<p>No I took stats, no worries there. But you should know that usually people don’t talk about things that happened that long ago because you, things change. 2002? I know it doesn’t seem like it’s that long ago, but if you wrote a paper and cited your source as 2002, people might raise an eyebrow. </p>
<p>I made that comment offhandedly as the first thing that came to mind when I think of any school vs. cornell. Do you need to hear it a 3rd time? We can talk statistics all you want to, but since we’re talking about the 2011 rankings, we can extrapolate that to other issues such as this one.</p>
<p>Cornell just has a handy and 100% effective means of suicide (bridges over gorges). If other schools had racks of loaded revolvers all over the place, they’d have plenty of suicides, too.</p>
<p>Um…they’re an academic member. You’re saying stuff like “When was the last time they played a sport.” What does that have to do with this? Aren’t we talking about Academics?</p>
<p>I don’t understand any argument that would say “Cornell is a better school, one reason for which is that they’re in the Ivy League and Northwestern is in the inferior Big Ten” that would not also say the exact same thing about the University of Chicago. How idiotic would it be to say that a team benefits academically from being a member of the Ivy League instead of the Big Ten–but UChicago is immune to that disadvantage because they don’t play sports.</p>
<p>UChicago is NOT in the big ten, they don’t play sports, people don’t associate it with them. I don’t understand what you’re talking about that they’re an ‘academic member’–who cares? I’m trying to draw a parallel between what is probably going through most people’s heads. Oh, Ivy league school, must be smart (Ivy league, the name of their football conference). Oh big ten school, must not be that smart (Big Ten, an inaccurate name describing the soon-to-be 12 schools that will play football–Uchicago is not one of them). </p>
<p>No one knows that they’re an academic member, what are you arguing? They founded it and then they couldn’t handle it. So…</p>
<p>^^^ Actually, they founded it and then utterly dominated it. For the first half of the 20th century under Amos Alonzo Stagg, Chicago was one of the beasts of college football - national championships, Big Ten titles, All-Americans, Heisman Trophy winner, etc. Then Chicago hired a president who hated football, and by the end of the '40s they’d dropped the sport (as well as their Big Ten membership). Michigan State took their place as the tenth member of the conference.</p>
<p>Their focus is diversity. Which is why more people drop out from the hard sciences from the Ivies compared to other National Universities to less GPA competitive artsy fartsy majors.</p>
<p>Sang54: Schools do not change much within a year but the ranking criteria can improve from the year before and give a better indication of the quality of the school. I always felt that there was too much weight placed on peer assesment.</p>
<p>Businessmen know. Scientists and mathematicians know. Any potential employer AND excellent graduate or professional schools know. Perhaps the plumber down the street doesn’t. But the people WHO ACTUALLY MATTER know what the UChicago is.</p>