<p>I’ve noticed UChicago’s been climbing the USNews rankings consistently in the past few years. With the usage of CommonApp and consequently the rising popularity among high school students, do you think UChicago will keep up the upward trend?</p>
<p>If by “upward trend” you mean merely “rising popularity among high school students”, which is indeed what you wrote and so is reasonable to conclude is your intended meaning, comrade, it is only possible to keep such popularity rising by sacrificing the quality and rigor of Chicago’s academics [If a University insists on genuine learning, the spread of this information will quickly dampen the enthusiasm of the high school mob. As a quick glance at all the "Surely Chicago can’t expect me to care THAT much about my studies? " posts here on CC will assure you].</p>
<pre><code>It will be a tragedy if Chicago keeps up this “upward trend”
</code></pre>
<p>Well, by upward trend I mean the rise on the USNews ranking. I’m just curious because I’m a junior now, and I’m considering to apply to UChicago.</p>
<p>CalvinCoolidge - overall, US News tends to be quite cyclical. See:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/91104-compiled-us-news-rankings-past-16-years.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/91104-compiled-us-news-rankings-past-16-years.html</a></p>
<p>If you want to look at trends from 1987 to 2007, check this link:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/540990-u-s-news-rankings-throughout-years.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/540990-u-s-news-rankings-throughout-years.html</a></p>
<p>Overall, as indicated above, In the past 20 or so years, Chicago’s rank has been around #10, which conforms to its current standing of #9. </p>
<p>Here’s Chicago and some of its peers from 87 - 07:</p>
<p>Dartmouth College_________________<strong><em>8.4
University of Pennsylvania</em></strong><strong><em>10.1
Columbia University</em></strong><strong><em>10.4
University of Chicago</em></strong>______________ 10.6
Cornell University____________<strong><em>11.9
Brown University</em></strong>__________________ 13.0
Northwestern University_______________ 13.4</p>
<p>That being said, a couple years ago, Chicago was as high as #8 in the rankings, and has not been out of the top 10 since 2007, its longest such streak in the top 10 for quite some time. This has much to do with the administration’s emerging interest in Chicago’s standing, and its decision to take steps to help Chicago improve on this front. For example, in the early 90s, when Chicago was ranked #9, the school was still seen as a graduate student-centric, somewhat aloof place for undergrads. The U of C’s selectivity was not in the same stratosphere as the school’s immediate peers, and the administration didn’t seem to care much about this.</p>
<p>Now, zoom ahead 20 years, and the school has very much taken steps to improve by these standard metrics. The U of C hired a new admissions guru a couple years back to improve admissions statistics, there have been big fundraising campaign’s to improve the school’s endowment, etc. </p>
<p>With all this being said, it is probable that Chicago will continue to solidify/improve its standing in the rankings, simply because it is now paying closer attention to this publication. Personally, as an alum, I’d like Chicago to cement its position in the #6-7 range, which I think reasonably comports to the school’s academic stature. </p>
<p>Also, Igor, you may have a point, but as I’ve said many times in the past, the classic Chicago approach to “genuine learning” has failed. That approach, which Chicago tried to follow in the 70s and 80s, led to a faltering financial status, a somewhat disgruntled group of alumni, and an admissions policy the featured just trying to get enough warm bodies in seats. The Harvard model, on the other hand, flourished during this time. Beginning in the late 90s, Chicago realized the weaknesses in its approach and, for its institutional health, took steps to correct the issues. While yes, perhaps some of that “rigor” may be gone, the school now is in a stronger position than it was 25 years ago.</p>
<p>That was extremely informative, thank you. I was under the (wrong) impression that UChicago was ranked relatively low in the past years because of its relatively high acceptance rate.</p>
<p>Moving up to nos. 6-7 in the rankings will be incredibly difficult. You will have to displace several of the best educational institutions in the world and you know that they will be moving targets, as well.</p>
<p>While I agree that UChicago offers one of the best, if not THE best undergraduate academic training in the country, the metrics used to define and order the US News list plays against Chicago’s strengths.</p>
<p>ILoveUofC - what makes you say that? To understand your stance more comprehensively, I need more information. </p>
<p>You can find the US News methodology here:</p>
<p>[How</a> U.S. News Calculates the College Rankings - US News and World Report](<a href=“http://www.usnews.com/education/articles/2010/08/17/how-us-news-calculates-the-college-rankings?PageNr=4]How”>http://www.usnews.com/education/articles/2010/08/17/how-us-news-calculates-the-college-rankings?PageNr=4)</p>
<p>In all of the core areas (academic rep, graduation and freshman retention, faculty resources) - Chicago does very well. Moreover, in the less important areas where it was traditionally weaker (student selectivity, alumni giving rate), the school has been making strides. Put another way, many of the other top schools (Harvard, Princeton, etc.) are plateauing - each year, their accept rate drops by maybe 0.5%, and the alumni giving rate and graduation rate remains quite steady - and has for years and years. On the other hand, up until recently, Chicago had a poor retention and graduation rate, its admissions and selectivity were poor, and it didn’t care as much about pandering to certain groups (like the HS counselors that now have a say in a school’s ranking). </p>
<p>Put another way, Chicago is already close to many of its peers, and making up ground rather quickly. I’d say it’s more likely that Chicago moves up rather than moves down. </p>
<p>Final, put one more way, when the rankings first came out in 1985 and were based purely on academic rep, Chicago was #4. Since that time, it’s academic reputation has remained quite steady, and its improved on all other fronts. Consequently, at this point, while Chicago preaches skepticism and (at times, cynicism), this is one area where I’m more than cautiously optimistic.</p>
<p>
What are you even saying? “Their popularity is rising now, so to keep it rising, they’re going to have to start telling professors to teach more poorly!”</p>
<p>As I see it, Chicago will continue to rise upward (though when we’re already in the top 10, this ascension won’t be so quick or immediately noticeable). Chicago is taking steps to make itself more well known while preserving its already-stellar academic reputation. The mailings aren’t changing the school; if the mailings are working, they should say “hey, we’re the University of Chicago, and we’re a good school, and we’ve always been here. This is who we are. Maybe you’ll love us.” The heightened advertising will lead (and has already been shown to lead) more students to apply, which will lower the acceptance rate and increase the quality of the student, which will in turn heighten alumni giving, which will then heighten financial and academic resources. Chicago will jump up at least a few more places with this cycle, hopefully settling in at a comfy 6 or 5.</p>
<p>It is not so hard to understand, ChiCityStudent. If “upward trend” means getting the HS mob to chase after Chicago admission in the numbers it does the “Ivies” then it will attract many applicants who are chasing merely a “popular name” and not applying to a University whose nature they understand and whose academic culture fits them. Already this happens, as indicated by all those posts on the lines of “Chicago accepted me, so so kewl, but what’s this needing to study hard bit? Chicago can’t be serious, right? Right? Hard work is So So unkewl!”.<br>
The proportion of such applicants, who can’t distinguish between what a Chicago, or MIT, might ask of you, and what a Harvard or Brown might ask of you, is still perhaps tolerably low. But this “upward trend” that the USA Today acolytes seem so enamored of can only keep so trending by passing into waters sparse with students who care for any serious discipline of the mind. Should standards keep, then these will be most unhappy campers; and the College will be made full aware of their fury. So will future classes of possible applicants be made full aware of their fury. And these classes, now richly represented by those who have the happy thought that if Chicago aims to join Versailles then it had damn better abandon the uncouth bourgeois virtues [of recognition earned through merit, and of mastery crafted out of dedication and intelligence], will turn away from the College and turn to more “accommodating” institutions.
This in itself is not so bad. The “upward trend” stops. Chicago gets the students who care for Chicago, and are prepared for what will be asked of them. The mob bays off in a different direction, to those who wish to pander to it. All’s Right With The World…
…Ah, but what if Chicago is now run by folks who want, really really want, to keep that “upward trend”? Who now interpret that measure of sheer popularity as “What is Important”? Then will come the pressure, and powerfully so, to lessen standards, to ease the workload, to be “like Harvard”. With a Will, it wouldn’t take so much to find a Way. After all, die hard Professors die off. After all, doubtful Professors can be reassured that they are free to keep standards for graduate students…and what do kids matter compared to training one’s apprentices? After all, happy campers tend to have happy camper parents with greater willingness to dispense monies upon the University. After all, doesn’t Chicago have to become Versailles to get the Versaillean wannabes? After all, isn’t popularity so much Kewler than mere stodgy oldfashioned Achievement?</p>
<pre><code>ChiCityStudent, it doesn’t take much to convince many that being "loved’ is worth a little betrayal of the self. This is true for institutions as much as for people. [Not so surprising, given that institutions have the strange propensity of being run by people].
</code></pre>
<p>If “upward trending” --based on likeability to the HS mob–is to continue, particularly beyond current levels, it can only come via the deliberate decision to cater to the mob, and what the mob wants is not so much work, not so rigorous academics, not so insistent hard thinking, not so daunting a grappling with challenging ideas, not so much unkewlness.</p>
<p>And this would be a tragedy. Capisce?</p>
<p>Igor, I’d imagine that:
- The admitted students would have researched UChicago’s unique academic culture thoroughly before committing. I’d give the admitted students at least SOME credit to have the brains to research about UChicago before they apply, not to mention after they got in and are comparing choices. They got admitted to UChicago afterall.</p>
<ol>
<li>The high school students you are describing, which, forgive me if I’m wrong, are prestige hounds. They care less about education quality and only aim for the higher ranked colleges. But UChicago wouldn’t admit that kind of people in the first place (well, sometimes it’s possible a few seeps through the cracks). UChicago’s relatively large weight on intellectual/quirky/unique essays compared to its peer schools guarantees that. </li>
</ol>
<p>That is all.</p>
<p>@Igor: I used to think exactly as you did and lambast the admissions for all this pandering, that they’re becoming more “mainstream”, alteast admissions wise. And yes, through their marketing them “seem” to have.
…BUT, once they admit students, the process becomes self selective. UChicago will ultimately attract the typical student body, irrespective of anything else. I know people who are amazing fits for UChicago (you know, quirky, intellectual etc.) who have turned down Stanford to attend, and I know people who aren’t that good fits for UChicago, who are more lets say “mainstream” (and all of the others things you’ve described) who have turned down UChicago for UToronto. In this respect, Columbia is a genius… their student body too has a particular personality to it, which may sway off potential applicants, but they don’t advertise openly to everyone, only to the accepted student body, which makes it again self selective. Win-win situation. UChicago is now simply using a much smarter admissions model… that’s all.
…On the point of the administration “dumbing everything down” to attract more students: 1) They’ll lose more students than gain; UChicago fills a particular niche that is absent in large universities (but present in LACs like Swarthmore). 2) You don’t have to, look at how frikkin popular Columbia is! Some 7% acceptance rate! They haven’t resorted to any such means have they?</p>
<p>@Calvin: Actually, UChicago does admit quite a few of those students. It’s very easy to show you’re a typical UChicago student on an application, and be the opposite IRL. Frankly speaking, from what i’ve noticed, it’s one of the easiet applications to ‘crack’. However, like I said before, those people who do “seep through the cracks” are much more likely to not end up attending the university. </p>
<p>Btw, i’m a 15’er. [Got in EA, committed. It was my co-first choice, the other one (Swarthmore) rejected me and made things simple :)]</p>
<p>@Igor, your speculation not only has no basis in fact, your assumptions are flawed. First of all, it’s not like we all the sudden surged in US News ranking and that’s why the university has been more popular, it’s because the University has been making pains to let people know that the image of UChicago students as miserable sacks an antisocial awkwardness is incorrect. Student life here has improved significantly in the last 10 years and the students are much happier because of it. (Our transfer rate is down to 2% from 12%.) That is certainly NOT a tragedy. </p>
<p>Also, the University makes no claims to not be a rigorous academic institution. Literally every prospective student I talked to at the prospective students day expected UChicago to be one of, if not the most rigorous university on their list. Not everyone, especially top students, are terrified of difficult classes like you believe them to be. The University of Chicago does not try to hide that it’s difficult, they pride themselves in it, and the prevailing opinion for students who do nothing but complain about them is that they should go somewhere else because they knew what they were getting into. There’s no basis for thinking that this is all a slippery slope to the university becoming a non-rigorous institution.</p>
<p>Further, this doesn’t answer the question of how, if it’s continuing to trend upward without them having to pander to people that you have a low opinion, what reason is there to believe that it won’t continue rising?</p>
<p>Oh, and your hypothetical situation about the professors sounds like a tinfoil hat conspiracy theory. Capisce?</p>
<p>The socialite and the intellectual are not disjoint.
The party-goer and the intellectual are not disjoint.
The prestigious and the intellectual are not disjoint.
The professional and the intellectual are not disjoint.
The popular and the intellectual are not disjoint.</p>
<p>There are people here, who, surprisingly, act and live pretty normal lives and would fit in in plenty of other places. That is, until you mention Stirner or Lefebvre or Fama, and you’re reminded of why we’re all here together.</p>
<p>Quite a Confederacy above. There are many defenders of those who really really really want popularity. So, for Rny2.
Yes, we’re all here together to imbibe from Caspar the Pseudonymed, the master of his own ego, or admire the indefatigable Henri productively reproducing production among his social-ist relations, bien sur; or be swayed by the Confidences of Eugene-- for whom the Price is Always Right. Not that we would deign to reason through Newton, or Feynman, or Von Mises. And amongst us are socialites and those who go to parties and folks who claim the mantle of prestige, and other folks who are downright professional, nay, even popular. Wonderful stuff, Rny2.
Now this astonishing insight into the intersection of sets has what to do with the consequences on the College of the admissions office’s focus on “USAToday” popularity??</p>
<p>None whatsoever, with “USAToday” popularity :).</p>
<p>In all seriousness, chill bro. Life will be good.</p>
<p>I swear this topic comes up every year. And every year, someone asserts that UChicago’s “uniqueness” and intellectual vibe will vanish as the campus is flooded by “prestige whores” and people who don’t really belong at UChicago, despite the fact that they were accepted.</p>
<p>Man, seriously? Are you kidding me?</p>
<p>Now for ChiCity, who is apparently not an erstwhile set theorist;</p>
<pre><code> You are of course free to assert that my speculations have no basis in fact, but then you have no facts on which to base that assertion. It seems it’s left you quite giddy, this embrace of the fact free life of the mind, and so you then kerplop into the mud of discerning flaws in “assumptions” you could not even state, nevermind examine. For a gent who would Capisce that’s a nice little comical touch of the Callicles.
</code></pre>
<p>You offer the following, apparently with the sincere belief that together they make an argument-- and one that would be in your favor:
[1] “First of all, it’s not like we all the sudden surged in US News ranking and that’s why the university has been more popular”
You are of course correct. It is not as if first there was a sudden surge in USNews rankings and then popularity followed. But before you clap yourself with the gladhand of Truth, ask yourself; do you think that is what I was claiming, or assuming??? Read again, ChiCity. You will find nothing close to that.
As for what I do think, all carefully detailed just for you, let it wait until the magnificence of your opus has had its full chance to shine.
[2] " It’s because the University has been making pains to let people know that the image of UChicago students as miserable sacks an (sic) antisocial awkwardness is incorrect."
Gee, Mister, that’s quite an ambitious goal, and well worth the pain the University has been making. Each prospective student no doubt now is sent a letter along these lines: “Dear Prospies. You may have the image that UChicago students are miserable sacks of antisocial awkwardness. A canard! Our misery cannot be quantified in units of sack, and our antisociality is no more awkard than our awkwardness is antisocial. Should this erroneous image be the reason you have chosen to seek admission, we deeply regret any inconvenience caused. Yours Sincerely, …”.<br>
[3] "Student life here has improved significantly in the last 10 years and the students are much happier because of it. (Our transfer rate is down to 2% from 12%.) "
So, ChiCity, you have been in the College for the last 10 years? If so you have indeed earned the name of Student. How exactly do you know that student life has so improved? Can you describe what you mean by “improved”? In talking to graduates of the College I get the strong impression, for the peculiar reason that they tell me so, that many [most!] found life in the College both worthwhile and rich with happiness [as well as sadness, exultation, doubt, pride, shame, and all the other emotions of a full human life]. Is your basis for this claim of yours the transfer rate?? It has nothing to do with, say, better financial support? A general easing up on grading? [Yes, Chicago is not so far down the road of good grades for all as are, say, Harvard or Brown or Stanford. But it is much further down the road from where it was 20 years ago. I base this on what current faculty tell me, those who have that institutional memory, as well as comparing how A’s are ladled out today–and D’s and F’s are not-- in comparison to what the alumni of the earlier eras relate].
If the lower transfer rates are significantly due to a desire not to give students grades that cause them to seek transfer, then your “it’s because they show us love” riff is BS. Unless of course your “it’s because they show us love” riff is a proxie for “hey, it’s easier to get good grades now. And that, my friend, is showing us Love”. In which case, by choosing to measure Happiness by Easier Grades, well, then, for sure Easier Grades mean Happiness. The young Wittgenstein would be so proud.</p>
<p>As for the rest of your boilerplate defense of the current admissional powers that be, a few comments.
ChiCity: “Also, the University makes no claims to not be a rigorous academic institution”</p>
<pre><code>Ah… It may even be that you truly believe that this is equivalent to the University claiming to be a rigorous academic institution. If so, then in your case the rigor is mortis.
</code></pre>
<p>ChiCity: “Not everyone, especially top students, are terrified of difficult classes like you believe them to be”</p>
<pre><code>Ah… so from what I wrote you inferred that I believed everyone to be terrified of difficult classes?? Your acumen honors you as much as your capacity for reading. But thank you for the assurance that “especially top students” are not terrified of classes. Top students are surely inspired by your belief in the modest level Fear plays over them.
</code></pre>
<p>ChiCity: “There’s no basis for thinking that this is all a slippery slope to the university becoming a non-rigorous institution”</p>
<pre><code> Do you consider Harvard non-rigorous? Yale? Duke? Brown? Northwestern? I will assume not [and if I am wrong, and you do consider them non-rigorous, please feel free to correct me]. But they have been in general not as rigorous as Chicago. This lesser rigor can be attained without ever becoming a “non-rigorous” institution. Are you sure, with the easing of grading in the last couple of decades, and the emphasis on being more like the Ivies, that there is no basis for noting that the University of Chicago is in fact becoming a less rigorous institution? There is no “slippery slope” needed here. The process has been underway for a longish time.
</code></pre>
<p>ChiCity:“Further, this doesn’t answer the question of how, if it’s continuing to trend upward without them having to pander to people that you have a low opinion, what reason is there to believe that it won’t continue rising?”</p>
<p>Your words ain’t the model of clarity, ChiCity. But let’s see what you’re trying to get at. “There are people for whom Smerdyakov has a low opinion. The University of Chicago is “trending upward” and is doing so without pandering to those poor people [that Smerdyakov has low opinion of]. So why shouldn’t this trendiness e’er upward not continue?”</p>
<p>A fascinating question, and one that genuinely merits the fulsome talents of ChiCity. Now if only ChiCity could begin to address the conflict that has arisen, and will only more starkly be met, between the impulse to aggrandize our ‘status’, our popularity, in the admissions game and the claim to desire to keep alive the powerful intellectual life of the College; not let it become mere legend, receding into the past and destined only to be a pretense in the future. </p>
<p>You have your reasons for embracing the University of Chicago, ChiCity, and I have mine. I can speak clearly as to what about this still great University drew me here, and what I would defend it for. It is an open question if you can. Capisce?</p>
<p>Neltharion. Seriously, are you able to look at a University beyond the day that is today?</p>
<p>Life is good. That is worth drinking to, comrade.</p>