40% acceptance rate?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Chicago ✅
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<p>Cue7,</p>

<p>From everything I know, Zimmer was selected and charged with beefing up the sciences at UofC. That’s his background professionally, and that’s where he seems to be doing the most.</p>

<p>From the overall POV of the U, that’s probably a good decision, since UofC’s stature (reputation?) in the sciences has not kept up with the reputations of the Law or Business Schools or the College. Compare, for example the Law school rankings with the Med school rankings, or USNWR grad school department ranking in the sciences with the above. </p>

<p>This may be fine for some key constituencies, but does not do anything directly to help the College. I suspect he’s more interested in milking the college for revenue. For evidence, look at UofC’s lack of movement in College financial aid over the past two years, during which many of its peers became more generous. Yes, it got external funding for the Odyssey scholarships. Maybe that’s enough. </p>

<p>Regarding UofC’s peers, define it any way you want. In the end, the less different UofC is, the tougher time it will have competing. It already loses big time to Northwestern (looking at yield, for example). You think things will get better if it becomes more like Northwestern?</p>

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<p>I believe – on the basis of running the numbers, once, a few years ago – that Chicago and Northwestern have almost the same yield if you back out Northwestern’s ED admits. Chicago was actually a little higher, although the comparison wasn’t completely apples-to-apples because Chicago obviously gets a somewhat higher yield from its EA admits, too. But the ED-adjusted comparison would not support any characterization like “losing big time”.</p>

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<p>Absolutely true that a lower acceptance rate does not necessarily mean self-selection, but in the case of Chicago, that is certainly true. It is also true of single-sex colleges like Smith and Mount Holyoke, which are more rigorous than their selectivity would suggest, because they appeal to a much smaller population than Amherst or Williams. Fewer students are interested in, or prepared for, the intensity of academics at Chicago. Its reputation as a “grind” is well-earned.</p>

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<p>Over the weekend, we dropped off our freshman son at U Chicago. All throughout the move-in day and the day of convocation ceremony, we had an opportunity to converse with several faculty members including a couple of residential masters, who are faculty members who reside in a dorm with their spouses to provide additional support and advice to the undergrad kids in a dorm they are in charge of. That is a WONDERFUL system!!! We also talked with a few academic advisers. The faculty members I talked to all have been at U Chicago for over 20 years, some of them from the days they were graduate students. I also talked to the upper class undergrads. Their input is also included.</p>

<p>I made a point of asking several of them a very pointed question of how U Chicago’s culture changed over the years, and how they see the students over the years as the selectivity of the school gradually inched up. Here is the summary of the answers from multiple sources. </p>

<p><strong><em>(1)</em></strong> U Chicago’s culture AND student body became much more pleasant and warmer last 15-20 years. One faculty said, when he was a student, the school was a cold (not just winter temperature, but “culture wise”) and unpleasant place. The school and its faculty seem down right HOSTILE toward the students and their well being. Most of the students hated being there, but stayed because the education itself was top notch - they stayed with grim perseverance like they were swallowing a bitter pill that’s good for the body. He himself advised his own relatives not to apply to Chicago because of his negative experience. He relayed a campus visit story of one of his relatives. The said relative went to the college of william and mary, and asked the kids “are you happy here” and the most of the answers were “yes”. He came to Chicago and asked the same question and most of the answers were no. That was that for that relative. The atmosphere these is a night and day contrast from one of his own years as a student. He is so pleased to see that transformation.</p>

<p><strong><em>(2)</em></strong> Kids are much happier these days. There are much wider variety of kids, and much wider variety of things and activities to do. The faculty members are warm toward the kids and the kids seem to reciprocate it. There is a strong sense of community. They all goof around and complain about how hard things are at U Chicago, but they say it with a measure of “pride” (as in, I am going to a tough school and prospering in it) and most of them complain as part of a well ingrained self deprecating humor. </p>

<p><strong><em>(3)</em></strong> There was a tremendous resistance when President Zimmer started to change several key parameters of the university including slight easing of the core requirement, the diversification and outreach direction. “But, boy, aren’t we all glad that he did what he did. He saved the university”. By now, hardly anybody wishes to turn the clock back to the old days.</p>

<p><strong><em>(4)</em></strong> With the acceptance rate falling and selectivity going up, the quality of the students has DEFINITELY gone up. Chicago always had top notch students at the top bracket. What changed is that with the increased selectivity, the student quality is uniformly high. This makes teaching for them (faculty) more enjoyable and exciting. This has a lot to do with the much warmer attitude they have towards the students. “It’s simply much more enjoyable to deal with higher caliber kids who we can see as our equals down the road” They don’t see any less seriousness on the part of the students with the slight easing of the core requirement or proportionately larger number of students who are more pre-professional in their aspiration. </p>

<p><strong><em>(5)</em></strong> We (faculty members, students) don’t see any problem with further outreach to students in a region not well represented in comparison with Chicago’s peer schools or students with more diverse aspirations and career goals. That makes the school more interesting with wider appeal. We don’t believe that the school’s famous focus on intellectual rigor will be compromised.</p>

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<p>Granted, naysayers will NOT be part of the orientation week where parents are all over the place. So, I understand that the people, faculty and students, I talked to may not be a completely representative sample. However, even so, I was not born yesterday, and I can tell fairly easily who is enthusiastically sharing his/her views, and who is saying “proper things” under duress. I get the impression that the changes afoot at Chicago are mostly welcome by the majority of the constituent groups.</p>

<p>I also talked to the new dean of admission/enrollment, etc: the gentleman whose new recruiting letter rattled the cage for some members on this board: that (in)famous Mr. Nondorf. I will not convey the content of our discussion, but I can say, I like him very much, I believe he is on the right track, and I wish him all the best and hope that he achieves what he set out to accomplish in spite of the resistance of some members of various constituent groups.</p>

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<p>P.S.</p>

<p>On a lighter note, I checked out the girls. As a mother of a young man, I was curious what kind of girls my son is likely to encounter. I am VERY happy to report that I did not encounter any girl looking like an air headed bimbo - the valley girl type. I will be happy to see my son bringing home any one of the girls I saw. But then again, my opinion counts for NOTHING, and admittedly his preference is probably different from mine… Sigh, in time, I hope he will be civilized enough to see my point… </p>

<p>I wonder if the preference for traits in opposite sex is a matter of Tabula Rasa or a matter of socio biology. This could be as exciting and controversial as the Nature vs. Nature debate.</p>

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<p>As far as I know there has been no change in the Core under Zimmer, that came two presidents ago.

Sounds a bit ominous to me. :)</p>

<p>Moving in day and the convocation are wonderful times at UofC. It is quite special. I hope your son has a great year.</p>

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<p><strong><em>(4)</em></strong> With the acceptance rate falling and selectivity going up, the quality of the students has DEFINITELY gone up.</p>

<p>So it seems like acceptance rate means either (a) the number of freshmen admitted has gone down while the number of applicants has stayed the same (or gone up) or (b) the number of freshmen admitted has stayed the same, but the number of applicants went up.</p>

<p>Which is it?</p>

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<p>the number of admitted students has gone UP: the class of 2013 is about 1300. A few years ago (don’t know exactly when), it was below 1000. Cue7 is the resident expert on stats like this on this board.</p>

<p>BOTH the number of applicants and the number of the enrolled students have steadily gone up. The number of applicants has gone up MUCH FASTER so the acceptance rate has gone down.</p>

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<p>Both, but much more the latter than the former. (The class has actually been getting larger since the 50s and 60s, when it hit a nadir of around 400. But since they expanded to the current level of about 1,300, they had also been cutting back acceptances by a few hundred a year until this year, when they bounced back up a few hundred in anticipation of recession-related yield problems.) The number of applicants has almost doubled since my daughter applied five years ago.</p>

<p>hyeonjlee’s account is pretty much what one hears uniformly. I can also confirm, as the parent of both a girl and a boy, that the girls are great. The boys, on the other hand . . . can thank heaven for giving young women the hormones to put up with them.</p>

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<p>I meant the number of “enrolled” students has gone up (the total student body size). I use the term “admitted” and “enrolled” interchangeably, and use the term “accepted students” as those who were given the choice to enroll. Some people use the term “admitted students” to mean those who got acceptance letters.</p>

<p>JHS: I assume you haven’t seen the new south campus residence hall. My son has a room there. Really modern and an amazing facility. Except, the room interior is somehow messed up: like the electrical outlets in the most unreachable and puzzling places (behind the bed - almost impossible to reach), windows impossible open unless one completely rearranges everything and anything, and closet doors opening in a direction that makes it virtually impossible to reach for clothes, etc. Definitely “UNCOMMON” U Chicago layout. The tradition lives on. Either that, or perhaps, its about time to open a school of architecture to establish home grown expertise for building matters. To their credit, they said the students are encouraged to fill out the work order request form to make necessary changes/remedies, and they will be promptly executed.</p>

<p>All in all, I am very impressed with the level of thought that seem to have gone in to support and nurture the kids. Both my husband and I thought that the amount of energy the school seems to pour in to provide the maximum amount of hand holding, advising, nurturing, and supporting the kids is very impressive, especially given that I heard a lot of horror stories about schools that are starting to cut courses and lectures (you can only imagine what they are doing with auxiliary support services if they are cutting courses!). </p>

<p>There were undergraduate upper class member dorm assistants with the ratio of one assistance per 20 dorm residents, a graduate student and his/her family living in the dorm to provide support per 80-90 kids, and finally, the feather on the cap: the faculty dorm master who lives in the dorm with his/her spouse in a special apartment. All the graduate residential heads and faculty dorm masters we talked to had more or less open door policy for kids to walk in and hang out. They were all organizing activities like Target trip on a rented school bus to pick up necessities, Shakespeare performance, Opera outings, etc. </p>

<p>I told one of the activity organizers that if the kids are behaving badly, he can organize a Peking opera night as a punishment for everyone :slight_smile: (either that or a Kabuki trip)</p>

<p>My son likes the food very much also. But then again, he has a very low default at home: I am not exactly a model of excellence for cooking. </p>

<p>All in all, I am just SO happy that my son is at Chicago - more than anything else, for the intellectual rigor it is so famous for. I wish I had gone to a school like that!!!</p>

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<p>I wonder what the impact will be of a new marketing approach in a segment where the product sold has a voice. High school students do not just get information from university websites, high school counselors, letters from admission directors, and alumni at their high school. They also read what present college students are writing about their experiences in forums like this. The forums will update them on UChicago, its intellectual rigor and other characteristics. The voice of present college students has much more impact on high school students than it had 10 years ago simply because forums did not exist then. Therefore I am rather hesitant in making comparisons with the past. As long as faculty sticks to its philosophy and as long as the message of present UChicago students is like it is, I am not at all concerned that the ‘wrong’ type of kids will apply to UChicago. On the contrary! More students may apply because these forums will also reach kids in areas that have been ignored in the past. However, an increased number of high school students may think twice before sending an application to an institute where they may be less successful. You may therefore see a decrease in applications of students who know perfectly well that their high grades are not so much the result of curiosity, interest, intelligence, but much more of their hard work in subjects they like.
hyeonjlee: I loved to read your opinion about careerists. What is the difference with someone who has always wanted to become a professor? Why doesn’t such a person qualify to be called a careerist? With such an ambition there are good reasons to be very grade-focused. The area of interest of a professor is usually very specific sometimes even more so than in other professions. If you want to learn at and contribute to UChicago what really matters is: that you are curious, that you have the wish to be an all-rounder, that you have the will-power and that you have the intelligence. Who cares that you are also a careerist?</p>

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<p>Just to add some anecdotal evidence to what TaiTai said, I think that this forum in particular on UChicago has definitely contributed to my attraction to the school. I am a prospective student, and had the fortune of visiting UChicago during the spring break of my junior year. This visit and information session definitely got me hooked on the school; this was only reaffirmed after reading about the experiences of current students on this forum. To be specific, I think the level of curiosity and all-around intellectuality of UChicago is something that is fairly uncommon among top-notch universities. From what I can tell, UC students care much more about the actual learning then the final grade. They have a true passion for learning and inquiry; these are the kind of students that would stay up all night to rediscover the works of some abstract philosopher not because they had a test on it the next day, but rather because they were interested in it. The subtleties of UChicago itself speaks to this passionate curiosity in its students; The Core, the application essay questions, the endless list of Nobel Prize winners, etc… UChicago seems to just foster this kind of environment of intellectual meanderings. UC students learn with conviction. </p>

<p>I will stop now before I begin to post my entire “Why Chicago” essay. Just thought I would throw in the perspective of a soon-to-be applicant. I read the posts of some of the members of CC religiously in effort to scrounge out every piece of information I can. I have read only good things.</p>