<p>Well, the latest NSF data from 2008 on undergraduate origins of science and engineering PhDs shows MIT in third place on a per-capita basis (with about 16.6% of graduates getting science or engineering PhDs) and Chicago in seventh place (with about 10.6% of graduates getting them). Both would be higher if you counted non-science/engineering PhDs, and Chicago would almost certainly pass MIT, but I think they would remain comparable, at least. </p>
<p>By the way, in the per capita analysis, even limiting things to science/engineering fields, only one other comprehensive research university made the top 10 – Princeton, in 10th place. Chicago produces more future PhDs than similar schools. </p>
<p>Chicago produces plenty of future lawyers – I assume more than MIT – but less than Harvard, Yale, etc. by a noticeable margin. Doctors? Ditto in all respects, except I assume that MIT produces more, probably not by a lot. B-school? Who knows? (In part because it’s relatively rare to go straight there.) Both schools will attract their future business contingent, as well as having people who discover a business interest after college. At Chicago, SOME sort of graduate school is nearly universal, or if not universal than well over 70%. Because lots of MIT graduates CAN get high-paying, good-career-path jobs right out of college, I doubt as high a percentage of them overall eventually go to graduate school. </p>
<p>But, really, come on! You don’t need an electron microscope to tell the difference between MIT and the University of Chicago! Whatever modest differences would show up in this kind of data are going to reflect what is SIMILAR about these colleges rather than differentiating them. The differences are vast and are right there on the surface. A 5% difference either way in PhD yield can’t help anyone decide whether he’s more an MIT kind of person or a UChicago kind of person.</p>