No American Rhodes Winners from UChicago Undergrad for 7th Consecutive Year

Colleges & Universities University of Chicago
101

^@JHS - thanks for the clarification! Actually, I was probably a tad unfair to Chicago upthread. The “house system” itself in various forms may have started up with the university’s founding (you know this history much better than I do). I was thinking about the long-standing plan to build an integrative residential system, complete with houses, appropriately located physical plant, faculty in residence etc, akin to what Yale has currently. UChicago wasn’t a residential college back in the 20’s and probably early 30’s but there were plans to make it so, and those plans were very comprehensive. I believe Burton was the original proponent and was thinking about this as early as immediately post WWI. Unfortunately, depression-era problems, another World War, and declining enrollment delayed, then tabled the “south campus” project for decades after BJ opened in about 1930. Recently, the college has attempted to revive it with notably more success than in prior decades.

The problem is that - and this is very clear in the Boyer Book - UChicago’s housing strategy from mid-century till relatively recently was a comedy of errors. The result was a house system (good thing) that was scattered about (bad thing). I wouldn’t call the recent addition of new dorms an “ah-hah” step toward ivyfication (which is @Cue7’s hypothesis) as much as it is a return to the original plan (as best as can be managed) along with the realization that they simply can’t mess up this part of the equation any longer. Too many tuition dollars are riding on getting it right.

The 100+ student houses are having difficulty gelling and forming communities. Speaking to O-aides about this issue, it appears that at UChicago the smaller houses do better at creating and maintaining a good house culture and that the larger houses are “too big”. If the system at Yale is larger still but remains a better tool for forming community, then they’ve just set that up better than Chicago has. My guess is that it’s a simple question of structure and staffing. UChicago is probably a tad lean on both.

102

“2. More anecdotal material on “Chicago vs. Ivy”: Over the weekend, I was talking to my son and daughter-in-law about their college choice (both went to Chicago). My son said, “On the same trip, I visited [my sister, then a first-year] at Chicago and then [another friend, also a first-year] at Harvard. And Chicago and Harvard were my top two choices, for exactly the same reasons. I went to classes both places, and there was this incredible intellectual energy. Everyone was totally engaged. All I wanted was to be someplace where things like that were going on.” ( My daughter-in-law went to Chicago because it was a prestigious college not far from home (she didn’t want to be too far from home), it was supposed to be for nerds (she was a nerd), and it had a little more prestige than her older brother’s college (WashU – take that, bhayya!).”

This kind of variety might be what Admissions had in mind when they came up with both ED1 and ED2.

103

Up thread (in post #46) @JBStillFlying asked, in response to my contention that HYP have a gap in talent in areas beyond Rhodes Production: “what do we actually know about HYP’s grad school placement vs. the “lesser elite”? Stats please, @Cue7.”

I’ve only done a cursory search, but the results are fairly impressive.

Here’s undergrad rep at Wash U’s medical school (a premier med school): https://mdadmissions.wustl.edu/how-to-apply/who-chooses-wu/

Here’s undergrad rep in 2012 at Johns Hopkins Med: https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/som/students/academics/catalog/somcat1112.pdf (scroll to page 487)

And undergrad rep at Wharton’s MBA program in 2011: https://poetsandquants.com/2011/08/07/top-feeder-schools-to-whartons-mba-program/?pq-category=b-schools

(And, just for reference, here are Yale Law’s numbers: https://bulletin.yale.edu/sites/default/files/yale-law-school-2019-2020.pdf)

The data is a little old, but startling. At Johns Hopkins Med, 44 students went to Harvard, compared to 6 from Chicago, 7 from UPenn, and 10 from Brown. At Wash U Med, 56 went to Harvard, compared to 12 from Chicago, 30 from UPenn, and 14 from Brown.

At Wharton, 55 students went to Harvard, compared to 62 from Penn, and 21 from Brown (Chicago didn’t make the top 25 that year).

Yale and Princeton do very well too.

The gap, frankly, seems consistent (although of course not exact) with the gap in Rhodes production.

The Big Three are a big three for a reason.

Also, re housing: yes Chicago may be seeking to harken back to its past history, but it’s not doing this in a vacuum. They are heavily influenced by the schools that had the financial clout to create a comprehensive house system back in the day, and flourished as a result. If Chicago’s commuter/half-hazard approach to residential life had flourished, and offered lots of revenue/growth to the college, it wouldn’t have changed.

Instead, drawing on its history, its need for revenue, and closely assessing peers, it’s come back to a residential model.

I also agree, JB, that Chicago isn’t making these changes “just because the ivies are doing it.” Rather, Chicago has identified the most successful, revenue-generating programs, and gone in that direction. If Harvard and Yale had failed, you bet Chicago would look to Stanford or Rice or whatever. I agree they are not just looking for ivy-ness, but for success. (BUT, guess what model has been the gold standard?)

Perhaps, I could say that Chicago seeks to emulate the “ivy gold standard” model?

104

This is a long way from counting Rhodes scholars (although less inherently silly). Anyway, I think part of the difference lies in what gets counted as “good house culture.” At Chicago, it appears that people think a house has “good house culture” if it has lots of activities with 50%+ participation – game nights, movie nights, Scav team, or trips to Greektown, etc. My kids generally found that kind of house culture oppressive, and opted out.

The larger Yale colleges are such that no activity gets anything like 50% participation, but there is probably 90%+ participation in some sort of college activity. The colleges are large enough to support decent intramural athletic teams, drama clubs, music groups, service clubs, academic clubs. There are formals, Quizzo nights, hackathons. The colleges each sponsor their own lecture series and seminar courses (which are open to students from other colleges, too, but proposed and selected internally). They have partiers and non-partiers. If you don’t fit in with the dominant group, there are still plenty of people to be friends with. It also helps that you live in the same building with the other members of your class for all four years, and with two other classes at least two years (three years in four of the colleges), and that each of the colleges has its own, separate dining hall, not just a set of tables somewhere else. Everyone winds up eating with everyone else periodically, on a regular basis, year-in and year-out. That doesn’t make you close friends necessarily (although sometimes it does), but it makes you comfortable acquaintances with real appreciation for one another, without anyone putting pressure on you to share group activities.

The other thing that Yale does: Students who move off campus are still part of their residential college and have to eat 5 meals per week there. I owe my marriage to that. My wife hated living in a dorm, and moved off campus after only one semester in the college. Forty years on, she’s amazed to find how comfortable she feels with members of her class and my class in our college, even though she never consciously felt close to any but one or two of them when she was in college. She recognizes them, and they her; she knows enough about them not to have to meet them all over again. She was the one to put a bumper sticker of our college coat of arms on her car, and to buy a picture of the college to hang on a wall in our house.

105

^ @Cue7 at #102 - More like the HYP “gold standard” - which we already knew.

Here is my full quote from Post #46: “Other than the fact that HLS/YLS tend to admit large numbers of their own, which might be for a whole variety of reasons, what do we actually know about HYP’s grad school placement vs. the “lesser elite”? Stats please, @Cue7.”

I’ll amend the above to add Wharton - and even Booth, which, by your reasoning, would “favor” UChicago undergraduates over those from Harvard, Brown, Dartmouth and Princeton.

https://poetsandquants.com/2011/10/06/top-feeder-colleges-to-chicago-booth/2/

Some quick observations:

  1. 2011 saw a smaller size of the College and therefore fewer qualified applicants. That would impact acceptance at all grad schools, not just a few top professional programs.

  2. Higher matriculation rates don’t equate to higher acceptance rates from a particular school. As an analogy, the admit rate from my kids’ high school to UChicago’s undergrad program is higher than some of the top high schools in the country, simply because way fewer kids from our HS apply to UChicago in the first place and they tend to take one or two every year or other year. Harvard and Yale Law Schools might take “their own” in overwhelming numbers but preside over very low admit rates from Harvard or Yale College itself.

  3. Geographical (and even methodological) preferences can weigh notably into the equation on professional school acceptance. That’s very likely why you see #20 or so ranked G-Town beat out 'ivy-type" #1-ranked Stanford, and lower-ranked Brown and Cornell beating out top-ten-ranked “ivy-types” NU and Duke.

  4. UChicago has very specific incentive programs directed to its college grads applying to Law and Business that might well draw students away from Harvard, Penn/Wharton etc. It’s possible that these other schools have their own programs as well.

I have a relative who wasn’t admitted to HLS after graduating from Harvard College with high marks and a decent LSAT, and his year it was very cut throat. However, he and a good number of his applicant cycle class were accepted to other fine law schools. THAT’s the stat I’m chasing: How do UChicago College grads currently compare across the board to HYP grads? For all grad programs, not just professional (although the latter will be more likely to have available stats).

As you have been following med school placement for awhile, I’ll agree that an HYP College grad probably has a higher likelihood of being admitted to top med schools (OTHER than the parent university) than do UChicago College grads. UChicago’s messaging on the new Career Advancement webite - “80%-88% medical school acceptance rate for UChicago students” - is a tad weak.

106

@JBStillFlying asked: “THAT’s the stat I’m chasing: How do UChicago College grads currently compare across the board to HYP grads? For all grad programs, not just professional (although the latter will be more likely to have available stats).”

We’ll never have clear statistical data on this, but from what we can see, HYP does extremely well, and Chicago seems to perform comparably to “lower” ivies. In terms of placement to top med, law, business, grad schools, Rhodes production, Marshall Scholar production, whatever, the tippy top is impressive.

As an example, we know that Harvard et. al. grads and Chicago grads apply to law school in generally comparable numbers, but we also know that, at least for 2 of the 4 top law schools (Yale Law and Chicago Law), H et al. vastly outpaces Chicago.

Here’s LSAC data on number of law applicants from undergrad: https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/legal_education_and_admissions_to_the_bar/council_reports_and_resolutions/May2018CouncilOpenSession/18_may_2015_2017_top_240_feeder_schools_for_aba_applicants.authcheckdam.pdf

And, we’ve posted the Yale Law and Chicago Law data before. If we had data for Harvard Law and Stanford Law, I assume the gap between H undergrad and Chicago undergrad would be vast, indeed. Chicago Law takes a nice number of Chicago undergrads (about 15 a year), but it’s nothing like what Yale and Harvard Law take from their undergrads.

Please note, I think Chicago has made tremendous strides here, and the fact that post-grad outcomes now resemble what you’d see at Brown or Dartmouth is significant. The tippy top, though, is just really, really impressive. There’s a lot of concentrated talent at those schools.

107

“This is a long way from counting Rhodes scholars (although less inherently silly). Anyway, I think part of the difference lies in what gets counted as “good house culture.” At Chicago, it appears that people think a house has “good house culture” if it has lots of activities with 50%+ participation – game nights, movie nights, Scav team, or trips to Greektown, etc. My kids generally found that kind of house culture oppressive, and opted out.”

  • IMO, house culture seems to run deeper than the list you've mentioned; for instance, it can help form deep friendships. I guess as a comparison I would tally up the complaints, commentary and general laments about lack of friends and community that might be coming from various dorms, anecdotal as they may be (certainly not more anecdotal than using your own kids as your primary example, although I stand guilty of that myself :wink: ). Conventional wisdom isn't always accurate, and it's fair to give the new dorms time to "settle" - but my understanding is that the newer, larger houses tend to complement the larger and more sterile environment of the newer dorms; they don't compete with the more "established" houses in BJ, Snitch and I-House in terms of forming that house community. The new dorms are also larger so it's natural, all else equal, to hear "more" negative stuff coming from them. They are also "more popular" options, so perhaps expectations are higher going in. And nearly every house has "ghosts" such as your kids were and certainly it's not the case that "ghost" automatically means "lack of friends."

Given that one graduates with the house, and many of my own D’s housemates who are fellow “ex pats” seem to return and help out for various social events (ie welcoming in the new class, BJ Halloween party, etc.), I think the house system is considered “successful” if it encourages that type of close camaraderie. Perhaps this is an area where UChicago is notably “better” now than it used to be - ie better able to match student to appropriate “house culture” (even if that culture is more hands-off). Or perhaps they making admissions decisions based more on successful ability to socialize and fit within the house system than they did in prior years. If so, then it’s critically important that those houses actually “work” as they are supposed to.

(Should add that while there are anecdotal complaints, these might not be nearly as universal as they used to be. In other words, residential life may not be perfect, but it’s notably improved over the College’s historical offerings)

“Everyone winds up eating with everyone else periodically, on a regular basis, year-in and year-out. That doesn’t make you close friends necessarily (although sometimes it does), but it makes you comfortable acquaintances with real appreciation for one another, without anyone putting pressure on you to share group activities.”

  • House tables accomplish a similar goal at UChicago; however, from what I could see people come and go as they please (or eat elsewhere including the fishbowl of Cathey, or over at Hutch. Commons, etc.). My guess is that planned communal meals might vary by house.

One advantage of everyone heading over to the dining hall together or meeting at the house table is that the students (particularly new ones) get an opportunity to commune with their housemates. For many feeling overwhelmed in the first year, this might be their only regular opportunity. Very important! Have never heard that anyone is actually compelled to eat meals with their house, although one never knows about those houses in Snitch.

The current house system isn’t comparable, either in size or in scope of opportunity, to Yale’s system. When you are a “community” of 500, there might be something for everyone and the larger size allows organic subgroupings. Maybe a house size of 100 is harder to manage than a house of 50-75 and/or those assigned to a larger house happen not to care for the house system (they chose a large dorm in order to avoid it). That works for them, but it burns the kids who were looking forward to making new friends at his/her house. Obviously, they can try to get more involved - the adage that to make friends you have to be a friend still applies - but Boyer’s “relentless pace of he quarter system” might be keeping first years from doing that right away. That’s why it’s great to have the cultural ‘infrastructure’ already in place upon arrival.

“The other thing that Yale does: Students who move off campus are still part of their residential college and have to eat 5 meals per week there. I owe my marriage to that. My wife hated living in a dorm, and moved off campus after only one semester in the college. Forty years on, she’s amazed to find how comfortable she feels with members of her class and my class in our college, even though she never consciously felt close to any but one or two of them when she was in college. She recognizes them, and they her; she knows enough about them not to have to meet them all over again. She was the one to put a bumper sticker of our college coat of arms on her car, and to buy a picture of the college to hang on a wall in our house.”

  • What happens if you DON'T eat meals with your college - is that a "fail"? I guess it is a "residential college" so the answer is probably 'yes' . . .

There is no doubt that these systems, if implemented successfully, build long-lasting friendships and loyalty to the “alma mater.”

My D still gets together with her house regularly even though she’s moved off campus, so some of the same camaraderie applies even though she’s not compelled in any way to continue doing this. I think there is a special pass given to the ex-pats to allow entry into the dorm to attend social events or visit others. Her friends are overwhelmingly from her house and had they remained on campus a third year, she would likely have done the same. My son happens to have a lot in common with his housemates and is really enjoying his house placement. Both experiences seem fairly “typical” for Burton-Judson, which is known for its “vibrant house culture.” And now that they have fixed up the ole’ place, it has lost its “dumpy” appearance and presents as a stately and interesting place to live (no AC though).

108

@Cue7 at #105 - That’s a helpful link! Appreciate you posting. Was looking for something similar that compared #'s and LSAT scores.

“As an example, we know that Harvard et. al. grads and Chicago grads apply to law school in generally comparable numbers, but we also know that, at least for 2 of the 4 top law schools (Yale Law and Chicago Law), H et al. vastly outpaces Chicago.”

Harvard, Yale and Penn students apply by a third to 50% more than does UChicago. Could this explain why H and Y accepts so many of its own students?

The school that stands out is Princeton because it truly is comparable in terms of application #'s and has always figured prominently on other top school’s grad lists. (PhD as well, btw). But maybe that’s because Princeton doesn’t have its own law school so those excellent candidates have to go somewhere else. EDIT TO ADD: notably, P has a reputation for academic ‘rigor’.

Chicago is a bit below HYP in terms of LSAT scores - to me, that’s far more relevant than looking at lists (which may be helpful but don’t hold other factors constant). LSAT is a significant factor determining where you end up for Law School.

109

I do think things have changed some in that regard. My children’s houses were both about 2/3 first years and 1/3 second years, and 0/0 third or fourth years. There was no long-term continuity to speak of. My daughter really retained only one friend from her house by the middle of her second year. My son kept four or five friends from his house throughout college, but that was largely because they had joined activities together, and stayed friends through those activities. Neither of them had any engagement with their houses after they moved out. (Neither of them wished things were any different – they had plenty of friends and lots of engagement with stuff on campus, and zero house nostalgia.)

Also, some of the things Chicago did to try to encourage kids to stay in university housing made it more difficult for people who had left university housing to maintain a relationship with their former house, even if they wanted to. That may have changed, too.

110

^ My D’s house keeps the doors open to the ex-pats, and my son’s house sounds like it tries to do the same thing. Maybe that’s a BJ-House thing, or maybe it’s a coincidence (each is in a separate house). My son’s house has third and even a few 4th years so might be unusual (most in my D’s house tend to move out in third year).

Another possibility is that the newer dorms such as max and north, being closer to Rattner, attracts more athletes. Perhaps this subgroup has a lot more in common with - and spend more time with - the team as opposed to the house. That might be a hard to fix reason why “new dorms” gel less. Although that’s an easy fix just by dispersing the athletes more evenly across the various dorms. I think that’s what Harvard does for its first year athletes (although most if not all first years are also contained within the Yard I think).

111

@JBStillFlying - keeping UPenn to the side (as we focused above on Big Three placement):

In 2017, Harvard had 208 applicants to Law School, Yale 184, and Chicago 156. So, that year, Yale had about 18% more applicants than Chicago, and Harvard had 33% more. But, in terms of raw numbers, the actual number of applicants are fairly comparable. And, generally, year to year, this is the case. It’s not like double the number of H grads are applying to Law School, in comparison to Chicago. (Although, I’d reckon Harvard has literally 2x or 3x the number of grads at Yale, Stanford, and Harvard Law Schools, in comparison to Chicago. And it’s not like that many Chicago undergrads go to Chicago Law, as we know - only about 13-16 a year.)

Anyway, I agree the biggest impact in the disparity is the higher test scores (and GPAs) of H and Y. And, I think you’d see that on the GMAT and MCAT as well.

Back to your big point about placement across the board, it seems like Harvard et. al. still does better, across all coveted placements, than Chicago (and lower ivies).

It also seems like Chicago is doing better across many fields - except for, say, Rhodes Scholar production! Credit Chicago for taking an ivy approach (per the book you referenced, providing lots of resources for undergrad students - especially in the areas of career counseling and advising), to do this.

112

If you don’t like the Rhodes numbers, you are going to hate the Marshall numbers.

https://www.marshallscholarship.org/the-scholarship/statistics-and-resources

Highlight: In the 65 years since their inception, Harvard undergraduates have won over 12% of the available scholarships, and HPYSM have 30% combined. The second-place college, Princeton, has half of Harvard’s number. The sixth place college – the USMA – with almost exactly 2% of the scholarships, has about half of MIT’s fifth-place number. Then there are about 20 schools (including Chicago and pretty much all the other usual suspects) with 1.00-1.66%. Chicago is in a five-way tie for 15th place. It hasn’t scored a scholarship in three years, but it was doing pretty well (1-2 per year, out of 40) in the five years before that.

113

I think everyone here is getting ridiculous and these examples of ranking are suspect at best.

The students and institutions are all amazing. Scramble and randomize all of the students amongst these 4 or 5 colleges and the individual students will still have equally great outcomes.

Stop trying to push an agenda that X is better than Y; the rounding error in everyone’s analysis is far greater than the difference.

114

“In 2017, Harvard had 208 applicants to Law School, Yale 184, and Chicago 156. So, that year, Yale had about 18% more applicants than Chicago, and Harvard had 33% more. But, in terms of raw numbers, the actual number of applicants are fairly comparable. And, generally, year to year, this is the case. It’s not like double the number of H grads are applying to Law School, in comparison to Chicago.”

  • 50% more does not mean double. Also, you should look at 3 year averages.

“It also seems like Chicago is doing better across many fields - except for, say, Rhodes Scholar production! Credit Chicago for taking an ivy approach (per the book you referenced, providing lots of resources for undergrad students - especially in the areas of career counseling and advising), to do this.”

  • The book makes it clear that Chicago's history is one of getting sidetracked. It's still digging out and hopefully the path forward is a lot rosier. The Ivy Approach might better be redubbed as the Chicago "If Only" Approach. BTW, none of this will matter in about 200 years. Remember, Chicago is still a young school.

Great @JHS. Cue can thank you for more bad news LOL.

115

@JBStillFlying - why would 50% mean double? As i said above, it’s NOT like Harvard has double the number of grads applying to law school (but, in terms of outcomes, harvard has 2x or 3x the representation at harvard law or yale law than chicago). This is because, while the number of applicants isn’t much higher (especially given the gap in placement), H simply has a higher concentration of pre-law talent - and the LSAT averages bear this out.

Also the Marshall numbers are ridiculous. In response to @arbitrary99 - we are clearly not looking at “rounding errors” - we are looking at a few schools that remain separated from the pack. Wow.

116

@Cue7

The type of conclusion you are drawing from this data is statistically unsound.

You don’t know that the populations are representative or similar.

Further, you are using law school admissions as a proxy for … what again? The quality of the candidate?

What about the better students at certain schools chose not to go to law school (maybe the other schools attracts more pre professionals? )

Have you ever taken the LSAT or gone to a top 3 law school? The LSAT is learnable and small differences don’t show any academic difference in the candidates. Or maybe there is a reputation so effect from those schools cited, but it doesn’t mean the education or students are better or worse than the others.

Again I believe if you reshuffle the students and the outcomes for each student will be the same

117

Another possibility could be gpa delta if one school has grade deflation relative to others. That would be unrelated to the quality of the school or students.

That’s why I find this sort of evidence unpersuasive.

118

@arbitrary99 - we simply don’t have enough data to demonstrate, statistically, the reasons behind the variance in outcomes. There is so much we don’t know. The optics are pretty eye popping though, right? Harvard has 6x the number of Rhodes winners, 3X the number of students at Yale Law, 4X the number of students at Hopkins Med, 10X (or more?) the number of Marshall Scholars, probably 6X the number of students at Wharton, etc. etc. Chicago class sizes and success rates are growing, but the difference is probably still vast.

Also, we do know, if you simply reshuffle the students, many of Harvard’s institutional priorities would take huge hits. Their D1 sports teams would suffer greatly, the incoming students probably don’t have the same extra-curricular talents, etc.

Further, while this is speculative, if you reshuffled students, the factors that help institutional bottom lines (like development cases, legacies, catering to rich donors with qualified kids, accepting the kids of titans/leaders/etc.) would also take a hit.

If you reshuffled the deck, academically, things would look similar. Outcomes might even look similar. But a Chicago class that goes to Harvard wouldn’t be able to meet all of H’s institutional priorities.

It’s why I don’t know if the ivies followed a Chicago “If Only” approach, as opposed to a “Don’t do a Chicago” approach. Chicago has now converged with its peers in that respect.

119

Adding to @arbitrary99 the number of undergrad class. Harvard, for example, typically has over 300 undergrad students than Princeton per class. Without knowing how many from each class are applying to Rhodes and Marshall scholarships or Law, Medical, Business schools, the numbers by themselves aren’t all that meaningful.

120

I just believe there are too many factors. Let’s say all my classmates and professors are talking about the Rhodes so I get interested and therefore more apply. Was it better students or more familiarity with the process? Stanford doesn’t have that many for example. Is it lesser too? But more go into start ups, again due to the availability of information.

You are making some judgment as to what constitutes success. And I’d it then education or the student or emphasis on different goals?

Enough stated. They are all top schools. I had a tough time deciding between them when I went to college.