I believe even larger number of applicants from China who really cannot afford to pay full tuition are applying to UChicago because it is free. You have nothing to lose. BTW, does UChicago ever disclosed how many international applicants they have? Another mystery. Maybe half of the UChicago’s applicants are all Chinese. The goal of free application fee policy is to generate more applicants, like its new SAT/ACT policy.
“You can also see my assertion that UChicago admitted the majority of its students at EDs. Notice that even the 4% number was not intended to be made public.”
- Nondorf knew it would be repeated - he announced these stats to the accepted students' overnight (in front of hundreds of families). The school doesn't finalize all stats till the fall and that's when they make their results official.
UChicago definitely doesn’t publish EDI/EDII stats. But Class of 2021 (first year of ED) was probably around 60% of the admitted class. They might have backed off for Class of 2022 due to the Justice Dept.'s new investigation into ED practices (information sharing, etc.). - not sure. Get the impression there were a few more EA’s this year relative to last but that’s just anecdotal. UChicago does disclose the number of early applicants admitted every year but this year they didn’t disclose percentagers of EDI vs. EA (whereas last year they did).
“I believe even larger number of applicants from China who really cannot afford to pay full tuition are applying to UChicago because it is free. You have nothing to lose. BTW, does UChicago ever disclosed how many international applicants they have? Another mystery. Maybe half of the UChicago’s applicants are all Chinese.”
- Maybe but that might be true for many top schools. Do we have that information for any other school? The most detailed institutional stats. I've seen on something like international admits vs. accepts doesn't break out by country.
@JBStillFlying : But none of the true elite schools offer free application fee, $70+ is a large number for most international applicants. They have to decide if they want to spend it on a certain school. But UChicago is free.You can’t lose. Why not apply? For other true elite schools, only true contenders will pay up.
See [Brown University Class of 2021 applicant profile](http://www.browndailyherald.com/2017/03/21/class-2021-applicant-profile/). Only 17% international applicants. If someone does not think she/he has a chance, the person won’t pay to apply. But non-contenders all applied to UChicago, they can’t lose money. The goal is to boost applicant pool, the goal is not to earn application fees. Same goal for new SAT/ACT policy. Northeastern University is particularly popular with international students due to the following policy …
In fact, according to [WSJ](How International Students Are Changing U.S. Colleges), for the 2014-2015 school year, Northeastern University, Boston, MA has 10,559 international students – ranked #6 Most Popular U.S. Universities for International Students. UChicago is learning from Northeastern’s success story … its one magazine ranking has been going up super-fast. But to another magazine, both UChicago and Northeastern are not doing so well.
“Moving from 30 percent to 17 percent in just two years, Tulane’s acceptance rate has plummeted since 2015.”
Also free app…and minimal essay requirement.
My daughter was accepted EA with good merit so no sour grapes but…
UChicago was ranked #6 in the inaugural US Snooze and Worst Report college ranking in 1983 so its current placement isn’t that far off.
I doubt the University is switching to being test-optional for ranking purpose though. They’re already doing well in rankings. Why fix something that isn’t broken?
International students don’t receive any fiancial aid, period! International students from China and other countries are actually saving many American universities financially because they are all full-pay students. @nrtlax33 there are so many Chinese students in private schools all over US, they may like to save 70 bucks of the application fee, they most certainly would not need to.
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-06-30/how-chinese-students-saved-america-s-colleges
To clarify, I meant all matriculated students who submit. USNews uses the school’s CDS admissions information, which refers to the school’s current freshman class.
@nrtlax33 The new test-optional policy does not apply to students who attend high school outside the US, regardless of citizenship. If you go to school outside the US and are not in an IB or A-level program (AP courses do not count), you will be required to submit either SAT or ACT.
UChicago is also not need-blind toward non-Canadian international students so unless you can and are willing to pay the full sticker price, there’s really no point in applying for UChicago as an international student. Vast majority of my international friends received no financial aid.
UChicago was ranked #6 in the inaugural US Snooze and Worst Report college ranking in 1983 so its current placement isn’t that far off.
Its so funny how many posters think that moving a few percentage points in selectivity will change your ranking even one iota. Its such a small part of the ranking that it makes little difference especially when almost every school is seeing more applications and therefore is becoming more selective.
@nrtlax33 you seem to think NYU med school isn’t deserving of there #3 ranking, is that based on some personal information or just your perception instead of objective stats?
^^ Doubtful that UChicago has changed this policy to improve its ranking. That would be like changing your testing strategy so you can improve upon your 1550 when you could be doing something else to improve your overall application, just to use a pertinent analogy.
They would love it if everyone they selected chose UChicago so yield is a factor (because it’s correlated with good outcomes later on), and they love being so selective because it gives them fine pickins’. It’s quite possible that Nondorf, Boyer et al figured out that this was the one untapped market they haven’t explored on this side of the globe, so they thought they’d give it a try. Seriously doubt they are concerned about scores and it’s not even clear that requiring 100% scores from all matriculants, and providing that range for US News, will even show the needle moved all that much. Also, as I posted earlier, there’s some room to play with those ranges since UChicago currently has one of the highest of the elite non-techy schools already. Going higher won’t add any benefit; going a tad lower probably won’t hurt them in terms of selectivity but will bring in a whole lot of potential.
@CU123 : NYU Med School is one of our targets. It is just funny that people are obsessed with magazine rankings these days. I think last year NYU Med School’s ranking was close to mid-teen. I do understand that they got a large donation recently. Associated rankings with money on a year-to-year basis is a joke. There are many, many excellent colleges and med schools. As you pointed out, magazine ranking makes little difference regarding real quality of the education. But UChicago is acting like ranking is the goal of the school. UChicago is a fine school. Behaving like this just makes it look bad. UPenn has about 55% of the class filled at ED. UChicago might want to the first school to eliminate RD all together … 4% announced RD acceptance rate is pretty funny. Just like magazine circulation, free applicant/subscription should be counted separately.
The whole SAT/ACT saga is ill-conceived even if the intention was noble. Read [this](https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/06/university-of-chicago-plan-to-drop-sat-act-scores-wrong/)
I have said previously that with UChicago’s core curriculum, those low stats kids are going to have a hard time. See what happened to some students at another core curriculum school [here[/url].
You might want to read [url=https://www.1843magazine.com/features/the-long-march-from-china-to-the-ivies] this story](Columbia University sees disturbing wave of suicides | Daily Mail Online) about a China’s People’s Liberation Army’s senior colonel’s daughter’s long march to UChicago.
@JBStillFlying : Nobody knows UChicago’s real yield. Those ED I, ED II don’t count. Only RD counts. It looks like not many people want to go to UChicago if they have other top choices at least here on CC. Most people want to have fun at college. All UChicago’s numbers are “manufactured”. You should ask them to come clean with their numbers like all the Ivies and other reputable schools like Duke, etc. UChicago’s reputation is from its grad schools. UChicago is not even on the Best Undergraduate Teaching National Universities top 20 list according to your school’s favorite magazine.
I’m not sure anyone can generalize about any CDS being entirely accurate. It’s not policed. The work of the inetitutional research folks is crucial to any college, but the CDS is just detail. And media rankings are really barely worth the paper they’re written on. No one should be so accepting of another’s criteria, nor read too much into something like ‘best teaching.’
Again, don’t assume Chi is going after sub par kids or that testing scores alone reflect worthiness. The pool of kids the top colleges want to woo is not those kids barely getting through high school. It’s a set that’s driven, capable, and ready to launch (no less so than other kids.) Many are highly involved in their schools and communities, activated in the right ways. I personally don’t care if their scores are a bit lower, when they have the goods to press ahead.
If all they wanted was a social experiment to bring in some totally unqualified deer in headlights kids, they could have done that from apps they previously got. They wouldn’t need to upend the admissions process to get them. This is a large change, behind the scenes. And did not go forth without buy in from various campus and alum groups.
@nrtlax33 said:
All of your core points have been made repeatedly in other threads by UChicago alums or parents of current students. But we understand there is a bit more nuance to it than how you present in your posts.
For example, most of us already accept that ED I and ED II distorts yield. I consider this and other recent moves wholly unnecessary. But remember that just two years ago UChicago had only unrestricted EA and RD, and IIRC it had a yield over 60%, so it was already one of the most desirable colleges without playing games.
As far as the “Where fun goes to die”, that is students poking fun at themselves about the required workload. Students can take either 3 or 4 classes per quarter, and can graduate with an average of 3.5. Yet my D knows few that took 3, and those that do regret doing so. In other words, the kids at UChicago like to push themselves. Perhaps there are a few students that cannot keep up with workload, and for them that expression is true, but this doesn’t represent the majority of the class.
@Poplicola : According to [UChicago’s website for international applicants](https://collegeadmissions.uchicago.edu/apply/first-year-applicants/international-applicants)
It does not seem to confirm your comments above and all the media are saying "the University of Chicago announced that it will no longer require applicants to submit SAT or ACT scores. " Obviously it is not required according to UChicago’s website for international applicants. If what you said is true about financial aids, the information on school’s website is misleading at best to encourage those international students to apply for free to increase the denominator of admission rate calculation. Not many people want to choose a so-called #3 school given other choices is a big joke. If UChicago is really #3, just do it like HYPSM … EA/RD only.
Actually, what you quoted basically confirmed what I was saying. The test-optional policy is not applicable to students who attend high school outside the US, unless they are enrolled in IB or A-level programs. Being part of AP courses does not qualify. You must have taken the AP exams already at time of application (this is actually rare outside the US; vast majority of Canadian students for example take AP exams at the end of senior year).
Direct quote from current admissions officer:
UChicago clearly states on their admissions website that international admissions is need-aware.
https://collegeadmissions.uchicago.edu/cost-aid/international-financial-aid
@Poplicola : I guess most international applicants will bet they have nothing to lose (it is FREE!) to shoot for both need-based and merit-based aid since they are eligible. Ivies and most other top schools don’t give out merit aids. They have to donate at least $65 first to participate in the lottery for other schools. Using free app to attract more applications while others don’t do it is gaming the system. If Ivies start to do the same thing, you will definitely see their application numbers explode.
Its also interesting the lack of perspective on this issue, if I were an Admissions Dean at any elite university (except Stanford/Harvard/MIT as they have the best name recognition and public perception) I would do exactly what UChicago is doing. These ideas give UChicago the best ability to land the class they want. As I have said on other threads, doing anything else is not doing their job. Even Harvard and Stanford use holistic admissions to do exactly what the Universities want them to do (and in Harvard’s case, the reason they are being sued, which begs the question, why isn’t Stanford being sued?). To think that any university is altruistic in its admissions policies is simply a false narrative that some people wish to believe, and in some cases the universities (including SHM) themselves encourage.
Truly holistic includes scores. What’s the disconnect. Holistic means whole picture.