After a full year of speculation, opinion and conjecture on this site a few facts have emerged recently.
• The University of Chicago’s selectively rate has officially reached its the lowest level in school history at 5.9%.
• Despite implementation of the “test optional” feature, this year’s class has the highest standardized test scores in school history.
o U Chicago will once again have an incoming class with the highest average standardized test scores in the USA.
• Major scholarship funds were used to achieve even greater gains in diversity, and as such:
o First to college students reached an all-time high.
o Children of police, fire fighters, emergency workers, and teachers reached an all-time high.
o The incoming class will have nearly a dozen full scholarship students who earned veteran status by serving in United States military.
The evolution of cross admit data has been radical in the last 5 years.
• The data shows clear and consistent wins vs. the bottom of the Ivies, Duke and Northwestern. For example, U Chicago is now winning 9/10 against places like Cornell. A notable and recent difference in cross admit data with Yale is being linked to major gentrification in Hyde Park (and the new Obama Library) vs. serious declines in New Haven’s safety situation and Connecticut’s waning job market.
• The real battles are taking place with Stanford, MIT, and Harvard. Chicago is winning with certain regions of the country, and with certain majors—not surprisingly, economics. Stanford, MIT, and Harvard, are winning in key regions (New England) and with their stronger majors, namely computer science.
• All cross admit trends are moving radically in Chicago’s favor.
The “Chicago Statement” regarding free speech was once again discussed as a topic of interest to admitted students. Several students expressed excitement about expressing and defending their liberal and conservative points of view. One student (first to college, minority) said he turned down a full ride at Williams College in part because of William’s response to the Chicago Statement.
California and New York continue as nearly identical sources for students. Texas is the state with the highest growth in students as there are well over 100 in this year’s class vs. the high 70’s two years ago—no surprise in light of Texas economic and population growth.
Last, the academic calendar was discussed, and while no detailed plans and implementation dates were expressed, there is movement towards more traditional college dates.
@BronxBorn What is the source of your cross admit data?
About test optional and rising SAT score. Nobody expected SAT scores to not rise after going test optional.
LOL. Let’s keep it civil, people. There’s a lot of good material here for fruitful discussion.
Agree with OP on pretty much everything but the academic calendar part. My kid likes the pace so isn’t a fan of changing. Most like it or hate it depending on their own kid’s experience. Curious as to what @BronxBorn’s (and his/her DC’s) opinion is on the topic.
• There are likely dozens of complex operational and financial elements to the decision—all way above my pay grade.
• A reasonable argument surely can be made that U Chicago “outcomes” relating to graduate schools and careers are doing so well that there is no reason to fix it.
• That said, as a general rule, the USA, and world to a great degree, operate with the expectation that business, political, medical, scientific, law, and arts related internships are seasonal. The season is generally defined as May 15 until September 1.
It would seem that getting an academic calendar closer to the “season” could only help U Chicago students, and if the cost of changes related to providing this help is reasonable, then there would appear to be a solid ROI for such a change.
I will respectfully keep my sources private—they are solid.
For sure, the only goal of this post is to get the typical sharp witted and probing responses this board and U Chicago are known to foster. Most certainly want to keep the chat civil while having some fun with these hot takes. No doubt, I am a partisan Maroon fan and my views/hot takes intended to be like a Cubs trying to get a rise from Cards’ fans on an MLB board.
@BronxBorn , do you have any info as to where in Texas these one hundred kids are coming from? One would assume mainly the big cosmopolitan cities, Dallas, Houston, Austin, being perhaps children of transplanted northeners such as your moniker suggests might have been the case of your kid. It would interest me, as a former kid from Texas distinctly not of a cosmopolitan provenance, whether there are kids from smaller cities and towns in that mix.
The smart kids in small towns, not only in Texas but all across the midwest, often yearn for both intellectual challenge and a northern urban experience. Yet they formerly knew nothing about the University of Chicago. These days they do, and that may be making a difference.
@BronxBorn What % of its class is UChicago now taking through ED (combined ED1 and ED2)? How many “cross admits” are there with UChicago and other highly selectives if very few kids are getting admitted in RD compared to ED? Are you defining “wins” or “winning” as kids who get into UChicago RD plus EA who chose UC over those other schools, or kids who opted to go ED at UC?
Last year there were 5 cross admits and 2 of them came to UChicago, this year there were 4 cross admits and 3 of them went to UChicago. That’s an 87% increase in the rate of cross admits that chose UChicago! Amazing! ???
Note: those numbers were pulled out of my butt, but I find it difficult to believe that cross admit data has any predictive value of the actual desirability of UChicago vs other schools and isn’t just noise. The number of people actually getting into more than one elite school shrinks every year as the field gets more and more competitive. People choose schools for all sorts of esoteric reasons and there’s only like…what? 1250 kids admitted not ED these days? How many of them also applied and got into Yale? Is that enough to really make any definite conclusions?
I disagree, cross admits is the only way to work our relative desirability. That being said, if the population is too small, then it might not be conclusive… yet. If we have enough data though through the years, a trend might be established. Then even with low numbers, that would be meaningful.
I’m not sure it is the ‘only’ way, but i agree that if there is enough data, it is a good way.
I can’t wait for when UChicago is just accepted as being one of the great schools so those of us on the inside don’t have to continue to compare ourselves to the other great schools to justify our existence.
Why don’t we call that time as now and stop this game? I don’t go to the other great schools pages and see if they do this practice, but I suspect that they don’t. To quote a great athletic coach somewhere and sometime. “Let’s act like we belong.”
Cross admit, by definition, means that they have choice. It means EDs are not counted, because EDs preclude dual acceptance and choice (except for known exceptions that really only prove the rule). So no, the fact that one school offers ED does not affect cross admit numbers meaningfully.
^ But if a smallish number of admits are non-binding, then you are comparing the most competitive of candidates at one school to a broader cross-section at another. Why not just compare all who apply to each school? The decision to apply ED is a choice as well.
@BrianBoiler you obviously haven’t read the Stanford/Harvard cross admit threads…I’ve even read some articles quoting Stanford AO’s talking about how they track cross admits with other top schools and if they are winning those battles. Everyone does this.
