Just finish reading a lot of diss on U of C. Somehow I find it very funny. U of C is a totally acquired taste. Either you like it or you hate it. I don’t expect everyone to like it.
U of C is a “Duke with cold weather…” and “…with no Coach K”. That is amusing because I think The College at U of C is almost the polar opposite of Duke undergrad. And personally I would take Gene Fama over Coach K any day. Heck, I would take even Myron Scholes over Coach K for Scholes seminal paper’s impact over the derivative world. But that is my preference. Everyone’s utility curve is drawn differently.
However, on a deeper note I find myself stumped about this question: what is the difference between Duke and U of C? As the title of this thread states, U of C is more than just The College. Yes, The College is very different from Duke undergrad. But what about grad schools? What about professional schools? How different is, say, Duke Law vs UChicago Law? What about Fuqua vs Booth? Duke Medical vs Pritzker? I have no answer. Yet in the meantime I see everywhere on CC people are comparing schools as if they know every single department strength and weakness and somehow they have an aggregate measure to distill their knowledge down to a rating/ranking. From that they assert University X is a peer institution of University Y. That is laughably simplistic.
As a result, that leads to my biggest rants about ranking. Simply put: ranking is subjective/stupid and comparing schools according to ranking is an exercise in futility. In undergrad it may be true that some schools may be full of HYPS rejects (my lower Ivy alma mater is an example). But in grad and professional schools those are totally different matters.
In the 1980’s you really had to be a total moron (or prestige chaser) to apply to both HBS and GSB. You could graduate from HBS without knowing anything about price theory whereas in GSB you might graduate without using case method once. The two premier B-schools teaching philosophies were so different that it would be pointless to compare them. It was a total apple/ orange thing. While HBS might be ranked higher than GSB in the 1980’s, you would not find the GSB full of HBS rejects. Those people picking GSB had a totally different educational objective in mind than those applying for HBS. And you expect HBS and GSB faculty and students would have a very high opinion of each other? Ranking becomes or always has been a beauty contest or worse an Olympic ice skating competition. It is totally subjective and really doesn’t mean much.