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Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

It is hard for me to believe that uchicago.edu should outrank illinois.edu. Illinois.edu is a famous top-tier CS program; uchicago.edu is a top-tier university with a relatively small CS program.

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At U Chicago many people believe in studying only academic theory. The attitude is that if you're smart enough, you can learn everything practical in industry... if you're one of those unworthy people who wants to go into industry. This attitude affects undergraduates the most, but permeates the whole academic atmosphere. It's not unexpected that a top-tier school that focuses only on academia would outperform in producing academic papers.

Regarding undergraduate and masters' education, U Chicago degrees have top-tier status despite much lower selectivity than comparable schools, so maybe that attitude is worth something.

This is analogous to why Princeton is so high up there as well. The school has a tremendous focus on theory even in the engineering disciplines.

(I studied electrical engineering there and as much as I hate to admit, because I wasn't motivated enough to seek out attainment of more industry-ready skills, it actually set me back significantly as an engineer)

Lower selectivity? That may have been true a decade or two ago but their accept rate is under 10% now.

Seriously? When I went there it higher than 30%. That was less than 10 years ago.

Yup - it has decreased dramatically. Its not much different from Duke now.

https://collegeadmissions.uchicago.edu/apply/class-profile

I can't say whether the metric in the article is good or not. What I can say is that Chicago being comparable to UIUC in CS theory is not an unreasonable position. Across CS it would be false, but Chicago's theory faculty are considered quite good. For example, a few years ago their department housed the only known credible effort regarding P!=NP https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1586091. Also, if you look at the two most recent theory hires of the respective departments you'll find them to be of similarly impressive credentials (IAS postdoc, formidable publication record). I don't have the qualifications to really speak more on the subject, but I don't object to the claim.

It's been a bunch of hours since I raised this objection and a lot is going on here right now but let me just raise a belated "I stand totally corrected".

Using papers to rank reduces the impact of reputation, although of course doesn't fully remove it. Also isn't UIUC more of a systems school?

Still, this seems a bit like Harvard outranking MIT, or Penn outranking CMU.

I looked at the Chicago vs UIUC site. Chicago lists 8 theory professors. UIUC lists 7 theory professors.

I don't think Chicago Theory > UIUC Theory seems absurd. Certainly not like Penn > CMU.

Think of the difference as being like the difference between teaching future engineers and future scientists.

I think many CS programs are, or should be, how to engineer software. Of course, any engineer must study the science behind the field.

That doesn't mean UIUC outclasses Chicago in any given subfield within CS.

UChicago undergrad is ranked #4 in the United States. It's not that surprising.

Undergrand ranking is different from PhD. For instance, yale undergrad >> UCBerkely; however, UCBerkely PhD >>> yale phd program.

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