Hmmmmm, well apparently to Harvard it means quotas…….
To UChicago it apparently means don’t let your scores hold you back……………………….well,………… especially if your very talented in another area besides test taking.
and I imagine that applicants that don’t send scores will be evaluated in that context (IOW holistic).
Maybe true holistic includes some stats- GPA and possibly AP scores- but not necesarily SAT/ACT.
I think the “armchair” holistic view we can take is that there are many reasons why a kid might choose to apply-- and many reasons to choose not to yield. Sometimes, it may be another preferred college accepts. Or costs are lower elsewhere. Or social reasons. It can even be Chicago, the city.
LEAVE U OF CHICAGO ALONE!!
(okay, I had to get that joke out of my system… :)) )
“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.”
This is a ridiculous statement. As pointed out, the yield under a 100% non-binding admissions policy was in the mid-60’s. When they introduced EDI and EDII they had an overwhelming response with absolutely ZERO subsequent drop in quality of the class. No one had to apply ED.
Unlike other schools, UChicago has always had a huge number of early applications: around 12,000 - 13,000 in each of the past four years, two of which were entirely non-binding admissions. So RD doesn’t even have the same meaning as it does for other places. If a sizable number of admittable applicants opt for early or binding admissions, that’s a strong indication that you should continue with those policies.
“Most people want to have fun at college.”
the nice part about being the #1 country in the world with top universities and colleges is that there is something here for everyone. For example, my kid at UChicago had tons of fun her first year and has been discussing staying in Hyde Park over next summer so she can take additional classes (NB: not sure we can afford that w/o more Fin. Aid). Like @Hebegebe’s kid, she took a 4-course load all three quarters as did her friends, and is expecting to do the same in 2nd year. She is by no means an outlier on campus; in fact, I’d say that she’s pretty typical except maybe for her brand of parka 
@JBStillFlying : Since there is no way to confirm the early application number you quote, I just assume it is true. I can easily calculate real RD yield for all other top schools based on their ED statistics and RD statistics which UChicago keeps as a top secret.
Let’s continue the calculation done on #362 – Assuming early application number of 12,500, there were 27,694 - 12,500 = 15,194 applicants at RD last year. With an RD admission rate of 4% this year, I would adjust it to 5.5% rate for last year based on relative RD acceptance rates of other top schools. You got 15,194 * 0.055 = 836 acceptances at RD.
Now, the real question is how many students were already accepted at EDs?? Why is this number considered top secret? Because if UChicago has filled 80% of its class size of 1735, there were 347 seats left. It looks like even with 836 students admitted at RD, the school can’t fill 347 seats since some were accepted later out of waitlist. Is this highly selective? The whole scheme is designed with a fraudulent mind. Most people are fooled.
Long time ago when UChicago did not play games, although the applicant number was small, the number was real and the applicants were genuinely interested in UChicago. Now with this free admission lottery game playing, a large number of so-called applicants are betting without committing any money.
You can just google “Why is UChicago known as the university where fun goes to die?”, you can easily find comments from Quora and other sources from people associated with UChicago. Please don’t be humble. Your kid must be really good academically to enjoy UChicago. Congratulations.
We are dealing here with an instance of UChicago derangement syndrome. The interesting question for me - and perhaps a topic for the UChicago thread - is what about the University of Chicago inspires this level of animus. It’s as though the place has gotten too big for its britches. When it was a special taste and a place known to few it had few detractors. It’s as though in its present moment of popularity it needs to be taken down - hence the obsessive focus of these commenters on Chicago’s every policy move being about gaming the rankings, as if that’s the source - an illegitimate one - of this new popularity. This says more about the values of these commenters than it does about the goals of the University. However, as @nrtax33 's posts show, it’s not only about the rankings obsessiveness - any reason at all to disparage the place will do, even the old accusation that it’s where “fun goes to die”. Or is it that the Chicago way of always doing things a bit differently from the ivy league schools and yet being a peer of those schools enrages the folks who believe there really is only one model of higher education and that HYSP is it? It’s reasonable enough to prefer another school for any number of reasons, but why all this negative energy directed at the U of C by folks who hardly know and do not care to inform themselves about its culture or history? Anyone got any ideas?
@nrtlax33 the (new) RD accept rate was 4% for the Class of 2021 as well. The overall RD rate - including deferrals - for Class of 2021 was 2%. Probably similar this year.
What’s happening is that those “genuinely interested” are now applying ED - or at least EA. They always applied early but now there are more options. If UChicago is your #1, you apply EDI. If you want a chance at an Ivy first but UChicago is a strong #2, you apply EDII (depending on the outcome of the REA elsewhere). If you have a strong preference for UChicago but you are price sensitive (conditioned on fin. aid) then you apply EA. All others apply RD.
This isn’t fraud - it’s market segmentation.
UChicago didn’t need to play games “a long time ago” because the College was only about 1,800 in total with an admit rate of over 50%. Now it’s 1,800 PER CLASS and an admit rate of a little over 7% (for the class of 2022). It’s ok to change around a few admission policies to handle the additional volume.
The College hasn’t officially released any early admissions data for the past several years - even before EDI/EDII. But they disclose some stats to the families at the admitted receptions and that information tends to make it into CC. Perhaps what Admissions would like is for more to ask them things like “what percentage of the class are you thinking of admitting ED?”. Someone I know who asked that question was told it could be as high as 60%. My best guess is 50 - 60 in any given year. Given that RD has about a 30% yield (because everyone who’s more interested has applied under one of the other plans) you can bet that a good number of any matriculating class has been admitted ED.
@marlowe1 - mavericks always catch flack. UChicago seems to relish it.
Thing is that their ED policy demise was predicted last year to no avail. Approximately 4,000 more applied in the regular around this year than last. @nrtlax33 would actually know that if he/she bothered to read the previous threads.
Here is 2018 Best Colleges with No Application Fee in America from NICHE
Wait! UChicago is the only so-called elite school here again :-/ :-/
Yes. It is up to the general public to decide if UChicago’s motive is noble. I would like to repeat that those free applicants need to be discounted. I suspect the number this year is directly related to the dragon kids. Maybe UChicago would be the first school PAYING applicants to encourage them to apply. That would be a real innovation and headline news. “We would like to thank you for your time applying to UChicago. Here is your $75 gift card.” (I got $75 from Audi last week for a test drive.)
@marlowe1 I have no dog in this hunt. And u Chicago is a great school. My cousin was dean of the med school a few years back. My understanding is it is a tough school with focused students.
But on CC one can see many folks using its “life of the mind” and it’s unique selectivity that puts it above the fray and certainly above all the unwashed masses type of feel. Not that it’s a hundred percent. But enough for me to notice and I like the school.
Perhaps that is a reason for the high volume here.
It doesn’t matter to me one iota if they pick kids from a bingo machine or exclusively by act or sats. I think it’s just a hey. Don’t look down at my education and yours as superior. It still may be true. Just a bit odd based on the general rep of we are hard and tough We don’t care about being easy or more available. Two different vibes and it can’t be both in some eyes.
I don’t quite get that vibe. I think it’s just overly enthusiastic parents being proud of the college their kids are attending – you can find them on every college’s forum.
I’m just an alum who graduated quite a few years back, and I’ve lost interest in the whole college admissions business. Just on here to point out the facts about this test-optional policy.
If standard tests such as SAT/ACT can be coached, the essays can not only be coached but also easily faked! There are so many essay coaching/writing agents out there!
There are many examples of successful college essays out there. I have recently been reading through those posted on the Johns Hopkins website. They are delightful and really paint a picture of each student. But they don’t read like they were written by professionals. They read like they were written by smart and thoughtful kids. I couldn’t help thinking of all the things I would have edited, modified or “polished” if my daughter had presented me with one of these essays. It was eye opening. I find it hard to imagine the professional who is so talented that he or she could write such illuminating essays with such a genuine voice. I have seen the before and after examples on many of the coaches sites and they are uniformly awful. They read like plastic cookie cutter cliches following some rubric. I would have no trouble spotting one of these.
If I were an AO looking at a flawless, professional looking essay, it had better come from someone whose entire application screams “writer.”
I don’t think the great essays are as easy to buy as people here assume.
@Poplicola
@marlowe1 asked the question “does anyone have any ideas?”
I was responding to that question. Trying to formulate an idea why so many people seem to be calling out u of c on this policy change.
It wasn’t saying how I felt, other than a bit surprised. Reading some responses that hinted at u if c being singularly unique, its sole focus on academics at all costs. Other collegiate benefits don’t matter type of stuff.
And I was definately not bothered by it. But if u of c ‘s institutional DNA is a scientific approach to life. There’s a mismatch here.
This decision seems to fly in the face of that heritage.
Why eliminate an imperfect but only universally consistent statistical gauge like the sat and act.
At least as part of the puzzle. No one thinks it should be only rank and tests.
But of all schools where it would be much more scientific than holistic - wouldn’t it be u of c and cal tech.
So it seems a bit incongruous is all.
@privatebanker , as has often been said on the Chicago forum, none of us Chicago true believers claims that a good education can’t be had at many another school or that many another school doesn’t have a cohort of very serious students with the same sort of intellectual aspirations that can be found at Chicago. It would be silly to make any such claim, and no one is making it. Our claim is that the student culture of Chicago does indeed privilege intellectual achievement, with the result that it is denser and more dominating of other student interests than at almost any other school. A certain kind of student is very much attracted to that culture; at Chicago you will not have to seek it out among some subset of the like-minded: it permeates the entire College and gets everyone’s respect. The Core is part of this: it assures that almost everyone will read a selection of the same books and study the same problems. Thus there will be conversation and debate about the big ideas outside the classroom as well as in it. Applicants to Chicago know this, and a reading of what they say on cc shows that that is why they especially gravitate to Chicago, in the face of - or perhaps because of - its lack of the many things the ivy schools have to offer, not the least being name recognition. But these lacks are also part of the Chicago brand. No one has to like any of this, and indeed I want those who don’t like it to stay away. But why the sneering tone and the peculiar negativity directed towards Chicago? Perhaps you’re right in suggesting that what you call the “unwashed masses” are made just a bit uptight by all this. But where do you get the idea that this Chicago ethos means “looking down” on anyone? To me it looks like the denigration mostly flows the other way - against Chicago rather than by Chicago against any other school. No, each school ought to follow its own genius. I say, let Chicago be Chicago, let Michigan be Michigan, let Notre Dame be Notre Dame and even (though I have to swallow hard to say it) let Harvard be Harvard.
I agree with everything you said. I was only trying to answer your question. When you said “any ideas” I took you literally.
The point of this thread is about U of C dropping the standard exams as part of the process of choosing these new students .
Not the vibrancy or value of the u of c culture or experience.
I have no idea about any of those questions.
My perspective is over a lifetime and within these pages. And how I come to my personal evaluation of anonymous posts is not valuable or germane to this thread.
It’s just how I feel and an observation.
But if that u of c culture exists. As stated , It seems a bit less than coolly scientific and intellectually credible to remove the only common set of data shared by all test subjects.
I e. The students applying.
I would ask a question in return. Why would a school with such a history of rigor and intellectual meritocracy eliminate as part of the “stew” the one ingredient that tests everyone on the same body of knowledge. And I am not asking if the tests are perfect or wholly probative. It’s only part of the jigsaw puzzzle. But why remove all the straight edges and leave only the unique individual peices to fit it all together. It may look the same but it’s not quite all of the pieces to the picture
So that in a nutshell answers your any ideas question. And go U of C!
Good night and thanks for your responses.
Post 435
Well said
Very good question. Why would a school which wants to test everyone on the same core curriculum do this?The answer is “increasing the number of applicants”. UChicago’s average SAT score number is similar to MIT’s number. Without dropping its core curriculum, do you think those low stats kids have a chance to survive? Last semester at my kid’s school, the average score of a particular mid-term of a math course is at the low 70s. There were at least 2 kids scoring above 100 (with bonus points) and there were some scoring way below 50. Actually this is the case for almost every STEM course. UChicago definitely knows they can’t actually set them up for failure. UChicago won’t admit those kids. If you look at the pattern of what UChicago has been doing, the motive for the whole SAT/ACT saga is obvious. MIT is much more honest. MIT is not pretending that those low stats kids have a chance to survive.
Here we go again with the “those low stats kids.” Lol. Lower than the top scoring kids? Yes. So low as to be dysfuntional? I highly doubt it. Their apps will still be screened for strengths needed. And nothing says this wider pool will be all about STEM. There’s’ more to the touted “life of the mind” than STEM. Or math class prospects. MIT, in contrast, is in large part a tech school.
"Why would a school with such a history of rigor and intellectual meritocracy eliminate as part of the “stew” the one ingredient that tests everyone on the same body of knowledge. "
It’s a legitimate question and one that some UChicago faculty we know are asking. They thought the Nondorf explanation was ridiculous. If you truly want to know how to succeed at UChicago, you don’t start with the class you’ve already selected because you believed those are the kids who will succeed at UChicago. As mentioned previously, JJ Heckman has worked on how to get around “selection bias” so Admissions could have benefitted from his advice. Unless (they figured) it was something they didn’t want to hear.
There’s no doubt that testing has taken a dive off the deep end of the pool and shot its cred among many top schools. But that’s not why UChicago went test optional. They know full well that test scores matter in general or else they would have dropped the requirement years ago instead of bragging about their amazing SAT average. If anything they use them to distinguish among otherwise identical candidates from the same high school. They also know that they contributed to the perceived problem of “testmania” by offering to "superscore"just like everyone else. Superscoring began as a way of equalizing the disparate problems with the old SAT which could have wildly different outcomes across administrations, but has spiraled out of control as adcoms quickly discovered that the practice enabled them to admit weaker testers (who retest several times) and still preserve or improve their selective score ranges. There was no need to superscore the new SAT nor the ACT.
UChicago may have discovered that they have maxed out their ability to cull further from the lower SES groups on superscoring alone. In order to increase representation from these groups and preserve - or improve - their already stellar score range, they will now drop the requirement. They know full well who will be sending in scores and who won’t, and they completely control who they admit from each group anyway.
The trick will be how to find those who will do well at UChicago despite the lack of test score as a standard measure of aptitude. A pitch video sounds great, but really is no substitute. However, given best practices and standardization of college prep curricula, as well as undoubtedly better outreach to high schools than used to exist back when I applied to college, GPA and high school course load might be sufficient to assess a small group of kids, especially those not facing a wave of UChicago applications from their own classmates (assuming that SAT/ACT serves at all to distinguish among various candidates from the same schools - which is probably does). And when Nondorf said test scores don’t predict how well you’ll do in Art History - he wasn’t kidding! Lower test scores historically have been associated with the decision to major in humanities and most social sciences, regardless of your initial major goals. Those majoring in STEM or economics have tended to have higher overall test scores. That’s likely also a big reason why test scores don’t predict “success” for a college’s enrollees when you are defining “success” to be overall GPA. GPA disparities tend to lessen for a class over time as everyone gravitates to what they can excel at as well as enjoy. So Nondorf has found a way to bring in a broader diversity of student AND bolster some less popular majors. Well done, Dean Nondorf! =D>
But what about that grueling Core? Well, it offers a much broader and more diverse selection of sequences than it used to. The math core no longer requires that you learn Calculus and you can substitute in a general stats or CS sequence for “math”. There are a whole lot of interesting but less taxing physical and bio science sequences for the non-majors. There are more hum and sosc. choices than ever. Civ. covers the gamut of cultures and issues. In other words, there’s something in the Core for everyone. Your only requirement - and your biggest asset - will be a willingness to work hard and enjoy the intellectual engagement. Admissions can probably find a whole lot of successful applicants who have these traits without having to look at their test scores.