard would equal Chicago’s superior teaching standard are Caltech, MIT, and to a lesser extent, Swarthmore. But that is not what I was talking about. I was merely talking about both schools (C and S) as a university per se as I mentioned on my post above.</p>
<p>RML, you are actually wrong. You are probably right as to “most” students with offers from both schools, at least at the undergraduate level, but there are plenty of people who would be decent candidates for Stanford who don’t apply there because they don’t want to go there, and the number of Chicago students who turn down an actual offer from Stanford is not a null set. (My daughter’s first-year roommate-equivalent was one.)</p>
<p>I don’t know a lot about the actual nature of current undergraduate education at Stanford at a granular level, but in the past it was iffy – some people got superfabulous educations, but it was very possible to skate by or to fall between the cracks in a way that would be impossible at Chicago – and I have heard similar stories from recent graduates in the past decade. Chicago provides a really solid undergraduate experience. My kids’ academic experience at Chicago was orders of magnitude better than my sister’s at Stanford. For someone not interested in engineering or football, it would be perfectly rational to pick Chicago over Stanford, even without considering things like wanting to be in a city, or wanting to be closer to a Midwestern home. (It would also be perfectly rational to pick Stanford over Chicago, of course. It’s not that Chicago is so clearly superior, just that it has some strengths Stanford doesn’t and is not clearly inferior.)</p>
<p>Economics: The two faculties are actually very similar, and there isn’t a decisive advantage for either.</p>
<p>Other academic graduate programs you would have to look department by department, and which one you would choose would depend on exactly what you wanted to study, specific faculty members, not so much the department, per se.</p>
<p>Law, Business: It’s #3 vs. #4, meaning the prestige difference doesn’t matter at all in the real world, especially if you don’t plan to live in California, and there are lots of factors that could lead someone to pick Chicago over Stanford. The faculties are probably marginally stronger at Chicago, but Stanford has a recruiting advantage for students because of the business vibrancy of Silicon Valley, the sheer size of California, and the weather.</p>
<p>What Stanford really has going for it is fabulous weather, general California-ness (including the naked ambition vs. naked thing, which goes back a long way), Silicon Valley being very exciting for lots of people, and San Francisco being beautiful. Plus all the engineering. Plus NCAA Division I sports. It has a more diverse student body because it has a more diverse applicant pool. But it’s in a suburb, and not such an interesting suburb, either.</p>
<p>I really don’t “get” the whole claim of Stanford being extremely prestigious, and in its own league with Harvard. Among very well-educated people, it’s known as an extremely prestigious university, but so is Chicago. The lay population knows Stanford as a good sports school in California, whereas the lay population hasn’t heard of Chicago at all. The only segments of the population that seems to see Stanford as a hands-down-better school are the less-educated section of the upper-middle class, the far west coast of the U.S., and people who spend way too much time posting on college message boards.</p>
<p>Even globally, In Japan where I work, Stanford is pretty unknown, even among the well-educated. The only American universities people know are Harvard and MIT. The very well-educated know both Chicago and Stanford as extremely prestigious, and to a similar degree. I imagine that the situation is similar elsewhere around the world. Now, I’m perfectly sure that Stanford is more well-known on average than Chicago both in the U.S. and elsewhere, but I think the degree is greatly exaggerated by college trolls like RML.</p>
<p>Now, Chicago’s student body has higher SATs than Stanford, and a number of metrics in recent years hint that Chicago alumni make more money than Stanford alumni. So RML’s assertions are a bit suspicious.</p>
<p>Univ of Chciago is know for its economics department – a BS academic discipline that has been discredited over the last decade or so. Chicago is relatively weak in STEM and that means it is not as comprehensive a school as Stanford. Stanford competes for faculty and students more with Harvard, CalTech, MIT, Berkeley, Yale (in health sciences) and Princeton (in physical sciences) than all other top tier unviersities. Although Chicago is an excellent university, it is just not in the same league.</p>
<p>just take a look at world university</p>
<p>[World’s</a> Best Universities; Top 400 Universities in the World | US News](<a href=“http://www.usnews.com/education/worlds-best-universities-rankings/top-400-universities-in-the-world]World’s”>http://www.usnews.com/education/worlds-best-universities-rankings/top-400-universities-in-the-world)</p>
<p>and tell me where is your claim lol</p>
<p>Wow, that is so ignorant . . . . You really think economics has been discredited? That would be big news at Stanford, which has nearly as much of an investment in economics as it does in engineering and computer science.</p>
<p>There are three major international university rankings with some degree of integrity. Only one of them looks at humanities at all, and none takes into account professional schools other than medicine (which hurts both Stanford and Chicago about equally). They are very much focused on STEM and social sciences. Two of them are British and – surprise! – rate British universities higher than the third, which comes out of China.</p>
<p>Anyway, the QS ranking has Stanford at #7 and Chicago at #9 (with MIT #1, Harvard #2, Yale #8, and Caltech and Princeton tied at #10, and the four top UK universities at 3-6).</p>
<p>The Times of London ranking has Stanford tied with Oxford for #2 and Chicago at #10 (with Caltech #1, Harvard- MIT-Princeton ##4-6, Berkeley #9, and Yale #11, for reference).</p>
<p>The Shanghai Jiao Tong University ARWU ranking, which has no humanities component whatsoever, has Stanford at #2 and Chicago at #9 (Harvard #1, Berkeley #3, MIT #4, Caltech #6, Princeton #7, Columbia #8, and Yale #11).</p>
<p>The actual scoring difference between Stanford and Chicago in the two British rankings is negligible, less than 4%. There is a bigger difference in the Chinese scoring system, which has Stanford at only 72% of Harvard’s top score.</p>
<p>And then of course there is USNWR, whose international ranking has Chicago #8 (behind only Harvard, MIT, and Yale among American universities) and Stanford #15.</p>
<p>The point is not that any of these rankings is actually meaningful in and of itself. It’s just that when people all over the world – including USNWR – look at American universities and try to rank them on some rational basis, Chicago is more or less always in the same league as the other top American universities. It is always somewhat behind Harvard and MIT, and its position varies with respect to the others (as does Harvard’s and MIT’s – there is no consensus best). Basically, in these rankings Chicago looks more or less like Yale or Princeton. That’s hardly “not in the same league” as Stanford.</p>
<p>Kalorama’s daughter goes to Stanford, but don’t let him sour anyone’s impression of Stanford students. In my experience they are some of the most accomplished people I have ever met. </p>
<p>RML went to Cambridge, not sure what his beef is. Maybe a graduate student at Stanford?</p>
<p>While we’re at it, let’s look at the rankings for UChicago’s Physical Sciences:</p>
<ol>
<li>USNews Chemistry ranking: 13. Not too shabby. </li>
<li>QS Subject Rankings Chemistry: 51-100. Yikes, not sure what happened there, but I’m including it to show I’m being fair. </li>
<li>USNews Physics ranking: 7. Truly, this shows UChicago is not distinguished, at all, in the Physical Sciences. </li>
<li>QS Subject Rankings Physics: 12. Top 15 on a global scale, only? That’s it, this is the nail on the coffin.</li>
</ol>
<p>Btw, I’m not going to judge an entire university just because of two posters that have proven to be pretty ignorant (or at least don’t bother to check their facts) who aren’t even current students, at least at the undergrad level. I’m sure Stanford has a lot of awesome students that don’t really care about USNews or at least won’t froth at the mouth at the mere thought of being tied with such a lowly institution like UChicago.</p>
<p>
With all due respect, I think you’re underestimating the difference between Chicago and Stanford in the business and legal world. Stanford is clearly a notch better and is tied exactly with Harvard in those areas with regards to selectivity, access to exclusive jobs/clerkships, etc.</p>
<p>There’s nothing great about the aggressive tactics Chicago uses to get unqualified students to apply. If Chicago’s national and global footprint is so great why then does it have to resort to such measures knowing most people would not get in? See, Stanford doesn’t have to do this.</p>
<p>^ I think you sort of provided the rebuttal to your own criticism. Stanford doesn’t have to, but UChicago unfortunately does, given that it’s not as well known to the masses as it is to the academics and professionals that participate in the surveys of these rankings. Other schools of similar standing to Stanford, when it comes to recognition, also resort to aggressive marketing campaigns. That, to me, is somewhat worse.</p>