<p>I have now read in two places that U of C has a 40% acceptance rate. Is that accurate? If so, why? Is it just because they have a well qualified applicant pool, or does this number really reflect the university's selectivity?</p>
<p>Last year’s was 27.9%. That’s way higher than most, but it’s not easy by any stretch. We have what we like to call “self-selecting applicants”. You don’t apply here unless you would really attend. This cuts down the “for the heck of it” applications (the applications that make the Ivy League’s rates so impressive/frightening) and makes the acceptance rate higher.</p>
<p>UChicago also don’t have ED which means the acceptance rate is higher due to the retention rate being lower.</p>
<p>“retention rate” is a different thing. It refers to the number of enrolled students who return to school or graduate. Chicago used to have a retention-rate problem, too, losing 10%+ of any entering class, but now its retention rate is 98-99% just like all the other top schools.</p>
<p>The percentage of accepted students who actually enroll is called “yield”. Chicago’s yield is, indeed, lower than most of its competitors, in some part because it does not have ED, which boosts yield numbers. Chicago generally has a yield around 36%, which is pretty comparable to what most of its competitors get RD (some of the Ivies, Stanford, and MIT are meaningfully higher with their RD numbers).</p>
<p>The other main reason Chicago had (and has) a relatively high admission rate is because it gets fewer applications than most of its competitors. Applications have been increasing, so the acceptance rate has been going down, but Chicago is still way behind comparable schools in applications. There are a bunch of reasons for that, including location, perceived prestige, lack of big-time sports, lack of engineering, financial aid policies, and generally being seen as very demanding.</p>
<p>JHS- You bring up financial policies… What do other competitor schools have as far as financial aid compared to Chicago?</p>
<p>U of C received 13,600 applications last year for an accept rate of 26.8%:</p>
<p>[Acceptance</a> rate falls with CommonApplication - The Chicago Maroon](<a href=“Delays keep Proof from silver screen – Chicago Maroon”>Delays keep Proof from silver screen – Chicago Maroon)</p>
<p>Chicago’s number of apps isn’t terribly out of line with the apps received by schools such as UPenn, Cornell, and Northwestern. These other schools receive around 15k-16k apps for their colleges of arts and sciences. </p>
<p>In the past 6-7 years, there’s been a definite push by the administration to increase selectivity and garner more applications each year. A decade ago, Chicago would’ve received maybe HALF the number of apps as a Cornell or UPenn. (When I applied to Chicago in the mid-90s, for example, the school received around 5K apps, whereas UPenn and Cornell were regularly receiving around 10K apps.) Now, Chicago’s receives maybe 15% less than some of its peers. </p>
<p>The school also had a traditionally laissez-faire approach to admissions, going with a “we admit the best and take as many as we can get” approach. With a new admissions dean and a more calculated admissions strategy, look for that to change a bit in the years ahead. </p>
<p>In sum, Chicago’s been playing catch-up to the more admissions-savvy schools for around a decade. Its actually closed the gap pretty well, and look for Chicago to match its peers’ admissions numbers in the next 3-4 years. Using conservative estimates, for example, the class of 2016 should have around a 17% admit rate and come from an applicant pool of around 17,500. Unless something drastic happens at other schools, this admit rate would be within a few percentage points of the accept rates at Duke, UPenn, Cornell, etc.</p>
<p>(Oh and I second all of JHS’ reasons for Chicago’s applicant pool being smaller than the pools of its peers. Lack of sports, perceived prestige, reputation as a grinder school, etc. all limit the number of applications. As numerous studies and articles will show though, admissions is a highly highly manipulable game. Many schools now play the “big numbers” admissions game where they just look to drum up as many applications as possible to have applicants essentially serve as fodder for a low accept rate. I suspect Chicago doesn’t do this as much right now, but as the administration changes, it may go this route. Giving off the perception of prestige and eliteness through the signaling effect of accept rate is actually easier than say, building up the academic rep of a school.)</p>
<p>Financial aid: I think that there’s a widespread feeling that Chicago’s financial aid is sometimes less competitive for upper-income applicants. Some of it relates to assumptions about how many years of tuition has to be funded (I think the Ivies, or some of them, take potential graduate school into account), whether IRA assets are deemed available, how small businesses are valued. Also, Chicago’s few merit scholarships are a little mysterious, and do not necessarily go to the people who think they deserve them.</p>
<p>Other: I think Cue7 is a little, well, I don’t know if it is optimistic or pessimistic, but I don’t expect to see Chicago get to the 17,000 application mark in the next few years (15,000 yes, maybe). I also HOPE it doesn’t start soliciting applications for the sake of padding its numbers. One of the things I have admired about Chicago is how its marketing materials do a great job of highlighting what is special and a little different about the university, stuff that rings a chord with some students and leaves others cold. And that’s fine. I agree with President Zimmer’s implied mandate that Chicago not accept second-class status compared to anyone. But that doesn’t have to mean soliciting applications from people who really shouldn’t be interested in the University of Chicago solely for the purpose of puffing the numbers. </p>
<p>I have more respect for Jim Nondorf than to assume that’s how he is going to roll. I don’t think they are anywhere near the point where all or most of the students who SHOULD be applying to Chicago ARE applying. And I don’t think that Chicago admissions is ever going to be managed for USNWR as opposed to the Chicago faculty. I hope.</p>
<p>So… any speculation as to what the admissions rate for the Class of 2014 will be? Judging by the trend, I think it might crack the 25% barrier…</p>
<p>Chicago (the city) is also a negative factor for a lot of prospects. </p>
<p>Personally I think talk of a “self selecting” applicant pool is bunk.</p>
<p>JHS - I’m merely assuming that with a new dean of admissions (one that specializes in student recruitment), Chicago can maintain the growth it’s seen for the past four consecutive years. Since about 2004, Chicago’s seen an increase of about 1K-2K apps a year. </p>
<p>Lets say Chicago gains roughly 1200 apps more a year with Nondorf at the helm. Within three years, that would lead to about 17,200 apps. </p>
<p>Moreover, given Nondorf’s track record at Yale and RPI, assuming consistent growth might be a bit conservative of an estimate. It’s not unforseeable that Nondorf increases the level of growth seen under O’Neil’s (and Behnke’s) leadership. Nondorf certainly seemed to have a pronounced impact on his two previous institutions. </p>
<p>Also, in knowing Nondorf, I don’t suspect he’ll play the “big-numbers” admissions game in the way that Duke or UPenn does - promoting the school as a place that can appeal to all sorts of people. Rather, I expect, just as he did at RPI, that Nondorf will be more innovative and aggressive in his recruitment efforts when compared to his immediate predecessors at Chicago. As JHS mentioned, Chicago isn’t doing enough to get the applicants that SHOULD apply to apply. I truly think there are thousands and thousands of good potential students that don’t apply to Chicago simply because the word isn’t out there enough. Nondorf will probably work to correct this disparity. </p>
<p>One approach I hope Chicago takes is to target regions of the US that they don’t focus on enough currently. I’ve done alum interviews for Chicago for a number of years, and the admissions reps continually stated that Dean O’Neill tended to have a preference for the coasts - he often did info session in Manhattan or Phila, and targeted, say, the east coast for more students. Now, the east coast has a high concentration of the sorts of students elite colleges want, but I think Nondorf would be well served to look for great talent in the growing areas of the southeast, and, perhaps just as importantly, really work on building Chicago’s rep in its home region, the midwest. </p>
<p>There are a lot of myths floating around about Chicago in the best high schools in the midwest, and I hope Nondorf focuses on dispelling some of those myths. Also, in terms of yield, it’s a lot easier to win students who have grown up on your home turf than it is to convince some Phila prep school product or Manhattanite to come to the midwest. </p>
<p>Here’s a press release reviewing what Nondorf did at RPI:</p>
<p>[RPInsider</a> Nondorf Leaves the ‘Tute](<a href=“欧洲杯下单平台(官方)APP下载IOS/安卓通用版/手机版”>欧洲杯下单平台(官方)APP下载IOS/安卓通用版/手机版)</p>
<p>The numbers are striking - a 117% increase in applications over three years, 800% increase in early applications, etc. Similarly, Nondorf had a lot of success at Yale when he was on the admissions committee there.</p>
<p>By all accounts, Nondorf is a good guy and I doubt he’s going to turn Chicago into Duke, but he does seem especially proficient at raising the number of applications (while increasing quality too). I think Zimmer took this into account when he hired Nondorf, and I think, if anything, Chicago aims - at the very least - to maintain the growth it has seen over the past 4-5 years. Given all this, I think 17K apps in three years is a pretty feasible extrapolation.</p>
<p>Wow. Going from 6,000 to 12,000+ applications in three years IS pretty impressive, although RPI was starting from way farther behind than Chicago is now. But last year RPI had almost as many applications as Chicago, which is really something given what he had to work with. (First – can anyone even spell its first name? I can’t, ever, without looking it up, and I grew up in its home territory. Second – Anyone who has qualms about Hyde Park ought to take a look at the dump that is Troy NY. Although RPI itself is quite beautiful.) RPI’s applications last year were 80% of MIT’s. I’ll bet Zimmer would be happy, short term, if Chicago’s applications were 80% of Yale’s. Or Columbia’s. Or Brown’s.</p>
<p>I have the impression that Chicago still gets a huge percentage of its students from the Midwest. That certainly seems to be where a lot of my kids’ friends there come from. And Chicago is not that hard a sell in Philadelphia: “It’s bigger and more vibrant than Philadelphia. But it’s not New York. Southwest flies there.”</p>
<p>I don’t know if it matters or not but RPI used to (about 20 years ago)be a school that ranked much higher than it does today. Lots of kids chose between MIT and RPI.(With RPI seeming to be the most normal) CM was the safety school back then. Troy was always an armpit but lots of kids loved the Hill and scubbers.(Downtown still has it’s charms) In short, RPI deserves a much higher spot than it has…</p>
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<p>I don’t. Our standardized test scores are about the same as Columbia and Stanford, and have been in the past years even when our acceptance rate was 40%. Do you really think that 40% of the application pool of Stanford and Harvard have stats as high as those of Chicago’s current student average? You must realize that some schools try to artificially lower their acceptance rate by luring unqualified students into applying.</p>
<p>Phuriku - for the point of debate, lets see: Harvard for the past several years has received 25K+ applications, and I think Stanford receives around that number too. 40% of 25K is 10,000. </p>
<p>Do I think that at least 10,000 applicants to Harvard and Stanford’s applicant pool have astronomical stats? Unequivocally, my answer is YES - these two schools attract the hands-down best of the best, and its perfectly reasonable to think that 40% of their applicant pools are top-class. There are what, 1-2 million graduating high school seniors each year? It’s perfectly reasonable to think that 10K of those 1-2 mill have really strong stats, and a lot of that group is applying to H or S (especially Harvard). </p>
<p>The problem with Chicago being self-selecting is its size and structure. When I was at Chicago during the pinnacle of the self-selecting years (read: 60%+ accept rate), I think there was a good core of maybe a few hundred students per class that truly self-selected the school and were there bc of what the U of C is all about. You then literally had hundreds and hundreds of students that came to U of C because it was a backup school to Harvard, Brown, etc. Even the admissions office has admitted that in the past, Chicago was “just looking to put warm bodies in seats.” It was really not a good situation for the school, and there was too much variation in the class (some very strong students, but also some very, very weak students). </p>
<p>I think it’s easier for a smaller place like Reed College to be truly self-selective because it doesn’t have as many seats to fill. Chicago, being a major research institution with a medium-sized college, has different needs and the idea of self-selection does not work nearly as well. I think self-selection was just a way to put positive spin on a college that, 15 years ago, was struggling a bit. (Keep in mind, even then, there were lots of strong students around, so it wasn’t hard to get a class with a ~1400 SAT avg.)</p>
<p>Cue7, a high acceptance rate does not mean a self selecting applicant pool. It just means fewer kids want to even consider going. </p>
<p>Even 5 years ago, most of my daughter’s classmates were rejected by their first choices. So was my daughter. </p>
<p>So what? Even daughter said by the end of the year that she wondered why she spent time applying anywhere else. </p>
<p>So it is back to the OP’s question: why does the OP care how selective the place is? bragging rights? prestige? Can’t think of any other reasons. Maybe the OP can help me out?</p>
<p>It appears that you’re correct. I was going to dispute the claim, but I checked Brown’s statistics (at [Brown</a> Admission: Facts & Figures](<a href=“Undergraduate Admission | Brown University”>Undergraduate Admission | Brown University)) since they’re about the only Ivy League to release that data, and it appears that the top 40% of the applicant pool is quite strong statistically. Interesting. I suppose this puts the self-selecting myth to rest, then. (Well, not necessarily, but this is about as far as you can take it statistically.)</p>
<p>To answer a question, the reason I care about the acceptance rate is because my stats (GPA-wise) are way below UofC’s normal range, and I wanted to know if the high acceptance rate had any correlation to the difficulty of getting into the school. So, let me ask a new question: Compared to competitors, is admission at UofC any easier, Or does the 40% acceptance just reflect the lower yield and all of the other stuff you guys mentioned?</p>
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<p>I’ve seen evidence of this at my own school just this year. I’m a senior now and recently found out that UofC is having a lunch time info session at my school tomorrow, which was REALLY surprising to me considering i live in a middle-class Texas suburb and attend an average public school that rarely gets schools from anymore north than U of Colorado Boulder (well, that and the naval academy). I believe this is the first year Chicago has ever come to my school. There are some crazy intelligent people here who are heavily recruited by Southern schools like U of Arkansas, U of Alabama, and Texas A&M (all of which practically throw scholarships at and even waive in-state tuition for many qualified students) each year. I think the only name recognition UofC has here is because of the city itself (or as some lofty school up north) even though a certain amount of students i know would be very interested in a place with an atmosphere like UofC versus the sports emphasis/greek scene of Texas public universities.
So i (and a few others) jumped at the opportunity. I’m super ecstatic to be able to actually talk to someone representing the school tomorrow and decide if i want to apply for sure!</p>
<p>OP,</p>
<p>first of all, as mentioned earlier by other posters, Chicago acceptance rate is much lower than 40% (more like 27%), and I wouldn’t be surprised if it goes down way below 25% for the class of 2014. Note that last year was the first time they used common app. I read somewhere that the effect of common app on the number of applicants really starts to kick in a year or so later after it is instituted, rather than the first year it is done. Furthermore, Chicago’s application number has been steadily going up even before they started to use common app. Besides, this new dean of recruitment (whatever the title is) is known to increase the applicant number, and this is the first year he is at the helm of the admission cycle, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he is hell bent on showing what he can do from the get go. One way or the other, the acceptance rate will go down.</p>
<p>second, even an acceptance rate higher than other comparable top schools does not mean it’s easier to get in (in terms of stats). check the SAT middle 50% range. In spite of all the brouhaha about Chicago not taking SATs as seriously as other schools, its range is exactly where it should be: slightly below HYP, MIT, Cal Tech, on par with Columbia, U Penn, Stanford, Duke and above the likes of Georgetown, JHU etc. The GPA distribution shows a similar pattern except in comparison with U Penn which seems to be HS rank fixated and thus far has the highest % of kids with top 10% HS ranking - higher than other top 10 schools. </p>
<p>So, I don’t believe it’s any easier to get in for those with lower stats.</p>
<p>That said, the important question you need to ask yourself is, why do you want to go to chicago? chicago is notorious about serious academic work and the rigor of its curriculum. Especially for you, this is a reason for concern. Why is your HS GPA comparably low? Is there a special reason for this? For instance, if it’s low because you had a serious disease that prevented you from focusing on keeping up with the school work, but in reality you are crazy about learning and VERY academically oriented and dying for an opportunity to be part of the brainy nerds now that you overcame that disease, that’s one thing. Or if you were raising 5 young siblings on your own living in a shelter after both of your parents were put in jail on a drug charge, and your GPA suffered because you did not have time to do busy work though you aced the test, something like that is understandable. However, if your GPA is low because working hard for the toughest course work possible is just not part of who you are, then you will regret being in Chicago environment even if you manage to squeak by. Oh, by the way, the explanation of “I went to a very tough and competitive school and took very tough courses, that’s why my GPA is low” does not fly. At the level of the serious applicants (not, “what the heck, I will buy Harvard lottery ticket” crowd) for the top 10 schools, many of them went to very competitive schools, and virtually ALL of them took toughest course load possible, and still manage to get stellar GPAs. </p>
<p>if your goal is to get the most bang for the bucks (as in, going to the most prestigious school possible given your GPA handicap), (a) I don’t think you will succeed in getting admission (b) you won’t be happy even if you end up there.</p>
<p>There is a very long thread going on in the parents forum about kids with below 3.6 GPA trying to get to the top 20 school, the emerging consensus is that, a low GPA is harder to compensate for than the low SAT, and is a critical handicap, and that the odds are terribly against the students with a lower GPA.</p>
<p>By all means, apply if you wish: who knows, you may win the lottery: there is always that hope. But, if you are seriously considering stretching your luck, remember this old saying:</p>
<p>Be careful what you wish for, for it may come true.</p>
<p>Sorry to rain on your parade, but you need to be realistic.</p>
<p>Huh.</p>
<p>So the year that Stanford first implemented the Common App (which was the class of 2012), the number of apps increased by 3.6%. The second year after this implementation? A net increase of 20.2%, from ~25k to ~30k. I wonder if there will be similar results for Chicago. Considering Nondorf’s track record, I certainly wouldn’t be surprised if there were a 15-20% increase in apps next year. If we can get the yield back to 39-40% (which was the yield for 2 years ago) from the 36% of last year, the admit rate would decrease to around 20%.</p>