Application Inflation and the U of C

[infinitetime]

<p>

@newmassdad

Comparisons to Yale? Somehow I view them in a different world, renowned for its undergrad programs much more than its grad programs

</p>

<p>That’s funny because as a whole, Yale’s grad programs are clearly superior to Chicago’s. Chicago, as a graduate program, is vastly overrated. Chicago supporters love to say that academically it is at the level of HYPSM. But no facts support this myth. That said, it is not nearly as overrated as its undergrad institution. Let’s face it. The stars at Chicago are the faculty and to a lesser extent, the grad students. It is, first and foremost, a graduate institution and the undergrad part is not much more than an afterthought. As JHS points out: “in the 60s Chicago’s college class size dipped down below 500, and the viability of the college was seriously in question.” </p>

<p>Below is an interpretation of the NRC results by a Princeton grad (who is obviously not biased towards Yale). According to him or her, Chicago is closer to, say, NYU than it is to Yale in terms of academics.</p>

<p>

@PtonGrad2000

METHODOLOGY</p>

<p>The last NRC study attempted to rank graduate institutions on a simple numerical scale. Because of the complaints of many academics who felt that no such simplified ranking could be accurate, the new study presents ranges of ‘probable’ rankings. In other words, instead of identifying a particular institution as having the top history department in the country, the new study will show that this particular institution is likely to fall within a range of 1 to 4 or 1 to 10. Other institutions might have a range ranking of 6 to 15 or 7 to 12.</p>

<p>All of this is somewhat confusing and there have been many critics of the new system.
Nevertheless–and certainly running counter to the goal of the creators of the new NRC system–a number of websites have already converted these range rankings into simple ordinal rankings. By combining the two major elements of “quality” as measured by the NRC (one known as the “R” ranking and the other known as the “S” ranking) one website has simplified the system significantly.</p>

<p>Find the Graduate School That’s Right for You — PhDs.org Graduate School Guide </p>

<p>The above website allows the user to select for the “quality” assessment as the sole measurement and then produce an ordinal ranking. Specifically, it averages the ‘R’ and ‘S’ rankings over all surveyed schools. (Under “NRC Quality Measure” be sure to click “more options” and then set both ranking techniques to ‘5’ to give them the highest importance and produce a ranking based solely on the average of the two.) While there are other factors that were measured and are available for ranking purposes, the ‘R’ and ‘S’ program quality assessments come closest to measuring the strength of academic departments.</p>

<p>Using this tool, I offer the following analysis. Others may insist that different variables are more important.</p>

<p>Of all the fields surveyed by the NRC, I’ve selected for analysis only those at the core of the arts and sciences and have left out those primarily related to medical education in hospitals or specialized fields such as agriculture, public affairs, communication or specific area studies. Even within the arts and sciences I’ve left out some programs that have not traditionally been in this ‘core’. In some, Princeton does poorly. In others, it does extremely well.</p>

<p>These then, are the academic fields I’ve included from the NRC analysis: Classics, Comparative Literature, English, French, German, Spanish, History, Art/Architecture/Archeology, Music, Philosophy, Religion, Chemical Engineering, Civil Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Biochemistry, Biology, Ecology, Genetics, Neuroscience, Applied Math, Pure Math, Astronomy/Astrophysics, Chemistry, Computer Science, Geology/Geophysics, Physics, Anthropology, Economics, Political Science, Psychology and Sociology. These cover the major categories of the NRC survey known as Arts & Humanities, Engineering, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences/Math and Social and Behavioral Sciences.</p>

<p>Based on the quality assessment rankings in the combination of these disciplines I’ve scored based on the following system. If a school had an appearance in the top 20, it was given a sub-score for that discipline equal to 21 minus its rank. Thus, a school ranked number 1 would receive a sub-score of 20 for that discipline. A school ranked 20th would receive a sub-score of 1. A school not appearing in the top 20 would receive a sub-score of zero. In a small number of cases, two separate departments within the same university would both be included in the top 20 ranking. For example, Princeton’s History department as well as its History of Science department both rank in this range. In these limited cases, I’ve represented that school with the department having the highest score. I summed the sub-scores and then converted the top combined score to 100 with all other scores taken as a percentage of the top score. The result of that scoring system is as follows.</p>

<p>NRC Quality Assessment Rankings
For 32 Core Arts & Sciences Programs</p>

<p>100—Harvard</p>

<p>97.1–Princeton</p>

<p>89.5–Berkeley
86.8–Stanford</p>

<p>— gap—</p>

<p>62.0–Yale
61.8–Columbia
61.5–MIT</p>

<p>— gap—</p>

<p>48.6–U. of Chicago

</p>