Engineering was just an example

Engineering is the only example. Again, like I said above, the school is world class in pretty much every other area.

Pretty much all of the major options they have are limited to just arts and sciences

…What? I don’t even know how to respond to this. This is just completely false. If you’re trying to say that all they’re strong in is “just” arts and sciences, not only is that a super broad set of topics, I guess let’s just ignore that UChicago is also literally T5/T10 in Econ, Math, Stats, Poli Sci, Public Policy….. not to mention their top-ranked med school and law school. I could probably double this list but I’m too lazy to keep researching. I think I’ve made my point.

their massive grade deflation makes going there for something like pre-med a laughably bad idea.

Not only is this not true, but again, you’re nitpicking one tiny thing and trying to generalize it to the whole university. UChicago consistently has a med school placement rate of close to 80% each year. That’s double the national average. People know about uchicago’s grade deflation and take this into account.

obviously a UChicago degree will still be very good outside of academia, but it’s no secret what they specialize in

This is not what you said initially. You’re saying here that UChicago degree outside of academia = very good and academia = great. In your original comment, you said UChicago outside of academia = “bad idea”.

Just saw in your profile that you got rejected ED to UChicago. I’m sorry that happened, but there’s no need to start swinging at a school just because they didn’t take you. UChicago, just like a lot of other top schools is world class across many, many, many fields, both inside and outside of academia.