University of Chicago 
Affiliated with 82 Nobel Prize laureates,the University of Chicago is widely regarded as one of the world's foremost universities. Known for its rigorous devotion to academic scholarship and intellectual life, it was one of the first universities in the United States to be conceived as a combination of an American liberal arts college and a German research university. The university's undergraduate college consistently ranks among the country's top ten national universities in the annual rankings published by U.S. News & World Report and is currently ranked number eight (tied with Columbia University and Duke University).
Historically, the university has also been noted for its unique undergraduate core curriculum pioneered by Robert Hutchins; for several influential academic movements and centers, such as the Chicago School of Economics, the Chicago School of Sociology, the Law and Economics movement in legal analysis, the Committee on Social Thought, and several of the most prominent movements in anthropology; and its role in developing modern physics leading to the world's first man-made, self-sustaining nuclear reaction.
History
The University of Chicago was founded by the American Baptist Education Society and oil magnate John D. Rockefeller, who later called it "the best investment I ever made." The land for the university was donated by Marshall Field, owner of the Marshall Field and Company department store chain. The modern university emerged from a bankruptcy reorganization of a predecessor institution named Chicago University and known more broadly as Old University of Chicago which was founded by prominent members of the Chicago and greater Illinois community including Justice Stephen A. Douglas and Chicago Mayor James Hutchinson Woodworth. Students of Old Chicago University marched in the funeral procession of Abraham Lincoln when the President's funeral cortege stopped in Chicago on its way to Lincoln's final resting place in Springfield Illinois. Graduates of the Old Chicago University were later assimilated into the ranks of the alumni of the University of Chicago. The University of Chicago held its first classes on October 1, 1892.
In 2007, the University of Chicago received a $35 million donation from David and Reva Logan to be used toward the construction of the Reva and David Logan Center for Creative and Performing Arts. This new arts center "will be a venue for the artistic expression and multidisciplinary inquiry, performance and production of our faculty and students," says President Robert Zimmer in his May 3 note. The building will be constructed next to Midway Studios, which was the personal residence and studio for sculptor Lorado Taft. The University has selected the firm of Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects to design the center.
Later in 2007, the University of Chicago received an anonymous alumni donation of $100 million. The donation will be used as the cornerstone of a $400 million undergraduate student aid initiative. Beginning in the fall of 2008, students will be eligible for enhanced financial aid packages called Odyssey Scholarships, which hopes to eliminate student loans entirely among students whose annual family income is less than $60,000 and to eliminate half the student loan packages among students whose annual family income is between $60,000 and $75,000. The College expects nearly a quarter of the entire College population to benefit from the program.
In 2008, the University of Chicago announced plans to establish the Milton Friedman Institute. Friedman, a Nobel Laureate in economics, received his A.M. in economics from the university in 1933 and was a professor at the University of Chicago for over thirty years. The institute will cost around $200 million and occupy the buildings of the Chicago Theological Seminary. Some faculty members and students have signed petition against these plans. During the same year, investor David G. Booth donated $300 million to the university's Graduate School of Business, which is the largest gift in the university's history.
Also in 2008, the University of Chicago and particularly its surrounding neighborhood of Hyde Park attracted international media attention because of former Law School lecturer Barack Obama's election as President of the United States.
Rankings and reputation
The University of Chicago has long been ranked as one of the best universities in the world. Comprehensively, the University is ranked: 9th among world universities and 8th among universities in North America by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 7th among world universities and 4th in North America by the Times Higher Education Supplement on the basis of peer review, 8th in the World by USNews, and the 20th most "global" university by Newsweek on the basis of scholarly achievements and "international diversity".
Undergraduate college
The 2009 edition of U.S. News and World Report ranks the undergraduate program 8th among national universities (tied with Columbia University and Duke University) after suddenly rising from 15th place in 2006. The acceptance rate for the class of 2012 was 27%. The Princeton Review ranked the University of Chicago first in its ranking of overall academic experience. According "Revealed Preference Ranking" published in December 2005 by the NBER, the University of Chicago's undergraduate college ranks twenty seventh (between Wesleyan and Johns Hopkins) in the country in the percentage of students admitted who choose to attend. According to the University, 85 percent of undergraduates attend graduate school within five years, the highest rate in the nation, and with more going on to doctor of philosophy programs than at any other university affiliated college.
Graduate Programs
According to the National Research Council the school was ranked within the United States at: 8th in "arts & humanities," 11th in "biological sciences," 7th in "physical sciences and mathematics," and 5th in "social and behavioral sciences." In aggregate, 18 programs ranked in the top ten in the nation, the 7th strongest showing.
The university operates the University of Chicago Medical Center, which was ranked the 14th best hospital in the country by U.S. News and World Report. It is the only hospital in Illinois ever to be included in the magazine's "Honor Roll" of the best hospitals in the United States.
The University is also ranked first among colleges with fewer than 5,000 students for sending students to the Peace Corps.
According to David Rothkopf, the University of Chicago is one of the top three elite universities in the world (along with Harvard and Stanford) to produce members of the new global "Superclass.
Divisions
Biological Sciences
Humanities
Physical Sciences
Social Sciences
Schools
The College
Divinity School
Booth School of Business
Harris School of Public Policy Studies
Law School
Pritzker School of Medicine
School of Social Service Administration
Other Academic Institutions
Argonne National Laboratory
Fermilab
Laboratory Schools
University of Chicago Hospitals
Yerkes Observatory
Graham School of General Studies
Title VI Area Centers
Center for Middle Eastern Studies
Center for International Studies
Center for Latin American Studies
Center for East Asian Studies
Center for South Asian Studies
Center for Russian and Eastern European Studies
University of Chicago was ranked 8th in the 2008 THES-QS World University Ranking
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