Chicago changes rules for Dean's list and will now also award Latin Honors

Colleges & Universities University of Chicago
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@JHS - I’m being a little cheeky here, but you honestly don’t think the term “ivy” has strong marketing power? Really? Why are so many non-ivy league schools described with such monikers? Hidden ivies, little ivies, etc. etc. I could link to plenty of articles/books/publications that demonstrate this.

And my point is that, at least in the past 4 or 5 decades, Chicago has never looked so similar to its ivy brethren. For instance, there were material differences between the Chicago I attended in the 90s and its peers on the East Coast. Those differences have diminished greatly, and the schools look much more homogeneous (if in different flavors) now, than ever before.

Chicago has clearly adopted an admissions strategy that resembles its peers, has focused on bolstering placement rates in areas that match its peers, has built subsidiary programming and services, along with strengthening extra-curricular life, in ways that match its peers. It’s currently modeled its latin honors system to be in line with its peers. It’s clearly been researching it’s ivy plus group closely, and making changes to model what’s happening elsewhere.

So, if you want to call it the “Intellectual Ivy,” I have no problem with that. Replace “Academic” with “Intellectual.” But just calling it intellectual (or just calling it “Life of the Mind”) doesn’t capture the broader extent of the place. I mean come on - I went to the Chicago Admissions home page, and one of the first stats listed was the number of sports championships in the past decade!

So, calling Chicago the Intellectual Ivy or the Life of the Mind Ivy does a much better job of that. And, there’s no insult in that - the school is clearly marketing itself as such.

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@Cue7 we agree completely, as you know, that Chicago has been deliberately remaking its undergraduate program into something much more similar than was true in the past to the undergraduate programs of its academic peers. The recent honors change is another (teensy-tiny, barely consequential) element of that. And I think everyone understands – because you have said it dozens of times – why you think “Academic Ivy” or “[Similar Term] Ivy” is such a great marketing slogan for Chicago. But . . . it’s just too dumb to use “Ivy” that way. At least for me. Sorry. And it’s just too dumb to think that any institution this complex and beautiful ought to be embracing any two-word marketing prompt, even if the second word really carried all the richness you argue it does.

Chicago is a great, world-class university, with an undergraduate program that rivals any other available in this country, which means it rivals any other available anywhere. It’s not the “[Fill In The Blank] Ivy” any more than it’s the “Life of the Mind [Whatever].”

@marlowe1 : As far as I know, the only people who ever got to sit next to a starlet in SOSC did it sometime in 1999-2001, when Anna Chlumsky was in her first couple of years at Chicago. Much farther back, Elaine May or Celeste Holm might count, except that they weren’t already stars when you sat next to them (and Holm’s cup of coffee at Chicago predated SOSC).

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Let’s face it, @JHS , “Ivy League” means something a bit magical to @Cue7 , and he is not alone. Mere rational argument does not work in such a case, though Dr. Freud might be of help. It was in that spirit that I imagined an alternative universe for our friend - a UChicago transplanted to his era that had miraculously become an “Ivy”.

After making that crack about the starlets whom Cue might have sat in class with in this fictive UChicago I remembered a real classmate of my own days. She had good looks, intelligence, a big personality - and an ambition to act. And she was indeed in my SOSC class. I had not thought of her for many years. Nothing is lost on Dr Google, however. I noted that in the early seventies she acted in two Broadway plays (“Measure for Measure” and “The Country Wife”) both directed by John Houseman. Not bad after UT. Why her career advanced no further is unknown. I am impressed all the same. Well, I was impressed with her even then, she not so much with me: nevertheless, I will claim to have sat next to a bona fide talent, if not quite a starlet.

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Totally agree, and Chicago’s academic and intellectual prowess surpasses most of the ivies, so why would Chicago even want to be lumped together in that category? It’s a powerhouse all on its own merit. I doubt that it would even want an ‘ivy’ branding. Wanting a brand name like Harvard?—Sure, I can see that.

Speaking of ivies, I wouldn’t be surprised if HYP are even loathe to use the word ‘ivy’ on their own webpage and/or marketing materials anymore.

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@JHS - you raise very valid points, and I agree that trying to boil down a complex, variegated institution into just two words is a fairly “dumb” exercise. Speaking more broadly, you may remember that older alumni chafed when the College tried to present anything other than academics in its marketing materials from years back. Marketing generally can be a “dumb” exercise.

But, undeniably, punchy marketing is necessary, especially when a clear institutional goal is to accumulate tens of thousands of applications. In this reality, then, I think the term “Academic Ivy” or “Intellectual Ivy” serves as good a purpose as any other marketing directive. Nondorf would never come out and say it, but I think this best captures his (and the institution’s) approach.

@marlowe1 - wouldn’t Morgan Saylor count as a current starlet at Chicago, who might’ve caught the eye of a star-crossed guy or gal in a Hum or Sosc class?

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Sorry, Cue, but citing as your appeal to authority a college admissions consulting firm based on Australia is not very convincing. (Its in their own business interests to elevate other colleges to ‘Ivy status’ as that’s where some of their clients gets in…)

fwiw: back in the dark ages, when a big wig from H visited Berkeley from Cambridge, he was introduced: welcome Mr. xx, who is [Title] of the Berkeley of the East. In other words, Cal was/is happy in its own skin. Chicago needs to finds its own special sauce, IMO, and if current Leadership ain’t doing that, they should start looking for another job.

btw: Chicago’s acceptance rate is already in single digits, with a yield approaching 80%. With binding ED, yield will be going increasing even more. Is the College really after hundreds/thousands of more applicants? What’s the point? Any idea of what the College is trying to accomplish (besides raw numbers)? (As an aside, admit rate and yield are no longer factors in USNews ranking system.)

Just my $0.02. Thanks for reading.

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It should be pretty clear, @bluebayou , that Cue’s obsessions aren’t shared by any of the rest of us on this board, including yourself. Nobody else wants Chicago to call itself an ivy. Nobody else believes that large application numbers and low acceptance rates are what it’s all about. Don’t use Cue as a stick with which to beat the University of Chicago!

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thanks, marlowe (love the handle, btw).

Just trying to further draw out Cue’s thinking on the two subjects: Ivy-appelation; and, increased apps. (to better discern whether these were just one person’s creative ideas, or if they really did represent Leadership’s thinking…)

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@bluebayou - so I believe Chicago’s current admissions strategy reflects an attempt to keep up with the Joneses. I don’t think they have a set target of apps or acceptance rate. Rather, they want to make sure they appear as selective as all their peers. This is a drastic departure from the past, when Chicago clearly didn’t play that game.

I think, ultimately, the admin’s goal is to craft an “elite” college - one that encourages access and looks widely for talent, perhaps - but is “elite” in generally traditional metrics. (For those submitting, high test scores, great exit outcomes, lots of student life opportunities, etc.)

Chicago’s “flavor” is to be intellectual/academic, but it’s goal is fairly traditional.

At least, that’s my summary of the past 20 years of change. We’ve seen a big numbers admissions system, grade inflation, more focus on outcomes, increased focus on sports teams, growth in extra-curricular and student life options, increased focus on residential life (looking directly at ivies for guidance), deeper connections to practical pursuits, etc. etc.

So, who wants Chicago to be the “Intellectual Ivy”? The administration. They might not come out and say it - but all the changes point to that. They’ve created a distinct flavor, but they are clearly no longer a difference in kind with their peers.

The Latin Honors change is just another little nudge down that path.

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Cue, I believe you are absurdly exaggerating the effect of these ameliorating features on the essential character of the U of C student body and the experience of going to this school. Do kids really choose this place because of sports teams, EC’s, glamor, prestige, and what-not? Once here, do they devote the kind of time to those activities that kids in the peer schools do? Neither you nor I have the experience on the ground necessary to answer these questions, but that this could be so seems logically and psychologically improbable - and perhaps operationally so, given the well-publicized academic demands of this school.

If the U of C has soared in popularity in recent years, yes, this may in part be due to marketing initiatives and to a lessening of the rebarbativeness of student life. But it must surely be primarily due to an awakening of a greater seriousness about studies in the brightest and most idealistic of our youth. They know Chicago primarily as a school capable of satisfying those particular longings - to take challenging courses, to find like-minded intellectually-oriented friends, to discover the truth of things.

Why do you call this playing a game? Metaphors, we were once taught, ought to be chosen for their explanatory power. The admission numbers may be showing greater popularity than the school once had, but to say that they are the raison d’etre of a Chicago education is more than simply a non sequitur - it is an absurdity. If that was what it was all about the great figures in the history of this University would have labored in vain and most of us would be too disgusted to care any longer about the place.

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Re: post #88, I’ve never heard UChicago’s administration or anyone even hinting that it wants to be like an ivy. It may have adopted some of what are good ideas from its peers but this doesn’t automatically mean UChicago wants to ‘be’ like them. It doesn’t ‘appear’ as selective as its peers, it IS as selective as its peers. In addition, it’s already an ‘elite’ college in all sense of the word. Also, the Joneses need to keep up with UChicago at this point.

No fun lamenting about days-of-old ‘when they didn’t play the game’ because If we’re defining it as a ‘game’ then perhaps UChicago has decided to play, and it has won, like it always does, big time.

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IMO there might be one or two “gold standard” schools that UChicago is using as a benchmark for things like size, diversity, outcomes and, of course, growth of endowment. But “Ivy” is too broad - and too mediocre, really - a category to be meaningful. What evidence is there, for instance, that UChicago is trying to be like Dartmouth, Brown, Penn or Cornell?

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@marlowe1 - I think, more and more, students are selecting Chicago because of it’s Academics AND something. So, if you asked the athletes, I think many would say they chose Chicago because of the great academics AND the great sports teams. I do think there are students who chose Chicago because of the great academics AND high ranking. Or great academics AND impressive exit outcomes.

So, more and more, I think students know they can come to Chicago for a great education, and get that job at Goldman Sachs, or play lacrosse at a very high level, or whatever. This is, more or less, an ivy model approach.

As a thought experiment, what would Chicago look like if it did double-down on its prior position? Before the changes starting in the late 90s, Chicago was an incubator for future scholars, and it turned its nose up at more practical pursuits. It was not a good place to nurture future doctors or financiers.

Chicago could have, when faced with this decision point, decided it would double-down on what it did best: train scholars. It would keep its “go elsewhere” approach too. Are you coming to college to become a doctor? This isn’t the place for you. You want to work at McKinsey? This isn’t the place for you. You want to be the next leading scholar on Assyria? Chicago is the place for you!

Instead, Chicago turned its approach into something more expansive - utilizing its brand of education to inform and support any path its students would take. Doctors, consultants, Assyrian scholars - you all can come here and thrive!

Guess what approach that is? It’s a turn from Chicago’s previous stance, and an embrace of the ivy model - the slant to create leaders across all fields.

And, why did Chicago turn away from being more solely an incubator for future scholars? Because the ivy model is wildly successful, and MUCH better for the bottom line! Chicago has always been cash strapped, and a larger, more financially-driven college will ultimately be better for the bottom line.

@JBStillFlying - the ivies are not a monolith, to be sure, but Chicago seems to continually look east when developing new programs and initiatives. For its housing policy, it looked to Yale and Brown. For Admissions, it used Columbia as a comparator. For its growing computer science program, it looked at Harvard and Princeton.

Some examples, offered by admins:

Housing: https://www.chicagomaroon.com/article/2017/11/10/high-price-pay/ (Yale and Brown are comparators)

Computer Science: https://www.chicagomaroon.com/article/2016/11/29/push-world-class-new-direction-computer-science-de/ (Princeton and Harvard are comparators)

Class Size: https://www.chicagomaroon.com/article/2018/11/13/boyer-raises-possible-switch-semester-system-meeti/ (Harvard is the Comparator)

Student take (stop mimicking harvard!): https://www.chicagomaroon.com/article/2018/11/20/problem-mimicking-harvard/

In, say, 1994, I don’t think I’d be able to find a single article that Chicago was “copying Brown too much.” It’s much more in the air now.

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The Harvard reference is an example of the “gold standard” I mentioned upthread. It certainly makes sense to use and mention peer schools that resemble your faculty/student ratio when considering a significant investment in some department or other. Similarly, some ivies have emulated UChicago’s practices: for instance, adopting the Chicago Statement (Princeton and Columbia) and faculty collaboration between business and economics (Yale, Columbia, Penn, Cornell). That’s just adopting best practices.

Part of the difficulty with assuming “Because - Ivy” is driving the big decisions, rather than something more along the lines of “similar school that offers a hot major or better housing or optimal size” is that the 1) several ivies are also peer schools so they are going to figure prominently regardless and 2) they are a broad group. UChicago isn’t saying “we need better CS because the Ivies have that” - instead, they targeted research uni’s with a liberal arts undergraduate program similar in quality, size and faculty/student ratio who also have top CS programs. When you solve that equation, the answer is Princeton and Harvard. That leaves out a whole bunch of other ivies.

Housing is a distinct issue because UChicago’s lack of thoughtful planning here is uniquely UChicago’s. This is actually one area where we KNOW they aren’t emulating the ivies but most of us probably wish they would! Families increasingly expect decent and centrally-located housing for the duration of their kid’s undergraduate experience - that’s a general trend. We know for a fact that I-House’s distance to dining and campus is considered a detriment now, so UChicago’s prospective families are no different in this matter from others.

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@JBStillFlying - as I said before, the ivy league is NOT a monolith, and the schools differ in many ways.

What all these schools share in common, however, is a general belief in utilizing the education to prepare leaders (across all fields - academia, business, medicine, etc.). Until recently, Chicago’s goal was always very different - it was to prepare scholars (to be a place that taught the “teachers of teachers”).

Now, I think Chicago has embraced that “AND” model - to offer a great education AND access to excellent exit outcomes, or the ability to lead across fields, etc.

Relatedly, I think Chicago is more heavily involved in market research of its peer group (the ivy+ group). It picks and chooses of course - as this group is not monolithic - so it adopts, say, the residential program at Yale or Brown instead of UPenn or Columbia.

This, again, is distinct from the past. I remember meetings with admins when I was at Chicago, and the sentiment then was clearly: “frankly, we don’t care what these other schools do. If you want those services or experiences, you should’ve gone elsewhere.”

Again, I think this comes back to the bottom line. Chicago has adopted the ivy model because, again, it’s wildly successful and good for the bottom line. So, nowadays, we have great academics AND competitive sports, great academics AND a pipeline to Goldman, great academics AND a Latin Honors system like all our peers, etc.

That’s a significant shift.

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Sometimes it amazes me what “we think” and what reality really is.

For example, there may be someone on the outside that cares that this elite college grad was Summa Cum Laude and this one was “with honors”; and this one was just a graduate with a 3.0 gpa. But at the end of the day the job market really doesn’t care too much. In my 30 years of hiring, and my interactions with others, we look at where you went to school, what degree you have, and any relevant experiences. The only time I’ve ever brought up what a person’s GPA was once I had an applicant that put a 3.97 on his resume. I asked him what happened in that one class.

Perhaps Latin honors means something on a grad school application, but I’m sure it is minuscule compared to GPA, so this change shouldn’t change any behavior, a 3.9 is a 3.9, regardless of the additional distinction.

In the realm of “what reality” is vs. “what the outside perceives.” I think one can also lump in “Chicago really cares about number of applications, or Chicago really cares about yield” so they can say that they are like Harvard. I don’t know for sure, as I don’t sit in the inner meetings when kpi’s are discussed, but I don’t think as big of an emphasis is put on it as we might think. I like to believe that changes are made to “get the best possible class” and not so much “we need to rise in the rankings.” I think the latter is much more a product of the former and not the other way around. Now, there may be some circularity to the process. The higher ranked UChicago is, better students are going to apply and pick UChicago over other options, but at the end of the day the ultimate goal is to get the best potential UChicago students to become UChicago students.

I also believe that all of the following marketing snippets (I’m a Kellogg Alum, so allowed to comment, thanks for the pre-validation).

How about “Ivy of the Midwest” for those who center on geography. “Ivy of DIII” for those who look at it athletically, Ivy of Social Science, Ivy of Nobel Winners, Ivy of Economics, Ivy of Knowledge Expansion…"

But, I’d rather think that the Browns, Dartmouths, Cornells, and maybe even Penns and Columbias of the world should also start thinking about the “The Ivy that wished they were Chicago.”

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@BrianBoiler - I am confused. I think you can want the “Best Possible Class” AND want “more applications than peer schools.”

Case in point: https://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/07/education/edlife/07HOOVER-t.html

In that article, Dean Boyer is quoted as saying: “I think we are a better university [than Columbia], so I think we should have more applications than they do.” He specifically compared Chicago’s application totals with Columbia’s.

Further, President Zimmer, when he arrived, wanted more applications, and the Dean of Admissions, James Nondorf, is quoted as saying: “Don’t kid yourselves, the presidents and trustees want you to have more applications.”

All this points to Chicago, yes, wanting the best possible class, but ALSO wanting lots of applications.

I think Chicago’s peer-awareness has increased greatly in more recent times. In the past, there was much less focus on how many apps Harvard or Columbia received. Again, the sentiment was, in the past, shrugging and saying, “We’re Chicago, we don’t really care what these other places do.” There was also some pride in saying - We’re Chicago, we’re not for everybody, and it’s no surprise Northwestern or Brown or whatever get many more apps.

Clearly, admins don’t take that approach any more!

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Yes, Chicago has made the practical adjustments you refer to, Cue. For someone who equates that bundle of adjustments with “ivy league” this is sufficient proof that Chicago has thrown in the towel and is now attempting to be a sort of second-rate ivy. Another way of looking at it is that Chicago, like all other schools, is constantly adapting to the real world. That means considering the evidence of what has succeeded elsewhere and how compatible it is with the values and mission of this university. Something of value can sometimes even be found at Harvard!

But the full ivy league package a la Harvard would also include the state of affairs that came to light in the recent legal action by Asian-Americans. A very interesting analysis of this evidence was made by Duke economist Peter Arcidiacono and can be found at

http://public.econ.duke.edu~psarcidi/legacyathlete.pdf

That paper generated an interesting thread on the Harvard board, which can be found at

http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/harvard-university/2157289-legacy-and-athlete-preferences-at-harvard.html#latest

Of the many points made in that paper the one that seemed most relevant in comparison with the University of Chicago was the data gathered at Table 2. That table analyzed Harvard’s white non-athlete admitees in terms of Harvard’s own assessment of their purely academic credentials, breaking the assessment down into ten deciles. It showed that applicants who were either Legacies (one or other parent a Harvard grad) or had very rich parents (and who were thus regarded as being future donors to Harvard) were given absurdly preferential treatment. Thus 6.32 percent of the total of all these privileged admits came from the very lowest academic decile; whereas not a single non-athlete without those advantages was admitted in that decile. Indeed the total of non-athletes without those advantages at all levels (4.90 percent) was less than that of these highly privileged kids in the very lowest academic decile. In all deciles the admit rates are lopsidedly in favor these very rich and/or legacy kids, with the result that 33.47 percent of Harvard’s class is comprised of those kids, as against 4.97 percent of kids who are not so privileged, are not athletes and are not minorities. The rates of preferential admittance of athletes (of which there are a great number at Harvard) are similar.

To me these seem like the quintessential features of “ivy leagueness”. Do you embrace this along with the rest of the package, Cue, and do you want to see it at the U of C? Perhaps Harvard will change its stripes and become more like the University of Chicago in future. However, I am not holding my breath. Harvard has a different mission, and I am content to let Harvard be Harvard.

Is it really true that Chicago’s educational mission, like its dorms and latin honors, has also been Harvardified? Is Chicago ceasing to be a training ground of mere academics and becoming a place for cultivation of the country’s future leaders? Even as an ideal, that seems more like a stale iteration on American soil of the concept dear to the French and English of a ruling establishment, all of whom attended Oxbridge and the Sorbonne and went to the same few private schools before they did that. Perhaps Harvard aspires to be this sort of training ground, with its athletes, legacies and scions of the wealthy, but that has never been an ideal at the U of C. Until quite recently the stamp of the place was given to it by kids of predominantly lower-middle-class origins, who, though they had their aspirations, did not see themselves inherently as captains of industry or political movers and shakers (see McNeill). Nor did they generally see themselves as academics. Hutchins himself was not keen on that destination for the graduates of his College. His educational objective was the fostering of free-thinking independent-minded citizens of a democracy, without regard to social class. Of the dozen or so of my classmates with whom I have kept touch, we all became professionals in due course, but only one of us became an academic, and he was not the brightest or most interesting. Nobody became a “leader of society”. I dare to hope that we all achieved some measure of understanding of the world. Thoughtfulness about the things that matter is sufficiently hard to achieve in any time and place, never more so than in our present time and place. That seems to me a sufficient goal. It has always been the mission of this university.

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Cue, my point is all about “the ends.” If more applications are required to get the best possible class, than that is what they are doing. It would be far easier and cheaper to go into every local school and pay seniors $10 to apply if “the ends” where to just raise applications.

And are you a journalist? If so, you are great at finding 2 sentence quotes to support your point. If I wasn’t “on the clock” I’d go and find many more 2 sentence quotes to support mine. :smiley: I believe Chicago wants the best potential 1,800ish UChicago students to enroll. To do that they need a big input into the filter. But if they only cared about the size of the input they could do it much cheaper than sending out ten’s of thousands of t-shirts and 10 post cards per prospie. They could just set up a student fair at the McCormick Center, pay every senior in the area $10 for filling out the application and they have more applications.

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@BrianBoiler - I think they want more applications, vis a vis their peers. This is a departure from the past. They want the best possible class AND apps at a level comparable to peers.

If, all of a sudden, Columbia suddenly got 2X the apps as Chicago (as was the case in the past), Chicago’s marketing (or maybe incentives/payment to apply?) would get more drastic.

The point is to have more applications to be in line with (and comparable to) ones peers. If Chicago wanted 90,000 apps, it could get them, but the point, again, is staying in the pack (and being mindful) of the Joneses.

If you can find more substantive articles noting that Chicago merely wants to put together the best class, and isn’t mindful of its peers’ numbers, by all means, share them. If you can find examples of our Board of Trustees not being interested in such metrics, please pass them on. Every recent representation I see by U. leadership points to quotes I couldn’t dream of hearing 20 years back.

@marlowe1 - you raise interesting points as usual! My hunch is that extra-curriculars count more in Chicago’s admissions schema than ever before. Not to the extent you see elsewhere, but I imagine if you could scan Chicago’s class for wealth, legacy status, impact of athletics on admissions files, and the like, it’d appear more ivy-like now than at any point in the past 40-50 years.

Further, re the goal of the college, YES - I think Chicago’s goal now is to offer a great education that can be applied to lead in ALL fields. This is a big departure from the past, when the goal was, basically, to provide a great education (full stop). The goal, in this way, is much more aligned with Harvard et al. I think admins certainly hope the next titan of industry or wall street jock is in the Chicago’s class - and is hopefully enjoying the experience enough to give back handsomely.

I don’t think this was done to immediately be more “ivy like.” Rather, the decisions were made more about the bottom-line, and adopting an approach that could offer more bottom-line success for the college. And guess what approach is most successful here? The ivy approach!