University of Chicago Admit Rate and SAT relative to Ivy/Competitive Set

Colleges & Universities University of Chicago
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Hi, I have been a bystander on this thread for a few days, and I have followed the discussion with keen interest. Thanks for the bracing comments.

My son was accepted RD to the Class of 2024. He applied to a relatively small number of schools, after a good deal of research: Amherst, Pomona, Reed, Swarthmore, UChicago, and our state’s flagship. He withdrew his applications from Amherst and Pomona once he heard from the rest (and frankly, he didn’t expect to get into UChicago RD – it was a very pleasant surprise). He hasn’t formally accepted, but UChicago is quickly solidifying as his top choice.

Like Reed and Swarthmore, UChicago attracted him because of its reputation for intellectual rigor. The statement on academic freedom and the Core are the other two draws, and ones that have given UChicago the edge. He is a “debate” kid and politically attuned, mildly left-of-center but non-dogmatic – and loves the idea of engaging in serious conversation with students with views antithetical to his (something he is less certain he will find at Reed or Swarthmore). And yes, being adjacent to a big city is a plus. He plans to major in neuroscience but also has great fondness for literature and philosophy. UChicago seems perfect.

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@River65 - we’re talking about the undergrad, not Booth. It’s hilarious - McKinsey has LOTS of recruiters for Booth - almost a half dozen. It’s almost like they are purposely avoiding Chicago undergrad.

@izzalu - if your son feels a connection to Chicago, feels like it fits him well, that is important above all else. It sounds like he clearly preferred Chicago to Princeton and UPenn. That’s the key factor - he should go wherever it’s likeliest he’ll thrive.

This being said, from everything I can see, it does look like Chicago punches under its weight in terms of elite placement. I’ll present a bunch of data that I can find below. * You should definitely ask Chicago’s career office for ** granular ** data: how many matriculate at different law schools? where do specific majors go? how many go to certain medical schools? *

Here are examples of excellent, detailed career surveys from UPenn, which break down specific employers by major: https://careerservices.upenn.edu/post-graduate-outcomes/

Use those reports as a guide, and see if Chicago will send you similar data.

Public Data

Overall, in terms of selectivity and raw incoming talent, Chicago seems to have one of the top 6 or so classes in the nation. Unfortunately, it rarely features commensurate output, in any data I can find. Here are a bunch of examples:

Law

Yale Law placement: https://bulletin.yale.edu/bulletins/law/law-school-students#institutions-represented-fall-2018

Chicago has 18 grads at Yale Law. Not bad, but a far cry from undergrads with comparable inputs, like Columbia [34] Yale [90!], Harvard [59] and Princeton [31]

Chicago undergrad also doesn’t feed into Chicago Law in the same way that Harvard or Yale feed into their law schools. See pg. 180 here:

https://www.law.uchicago.edu/files/2019-08/announcements_2019-20_-_final.pdf

42 chicago grads are at Chicago Law (so, approximately 7% of Chicago Law came from Chicago undergrad). Contrast that to Yale and Yale Law, where 90 yale college grads compose about 15% of Yale Law.

Chicago’s representation at other top law schools seem fine - nothing amazing.

See here: https://www.law.umich.edu/prospectivestudents/admissions/Pages/faq-charts.aspx

Chicago has between 10-20 grads at Michigan Law. It’s probably a top 15 feeder to Michigan Law.

(And Chicago has roughly the same total number of students applying to law school as Princeton, Columbia, Dartmouth, etc. per LSAC data: https://www.accesslex.org/index.php/xblog/accesslex-report-sheds-light-on-aba-feeder-school-list)

Business/Finance/Consulting

McKinsey does not have a recruiting team focus on Chicago undergrad - only one general recruiter. Peer schools like Dartmouth and Columbia, on the other hand, have teams of recruiters (and alums) focus on the schools.

https://www.mckinsey.com/careers/students/undergraduate-degree-candidates/university-of-chicago

https://www.mckinsey.com/careers/students/undergraduate-degree-candidates/columbia-university-and-barnard-college

As stated above, it appears that Chicago undergrad placement at Harvard B School and Stanford B School is fairly anemic, at best (roughly in the top 30 undergrad feeders). I’m sure a bunch go to Booth, but, again, it’s strange the numbers at HBS and SBS are so low.

Maybe all the Chicago grads are going to Bain and BCG? Or maybe Deloitte and Accenture? McKinsey is seen as the gold standard, though, and placement here doesn’t seem great.

Chicago seems to place fairly well at Goldman Sachs, but, again, not commensurate with its input, ranking, etc.:

https://news.efinancialcareers.com/uk-en/240377/the-best-universities-for-getting-a-job-at-goldman-sachs-in-the-u-s-europe-and-asia-within-ma-trading-risk-and-ops

Chicago came out as the #12 feeder to Goldman there.

Medicine

Data here is harder to come by, but from what I can see, again, nothing to write home about:

Placement at Wash U medical school: https://mdadmissions.wustl.edu/how-to-apply/who-chooses-wu/

Chicago placed 12 grads at Wash U med from 2008-2017. In comparison, Harvard sent 56, MIT 25, Yale 34, UPenn 30, Duke 39

At Michigan med, Chicago does a bit better, but still nothing to write home about:

https://medicine.umich.edu/medschool/sites/medicine.umich.edu.medschool/files/assets/Incoming%20Class%20of%202019.pdf

Chicago sent 3 to Michigan Med last year, putting it in the top 10-15 feeders.

I’m sure Chicago places a lot at its home med school, but the other top schools (Harvard, Duke, etc.) place a lot at their home med schools AND place a lot at other top places.

Again, I’m a Chicago alum and I want the school to do as well as possible in terms of placement. Given the remarkably strong inputs, the outputs look… puzzling to me.

Honestly, I’m at a bit of a loss. The school with the 6% accept rate and #2 avg. SAT in the country should be doing better. I have a theory, but I’m curious to see what others think.

To sum, fit is critical - and if your son loves Chicago, it’s the best choice. BUT you all should go in with your eyes wide open - and try to get as much data as possible.

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Wow. The data and replies by all are incredible. And eye opening. Does Chicago still produce a lot of PhD candidates? Maybe they have quite a few graduates who are not preprofessional? Maybe that’s why these numbers seem low? I’m sure my son can dig in once he’s on campus… Thanks so much :slight_smile:

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@izzalu - re PhD candidates, Chicago actually doesn’t produce as many as you’d think. For STEM fields, for instance, per NSF data:

https://www.inside-higher-ed.com/college-rankings/baccalaureate-to-ph-d-in-science-and-engineering-feeder-schools/

If you click on the excel file, you’ll see that roughly 11% of Chicago grads went on to attain a PhD in a STEM field. That’s quite high, but not noticeably different than Princeton (10%), Harvard (10%), Yale (8.5%), Cornell (8%), etc.

So, yes, Chicago produces a lot of PhDs, but not so many that the numbers at YLS or Wash U med should be so anemic.

To the wise posters on this forum: any thoughts on why, with a top #2 SAT, Chicago’s outputs are pretty middling?

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Oh, for God’s sake, Cue, there you go again. Just when I start to think there’s hope for you, you go down the same old rabbit hole. Do you never tire of this endless campaign of denigration? No one in their right mind believes that all these professional schools and fancy companies are dissing and turning away hordes of disappointed Chicago undergrads clambering to get in to them.

This isn’t the first time you have assembled this sort of data to make a point that is pretty clear to most of us. You claim to be saddened and mystified by these statistics, but you aren’t really; you love them - they allow you to darkly suggest that there must be something sort of, well, wrong with U of C undergrads, and that all these prestigious recruiters and professional schools know it. It proves your eternal point that Chicago doesn’t measure up to your precious ivies.

Here is a much simpler explanation: UChicago kids don’t apply in the same numbers to these places because, guess what, they’re just not as interested in them as the kids in the ivies. What you see as proof of inferiority is really a demonstration of basic Chicago exceptionalism.

But no one should be misled: with a Chicago education and an appropriate record you will do just fine if your mission is to go to a top professional school. You can take that to the bank.

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@izzalu My kids got their BAs from Chicago a decade ago, so their experience and that of their friends is a little dated. I also know (to varying degrees) a smattering of kids who have graduated since then, the last two in 2019, and various children of friends and acquaintances who were not in either of my kids’ friendship circles.

I have not heard from a single one of them (or their parents) that they think their post-baccalaureate career has suffered from having gone to Chicago vs. some Ivy League college or other college of similar standing. They are all doing pretty much what they wanted to do, and succeeding at it. The ones who wanted prestige and bucks got prestige and bucks; the ones who wanted the road less traveled got that and traveled it.

One of my kids hardly counts: He barely ever left Chicago. He got another degree there, he married a classmate, and he works on campus every day (or would if he weren’t home sheltering in place). My other kid has a great job in the philanthropic sector in New York City. Her first job in that field was at an absolute gold-standard foundation run by higher education snobs. She would never have been offered the job if the former Ivy presidents in the administration and on the board didn’t see her Chicago degree as an elite credential, as good as the Harvard or Yale or Williams degrees of the other candidates and her prospective bosses.

They loved Chicago, despite struggling a bit at first. It was a high choice, but not the top choice, for both. They didn’t fully drink the Kool-Aid until they were there. This was in the days before 75% of the class was admitted ED. In retrospect, they are grateful they were lucky enough to go there. They are not jealous of anyone else’s college experience. (Neither one would remotely be described as monkish, by the way.)

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@marlowe1 - I’ve thought about reasons behind these anemic numbers for a while. It’s not because these schools/employers diss Chicago grads or are unimpressed by the degree.

Rather, here’s my two-pronged theory:

1.) If you fit at Chicago, you’re probably a little less focused on brand; and
2.) A Chicago education beats you up more (in good and less good ways)

The combination of these two factors lead to outputs that are a little less shiny than what you find at Yale or Harvard or Brown. Platinum-brand grad schools and employers like polished resumes and burnished GPAs.

Per the exit reports, Chicago students send similar numbers to law school, consulting, etc. as Princeton and Columbia. But, and I agree with you here, the Chicago experience and system “deflate” (rather than facilitate) entry to the platinum-brand places.

If you go to Chicago, you’re probably more willing to try Math 160s (and get kicked in the butt), or take core classes where getting a B+ is hard. McKinsey and Yale Law care little about your academic bumps and bruises. There are plenty of 4.0 Yale and Harvard undergrads vying for those places, anyway.

Truth is, Chicago could have the #1 most talented incoming class. Given the nature of the place, it still won’t churn out the same number of bright shiny types to gain the lion’s share of McKinsey and YLS places.

For you, Marlowe, that’s fine. Better you feel the Chicago education. For those who love the Chicago experience, a little tradeoff on the exit options is of little concern. For me, in thinking about the importance of an uber-wealthy alumni base, I worry.

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Boy, @Cue7 unleashed is a bit of a handful! @izzalu, here is the information you need:

“GRADUATE SCHOOL PREPARATION
University of Chicago undergraduates find considerable success in applying to and pursuing top master’s and doctoral programs around the world. Within five years of graduation, around 85 percent of UChicago students are attending or have attended graduate school, and 15 to 20 percent go on to receive PhDs.”

https://collegeadmissions.uchicago.edu/after-graduation/graduate-school-preparation

Wouldn’t pay too much attention to all the links that Cue has provided. Checking one of them (that STEM spreadsheet) I noticed that the data was fairly old.

McKinsey is a major recruiter at Booth and my guess is that the Trott Business Program and Bus. Econ. track will open up (even) more opportunities for College alums to work there. However, as your son is likely headed to grad school at some point (assuming he’s one of the 85%) then he should spend his time exploring the academic curriculum and (if interested) the preprofessional opportunities w/o worrying so much about this or that particular employer. Here is the link to the Career Advancement’s “Careers In” page which will provide all sorts of information about preprofessional, internship, and professional school opportunities. Warning: this page will trigger Cue again :wink:

https://careeradvancement.uchicago.edu/uchicago-careers-in

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  • @Cue7, you seem to be making a case for UChicago as "different in kind" - the school that attracts students so eager to challenge themselves that they are willing to be kicked in the teeth or struggle to get a B+. They don't sound too different from the kids in your day.
  • Just want to assure new parents and students that it's possible to be a high GPA - even straight A average - kid while taking lots of Core courses. We've had a few mentioned on this forum, including some in 160's math. Your GPA will be what you make of it.
  • University of Chicago managed to surpass its recent multi-billion capital campaign goal, so they are probably seeing more success with "uber-wealthy" alums than they used to. Keep in mind, Cue, that this earlier-referenced "McKinsey Report" hails from nearly 20 years ago. The College managed to survive two decades before you started sounding the alarms about sub-par expected outcomes for the class with the 2nd best SAT's in the nation.
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I agree with @JBStillFlying - any Chicago first year should consider academic exploration and employers/industries broadly. They should also go to UChicago taking the next step (google it). Also, JB is right that Chicago places well - sending 6 grads a year to YLS is no joke. BUT, to use JB’s phrase for amenities above, it’s fairly “middle of the road” for elite exit options for its peer group - nothing extraordinary.

So, if the young Chicago students decide that platinum brands matter, and it’s not just, say, “law” they want, but Harvard law or Yale law, they should plan strategically. I don’t think most Chicago undergrads think as hard about brand. But, if they do, they should plan early and exercise caution.

PhD programs are happy to see academic risks/some bumps on the transcript. McKinsey and yls are not.

Along with the exploration jbs recommends, it doesn’t hurt to look for the raw data. The career office should have the avg gpa and test scores for Chicago grads at Yale law, or grads at McKinsey, Med schools etc. I suspect the numbers won’t be that different from what you see at Harvard or Yale undergrad. And that’s why Chicago places less well at those exit options.

My takeaway, and I beg to see data I’ve missed: Chicago’s placement at elite (non-PHD) exit options is nothing to write home about, in its peer group.

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Cue, as a YLS grad (though not Chicago undergrad), I feel somewhat qualified to reply to your observations about YLS. With 18 kids represented at YLS, UChicago is #8. By comparison, Stanford has 22 kids at YLS and is #5. This difference is almost meaningless.

Yes, Harvard and Yale undergrads are vastly “over-represented” at YLS but this is largely a function of multiple selection biases many of which have no real relationship to “merit.” This article from the Yale Daily News, while dated from 2006, is perhaps informative as to some of these selection biases: https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2006/11/10/grads-favored-as-law-admits/. Of note is this paragraph from the article: “Yale Law School Director of Admissions Craig Janecek acknowledged that the acceptance rate for Yale and Harvard students is significantly higher than the acceptance rate for the general pool. He declined to release the average LSAT and GPA data for Yale and Harvard alums, citing a concern for “potential misunderstanding” of the data if it were compared to the 3.91 median GPA and 173 LSAT score for the general pool last year.”

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A good part of the problem with all this data gathering you’ve done, @Cue7, is that your conclusions have been sloppy. Among other problems, your data isn’t normalized by applicant pool (either because you haven’t attempted to or the data simply isn’t available). Just as an example: UChicago has about 1/3 the number of med school applicants as does WUSTL and about 50% the number of Harvard College. Is it any wonder that these undergraduate programs are “better” represented in terms of raw numbers when looking up matriculations? UC isn’t the med-school-feeder power house that you’ve been wishing for (you’ve brought this particular issue up before) , but that has nothing to do with whether those 100-125 applicants punch below, above, or at their weight. It might be that the data needed to do a real analysis is simply not available. But if so, it’s probably better just to acknowledge that and move on to some other topic where you have more knowledge and expertise.

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Cue, given your concerns with outcomes and prestige, what is your take on how UChicago has somehow managed to produce its fair share of billionaires and ultra high net worth grads: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_universities_by_number_of_billionaire_alumni

Isn’t it particularly remarkable that UChicago is #9 and #10 on these respective lists given that these current individuals likely reflect the graduates from the 1960s-1980s, during Chicago’s most dour period when the College was half its current size and full of miserable nerdy monks as others have put it.

One can only imagine that with the recent infrastructure changes over the last 20 years , Nondorf’s admissions magic, and the hoards of rich, pre-professional minded kids from elite prep schools flocking to Chicago, that 30 years from now Chicago might be top 3 in number of billionaires.

What will you do with yourself if that should happen?

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IKR? @Cue7 are you just arguing for both sides now? :wink:

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To return for a moment to career advising at UChicago, one aspect that might(?) be unique is that they have “Careers In” programs across a wide variety of professional options. Not just the standard Med/Health, Law, and Business, but also Media/Journalism/Arts, Entrepreneurship, Education, STEM and Public Policy/Public Service. Not everyone wants Med School, but everyone probably wants some sort of fulfilling outcome at the end of the four years, whether that be grad school immediately following college or, more typically, an initial position somewhere good. The “Careers in” programs all share similar offerings which include pre-professional advising, Treks, and Metcalfs or other types of internships. Each might have distinct features as well including selective programming (Trott or Financial Markets programs, for instance) whereas others are less structured and/or welcome to anyone.

Taking the Next Step (held for first years around the beginning of Winter Q) was also mentioned above and my D did that and found it interesting. It probably helped her rule out a few career paths. If someone (like my S, for example) blows it off, there are plenty of other opportunities, including advising, throughout your time there. These career resources are there for when you need them, whenever you need them.

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As for Booth … I can tell you that, when these recruiters came to campus they also interviewed people from other schools at UChicago and undergrad. This observationn was before UCIB was created. I am willing to bet that undergrad recruitment has increased now.

Worth mentioning is that the number of dedicated recruiters is also driven by demand from students, so it may well be true that UChicago kids are a bit different in that 1/3 of them dont want to be at McKinsey, Booz or Bain. (Its like Stanford Biz’ past problem in finance recruiting during the dot com bubble, there was just not enough demand that the banks cut down on interviewers).

I can see how there could be a demand issue here (e.g. either MBB and bulge brackets are not “fashionable”, or UChi just has too many “monks”). After all, a lot of these IB and consulting jobs are “show horse” kind of jobs and not “work horse” kind of jobs. (Don’t get me wrong there are quant jobs at consultiing and IB and they are the highest paid) Right now, UChicago is not filled with sales, marketing and strategy kids. Its just not a focus yet (until Business Econ gets its stride, then it will pull the whole college along)

Also, these recruiters and interviewers that come to campus are usually alums. So as time goes by, this would be a self-reinforcing thing…

Worth mentioning too is that recruiters do not have to be dedicated to UChicago. They do and can interview in their downtown offices through a more “generalist” recruiter.

Another reason is that MBB and Banking recruiting requires a lot of infrastructure (case interview rooms, mock interviews, conference rooms where they have a shindig for the hundreds that want to apply, dinner/lunch rooms, interviewer lounges, etc) I am guessing that the optimal set up for UChicago, right now, is to have one person that holds the school’s recruiting account who can do the first screening, and the second round and third round interviews happen downtown where the firms have their Chicago offices and facilities. Its cheaper for the school to do it that way, and kids still get hired. If business econ becomes a degree, this may change…

Again, if demand from students grow as time goes by, and with the right support t this increasing volume, the number of recruiters will match it.

Like I said, just wait for the pipeline of students driven by business econ…

I also have a suspicion that the college is more successful at MBB and bulge bracket recruiting than they lead us to believe. I can see why they may deliberately hide that right now. There is still a large opposition to turning the college “preprofessional”, after all.

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In these discussions of outcomes I always like to cite Andrew Abbott’s 2002 “Aims of Education” address to the entering class:

college.uchicago.edu/student-life/aims-education-address-2002-andrew-abbott

Citing outcomes for the Class of '75 twenty years out, he notes that almost every member of it has attained the top quarter of American income distribution; that their median incomes are five times the national average; and that their household incomes place them in the ninety-third percentile. Remember, this is a class in the middle of what we now call the bad old days of few applicants and low selectivity. Speaking to the class of '06, Abbott notes that this earlier class was “considerably less privileged by ancestry than yourselves.” They were undoubtedly also less talented, more “rebarbative”, and had lower median SAT’s than the class in front of him nearly two decades ago, much less the Class of '24. Yet they did pretty well for themselves. That’s a good takeaway for nervous parents.

The address proceeds to a delightfully contrarian analysis of the received wisdom about the instrumental effect of study at an elite school - whether acquiring particular skills or working particularly hard to get those skills: the differentials are not very great. Simply put, merely by gaining admittance to the U of C one has reached third base, however one uses one’s time thereafter. At least this is more or less the case if only material outcomes are being looked at. About three-fourths of the way through the address the tonality changes, and Abbott lays it on thick as to what this thing called a Chicago education is all about:

“The reason for getting an education here - or anywhere else - is that it is better to be educated than not to be. It is better in and of itself. Not because it gets you something. Not because it is a means to some other end. It is better because it is better. Note that this statement implies that the phrase ‘aims of education’ is nonsensical; education is not a thing of which aims can be predicated. It has no aim other than itself.”

Lest that seem a bit contentless, there is this: “By education I mean the ability to make more and more complex, more and more profound and extensive, the meanings that we attach to events and phenomena… [It] is the instinctive habit of looking for meanings, of questioning old ones, of perpetually playing with and fighting about the meanings we assign to texts and phenomena.”

This is fleshed out further in amusing analogies with music appreciation and sex - but I won’t go there.

One could perhaps do worse than consider the present thread an instance of one such form of search for meaning. Would the world be quite as interesting, I ask, were it not for the clash of ideas, metaphors, arguments, and statistics that populates this forum? And, yes, informs our lives generally? This all starts with our having acquired this habit of reading and thinking about things with no instrumental end in mind during the precious four years of the right kind of college education. We all know where that education can be found.

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Lots of comments here! Taking them as I see them:

@JBStillFlying

Is Chicago Different in Degree or Kind from its Peers?

Chicago is now “academically hard.” That is a difference in kind from what it was: a place with almost no student support. Your kids - remarkably self-directed and focused as they are (and kudos to them!) - say they feel supported. They may not need that much support, but it looks like they have tutors to seek, places to go if they had certain types of questions, etc. It looks like they are not treated with irreverance - they are valued.

For kids less self-directed than yours (and there are lots of these types), this is an invaluable feeling. It sounds like there are more places to go if you’re wondering what you’ll do after college, if there are extra-curriculars you want to try, if there are problems you’re having.

Chicago is academically hard. That’s a difference in kind from the Spartan, no-support past.

Normalizing data to control for actual applicant numbers

Leaving aside why the applicant numbers for law/med are lower, even if you increased Chicago’s representation by 40% at the top schools, it’s still nothing that jumps off the page. Chicago would have, say, 22 at Wash U med (compared to 56 from Harvard), or 28 at Yale Law (as opposed to 90 from Yale) or 5 at Michigan Med. Nice numbers, but well within the typical numbers for a whole range of elite schools.

I think you’d agree JB, even if Chicago had the exact same number of apps as H or Y or Columbia or whatever, we wouldn’t expect the exit outcomes to be analogous. This is for a host of reasons, but it comes back to the way Chicago beats you up academically (in a good way, less good ways, and with support).

Chicago students attain Yale Law admittance, Rhodes and Marshall Scholarships, McKinsey offers, etc. But, the “academically hard” part - the fact you’ll get bumped and bruised along the way - deflates the number of shiny applicants. Even with Trott and Business Econ and all that @FStratford cites, Chicago applicants probably aren’t going to be as “perfect/shiny” as their peers. And for uber-picky employers like McKinsey, they’ll seek their perfect types elsewhere.

Chicago’s elite exit options seem… fine

Note, I didn’t say they were atrocious (they used to be). @marlowe1 and others are right - Chicago will open up lots of doors and opportunities. But, it seems fairly middling (in its peer group) regarding the elite exit options. From all the data I can see, Chicago doesn’t jump off the page.

For PhD exit options, Chicago jumps off the page

While this info is a little old: https://www.thecollegesolution.com/the-colleges-where-phds-get-their-start/

For any place that values some intellectual risk-taking and academic bumps and bruises, Chicago excels. It probably places as well as Swarthmore, other elite LACs, Harvard, MIT, etc. for top PhD placement. When the grades matter a little less, and curiosity gets more thrift, Chicago is great.

We also see this with Fulbright scholarships, where, again, the perfect shiny resume matters less than the research proposal and interest: https://www.chronicle.com/article/Top-Producers-of-Fulbright/248001

(Chicago is consistently in the ~top 5 there.)

Bias for Harvard, Yale

@Zoom10 - per the article you cite, if Yale Law really does just have a general bias for H, Y, P, etc. that’s just unfortunate. These schools have enough shiny transcripts and high scoring test takers around - an additional boost isn’t necessary.

Bottom Line

I never thought I’d sound like a Chicago economist, but here goes:

Bottom line, if you come to Chicago, it’s not all things to all people. * There will be trade offs*. Having an academic environment designed to beat you up a little bit is not in line with the perfect transcripts Yale Law or Harvard Law seeks.

Some places are so picky that even if you bust your butt to get a B+ (and you will, at Chicago), they aren’t going to care. There are plenty of A students with Olympian athletic potential from Harvard or Brown ready to fill the ranks at Yale Law or HBS. As JB says, is it possible to get straight As at Chicago? Sure. Are there significantly fewer 4.0s at Chicago than Brown? Yes.

If Chicago is a good fit, go forth! But, know that trade offs exist. The elite exit options look fine, but, again, nothing that jumps off the page.

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I guess the discrepancy could have many possibilities

  1. UChicago students are indeed interested but are just not getting into these firms: My Dad works for one such pedigree conscious investment bank and according to him, at least his firm is hiring a lot of UChicago grads. So, I doubt this is actually the case.
  2. Not many are actually interested in consulting and banking: If they are like me, that may be a possibility. Having seen my Dad, I have no interest in investment banks and he has several close friends at some of the consulting firms and their kids are generally not really interested in consulting either. Once you have seen the lifestyle up close it loses it’s charm very quickly. While I am grateful for the financial security my father’s banking career gave me personally, after seeing the sacrifices my mom has made, I would not want to be married to a banker. Life is too short for that. So there may be some of that going on.
  3. As far as grad schools are concerned, maybe it is the GPA distribution of UChicago class relative to the other schools? It is harder to get a sky high GPA at Chicago and that may effect admission to some professional grad schools, but I don’t think going to a school other than Harvard or Stanford will effect your success in life. At this level, it’s more about the person than the credential. Having said that it would be very sad if Chicago watered down it’s standards just so that it can get on the same page as other schools in terms of grade inflation. I would not want to attend such a school. If I did, I would have played my legacy card at Harvard. At least I was specifically looking for a " UnHarvard"
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To say that a Chicago education “beats you up” to such a degree that you no longer feel like going for the various brass rings of admission to elite law schools, prestigious consulting firms, and the various other stations of the Establishment is about the silliest thing I have ever heard. What pop psychology guru came up with that one? There’s a more obvious explanation: Not everyone holds those destinations in the same high regard as you do. A lust for prestige wasn’t what brought most kids to Chicago; it is reasonable to suppose that it will not be the governing passion of most of them thereafter. That’s one of the indicia of Chicago exceptionalism.

And who but you talks of a Chicago education as being a joyless ordeal that beats you up for no good reason and then doesn’t even award you the shiny badge of prestige? Reading you I am often moved to wonder why you came to the place and why you stuck it out. Why was that?

Counselling and support and all such nurturing paraphernalia can only take you so far if you don’t have a belief in the thing you’re doing. That’s true of a school, a marriage, or a job. And joyless submission is no way to live - that’s not a trade-off but a mortal sentence. Though it must be said that only those who can find joy in a thing know what it means to make sacrifices of time, effort and other pleasures for the sake of it. There’s your trade-off.