Texas and the University of Chicago's Plans

Colleges & Universities University of Chicago
101

Folks, the Vulcan guy you are tagging is not me. It’s some impostor that stole my name 10 years before I joined CC:)

Maybe. But I would need to see if folks on the USC board have affirmatively asserted that their school has left HYPMS in the rear-view mirror to be sure. :wink:

Oh, we have, trust me. But I made so many great friendships here;)

If he wanted a lot of personalized attention, he could go to Caltech (j/k, great school, but it’s out of the running on the strength of its financial aid offer).

It looks like a number of MIT’s engineering-related majors are also fairly small.

https://registrar.mit.edu/stats-reports/majors-count

Seriously though, I do not think anyone in their right mind does not believe that UChicago is a top-notch institution (even if they raise what I think are legitimate concerns about some of their admission policies, from going test-optional to relying on ED1/ED2/EA/RD to fine-tune yield).

But this is one of those boards where the same people seem to dwell on its unique status, which makes it a fun place to revisit when nothing else is going on:)

I do not see anyone on Caltechs boards lamenting that it is not a top 10 USNWR school, for example (they were #1 once in something like 2000, and then USNWR promptly changed their methodology to adjust for “statistical anomalies” and return Harvard or Princeton to their “rightful place”:slight_smile:

102

@Publisher at #99 won’t have time to read this, but he/she has confused OP’s reference to the sensibilities of some influential TX families who might choose UChicago over an East Coast Ivy (and yes, that might be highly correlated to political affiliation) with UChicago’s outreach - per Empower - to rural, military and other under-served groups.

103

Every university is unique in some way, and the elite universities we are discussing here are all much more similar to one another than they are different. That said, there’s no question in my mind that there are plenty of kids in Texas to whom Chicago’s particular combination of qualities would appeal, and who would be attractive candidates for admission, who aren’t applying because they don’t know enough about the university and its particular personality yet. Of course it makes sense to reach out to them.

Chicago is not likely to lure away anyone who is committed to staying in Texas for college, students who may be interested in seeing someplace else but who want a strong Greek culture and party life, or students whose goal in life is a term-time internship at Goldman Sachs. Fortunately for the world, that’s not everyone.

I share Publisher’s distaste for the “rear-view mirror” type of comment, especially as applied to world-class universities like Columbia and Penn. However, I know a lot about both, and there are all sorts of reasons for a Chicago-type kid to prefer Chicago to either of them. Chicago and Columbia are superficially very similar because they are both in large cities and have a core curriculum, but the actual day-to-day culture at the two colleges is very different. Columbia was my daughter’s first choice college as a high school senior, but 15 years later, 11 of them spent working in New York City in the sorts of jobs where your colleagues are recent alumni from all sorts of prestigious colleges, she thanks her stars that Columbia rejected her so she went to Chicago instead. And Penn . . . undergraduate culture at Penn could not be more different from that at Chicago. It’s not an absolute difference – each college has some subculture of people who would be the majority type at the other college. Each college may even want to have more of the students likely to prefer the other.

The point is that there are perfectly good reasons for a smart high school student to prefer one college over other colleges in roughly the same category, and it won’t be (nor should it be) the same college for every student. And there will be fashions, which will vary somewhat from place to place, about which colleges are more desirable than others. (The view from my prep school, mid-70s, was that Dartmouth was the most desirable Ivy other than HYP precisely because it was small and rural, Columbia and Penn – and Chicago – were hellholes, and Wharton was a back door to the Ivy League for people too dumb or uninteresting to study real academic subjects.) Chicago isn’t fungible with Harvard or Yale, and it certainly isn’t fungible with Vanderbilt or Duke, or Swarthmore for heaven’s sake.

104

“But this is one of those boards where the same people seem to dwell on its unique status, which makes it a fun place to revisit when nothing else is going on:)”

  • Yeah, but doesn't the fact that this seems to be the only CC forum where those with no affiliation to UChicago also dwell - or at least continually revisit - serve to underscore that "unique status?" Something keeps attracting you all back. Newsflash: UChicago's been into its "unique status" since Harper ran the place, so won't be going away anytime soon.

Just my opinion: every institution has a unique status but perhaps not every cc forum bothers to attach much importance to “uniqueness.” We see that here with @Publisher, whose comments suggest the viewpoint that many top schools are interchangeable in terms of “prestige.” A good number of UChicago families would find at least two things wrong with that line of thought. If that’s not true elsewhere, then - wow - more evidence that there is, indeed, something unique about UChicago.

105

59 the poster stated:

“I see MIT thrown around in this thread, but while UChicago might be considered MIT’s “almost-peer” overall (#6 vs #3 USNWR, and #10 vs #1 in QS 2020 World University Rankings), I agree that it is decidedly not the case for technical majors MIT is world famous for.”

then said;
"UChicago’s CS program is ranked 30th in the US by USNWR at the graduate level and 51-100 worldwide by QS at the undergraduate level, and it does not offer engineering degrees.

MIT’s is ranked #1 by USNWR and QS in CS and in Engineering."

Subsequently a few posts took great umbrage at the above, because U Chicago basically took a particular sub-field of biology that is not a normal field of study for a College of Engineering, decided to coin that “engineering”, and consequently says it has engineering because of this self-coined discipline that “real” schools of engineering ( or at least most of them), that everyone would agree are schools of engnieering, don’t even offer…

I can see where it actually is “engineering” of a sorts. But is clearly not what is meant in post #59, where reference is to the " technical majors MIT is world famous for.".

The traditional disciplines of engineering are, at the core, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, chemical engineering, civil and environmental engineering. Then there are sometimes nuclear engineering, Industrial engineering.
Some newer-fangled add-ons, which are not core disciplines of engineering, include biological engineering, biomedical engineering, financial engineering.

I don’t see how a school that just has but a single program in exactly one (self-created) fringe add-on field, without any majors focused on the core fields of engineering, can legitimately say it has engineering, in the same sense that MIT has engineering. In the context of comparing itself to MIT.

Just my opinion.

106

What I find on this board is a curious combination (not necessarily in the same people) of simultaneously professing not to care about the proverbial HYPMS prestige while also taking an unmistakable swipe at those instutitions’ students for somehow being soulless gold-diggers not “cut from Chicago’s cloth” and unconcerned with “the life of the mind”.

Coupled with the “rear-view mirror” comments towards schools like Columbia an impression this leaves is one of a self-conscious underdog, which is unbecoming of an institution that in many ways could have a claim to being a C in HYPMS (though it would need to drop the ED rounds to truly belong there).

107

So in your view, @monydad , the motivation for creating this ME program is so the University can say that it is now an engineering school? Or even compare itself to MIT as an engineering school? That seems improbable. No one would think that. The way it was explained by Zimmer himself was that the University felt that this was a special field it had the ability to enter. I can see that you don’t like throwing the word “engineering” around lightly, but do you not believe that the training being given in this special field constitutes engineering? If you don’t believe that, it sounds like you think a fraud is being perpetrated. Otherwise, what’s the problem exactly? Sounds a bit like the old “Chicago should stay in its lane” reaction we are used to seeing on this board.

108

@TheVulcan , you’re up to your old tricks - ascribing all these petty and demeaning motivations to others for reasons of your own. Thus: when we speak here about the special qualities Chicago is seeking in its students, it can’t be that Chicago values those qualities, has an education and culture suited to them, and attempts to build a class around them. No, it can only be that Chicago is “taking a swipe at [other] institutions’ students”.

This is all in your own mind, my friend. I challenge you to find a statement anywhere on our board that could be construed as denigration of other schools or students as opposed to an attempt to describe the essential qualities of our own place and our own students. The denigration always runs in the opposite direction. To be fair you are not alone in being rendered apoplectic by talk of Chicago culture and education. To me that is the truly interesting phenomenon here, one that warrants the intervention of Dr. Freud.

In the meantime surely the MIT you have such regard for would welcome some positive comments about its culture on its own forum. I promise you that no Chicago student, parent or alum would read those comments and construe them as a swipe at the U of C. As a bonus, perhaps you won’t feel the need to put “life of the mind’ in scare quotes on that board inasmuch as you clearly think the whole thing is a sham at Chicago.

109

If Chicago can get $10B, then sure why not, then UPenn and Columbia will be in the rear-view mirror.

That’s by far the biggest story here. Recruiting more in Texas is great, but if Chicago is soon to launch the largest fundraising campaign in history, as OP alluded, (and I think a $10B campaign would be the largest), that’s the big news.

And, frankly, that’s what Chicago needs to do. Announcing initiatives and strategies is great, but nothing beats the priority of seeking cold, hard cash.

110

Not Chicago, but (some) people on this board. I will not delve into providing quotes, but they are abound on this board, and even in this thread. I do not want this to become a replay of “UofC uses ED to play the rankings game VS UofC uses ED to select the deepest thinkers” debate, so we can agree to disagree on this point, but I am noticing that people on other boards are not as quick to ascribe benevolent omniscience to the admission committees.

I am sure MIT would not care one way or the other about my comments on CC;) (and neither, I am sure, does UChicago)

How can you be so sure?:wink:

I do not think it is a sham at UChicago, or many other places where a lot of smart people get together to learn. And I find the insistence that it is a unique feature of one institution simply distasteful.

111

As a Texan (I will always be a Texan no matter how long I live in Maine), it will be interesting to see if UChicago can gain any traction in the state. I think it will be an uphill battle, frankly, but we’ll see!

112

There are fifty Texans enrolled in the present first-year class, @MaineLonghorn. That’s a good beginning. A little additional loving and courting - together with the other factors set out in this discussion - could surely double or even triple that figure. Hell, I see a reverse take-over in the works. If a Longhorn can make his way to Maine, then why not to Chicago? The packing houses in the city are now closed down, and no slaughterhouses await these longhorns at the end of theIr long drive to Chicago (unless the Core qualifies as such).

I think you must be referring, @TheVulcan , to the “in the rear view mirror” remark that has got you all riled so much. What you may be missing here is an element of colorful expressiveness, even over-the-topness, as a way one makes a point in the Lone Star State. BronxBorn may have been born in the Bronx, but he has clearly been drinking the water of the natives.

All you UCDS visitants to our Chicago board are way too easily triggered and lose all lightness of touch for the sake of this theatrical high dudgeon you are forever assuming. I’ve never seen anything of the kind on any other board. Have you ever asked yourself why that is?

113

Honestly, I think this is all your doing, @marlowe1.

I know I enjoy your company even (especially?) when you are being insufferable.

114
  • Agree with everything up to "unbecoming." UChicago is a restless, scrappy self-conscious underdog, and I hope it never changes that - even if/when it's completely on top. IMO, it's quite "becoming" to be that way. This isn't the country club.
115

@TheVulcan and others who complain about all the uncritical comments that apparently abound on these UC threads crack me up. When I first started following several years ago, positive comments were far less prevalent. A lot of the more somber posters have moved on - graduated (or their kids did). And CC’s own policies regarding “debate” has put a lid on some of the more lively dicussions. Vulcan may wish to revisit posts from a few years back and do a comparison. The UC threads still beat an issue to death, and occasionally someone will come on and complain about that (though why exactly is beyond me - can’t they just ignore the thread?). But it’s not anything like it used to be.

116

@JBStillFlying said: “UChicago is a restless, scrappy self-conscious underdog”

Well, that’s only if you discount the first ~65 years of its history, when it was one of the top 3 wealthiest universities on the planet.

I prefer to think of Chicago as a former apex predator that squandered its wealth through a series of bad decisions, and has been looking to reclaim its former glory for the better part of 30 years. That’s probably a more accurate view, at least historically speaking.

117

^ We can blame Hutchins.

118

@marlowe1 , I’m kind of the exception that proves the rule . I don’t know of any other Longhorns in Maine. Native Texans aren’t overly fond of the north. My future husband’s classmates gave him a hard time when he started dating me - “You’re dating your supervising professor’s daughter and you’re a YANKEE?!? Are you crazy?” ? He was from Wisconsin.

119

@JBStillFlying - yes, perhaps it was Hutchins. He gave Chicago a distinctive (unsustainable?) intellectual bent, but took risks that sacrificed the key driver for success at the modern university: cash flow.

To me, it’s unforgivable that a U. that was in the top 3 for wealth dropped to it’s current rank of ~16. All this debt financing and current risk would not have been necessary, but for the mismanagement of past regimes.

120

@Cue7 , you make your good if repetitive point about the need to repair the Endowment, but don’t despair. Teams with small payrolls sometimes win pennants, and some ballgames are won in the ninth inning. Billionaires aren’t always humanly or politically successful. My uncle gave me good advice a long time ago: Play your own game, my boy, but play smart!

Correct me if I’ve got you wrong, but it seems to me you are talking about more than the instrumental uses of wealth. Hutchins’s mistake in your book would be that he remodeled the undergraduate experience such that it no longer looked very much like that of the Ivy League. There were way too many “that kids” in its classes, too few wealthy ones, no sports, no Gentlemen’s C’s, no starlets. Too many ideas flying around, too much intensity, not enough leisure. The main event was assembling for a night of study and brainstorming in the library, of reading (or at least claiming to have read) and volubly discussing Wittgenstein or Heidegger, and so on. You were made miserable by all that. Even if the Endowment had flourished under it, you would have hated it just for what it was. These were lost years for you. On cc you exact your revenge for all that.

That’s how I read you. What you are really after is the eradication of all that is traditional or distinctive in Chicago education and students because you have a loathing for them. Have I got you right?