<p>Just got an e-mail from UChicago as an alumni interviewer. No word exactly on the total number of applications, but according to the e-mail, “over 25,000.” That implies that Chicago had an overall increase of at least 14.8%, as last year we had 21,774 applications.</p>
<p>Thanks for the update. Last year when apps were up 12%, the admit rate decreased 3 percentage points. So I would think you’re looking at a similar drop this year at minimum.</p>
<p>Applications to Penn drop 2%.</p>
<p>Roundup so far:</p>
<p>UChicago up apparently at least 15%
Stanford +7%
Duke +6%
Northwestern +3.5%
Penn -2%</p>
<p>A Penn alum made this astute comment on the Penn drop in admissions in the Daily Pennsylvanian:</p>
<p>“non-Ivy peers such as Duke and Chicago threaten to surpass Penn in selectivity.”</p>
<p>Yep!</p>
<p>Here is the entire article (with comments) in today’s Daily Pennsylvanian:</p>
<p>[The</a> Daily Pennsylvanian :: Applications to Penn drop by nearly 2 percent](<a href=“http://thedp.com/index.php/article/2012/01/applications_to_penn_drop_by_nearly_2_percent]The”>Applications to Penn drop by nearly 2 percent | The Daily Pennsylvanian)</p>
<p>Also, I think some of the comments in the Daily Pennsylvanian are unwarranted. This year, most likely, Duke, UChicago, and UPenn will all have comparable acceptance rates in the 11 - 14% range. The comparable acceptance rates just confirm what has been generally accepted for some time: on the college front, these three schools are peers. </p>
<p>Whether one school has a slight edge over another (i.e. it looks like Duke will be the “most selective” of the three this year) doesn’t really mean anything, and none of the schools should be worried about another being “1% more selective.” </p>
<p>There was a time when seeing differences in acceptance rates (i.e. 33% at Penn and 15% at Harvard in the late 90s) could signify real or perceived differences between schools, but that time is vanishing. I doubt that anyone seeing an 11% accept rate at Duke and a 12% accept rate at Penn will draw much from this difference.</p>
<p>Oh, believe me, it will matter when UChicago passes up Penn in selectivity, since that is pretty much the entire basis for how high school students and parents evaluate schools. (Watch as the lists begin popping up on CC and in the media rankings schools from 1 to whatever based on admit rate.) Moreover, people see the trend. It’s not when they pull even, but the fact that UChicago will continue to drop.</p>
<p>On another note, it seems as if Chicago now receives tons of early applications (close to 9000 this year) but comparatively fewer RD apps.</p>
<p>This year, with total apps at Chicago supposedly “above 25,000,” and about 9000 apps being early, it’s doubtful that UChicago received much more than around 17-18,000 RD applications. </p>
<p>In contrast to this, Duke, Stanford, etc. now regularly receive 25,000+ in RD apps alone. I’m unclear why these schools probably receive 8,000-9,000 more RD applications than UChicago, especially since UChicago receives so many early apps.</p>
<p>Along with searching for reasons for this, the admissions office probably needs to focus on pushing up the number of RD applications. Sooner rather than later, to have a comparable applicant pool to its tippy-top peers (i.e. Stanford), Chicago’s total number of applications will need to push 30,000. </p>
<p>Thoughts?</p>
<p>Truth123 - I don’t think the slight differences in selectivity matter that much. For example, after Chicago pulled ahead of Cornell and Northwestern in terms of selectivity, was this a big deal?</p>
<p>Put another way, does it matter that last year, Wash U was more selective than Chicago and Northwestern and Cornell and Georgetown? Do you think many students decided to go to Wash U instead of Northwestern because Wash U’s accept rate was 3 % points lower?</p>
<p>It absolutely is a big deal. Why do you think UChicago is up 15% this year, once again more than other schools? If UChicago merely tied the other schools for the long run, it wouldn’t be much to its advantage. But since its admissions selectivity is rising faster than any other school in the country it absolutely matters. In 1988-89 UChicago was accepting maybe 61% of applicants; this year it may be 12%. That’s a 50% percentage point drop. This is exactly how Stanford University made its climb–passing up one school at a time. Clearly the people at Penn think it matters. This is a rare case where I would say Penn has a better understanding of the situation than some UChicago alums.</p>
<p>Admissions officers can explain it to you. It’s not an immediate overnight 100% change. But increasing selectivity and rising rankings definitely affect applicants. If you ever read a post on College Confidential, you will see what people say about admissions.</p>
<p>[Applications</a> at Elite Colleges Slow - Bloomberg](<a href=“Bloomberg - Are you a robot?”>Bloomberg - Are you a robot?)</p>
<p>More news, Columbia down 9%. MIT up +1%</p>
<p>You’re just going to have to learn to live with the fact that UChicago is becoming more popular and will pass up more schools in selectivity.</p>
<p>Haha hold on truth123 - if you look back at my other posts, I’m a proud Chicago alum, and I love the school. Trust me, it wouldn’t be hard for me to “live with the fact” that UChicago is becoming more popular.</p>
<p>My point, however, was a bit more nuanced than a blanket statement that acceptance rate isn’t important. I think, by the way, that acceptance rate is indeed important.</p>
<p>The basic point of my post, however, is that as acceptance rates continue to be whittled down, slight differences in accept rate aren’t particularly meaningful. Going back to my previous post, I highly doubt that students pick Wash U over Northwestern because it’s a bit more selective. Same goes for students picking Vanderbilt over Emory. </p>
<p>My more general, point, then, is that folks need to calm down a bit when it comes to focusing on very slight changes over time. As the Penn Dean of Admissions stated, if Penn saw a 10 or 20 percent drop in apps, that’s certainly significant. Similarly, if Chicago saw such a drop, it should be concerned. A drop of a couple % points doesn’t mean much.</p>
<p>I certainly agree, increasing selectivity and attracting applicants is extremely important, but, again, slight variations shouldn’t be analyzed to death.</p>
<p>Finally, you stated that Stanford gained popularity by passing one school at a time. I think Stanford’s rise had less to do with specific focus on admissions directives and much more to do with broader changes and initiatives on campus. Geographic separation (being the top private school on the entire west coast), an emphasis on both creating and linking itself to the tech boom, strong investments, investment into a top athletic program, etc. etc. all contributed a lot to Stanford’s rise. </p>
<p>So, to conclude, I don’t think a 2% drop in Penn’s applications should cause much hand-wringing in West Philly. I think it’s great that Chicago’s applications are increasing, but, if you look at the selective college world, Chicago is more playing catch up than anything else. It’s done this extremely adroitly, but U of C always should have been roughly as selective as Brown or Dartmouth. As Chicago’s admissions and marketing machine begins to match the actual strength of the school, apps naturally boom. </p>
<p>I am just as excited, however, about all the other initiatives going on at U of C - from the new arts center to the increasing strength of its athletic programs (great women’s basketball team this year!) to the growth of CAPS and linkages between the College and Chicago’s grad schools - as I am with the admissions efforts. </p>
<p>All the schools may be plateauing soon. I very much want Chicago to be “in the pack” (i.e. close in acceptance rate to Duke, Penn, etc.), which, as you state, it was not years ago. Was I concerned 10 years ago when Chicago had a 50% accept rate and Duke had a 20% accept rate? Of course. Do I care if this year Chicago’s accept rate is 12% and Penn’s is 12.5%? Not particularly. As long as Chicago is in the ballpark, that’s fine.</p>
<p>I think U Chicago still has a plenty of headroom left as it still have a lot of underutilized marketing asset. I expect the application umber to climb a few more years before it reaches a plateau. Perhaps around 33,000, at which point, the overall acceptance rate will be around under 10% assuming that its yield improves a little too.</p>
<p>When you think about it, most of elite schools are in the East Coast. Stanford benefits from its location, as it stands alone as the the tippy top school with international brand power.</p>
<p>In the vast middle, there are only U Chicago and NW that have global recognition, and I think U Chicago has a much stronger, underutilized brand potential. I don’t know what is the U Chicago application number from the mid west vis a vis that of NW. I suspect it’s lower. This is where an untapped growth potential is most significant.</p>
<p>Cue7, you were puzzled why UChicago’s number of RD applicants was lower than that of Duke and Stanford, while it’s number of EA applicants was so high. The main reason is that UChicago’s EA is both non-binding and non-restrictive, while Duke’s ED is binding and Stanford’s SCEA is restrictive. There is no tradeoff for applying early to UChicago, while there is to applying early to Duke and Stanford. Consequently, a lot of applicants who are planning to apply to UChicago anyway just go ahead and submit their application early.</p>
<p>Comparing EA, ED, and SCEA is not an apples-to-apples comparison. It’s nice that UChicago had a lower early acceptance rate than Harvard this year, but that’s largely because there were a lot fewer early applicants to Harvard than to UChicago. And that in turn is largely because Harvard is SCEA and UChicago is non-restrictive EA.</p>
<p>Rlmail - I’m not puzzled as to why Chicago’s number of EA apps is so high - since it’s a non-restrictive, non-binding policy, I understand why Chicago receives so many EA apps.</p>
<p>My question, though, is in the RD round, why does Chicago receive less RD apps than Duke or Brown or whatever? In the RD round, I’d imagine that students would want to cast their net as widely as possible, as RD is getting to be so competitive. Why does Duke receive ~25,000 RD apps, and Chicago receives ~18,000 RD apps?</p>
<p>^^Both school got approximately the same number of apps in the two rounds (Duke 2,600 + ~ 25,000; U of C 8,700 + ~ 18,000). I agree with the above poster that the difference between ED and unrestricted EA accounts for the distribution of the apps but the numbers are about the same.</p>
<p>I was deferred. Not really motivated to write that email to my regional counselor because I know I have no shot of getting in. Does anyone know how UChicago is with transfers?</p>
<p>Mutti2012:</p>
<p>[Duke</a> sees 6 percent spike in applications | The Chronicle](<a href=“http://dukechronicle.com/article/duke-sees-6-percent-spike-applications]Duke”>http://dukechronicle.com/article/duke-sees-6-percent-spike-applications)</p>
<p>How are these numbers similar? According to the article, Duke had about 2600 ED apps and about 29000 RD apps, for a total of around 31k apps.</p>
<p>On the other hand, Chicago had 8698 EA apps and probably ~17-18,000 RD apps, for a total of around 25,000-26,000 total apps.</p>
<p>So, at the end of the day, Duke is still receiving around 5k more apps than Chicago. Put another way, Duke’s applicant pool is still around 20% larger than Chicago’s, which isn’t insignificant.</p>
<p>Why is this? I think Chicago’s still playing catch up here, but I’m surprised that Duke received well over 30k apps, and, according to early reports, Chicago received in the 25k app range.</p>
<p>Duke is ED. So not everyone wants to apply unless they are certain to go there with a binding decision while Chicago with an open EA allows anyone who does not want to apply to a restricted school (ED, SCEA whatever else) can send in their app. Moreover, Chicago adcoms have been promoting EA quite a bit by letting people know that it allows them more time with fewer apps (It was a good line at 3500 apps but at 9000, it gets a little ambiguous). </p>
<p>Have the regular numbers come out for Chicago (18-19k being mentioned here)?</p>
<p>The admission rates are tied directly to yield. If Chicago’s yield were high like HYP, their class should be 80% full already with 1750 admits. Since the yield seems to be hovering around 40+ at this time, they need to admit more and so the admit rates will stay above 10% until the yield or applicant pool numbers go up more.</p>
<p>If they just cave in and add an engineering school…</p>
<p>Cue7, the high number of Chicago EA (9K plus) is directly related to the number of Chicago RD applicants: if you have applied EA, then you would obviously not re-apply RD.</p>
<p>Similarly, the relatively lower number of ED or SCEA applicants at Duke or Stanford is directly related to the relatively high number of RD applicants at those schools: if you did not apply early, then you have to apply regular.</p>
<p>Rlmmail - I understand that.</p>
<p>My question, at the end of the day is, why total does UChicago receive ~25k apps, and Duke or Brown receive ~30k apps?</p>
<p>What accounts for the 5-6k difference?</p>
<p>Cue7, so your original question had nothing to do with the split between Early and Regular? It sure sounded like it did. Then why the plea for Chicago to specifically increase RD applicants? What difference would it make if they increased the EA pool or the RD pool by the same amount?</p>
<p>As for the question of why Duke or other places get more total applicants than Chicago, the answers obviously vary a lot depending on the peer institution; there is no one-size-fits-all answer. For Duke, I suspect it has a lot to do with climate, D1 sports, perception of campus life. For Stanford, I suspect the same three things plus a West Coast and high tech ambience are important. For Brown, I suspect the Ivy League affiliation, possibly better financial aid, and chances to rub shoulders with more kids of the rich and famous.</p>