<p>Hey, I didn’t mean to be rude or arrogant. It is true that on average, a higher percentage of the smaller, elite liberal art schools went on to get ph. D’s in the past 30 years. But the original question was whether Chicago can compete academically with those same smaller liberal arts colleges. Here my frustration betrays itself. Of Course It Can. The University of Chicago, whose undergraduate college has historically had nearly one-fourth of its Bachelor’s degree recipients continue on to receive doctorates over the past 30 yearsputting it first among all universities in that respect.</p>
<p>I would not be surprised if Swarthmore, a school that I have heard nothing but wonderful things about, has a program comparable to Chicago’s. But hell, you can ask anyone in academia. It is highly unlikely that any undergraduate program entails a <em>more</em> rigorous and educationally meaningful workload than that of the University of Chicago. </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.utexas.edu/law/faculty/bleiter/rankings/rankings03.html[/url]”>http://www.utexas.edu/law/faculty/bleiter/rankings/rankings03.html</a></p>
<p>To imply that Chicago’s professors do not spend enough time carefully grading papers, or that Chicago’s classes do not count in discussion participation, compared to any school at all, is outrageous. If you want to do research at Chicago, there are some of the best grad schools in the world right on the campus. No one’s stopping anyone from doing research at a RESEARCH university.</p>
<p>To compare a small liberal arts college with 1400 students to a research university of over 4000 undergrad and twice as many grad students is unreasonable to begin with. But I must come to chicago’s defense as far as grad school placement goes. I don’t know where your information comes from, but Chicago’s known as the ‘teacher of teachers.’ I assume that by swarthmore sending “more” of its students to grad school, you mean a higher percentage. But that doesn’t seem to be the case either:</p>
<p>“For a 30-year period beginning in 1951, the following institutions had more than one-eighth of their graduates go on to receive the Ph.D.:”</p>
<ol>
<li> Harvey Mudd College</li>
<li> California Institute of Technology</li>
<li> Reed College</li>
<li> University of Chicago</li>
<li> Massachusetts Institute of Technology</li>
<li> Swarthmore College
Source: Change magazine, Nov./Dec., 1986"</li>
</ol>