<p>Divine Comedy:</p>
<p>You speak to the overall question I have about my alma mater: how much overall change is actually occurring on the ground at UChicago vis a vis its peers?</p>
<p>You, along with other posters such as Truth123 and Phuriku, seem quite optimistic about the fact that UChicago is expanding and improving at a rate unmatched by its peers.</p>
<p>I am more skeptical about this. I think in certain factors where improvement can occur quickly for a school of UChicago’s stature, such as admissions statistics, yield rate, etc., the U of C has made considerable strides.</p>
<p>I am hesitant, however, to assign similar praise to other areas where the University has traditionally lagged behind its peers - such as with fundraising, recent scientific research initiatives, and the like. </p>
<p>For example, you state: “I have never seen a university that is expanding at the same rate as UChicago. I also have never seen another institution that has completed this many major construction projects in such a short amount of time.”</p>
<p>I have also been lucky enough to visit quite a few universities, and I think that it’s difficult to reach such a conclusion. Yale, Penn (check out Penn Park, for example, which just opened), Stanford, etc., are also always moving forward at rapid rates.</p>
<p>That’s the beauty about the top schools in this country - they all plan/develop/move forward very quickly. </p>
<p>UChicago is generally in the pack, but I am curious to note why people are conflating rising rank in US News to broad institutional momentum overall. In the duck pond of elite higher education, it seems as if all the ducks paddle very hard, and, for the past decade or so at least, all of the schools stay in about the same position quantitatively (outside of what the more subjective US News rankings would say).</p>
<p>Is there something that Yale, Stanford, Harvard, Hopkins etc. are not doing that UChicago is which captures why UChicago is a “rising star” across all metrics, and these other schools are more static? Many posters seem to point to this. I certainly think the College has improved and is stronger now than it ever was, but, from a broader institutional perspective, I don’t know if UChicago is “catching up” at nearly the rate that some posters attest. </p>
<p>Is UChicago catching up in terms of admissions stats and easily quantifiable strengths in its college? Sure.</p>
<p>As an institution overall, is UChicago covering ground and catching up rapidly to its peers on other fronts? I don’t know at all how we can possibly know this. Completing “major construction projects in such a short amount of time” doesn’t seem to say much. That may just very well point to the fact that UChicago’s physical plant was crumbling for far too long, and the school needs to make improvements quickly to match the plants that some of its peers had 10 years ago. </p>
<p>To conclude, I really enjoyed my time at UChicago, but I also don’t want to get carried away with how the school is doing vis a vis its peers. I just don’t know that we have enough data to support some of the projections made on this board, outside of the admissions-related speculation.</p>