<p>Truth123:</p>
<p>The investment in new facilities and new faculty certainly helps, but we also need to note the significant gap in assessment scores at this point. For peer assessment, for example, UChicago earned a 4.0. Most of the other top 10 schools are in the 4.4-4.6 range, with the very best schools (i.e. Harvard or Hopkins) around 4.8. </p>
<p>As I’m sure you know, this is a pretty significant gap. It’s hard to make up .1 or .2 in peer assessment, let alone get the .4-.5 increase UChicago would need to be on the same field as most of the other top 10 schools. Hopefully the investment and increase in faculty will be a step in the right direction, but the peer assessment gap is quite large right now. If you speak to physicians and med school professionals, UChicago has a good reputation, but it’s not in the same class as the reputations for the b school and law school, which are essentially preeminent. </p>
<p>For these reasons, I’m not sure if UChicago med can get much higher in the short term. Perhaps more importantly, as a major research institution, it needs to address and invest in the med plant as an area that needs considerable improvement. Quite frankly, for a school that wants to be a tippy top research institution across all fields, a peer score of 4.0 in the medical school world is low. Sure, the school is taking steps to strengthen its programs, but I’m not sure if the peer assessment gap will close any time soon. Improving a reputation can take a lot of time - it’s a lot harder than improving admissions stats. </p>
<p>Besides that, UChicago seems to be doing well. The Harris School dropped a bit, but the b school and law school continue to have strong showings, as did most of UChicago’s graduate programs.</p>