Perhaps. It's mostly the business school and the law school that are well-renowned. For most other fields, it is a rather generous step down from the Harvards,

Perhaps. It's mostly the business school and the law school that are well-renowned. For most other fields, it is a rather generous step down from the Harvards, Yales, Princeton, Stanford, Yale, MIT, Caltech, Dartmouth, Johns Hopkins (and yes, Berkeley), etc. in terms of quality of faculty, students, and research. HYPS and quality doesn't necessarily translate to good classroom teaching. Most learning at HYPS-grade schools happens outside of the classroom, and indeed, the classrooms are often not very good. It translates to good peer group and professors to learn from, good opportunities (e.g. to do research, internships, and have access to labs and equipment for engineering students), and good reputation and network after graduating. Chicago is aggressive in terms of targeting US News and World Report, but a lot of the indicators are non-indicators of quality. For example, 99% of Chicago freshman continue there, and the 6-year graduation rate is 93%. Many other schools are a bit more selective about pruning students who really ought not have gotten in, and have somewhat more rigorous academic requirements. Chicago has good student:faculty in classrooms, since that's in the ratings, but as a result of faculty spending time there, perhaps a bit less faculty contact outside of classrooms (in research and similar settings). Etc. A lot of that might collapse if they run into financial troubles.