<p>"One of the stand out universities that rocked the regular admissions trends is the University of Chicago. The school had a record-breaking 42% increase in applicants for the class of 2014. They accepted 18% of the students, compared with 27% last year. Perhaps more compelling is the comparison between this year and 1993 when the acceptance rate was 77%. Its safe to assert that the University of Chicago has outdone almost any other school in history as far as their application statistics."</p>
<p>I don’t know how accurate this news release is. The news release states that Northwestern’s accept rate is 23%, but a daily northwestern article states that the actual accept rate is 25.3%. </p>
<p>Woops! Completely an oversight on my part. I went to the daily northwestern page, and an article on admissions was on the front page, so I clicked it. JB, thanks for pointing this out!</p>
<p>So yes, the original article may very well be accurate. I can’t seem to find a link to NU’s 2014 accept rate on the daily northwestern, though. I guess this info should be up in a few days.</p>
<p>The increase in U of C’s apps are partly due to the huge email and public relations campaign they went on…one student on CC stated he got more than 17 emails from them…my D got a “personalized letter” because she said she was interested in art. Numbers can fool.</p>
<p>The article also failed to mention JHU, which has nearly identical stats.(but no huge PR/email campaign)…acc. rate this yr 19 % and an increase in apps to 18,500 from 15,000…these two schools also seem to have the same yield rate. </p>
<p>And no mention of Columbia, acc rate of 9.16 this yr.</p>
<p>Why do the numbers “fool?” Even if more people applied because of the PR campaign it doesn’t change the fact that more students applied and a lower percentage was accepted. Besides I don’t even know if UChicago’s PR campaign was as intensive as everyone claims it to have been. I only received about three emails and maybe four publications in the mail. I received at least double that from Cornell University and Columbia University.</p>
<p>What is different about Chicago is that they actually had a marketing campaign. Before they had a build it and they will come attitude. They are just catching up with everyone else in terms of outreach. Another important factor - this is jus their second year using the common app.</p>
<p>So do you guys think in the next few years Chicago’s acceptance rate will decline rather substantially? (Probably not a 9% decrease in one year again, but still significantly)</p>
<p>^^ And if they go with SCEA (like Yale and Stanford) or maybe even ED (like a lot of Ivies), then it might go even lower. I really wouldn’t be shocked if they had another significant applicant increase next year, say 10-15%. Thenagain, if they don’t implement an SCEA or ED plan, then their EA numbers are going to SKYROCKET next year.</p>