<p>Hey Guys...</p>
<p>I saw online that UChicago's acceptance rate is now 8.8%. Wasn't the acceptance rate like over 12% just last year? Someone told me it used to be a safety school.... now it's about as competitive as Princeton! What happened?</p>
<p>Princeton dropped a lot relative to ivy’s, chicago rose. Mainly it’s because chicago did this massive campaign to get the word out about this midwest college and people from places like west coast started applying there. It’s still got relatively less funding/isn’t on the coast but it’s a good school.</p>
<p>LOL Uchicago was never a safety school. Idk where you heard that from… U chicago is a competitive school like always.</p>
<p>Chicago might not have been a safety but it was nowhere close to as competitive as it is now even 3/4 years back. I mean it had like a 40% acceptance rate.
But competitiveness cannot be judged solely on acceptance rates. We also need to compare the quality of the average applicant which I suspect is still slightly better for PTon. But that’s a negligible difference anyway.
UChicago started this huge campaign to contact high school students to apply even if they stood next to no chance. That’s what pushed up the number of applicants while the number of accepted didn’t change as much, reducing the acceptance rate.</p>
<p>Don’t mistake acceptance rate for selectivity. What has happened at U Chicago is an explosion in number of applicants. They have always had high standards but never really had so many applicants.</p>
<p>There is an article in the Chicago maroon on this from January</p>
<p><a href=“Laureate discusses themes in contemporary poetry – Chicago Maroon”>Laureate discusses themes in contemporary poetry – Chicago Maroon;
<p>From that article the application numbers have grown steadily since 2004 and they jumped when U Chicago stated using the Common Application. The number i can extract are:</p>
<p>Fall 2009 - 13,600
Fall 2010 - 19,306
Fall 2011
Fall 2012 - 25,307
Fall 2013 - 30,369</p>
<p>My daughter has gotten at least one piece of mail from U. of Chicago since she was a sophomore and took her first AP test. Expensive mailings including a bound book and nerd glasses. She’s now a rising senior and the mail keeps coming. She has no intentions of applying but I know there have been CC posters who were impressed with all the mail, even though their stats would certainly not be competitive for the school. Sounds like an attempt to solicit more applications that they can turn down for a better acceptance rate for USNews.</p>
<p>[How</a> U.S. News Calculates Its Best Colleges Rankings - US News and World Report](<a href=“http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/2012/09/11/how-us-news-calculates-its-best-colleges-rankings?page=3]How”>http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/2012/09/11/how-us-news-calculates-its-best-colleges-rankings?page=3)</p>
<p>“Student selectivity (15 percent): A school’s academic atmosphere is determined in part by the abilities and ambitions of the students. We factor in the admissions test scores for all enrollees who took the Critical Reading and Math portions of the SAT and the Composite ACT score (50 percent of the selectivity score); the proportion of enrolled freshmen at National Universities and National Liberal Arts Colleges who graduated in the top 10 percent of their high school classes or in the top quarter at Regional Universities and Regional Colleges (40 percent); and the acceptance rate, or the ratio of students admitted to applicants (10 percent).”</p>
<p>10/15=0.015, so acceptance rate counts for 1.5% of the rankings. I wonder how many people actually take the time to go through the methodology. </p>
<p>Anyway, yeah, the acceptance rate has gone down but UChicago was always a very selective school. What happened was a still ongoing massive campaign to get more people to apply, which combined with a rise in the rankings to produce more applications.</p>
<p>Generally, a lot of posters have noted the uptick in marketing from the UChicago Admissions Office as a reason for the increased selectivity.</p>
<p>No one has noted, however, the superb product that Admissions is marketing. UChicago presents as compelling an option as virtually any school out there (IMO, it is as good or better than all but perhaps a handful of schools). So, it’s not really just about the marketing. ~4 years into this new admissions regime, if the product was poor, the applicants would sour on the school. This hasn’t happened, and it most likely won’t because the product is superb. </p>
<p>Individual recipients of mailings can of course respond or decline the invitations to apply. The general point, though, is that the Admissions Office is heavily marketing a pretty compelling product. Again, the College’s quality plays second fiddle to maybe only 5-6 schools. Outside of that small sphere, one could make a case for UChicago to be as good as (or, frankly, better) than virtually any other similarly situated college.</p>
<p>I’m curious if/when UofC will tone down the aggressive marketing, how the numbers will look once things stabilize, and how many of these applications are fueled by marketing only. Obviously, well-known schools like HYPSM don’t need to market themselves, and neither do schools with well-known sports (UCLA, state schools). UChicago doesn’t have sports nor consistent national recognition… hmm.</p>
<p>OTOH, it looks like UofC really knows what it’s doing (too bad they couldn’t have done this decades earlier). I’m curious to see how the career placement figures look.</p>
<p>TheBanker,</p>
<p>Why should UChicago tone it down? The Admissions Office seems to have a pretty large budget, and the product it’s marketing has been well received. Education nowadays is a zero-sum game. Would Apple decrease marketing a new iphone? Would a hospital system possessing a great new medical advancement lessen marketing for this? </p>
<p>Marketing budgets don’t tend to decrease for successful organizations.</p>
<p>^</p>
<p>Obviously, HYPSM DO market themselves, and quite a bit. Perhaps not to the same level as UChicago, of course; but then again, YPM don’t get as many applications either.</p>
<p>UChicago DOES have consistent national recognition; it’s just not in a spot where 18-year-olds are going to see it. Anyone who picks up an issue of The Economist or the Wall Street Journal is, of course, going to see a lot about UChicago. But these are not publications that many 17- and 18-year-olds read, even the most intelligent ones.</p>
<p>That’s why it’s so important to market UChicago directly to high schoolers and their guidance counselors. Otherwise, Chicago is going to miss an important demographic and have a relatively unsuccessful College (as we’ve seen in the past). As Cue7 said, UChicago has the quality to compete with the best of the best; that quality just isn’t apparent to the world of teenagers. Great marketing fills this gap, and gives teenagers (who wouldn’t normally hear about the University until they reach their 20s) a chance to apply to and attend one of the world’s greatest universities. Frankly, there’s nothing wrong with that.</p>
<p>Gaw, you’re making me feel awfully dumb here, as I got in and attended in years before any of you are posting data for!</p>
<p>I come into these discussions with a complicated mindset. Let me attempt to explain:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Were I a high school student today being the kind of high school student I was way back when, I would have run far from the idea of applying to Chicago, for better or for worse. I wouldn’t get in now, that’s nearly for sure, and as a high school student I took a distinct amount of pride in doing things that nobody else in their right mind would do. Which was, when I was a high school student, applying to Chicago and not applying to any schools off of interstate 95.</p></li>
<li><p>That said, I think the school’s a much better place overall than it was when i was there. Alumni of my vintage are a “love to hate the place” kind of sort; I knew a bunch of kids who didn’t finish degrees (not out of a lack of academic ability, just out of flakiness or other instabilities) and other kids who didn’t take risks outside of their comfort zone as much as they could have. This is not to say that the University didn’t highly encourage all of the above at all times, but rather, these were some of the people I went to college with. The nice thing about a more selective admissions process is that it can cull away academically capable students who may not otherwise be adding to the overall experience as much as others might. Moreover, a more selective school helps attract the students who are admitted, as selectivity is (unfairly) a heuristic for quality.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>As an interviewer, I find myself in the opposite scenario now. Kids (who interview well) will tell me that they want to go to Chicago because their cousin/neighbor/friend can’t stop raving about the place… and I feel that I don’t want to play any role in getting their hopes up or affirming the distinctiveness of Chicago beyond any other school ever.</p>
<ol>
<li> I disagree with TheBanker… I’d say the work of marketing to high school students is never done, as the market refreshes itself every year. And every year there are THE kids who have no idea that Chicago EXISTS, whether it be cultural myopia (living near Interstate 95 can do that to you), that they’re the first in their family to get a college degree, or what have you. Sure, the pool of posters who write on CC don’t fall into this category, and the pool of commenters on college mail are the exception to the rule. Marketers KNOW that most of the stuff they send goes into the trash anyway, so that’s why they send a lot of it. Whether this is a good use of non-profit funds is another question entirely, but if you allow that schools should be able to communicate with students, don’t hold double standards.</li>
</ol>
<p>The way I see it, UChicago had to start the marketing campaign to level the playing field.</p>
<p>Ivy league schools will always carry this “top college” status with them, and any enterprising student could go and find a list of the ivy league schools and selectively add a few to their application list. Even on CC, there are articles about “how to get into an Ivy League school”. It’s seen as the gold standard, in a way. It’s a group of highly selective and prestigious schools, and it’s extremely convenient to associate that “league status” with the status of truly being the best.</p>
<p>When it comes to the numbers game, there’s no doubt that all of these colleges benefit by their association to the ivy league. Though this is just an anecdote, I’ve known many people (not really fit for top-tier schools) who’ve decided to apply to an ivy league school “just because.” The ivy league will harbors that one “reach school” that students think they should apply to, regardless of their true chances of getting in.</p>
<p>Even those schools without the ivy-league stamp have something very distinctive to fall back on. Stanford is the best school in the west. MIT is the best math/science school, hands down. Duke has some amazing basketball.</p>
<p>Outside of the “life of the mind,” there’s really nothing that UChicago really does best. There’s nothing that it has that its peer schools won’t have. Yes, its Econ program may be considered one of the best, and its Math & Physics departments might be recognized as top 5. That doesn’t mean it’s going to steal cross-admits from the likes of Harvard, Princeton, or MIT. And to add to that, honestly as an applicant last year, I had no clue what the ‘life of the mind’ even was. Point is, there’s really nothing that UChicago can do to set itself apart from its peers in the same sense that its other non-ivy peers can. </p>
<p>To combat the inequality, it’s forced to engage in this mass advertising campaign, and, in terms of acceptance rate, it may even overshoot its true place in the pecking order of academic powerhouses, at least as far as acceptance rates go in figuring out how great a school is academically. </p>
<p>All said and done, acceptance rates are a terrible way to figure out a school’s quality of academics. Though it does include the ‘prestige’ factor, which may be influenced by academic quality, it could instead reflect the popularity that the school has gained amongst the eyes of applicants for reasons other than the quality of education it offers.</p>
<p>Sorry for the rant.</p>
<p>I concur with Cue7, phuriku, and unalove…Chicago does not have a “mechanism” in place like Stanford which is constantly in the national spotlight and in the news about their famous alumni creating this and that…to perk the ears of parents and young impressionable teenagers…HYP schools have the “IVY” moniker that automatically brings attention (good or bad) to even the most unsophisticated individuals…</p>
<p>…to my dismay even today, many of the so-called college “educated” (I use educated very loosely) parents and high school guidance counselors are still clueless about Chicago, its history, or what it’s about…</p>
<p>…since these individuals (parents and counselors) who hold the key to enlightening a student’s perception of top quality schools are basically BANKRUPT…Chicago administration needs to continue its mission to inform, educate, and enlighten not only the students…but the parents and counselors alike…</p>
<p>So how does mailing nerd glasses to high school juniors advertise the “life of the mind”? That’s what my daughter was trying to figure out.</p>
<p>My original point is that UChicago seems to be marketing way too much - will this tone down in the future? No doubt UChicago markets more than any other top school. I’m a bit concerned about UChicago relying too much on marketing, and while Chicago indeed has a great product, I’d like to see them eventually scale down the marketing to a level similar to peers. An immediate superficial concern is certain stereotypes regarding UChicago marketing to students who would never get in anyway (though, the Ivy brand arguably does the same, as empirical points out, but in a more discreet way). There will perhaps be a credibility issue with Chicago if it continues to market like crazy five years from now, since it gives the impression that Chicago must market to sustain its numbers. </p>
<p>Empirical does have a point about Chicago’s “niche” - I think with Nondorf’s admissions strategies, Chicago will possibly fall a few notches in the proportion of students who go on to graduate school. This significantly weakens Chicago’s distinctiveness and claim on emphasis on academia. So where does that leave Chicago? What’s next? HYP can claim to breed the future leaders in just about everything, S has claims to Silicon Valley and tech, MIT has claims to future scientists/engineers…but Chicago’s niche is increasingly becoming less distinct.</p>
<p>I am probably going to get some flak for this, but good Econ departments are pretty common among top schools. Obviously UofC has some very distinguished economists, but so do other schools. I don’t see a big difference between UofC Econ and HYPSM + Columbia Econ. Same goes for comparisons in physics/math. Yet, HYPSM + Columbia can arguably offer more than UofC can in location, career placement, and academic strength in other subjects outside of econ/physics/math. What exactly, then, sets UofC apart today?</p>
<p>I think the mailing was one of the key things that got me to apply to the University, where I will be going in a couple months.
What I knew about the school before junior/senior year:
Obama taught there
Fermi’s nuclear chain reaction
It in Chicago </p>
<p>The mailings really didn’t tell me much, but they did make me feel like the school was interested in me, so I began to look up stuff about it.
Its all about getting a foot in the door. I drive around and people’s bumper stickers are all east coast, from Florida state to Bowdoin (in Maine). People talk about the ivies, and even occasionally Stanford, but the midwest is usually thought of as nonexistent. When I tell people I’m going to Chicago next year, it seems to throw them off, as if not being on a coast was blasphemous.
These mailings are important to get the name out there. Not just to increase numbers, but to reach people who actually end up going there, like me.</p>
<p>Unalove, I enjoy your posts, but I think you sell yourself short. Comparing your objective measures from the time you were admitted in the past to now is a little like comparing the NFL player of the 1970’s to one now. Today’s player is faster, fitter, and more likely to survive his career healthy. The 1970’s player could look at today’s version and say, “No way I could play!” But of course, today’s player is a product of a much better training system than that which existed in the 1970’s. This is true, I believe, in the academic realm as well. I am product of the 1970’s. I was a good student, I got good test scores for the time, and I was admitted to a school which is now considered relatively elite. My objective measurements then are well below the average of the admitted student now. But I did not have the benefit of SAT classes, a tiger mom, or, Heaven forbid, College Confidential. To illustrate, I hitchhiked home from my SAT test. And I only took it once in my junior year. Who does that now who is interested in an “elite” college? My point, of course, is that your (Unalove) raw material is probably as good as the kids today, the environment was just different when you applied, less likely to produce very high objective scores. But I’ll bet your essays were bang-up then as they would be now.</p>
<p>As far as UChicago’s “selling point”, for my son, who is attending starting this fall, it is the pure and genuine intellectualism of the place. I believe that among the National type universities, it is unique. The only school we came accross that is close was Princeton. And, also, UChicago with its core curriculum and its core values, both well established, somewhat immune to fad, and honed over decades of teaching, convinced my son (and me) that it is the best place possible to go to become the most intellectually developed person he could be.</p>
<p>^To respond to the mom’s question about the nerd glasses, you could call it keeping up with the Joneses.</p>
<p>I was at a conference at another terrific university recently (terrific in the way that it has wonderful faculty and resources in my field, terrific in that it is exceptionally selective, terrific in that its students share a similar academic profile to Chicago’s, though probably not a similar applicant pool) and the school gave out STICKERS to every visitor on the tour. And every visitor on the tour was wearing their STICKER proudly.</p>
<p>STICKER? Like you’re visiting Disneyland? I was astonished, and declared right then and there that I felt I saw the beginning of the end of higher education.</p>
<p>Let’s step back and appreciate that most humans like to brushed with the highly selective college pixie dust from time to time, and that even I fall into this trap on occasion. And if Chicago’s competitor schools are doing hokey things to draw attention and loyalty, there’s even more of a compelling reason to enter the game. So nerd glasses it is.</p>
<p>If your daughter likes the school, if you like the school for your daughter, that’s one thing. If you don’t like the school for your daughter or your daughter doesn’t like the school, that’s another. If you don’t like college marketing, move to a different zip code and stop taking standardized exams. (I’m being tongue-in-cheek, but to be a presumably educationally and perhaps financially well-resourced person means college mail no matter what.)</p>
<p>If I ran the circus I’d mail every high school student a faux leatherbound version of Andy Abbott’s Aims of Education address.</p>
<p>Note, I don’t think any of the mailings (especially the glasses) are designed to tell a specific story about UChicago. Rather, they are designed to simply put the College on a potential applicant’s radar. After receiving a poster or glasses or whatever, who knows, may be an unaware applicant spends 10 seconds googling the school. </p>
<p>What comes up on a 10 second google search? Well, the US News link to its ranking, the fact that students often also search for Harvard and Columbia, etc. The blast marketing is designed to spur that extra bit of action.</p>
<p>For those who are skeptical (like oldmom), don’t the numbers bear out the incredible success of this strategy? UChicago’s applications have skyrocketed, but so has the yield. Students are finding out about the school more often, and also deciding to attend more often. Class stats are up as well.</p>
<p>Finally, when questioning why other schools don’t do this, don’t forget, marketing and admissions outreach is expensive. UChicago’s Admissions Office, along with all the mailings, travels a great deal and is bold in terms of face time and contact with high school counselors, prospective students, etc. </p>
<p>As an example, Dartmouth’s admissions team, for a class of about 1200 students each year, is 14 individuals:</p>
<p>[Admissions</a> Officers](<a href=“Home | Dartmouth Admissions”>Home | Dartmouth Admissions)</p>
<p>UChicago’s admissions office, on the other hand, for a class of similar size, is at least ~25 people, and the office appears to still be hiring:</p>
<p><a href=“https://collegeadmissions.uchicago.edu/contact/[/url]”>https://collegeadmissions.uchicago.edu/contact/</a></p>
<p>Even on initial glance, UChicago’s admissions office simply has more resources at its disposal. Unsurprisingly, if you have two products of similar quality (in this case, Dartmouth and UChicago - albeit the environments are very different), and one is simply
in front of “consumers” more, one will probably end up with more applications.</p>
<p>Would the Dartmouth administration like to have a larger admissions office, an acceptance rate lower than most of ivy league+ peers, and more money to spend on marketing? Most likely, the answer is yes. One school has such a budget, however, and the other doesn’t. </p>
<p>(Note, before we talk about questionable allocation of resources, keep in mind that Dartmouth’s athletic budget and recruiting costs are probably 4-5 times as much as UChicago’s. Schools - even very wealthy schools - chose to allocate money in different ways.)</p>