<p>Though not specifically related to “elite” programs (which may surprise some as to where those are, e.g. #1 ranked med school for primary care and #7 for research is the University of Washington) this study indicates Chicago grads do quite well in getting into Ph.D. programs: </p>
<p><a href=“http://web.centre.edu/ir/student/OverallBaccOrigins.pdf[/url]”>http://web.centre.edu/ir/student/OverallBaccOrigins.pdf</a></p>
<p>An interesting take on all this by Andrew Abbott:</p>
<p>…Higher education in America requires less and less work from college students. Most of our university competitors deliver their education in large lecture courses, requiring occasional papers, easily thrown together in a few late evenings and read by graduate students rather than faculty. Students spend much of their time on extracurricular activities. Seniors spend their entire last year finding their post-graduate jobs. Grades average A- or better and three quarters of students receive honors.</p>
<p>This has not been the Chicago way; we believe in education and insist that our students get the reality, not the show. That reality is costly but effective. Our alumni love it and echo our own faith in it. But unless we are both careful and courageous it may be difficult to defend real liberal education. Since graduate degrees are replacing college degrees as the common currency of success in American society, students have less and less incentive to challenge themselves in college, both here and elsewhere. This is the more true since substantial numbers of our competitors deliver high grades and second-rate education to many of the brightest young people in America, who enter the graduate and professional school competition looking wonderful on paper even while having hadby Chicago termsvery little college education. It will be more and more difficult to stand apart. A sign of this difficulty is the fact that Chicago itself is up to a 3.3 (B+) average GPA and a 50 percent honors rate among graduates.</p>