<p>ras - define your terms a bit more. When you say Chicago is “increasing in recognized prestige” what does this mean? That because we now report more accurate data to US News, we have been ranked as one of the top 8 or 9 schools as opposed to one of the top 14 or 15 schools in the past two years? Are we now more recognized because of this? Admissions has now pretty much stabilized and won’t see a significant increase in selectivity for a while (for the next several years, it’s likely that Chicago will continue to admit 20-25% of its applicants per year. It’s doubtful that number will drop much more). </p>
<p>Also, in terms of social “training” perhaps I should rephrase: in the clubby, networky, and very social (in a particular way) world of finance, the more traditional, fratty types generally fare better. Pardon if this comes across as rude, but Chicago just has a lot more socially awkward, nerdy types than these two other schools. I agree, maybe its not the school forming the student, and just students selecting what school best matches them, but from my experience at Chicago, I couldn’t see many of my peers wow-ing i-bankers or PE guys in interviews. Dartmouth or Princeton have more of the charismatic, “team-player” clubby types that these banks want. Accordingly, they both do better overall than Chicago on this front. It’s the same reason why Chicago students don’t do as well in top med school admissions. All else being equal, the social factors serve as tiebreakers, and the Chicago nerd falls a step behind the Princeton soccer player here. </p>
<p>Of course, I should emphasize - Chicago kids still do extremely well, but perhaps not as well as these two other institutions.</p>