@JHS
There were at least 3 who apllied to UofC as ED1 students. They were deferred in December, chose to go into the ED2 pool, and were accepted. That’s why I was surprised. I thought for sure they would say ED/SCEA as their first choice. My kiddo was admitted ED1.
Applied
^^ @PepperJo did say those were ED2’s who had UChicago as first choice at the beginning.
This year UChicago invited at least some ED1-deferreds to switch to ED2, which at least appeared counter to prior protocols since no one has reported that happening before. Not sure which actual rules would be violated unless the organization that provides recommended guidelines for the various admission plans had restrictions on sticking with the same school for the other ED round. Many move on and do ED2 somewhere else. UChicago might have had some rules but the website doesn’t mention them currently and I suspect that they play this one year-by-year. According to kids on the FB page, they rejected a whole lot of ED1’s this year which also seems unusual compared to the two prior years.
The fact that they did allow some deferred ED’s to go another binding round suggested either that the pool of new ED2’s was “too small” or that there were some super-strong ED1’s that they simply didn’t have room for after the initial early round. Given that at least some ED1-deferred-switch to ED2’s were actually rejected in that last round, the pool must have turned out to be very strong (regardless of size).
This year - unlike the last two - there has been no mention of the early-deferred/accepted RD rate. There has also been no mention of the RD rate itself. Both are likely to be pretty low (like - lower than last year). However, the kids accepted RD after getting deferred are a tad more vocal this year since we’ve had at least two(?) post on CC. Hopefully they feel pretty good about beating such incredible odds, regardless of where they choose to attend.
Here’s another one (stumbled across this last night when I was searching for something else lol)
“The intuitive part is that any kid applying to HYPSM (or some combination thereof) plus Chicago is not likely to have Chicago as the top choice.”
Rory Gates could have gotten accepted in Harvard or any other school he chose. And I am sure he applied to one of the HYPSM. But he wanted UChicago and there he is right now.
@JHS - I promise I wasn’t looking at you when I referred to the “chip-on-the-shoulder boosterism” of some UChicago fans here. I meant those with a different sort of take on UChicago’s evolution; I’ll just leave it at that.
I wonder how many of those there were, and what percentage of them were ultimately admitted.
I guess the way it works at UChicago now is that they (i) skim the cream of those who apply ED I while making sure to leave some space (maybe enough for a little under half the class?), (ii) tell a group who missed the ED I cutoff that it might be a good idea to switch to ED II, (iii) see who pops up in the ED II round (e.g., how many ED I deferrals switch to ED II, how many kids missed with their early bullet elsewhere and applied ED II, etc.), then (iv) skim the cream of the ED II pool until 2/3-3/4 of the class is filled, (v) take a jump ball for a few stars in the RD round while waitlisting many who would be fine to round out the class and finally (vi) call around the waitlist to allocate the last few slots (if any) to those who will accept on the spot.
This is very different from how it works at the peer schools, of course, where (broadly speaking) about half of those ultimately expected to show up are admitted early, sometimes on a binding basis, sometimes not, and nearly all of the rest are a straight-up jump ball. It feels like UChicago is inviting applicants into a much more complex game - and one that savvy full-payers at prep schools are best-placed to play.
Just to be clear, ED2 is a binding decision but it is not truly “early“. The application deadline is January 1 just like for RD, and most who are applying ED2 applied ED, SCEA or EA elsewhere first. What ED2 accomplishes is to separate the applicants choosing the school on factors other than price from the rest of the RD pool.
Modifying post #245 a bit, University of Chicago probably admits about half the class from the Nov. 1 pools (ie ED1 and EA). A majority (2/3?) are ED1 so it remains the largest pool. The remaining half will be admitted from the Jan. 1 pools and it’s quite possible that RD is larger than ED2 (for instance, if the remaining spits total 1,100, there might be 500 ED2 and 600 RD). The resulting mix is probably 60% binding (ED1/2) versus 40% non-binding (EA/RD).
No reason why UChicago can’t offer the switch to ED2 to those deferred ED1’s. Those kids might otherwise be moving on to apply ED2 elsewhere.
You may have better information than I, @JBStillFlying (although I haven’t heard that the statistics have been formally disclosed), but, based on the anecdotes, purported Nondorf quotes, etc., on this forum, I’d estimate that UChicago admits meaningfully more than half the class ED I and a chunk ED II, with a quarter to a third divided among EA, RD and waitlist. I don’t think the number of apps, admit rate and class size line up otherwise. In fact, I thought you yourself had estimated elsewhere that 1,200 or more were admitted ED I/II this year out of a projected class size of 1,700-1,750.
@DeepBlue86 - the numbers have not been disclosed this year. You are correct about my estimation of ED1/2 but I go off ADMITTED not ENROLLED class. Let’s walk through those numbers.
Our best breakdown of ED1/EA comes from two years ago. At that time they admitted approx. 2/3 ED1, the rest EA. If the same ratio applies this year, then they admitted approx. 700 ED1’s and 350 EA’s. (That’s based on 15k early apps disclosed to WaPo and a 7% admit rate disclosed at early admitted events).
The percentage of admitted class that’s binding is going to be between 50% and 60% - I’d imagine closer to the higher end of that, and that’s based on conversations that families have had with admissions in the past. Honestly, I suspect it shifts a bit each year and that if they have a strong number of ED’s they will try to admit as many as possible up to a certain limit (and we know this due to those ED1’s who were deferred and invited to switch to ED2). Anyway, with 35k applications and a 5.9% admit rate, that means they admitted about 2,065 total. So we can see right away that they are admitting approximately 50% of the class in the ED2/RD round. Last year and the year before, they admitted slightly higher than 50%.
So: if up to 60% of the total admitted class is binding, that’s up to 1,239 (1,200 - 1,250 probably a decent range). If 700 or so are ED1, that means the remaining are ED2’s (so 500-550. I’m guessing 500 but really have no real knowledge). That leaves 865 Non-binding and of that 350 are EA. The remainder - 515 - is RD.
So, to recap:
2,065 total admits
700 ED1
350 EA
500 ED2
515 RD
ED1+ED2 = 58% of total admitted class
EA+RD = 42% of total admitted class
You are correct that about 65-70% of the ENROLLED class would be ED1/2 this year (assuming they hit their target yield and end up with 1,700-1,750 enrolled). Roughly, 99% of ED’s will matriculate so 1,188. That means that 512 - 562 of the non-binding admits will enroll. That’s a non-binding yield of about 60% - 65% which isn’t bad in the least. In fact, the higher end of that rivals the old overall yield for the Class of 2020 (the last class before they turned to ED).
Didn’t account for gap/z-list but that number probably stays consistent from year to year and shouldn’t mess up the above numbers.
TLDR: They’ve improved the yield of 65 - 70% of the enrolled class to practically 100%. The remaining is at a yield rivaling UChicago’s old yield prior to introducing ED. As long as quality of the class isn’t compromised in the process, and as long as they make it affordable for EVERY ED kid who needs financial assistance, these are superlative outcomes.
Just to add a few more numbers into the mix, there were just over 800 members who joined the 2023 admitted student FB page (only open to accepted students via a link in the portal) after ED1 and EA were released. There were approximately 1600 as of this week. Obviously not all accepted have joined the group.
“Rory Gates could have gotten accepted in Harvard or any other school he chose. And I am sure he applied to one of the HYPSM. But he wanted UChicago and there he is right now.”
Respectfully, extrapolating from a single data point isn’t a great way to bolster your claims. Let me talk about a school I am familiar with.
Many high profile CEOs/celebrities have sent their kids to Duke in recent years (Mary Barra - CEO of GM; Jamie Dimon - CEO of JP Morgan, Bruce Springsteen - no explanation required, Harold Hamm - billionaire oil tycoon, etc. etc.) These kids could’ve gone anywhere. They picked Duke because they preferred it over schools like Harvard. That doesn’t mean the average applicant would do the same thing. These kids have different priorities/concerns and they are not a representative sample of prospective students.
@paxfobiscum , I believe Rory Gates applied ED1, as would be expected for most who have Chicago as their first choice. It certainly doesn’t surprise me of all people that kids who can be assured of acceptance at or at least have a shot at acceptance at one of the prestige schools (and one assumes that Rory would be in the first category) will elect for Chicago. I was making the point that they will normally make that election at the early stage. Whereas applying RD to multiple schools which include Chicago and the HYSP group tells me that Chicago isn’t the first choice: most of the true-believing Chicago people with HYSP-capable credentials will no longer be around. It is hard for me to imagine a kid applying in the late round and seeing one of those prestige schools as a backup in case Chicago doesn’t come through. Yet we have @Bronxborn 's sources saying otherwise - and even that public source showing much improved performance in these late-round matchups. I’m a bit skeptical, but it could be. @JBStillFlying seems to have met a few kids who were leaning toward Chicago but also had an offer in hand from one of those schools.
@JBStillFlying - It seems to me that your analysis rests on two basic assumptions: (i) the ED I:EA ratio this year will have been the same as two years ago; and (ii) the percent of the class that’s admitted on a binding basis is between 50% - 60% (based on anecdotal discussions with admissions officers in the past).
I am skeptical of both of these assumptions because, if I recall correctly, two years ago was either prior to or the first year of ED II (which I seem to remember was introduced as a kind of surprise/afterthought, and must surely have grown in size/importance). Unless the number of ED I offers has shrunk (which I don’t believe anyone is suggesting), I think it stands to reason that the proportion of ED I and ED II combined have expanded, at the expense of EA and, possibly, RD.
UChicago seems disinclined to disclose detailed information, which makes one wonder what they’re hiding. I could imagine, though, that if they were, for example, admitting 600 - 800 kids ED I and another 600 - 800 ED II (representing on average close to 80% of the enrolled class), they wouldn’t want that to be widely known, since anyone who wasn’t prepared to commit to UChicago from the outset would assume that they were probably wasting their application fee. Following on from that, if, say, close to 80% of the class was admitted on a binding basis, it would imply that the yield from the non-binding admits would be around 50%, which would be another thing UChicago wouldn’t want to advertise.
Merely having a high yield isn’t a “superlative outcome” in and of itself, even if you manage to hold quality and affordability constant. Focusing on yield as an objective to be managed seems like part of the problem to me, not a solution to anything.
“Superlative outcomes” for me would be enhancing the quality of the student body, garnering additional respect for the University and the College both outside Hyde Park and within the student body and the faculty, establishing a reputation for competitive and adequate financial aid among potential applicants with need, and working toward a student body that is more diverse in wealth terms (among other things) than it has been in the past.
I don’t doubt that many people at the University are, in fact, working to achieve those goals. But high yield is not directly related to any of them. The current extreme-ED approach works against some of them.
“@JBStillFlying - It seems to me that your analysis rests on two basic assumptions: (i) the ED I:EA ratio this year will have been the same as two years ago; and (ii) the percent of the class that’s admitted on a binding basis is between 50% - 60% (based on anecdotal discussions with admissions officers in the past).”
- @DeepBlue86: Of course. I can only go on the most recently available information.
“I am skeptical of both of these assumptions because, if I recall correctly, two years ago was either prior to or the first year of ED II (which I seem to remember was introduced as a kind of surprise/afterthought, and must surely have grown in size/importance).”
- Um, actually, ED1 and ED2 were introduced together for the 2016-17 admission cycle. It took families by surprise for sure - but schools have been taking families by surprise for at least the past three years now. Watch those summer press announcements!
Best advice I can give anyone after dealing with college admissions for the past five years: expect the unexpected.
- Will agree that ED2 has probably grown in size and importance from the perspective of families figuring out how to use that admissions opportunity. Recall that UChiago's application pool actually declined during that first year of the new admissions plan. That was hardly surprising, given the drastic change. We had attended an admissions event that summer and families - and the Admissions counselors! - were still a bit in the past. No one was really talking up the new plans. They mentioned them, but they didn't talk them up or explain why they were changing. Bad messaging likely lead to the decline. But the next year, they had their act together and application numbers increased by +5,000 and then +3,000 this year.
“Unless the number of ED I offers has shrunk (which I don’t believe anyone is suggesting), I think it stands to reason that the proportion of ED I and ED II combined have expanded, at the expense of EA and, possibly, RD.”
- The number of ED1/ED2 APPLLICATIONS surely has expanded, and that explains the large reported number of ED1/ED2 rejections this year. However, they are obviously constrained on how many they can admit. We've met a LOT of RD kids over the past two months and, by the way, it's surprising how much they defy "conventional wisdom" on which admissions plan they "should" have chosen. Same with the ED kids.
“UChicago seems disinclined to disclose detailed information, which makes one wonder what they’re hiding. I could imagine, though, that if they were, for example, admitting 600 - 800 kids ED I and another 600 - 800 ED II (representing on average close to 80% of the enrolled class), they wouldn’t want that to be widely known, since anyone who wasn’t prepared to commit to UChicago from the outset would assume that they were probably wasting their application fee”
- Based on my son's admissions events the two largest admit groups are ED1 and RD. Highly doubt they admitted 600 ED2. But you are correct that they don't disclose. We are all merely speculating and using data and information that we obtain to help us with that. Wild guesses aren't going to be very useful or helpful to future applicants.
“Following on from that, if, say, close to 80% of the class was admitted on a binding basis, it would imply that the yield from the non-binding admits would be around 50%, which would be another thing UChicago wouldn’t want to advertise.”
- Yield from non-binding was higher last year so I doubt it will be 50% this year. Last year they oversubscribed precisely because MORE non-binding admits enrolled than they thought would happen. Hence the hurried work on I-House and all the complaints from parents of RD kids who ended up there :wink:
@JHS - agree with your post #253. Yield is an outcome related to the expected realization of longer-term positive outcomes. While UChicago is projecting, the yield is a here-and-now statistic that reveals what might happen. That’s why looking at yield is important.
““Superlative outcomes” for me would be enhancing the quality of the student body, garnering additional respect for the University and the College both outside Hyde Park and within the student body and the faculty, establishing a reputation for competitive and adequate financial aid among potential applicants with need, and working toward a student body that is more diverse in wealth terms (among other things) than it has been in the past.”
- From what I know by talking to insiders on the academic side, quality hasn't been hurt in the least. Everyone has different metrics; mine would be the academic and other achievements accomplished while at the University of Chicago.
- Regarding Fin. Aid, I believe they have really plumped up those funds over the past few years. Anecdotally, I spoke with several ED kids who maintained that the university hands out very generous amounts of aid. Also anecdotally, we don't tend to read posts complaining about lack of aid at UChicago. CC posters aren't a representative sample by any means (even at elite schools); however, I recall that when D was applying there were a few other schools with major complaints about aid from the ED round.
- Can't answer to the diversity in wealth. That's an ongoing subject of debate here and probably will continue well into the future.
- "Garnering respect for the University and the College both outside Hyde Park and within the student body and the faculty": Choosing 70% of your enrolled class via ED probably takes care of the student body, whether anyone agrees that this would be the best way to go about "garnishing respect." - or not.
As for the surrounding community, I’m not sure what everyone’s reading in the press is a good indication of how at least some in that group view the university. Admittedly, I don’t have much first-hand information and what I have is confined to the Woodlawn neighborhood and based on conversations with residents who live around the university’s expanded footprint (so 60th - 63rd). No one really spoke much about the Obama Pres. Center. Not clear what’s going on with that. But residents - including AA residents - had a high opinion of the university and the investment that they’ve made in the surrounding area. There is new and expensive residential development happening south of 61st and a realtor I know who lives in the area was able to point out areas of Woodlawn which are expected to see additional development. The new retail/residential complex on 63rd and Cottage Grove aren’t filled yet with businesses at the ground level so jury’s out on that. But the signs are hopeful.
To be clear, not saying that the university is making a direct investment in residential or other development in Woodlawn (wouldn’t know either way). But the expanded presence, at the very least, is building up the neighborhood. And I believe it’s helped make some K-12 educational opportunities possible.
Perhaps that’s not what you are thinking about, @JHS, but we might have different takes on this issue.
As to the faculty - well, from what I’ve noticed for the past 30+ years, faculty complain about pretty much every institution they are at - including the top places. Faculty like to complain.
Hard to disagree with your statement of objectives, @JHS , but the statistics we have been discussing here are connected to those objectives.
Yield and numbers of applicants mean very little to me in themselves, but they must be saying something about the desirablility of the university in the eyes of applicants, and desirability must be saying something about those underlying qualities of excellence. That is why the stats are so highly disputed - embraced by Chicago lovers as confirmation of excellence, rejected by detractors as a product of gamesmanship.
We can’t seem to escape the effects of ED in these discussions. Those effects involve numbers, but at bottom they are qualitative. We don’t need to rehash the debate that took place in the foregoing pages, but I strongly dissent from the proposition that ED is working against these qualities of excellence. I would go so far as to say that its effect works to preserve the unique culture of the College in an era of high yield, high numbers and enhanced popularity. You would put it differently. That’s why it’s a debate - and an important one.
When I said that high yield was not “directly related” to any of my preferred superlative outcomes, that was meant to leave some room for some obvious benefits of the current policy. Yes, if you select 70% of the class ED there’s a good chance that lots of them will be really happy to be there, which is supposedly unlike the past. (Unfortunately, the game-theory dynamics of ED, and especially ED II, pretty much guarantee that some portion of the ED acceptees – nowhere near a majority, I hope – harbor resentments and second thoughts over “settling” for Chicago.) Yes, if you report an acceptance rate that looks like Harvard’s and Yale’s, people aware of little else are more likely to see you as a true peer of them and other, similar colleges.
By the way, “outside Hyde Park” was meant to refer to New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo, London, Paris (and New Haven, Palo Alto, Princeton, Cambridge, the other Cambridge, Oxford, etc.) more than just to Woodlawn or Kenwood.
@JBStillFlying - you’ve already acknowledged that about 2/3 of the enrolled class was admitted on a binding basis. That in itself makes UChicago a major outlier, and renders comparisons of its yield to the peer group irrelevant. I think you also indicate that the proportion admitted on a binding basis would have been higher but for the unexpected over-enrollment.
We agree that the number of ED I/II apps has very likely grown, possibly by a lot (given that the options weren’t initially widely publicized), but you seem to think UChicago must have kept the number of admits from the ED and EA pools at the same level. I don’t see any reason to assume that - rather the opposite, since the number of strong candidates would likely have increased in absolute terms, enabling UChicago to lock in more full-payers and goose yield without a sacrifice in quality. The only real constraint I see is that UChicago can’t admit absolutely everyone ED, because the RD pool would collapse when people figured it out…
Based on the above (and the entirely reasonable belief that if UChicago won’t provide the actual numbers, it’s because they think applicants and their parents will be turned off by the message they convey), I extrapolate that the current proportion of the class admitted on a binding basis this year could be 70% - 80%. That would still leave hundreds of RD admits to support your anecdotes.
“@JBStillFlying - you’ve already acknowledged that about 2/3 of the enrolled class was admitted on a binding basis. That in itself makes UChicago a major outlier, and renders comparisons of its yield to the peer group irrelevant. I think you also indicate that the proportion admitted on a binding basis would have been higher but for the unexpected over-enrollment.”
- Couldn't agree more on being an outlier. As to yield, all universities strive to admit kids who really really want to go there. That typically leads to all sorts of great outcomes. So high yield tends to indicate good news, regardless of ED/SCEA/EA. Unless, of course, the university is sacrificing stuff like quality and affordability.
We agree that the number of ED I/II apps has very likely grown, possibly by a lot (given that the options weren’t initially widely publicized), but you seem to think UChicago must have kept the number of admits from the ED and EA pools at the same level. I don’t see any reason to assume that - rather the opposite, since the number of strong candidates would likely have increased in absolute terms, enabling UChicago to lock in more full-payers and goose yield without a sacrifice in quality."
- That's not what we are seeing from the students admitted. Lots of EA and RD (esp. the latter). There's no basis to assume they've done anything substantially different from what happened a couple years ago. Best guess is that those numbers will vary from year to year. Last year, for instance, it appeared that the EA-admits were greater in number than the year before, but that's just an impression. No hard numbers either way.
Last year they underestimated yield, remember. It wasn’t the binding admits who surprised them - it was the non-binding. My guess this year is that those admitted groups are SMALLER than they were last year. Evidence: last year they announced the RD admit rate. This year, they did not (I’m also cheating a tad. I know what that rate is because someone asked and was told.)
“The only real constraint I see is that UChicago can’t admit absolutely everyone ED, because the RD pool would collapse when people figured it out…”
- Newsflash: EVERY SCHOOL would admit ED if they could! Except maybe HYPS . . .
“Based on the above (and the entirely reasonable belief that if UChicago won’t provide the actual numbers, it’s because they think applicants and their parents will be turned off by the message they convey), I extrapolate that the current proportion of the class admitted on a binding basis this year could be 70% - 80%. That would still leave hundreds of RD admits to support your anecdotes.”
- Let's take an average of your range: 75%. That means, out of 2,065 admits, about 1,550 were admitted binding. You believe only 515 were admitted EA/RD? I know the RD rate is low, but it's not THAT low! LOL.
Edit/update: I suppose you would be correct if 100% of the non-binding were admitted RD. But we do know some EA’s so . . .