For what it’s worth, I think JHS may have gotten close to the core of the matter.
@JHS post #279 gets to the heart of the matter, and should be required reading for anyone interested in the reasoning (and problems) behind Chicago’s current admissions options.
A quick qualification though: I do NOT think that attaining a wealthy student body is a valid goal in and of itself. Rather, an institutional interest in wealth is one of many goals the U. has. Further, the allure of the wealthy applicant pool is irresistible - it checks so many boxes for the U. There are thousands of qualified, smart, curious, and high-achieving students in the wealthy applicant pool, AND they are full-pay, AND they’re generally well-connected, AND they could be important donors down the line.
Wealthy students in and of itself is definitely NOT the goal. If Nondorf admitted thousands of wealthy children who clearly were not qualified for Chicago, he wouldn’t last long in the post.
Now, if he can recruit (not intentionally, but based on the larger structures JHS notes) a wealthy base of curious. diverse (at least racially) students that faculty love to teach, AND these wealthy students can subsidize the way for lower SES students, that’s an alluring prospect…
And, that’s - most likely - exactly what is going on.
@marlowe1 - Here’s an article on Chicago’s pell grant recipients from (I believe) before ED: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/29/opinion/university-of-chicago-pell-grants-diversity.html
It seems like the rate hovers between 10-12%
“I keep reading on here that merit aid at UChicago has been cut substantially, so it isn’t clear to me that this could move the dial in the way you suggest.”
- @DeepBlue86 - it HAS been cut . . . . for the ED kids. It has NOT been cut for everyone else. UChicago is still known for giving out merit. There is another thread from an admitted student who spoke personally with Dean Nondorf and just got her merit increased. She's RD.
“In any case, looking at the percentage of students on Pell grants is one objective way to assess how well universities are doing at recruiting the poorest. By this measure, UChicago is notably behind all of the Ivies and Stanford (https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/economic-diversity-among-top-ranked-schools). I have to believe this is a by-product of starting to admit substantial majorities of its classes ED.”
- I think they've always been behind (or at least were "behind" prior to ED). Not sure of the change once ED kicked in.
Nondorf pointed out a few things about UChicago and Pell Grants in an OpEd piece last summer:
- 20% of UChicago undergraduates are Odyssey Scholars which means full tuition/no loans.
- This % will likely expand due to Empower (starting fall 2019).
He further points out that both Odyssey and Empower qualifications are wider than those who qualify for Pell Grants. In his view, that one stat seems to be rather limited in assessing whether UChicago truly helps those with significant need. 95% of low income students graduate with a job or other firm plans in place (ie grad school). Many of these kids don’t even qualify for Pell Grants.
I’d post the Op-Ed but there’s a paywall.
I tend to agree that Pell Grants are a tad limited because family income must be $50,000 or less. If someone’s family is, say, $51,000 and they are a better fit for UChicago than someone who does qualify, that student will be on full tuition as an Odyssey scholar.
Case against stated with eloquence and passion, @JHS …
Your post #272 did, however, make the case more narrowly on the basis of ED’s tendency to create a wealthier student body. I wasn’t suggesting that you should embrace it for that reason, only that it surprised me that you would regard that effect as in itself a negative one and an argument against. The reasons you have just given are better ones, though short of quite convincing me. And of course they are reasons you have given many times before (as are the reasons of all of us!).
I am far from convinced that this breaking from the pack is for the purpose of Chicago’s “lowering its admission rate artificially or increasing its tuition revenue nontransparently”. These are the canards of the gamesmanship brigade. There is a simpler explanation, and it is the avowed and explicit one - identifying and recruiting as many as possible of the kids who really want to be at the University. The use of ED for that purpose may be imperfect and may have some adverse effects, but it is not ignoble. And it is not exclusive: EA and RD remain available for kids unwilling to commit, some of them no doubt very desirable catches notwithstanding. ED 2 functions somewhat in that way as well.
I am for a mixed constitution. Is it fair to call you an absolutist on the subject - even if an idealistic one?
@Cue7 , it sounds like ED has not (so far) had much of an effect on the Pell grant percentages. I’m curious whether you agree with my hunch that Chicago’s lagging numbers in this area have more to do with the special impact of prestige on this pool of applicants.
@JBStillFlying - how does the merit aid work? Does admissions signal the students who deserve it, amd then financial aid determines who needs it?"
@Cue7 - Merit is from Admissions and results in a 4-year scholarship (renewable after each year as long as you continue to meet the criteria etc.). Need-based is from Fin. Aid and is a one-year grant. You need to re-apply every year. A student who is applying for Need Based and gets merit from Admissions will be given an amount to cover net need after the Merit has been deducted off the COA.
“Or, does merit aid simply go to the most qualified applicants as a recruiting tool?”
- It's a recruiting tool. Strict merit is neither something like Odyssey nor Empower (both grants being full tuition, I believe). It's something given to the EA/RD kids now, and used to be given out more indiscriminately prior to ED.
However, keep in mind that UChicago also has this kind of nebulous middle ground that is a combo. of renewable “merit” and need. For instance: Police and Fire and First Gen are automatic renewable scholarships even for ED kids, many of them being of more modest financial circumstances than what the typical ED kid is assumed to have by some posters here.
“If that’s the case, could wealthy students actually qualify for merit aid?”
- Yes they can. We've seen it happen for three years now and even prior to that!
“UChicago is still known for giving out merit.” That’s presumably because it’s the only school of its calibre that does give any merit aid. That’s not the same as saying that there’s a large number of students getting it, or that they’re getting a large amount. What’s the reason to think that there’s a huge amount of it being given out now? One anecdote on CC?
@Lea111 Depends on how you define merit, all of Stanford athletic scholarships are fully endowed scholarships not base on need at all. So they definitely give merit for athletics. One of the obvious reasons Harvard will never compete with Stanford for football players (among other reasons).
11% Pell grants and 20% Odyssey scholars, you would think most Odyssey scholars would be Pell grant eligible…
@JHS at #279 - your viewpoints are based on personal feelings and lack of comfort due to how ED is used at colleges in general. Understood. Addressing some of your issues:
“My problem with ED, and especially the extreme form of ED the University is using, is about 90% as described by my last post. It systematically favors applicants whose families are comfortable as full payors – not as a dark conspiracy among admissions officers, but as a structural matter – and when you admit such a large portion of the class that way you really close off opportunities to middle class kids. That’s true even if you maintain or even increase the number of actual poor kids enrolled.”
- Understood. My post above also mentions that UChicago didn't need to change the wealth distribution of its admitted students in order to realize a better revenue stream. However, it's likely that ED did result in some skewing to the wealthier side, just based on @HydeSnark's earlier posts (which don't take into account merit to those in need but hey - we simply don't have much information. Which is exactly why you are understandably applying how ED works for pretty much every other university to this particular institution.)
- Not entirely sure what constitutes "middle class" but the numbers that Dr. Google is giving me, if I extrapolate from our own family's experience with need-based at UChicago, suggest those kids should get roughtly between 1/3 to 1/2 tuition scholarship at UChicago. Maybe that's simply "too much" for some middle class families - some choose on price, and that's fine - but I and many others find that the FA awards are pretty fair and more generous than other top universities. Especially for a school that is an enthusiastic "first choice" for so many.
"My other issues are (1) it just looks cheesy to admit a much bigger percentage of the class ED than anyone else and to beam with pride at the resulting high yield/low admission rate for the class, (2) I believe eventually it has to suppress the number of RD applications submitted, because RD is such a poor chance of admission (but on this I’m probably wrong ), and (3) I wonder what proportion of ED (especially ED II) applicants are bona fide die hard Chicago enthusiasts and what proportion are settlers who have decided ED at Chicago is their best shot at a high-prestige university, and I’m not certain I prefer those kids to disappointed HYPS rejects with a chip on their shoulders, and even better some percentage of HYPS non-rejects who choose Chicago straight up when they have a choice. It would be worth a few points of yield to have more of those.
- Time will have to tell on these issues. I definitely had a concern that Nondorf is remaking the College in his own image but after meeting so many of these kids I'm not so worried about that anymore. I like how they seem to be reaching out into the hinterland to get some of these admits. Wait - Nondorf is actually FROM the hinterland. Hmm.
"It also matters to me that Chicago went from having the classiest admissions profile – unrestricted EA, which resulted in Chicago regularly getting more early applications than any of its peers – to having one that had previously been used only by colleges in desperate straits, like Tulane in the years after Katrina. And then upping the ante in the Prisoner’s Dilemma game by blowing through the informal 50% cap on ED admissions that was basically universal among elite-level institutions. Of course, I wouldn’t mind if Chicago broke from the pack for noble purposes, but I don’t think lowering its admission rate artificially or increasing its tuition revenue nontransparently are noble purposes.
- The question is whether they are allocating scarce funds more optimally and bringing in a better group of students as a result. Regarding the first question: that "classy" EA system did stuff like award merit to kids who committed that evening (because UChicago was first choice). That's not the best use of funds. Regarding the second, finding 700-800 bona fide UChicago die-hards with incredible stats isn't all that hard when you are searching for fewer than 1,000 kids in a pool of 13k-15k each year. Why not give them a chance to specify their preference? If full need is met, where's the sign of desperation?
ED is a tool. It’s how it’s used that matters.
Honestly, I suspect that most ED2 admits feel like my son did - he loved having TWO chances at a top school, and ED2 gave him the freedom to apply via the highly-restrictive SCEA w/o screwing up his chances at a top uni. elsewhere. More schools are embracing ED2, precisely because SCEA is so very restrictive. It’s a 2nd chance and I suspect most perceive it this way. With these admit rates, the “settle” hypothesis probably becomes less applicable.
You could be correct that the chip-on-shoulder attitude generates a higher level of achievement at the tippy-top of the curve. I do worry about lack of future PhD’s. But that’s an issue with many schools. The siren song of Management Consulting and Wall St. is heard by many at pretty much all the top schools.
“I think Chicago is a wonderful university, and its college a fabulous college. My kids had a great experience there – exactly what I hoped for them when they went to college. I want to see it recognized as the world-class institution it is, and I want to see it improve continuously and compete successfully for the best students in the world with all the other universities that attract those students. But not by cutting corners, not this way.”
- Not sure where this is coming from. The grad programs have been renowned for decades and the university has always been known as a "world class" institution. It was the College that went unnoticed.
- Let's suppose they kept the old admission plan and admitted 2,400 for a class size of 1,600 (like for class of '20). With this year's application pool, that's still a 6.9% admit rate, a percent lower than three years ago. So where, exactly, is the evidence that UChicago is trending AWAY from a world-class institution?
@marlowe1 - no, I don’t think the prestige argument holds water. If you look at top schools that have lots of pell grant recipients, they aren’t the “most” prestigious places: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2017/10/23/pell-grant-shares-at-top-ranked-colleges-a-sortable-chart/?utm_term=.97daa810641a
As seen there, schools like Vassar (23%) and Haverford (22%) do extremely well. The Vassar president was quite clear in the article - when the school went need-blind in 2007, they also invested a lot of resources/money into recruiting kids from all over. Schools that could be considered “more” prestigious, like Duke and Columbia, did not follow suit, and their numbers have remained stagnant.
So, no, I don’t think it’s a function of prestige. Rather, it’s a reflection of commitment. If Vassar and Haverford can get to 25%, why can’t Brown and Duke?
Interestingly, per Nondorf’s op-ed in the NY Times (that @JBStillFlying cites), 1 in 5 chicago undergrads is an Odyssey Scholar. Nondorf also argues that the NY Times (by citing only pell grant recipients) paints an incomplete picture of the school.
It’s great if there’s economic diversity at Chicago, but the Op-Ed is pretty rich, coming from the guy who is famously opaque with any admissions statistics whatsoever. Mr. Nondorf - if you’re willing to provide figures on Odyssey scholars, why not also give us the stats on ED and EA accepts?
“11% Pell grants and 20% Odyssey scholars, you would think most Odyssey scholars would be Pell grant eligible…”
- @Cue7 - not really. The cut-off on Pell is family income of $50,000 and most who are eligible have something like family income of $20,000. Pell may not be eligible for a whole lot of UChicago families who make toward the upper end of that range or just over.
“UChicago is still known for giving out merit.” That’s presumably because it’s the only school of its calibre that does give any merit aid. That’s not the same as saying that there’s a large number of students getting it, or that they’re getting a large amount. What’s the reason to think that there’s a huge amount of it being given out now? One anecdote on CC?"
@Lea111 - more than one anecdote. Those who apply non-binding and are in contact with Admissions know this. Most likely some don’t get any, as you pointed out. But EA/RD are a small group with year (possibly under 1,000?). The kid who was waitlisted was offered a decent chunk - at least by some people’s standards. That’s another anecdote. 
BTW, Merit will reduce your need but not necessarily eliminate it. It’s quite possible to get a combination of merit and need-based.
I cant believe such a thread would run almost 20 pages with 10+ new posts a day. But here is my observation based on my local competitive suburban high schools: there are generally two types of kids applying to UChicago ED—one is the kids who think they have no chance at HYPSM and the other is the kids who just want to study economics at Chicago. The first category is the vast majority (80% maybe) and the second category econ kids would probably choose Chicago no matter what.
I agree with JHS that with ED UChicago is basically netting all these HYPSM no-hopers—those who themselves think they have little chance. With ultra-low admit rates its almost indistinguishable between HYPSM rejects and admits, whose qualities are essentially the same except luck. It seems to be me that to get the top quality UC should take HYPSM rejects over HYPSM no-hopers any day, and 70% ED is just doing the opposite.
I don’t think that’s quite accurate. There are a large body of students who came here with romantic ideas about “life of the mind”, “quirkiness”, etc. and that value acquiring knowledge for the sake of it and like thinking hard and deeply about things. In my experience that group still makes a large part of the UChicago student body, and for many of them (I would hazard to guess even a majority), UChicago was their top choice. Otherwise, the schools they were considering were schools like Swarthmore or MIT (STEM focus nonwithstanding) that attract similar sort of romantic ideals, not HYPSM.
Wihle ED is an obvious choice for students looking for a “back door” into an elite school, ED is also an obvious choice for these sort of romantic UChicago idealists, and many of them apply then. College decision making is not uni (or even bi) dimensional along axes of cost or prestige.
What are the characteristics of an HYPS “no hoper”? Are they declining to apply SCEA based on fit, EC’s, academics, test scores, - ?
Also is an HYPS-deferred technically a “no hoper” or a “reject” because there were a lot of those deferred kids in the ED2 pool.
HydeSnark - Can confirm your statement, at least from a population of 1 (son). Not at all interested in HYM. Just slightly interested in SP. Not that he would have gotten in, but UChicago was not a school he chose as a no-hoper.
@HydeSnark - given what you are saying in #292 (still plenty of Life of the Mind romantic idealists showing up), and since you’ve spoken to hundreds of these kids spanning all four years of the college, what changes (even small changes) have you noticed between the last two EA/RD classes ('19 and '20) and the first two ED classes ('21 and '22)? I’m wondering in particular about the concerns that @JHS has been mentioning (ED kids “settling” on UChicago, fewer “chip on shoulder” types hoping to have something to prove, etc.) - whether you see those as a trend (even a small one at this point). You’ve pointed out the shift to more wealth - is there anything else?
Lord, this thread is too alive to die!
It’s been a long time since I was in high school, but I remember distinctly the various distortions, misinformation and dubious values encoded in the pecking order of those days. That might especially apply to a certain reverence accorded to the HYSP types, with their characteristic sporting, leadership and gregarious qualities, as against kids who measure things more idiosyncratically - the independent-minded, the eccentric, the more purely studious. If the latter tend to be more inclined to have Chicago as a first choice that doesn’t surprise me nor does it suggest that they are merely settlers. That’s high school talking.
So. I plan to apply ED to Chicago and given that I have legacy status at Harvard and have very competitive profile, I don’t think I am applying to Chicago because I feel that my chances at Harvard are low to negligible.
I am applying to Chicago because, I prefer the school’s free speech posture compared to Harvard. My Dad is pretty cut up about where Harvard has gone in the last decade or so and I tend to agree with him. I also like the structure of Chicago’s core curriculum better than Harvard’s gen ed curriculum. I also want to experience life outside the coasts.
I am sure there are more like me out there
Jeepers, @marlowe1 , no one (at least not I) means to suggest that there aren’t legitimately intellectual kids whose first choice (for various perfectly good reasons) is Chicago. It’s just that they aren’t the only cats in the jungle, so to speak. The dynamics of EDI and EDII practically guarantee that there will be other people trying as hard as they can to look like they are your favorite type of person, but aren’t. And some of them are getting admitted, too. None of us have any idea what the proportion is, but I’m pretty sure there will be plenty of both types.
Anyway, I want to object to some aspects of this sub-discussion. There’s no need to talk about “no-hopers”. That’s pretty dismissive. I prefer to think in terms of people who are legitimate candidates for any super-elite university, and ambitious enough to be interested in them. Some will want to see their applications through to a decision; others may decide to apply to Chicago ED as being a good enough option with a somewhat better chance of success. There’s nothing wrong with either course.
Also, the idealization of the latter-day marlowe1s, the lonely intellects on the prairie who care not a whit for the false glamour of coastal elites, and yearn (only slightly masochistically) for the rigor and monasticism of the University of Chicago. Give me a break! On CC, we are constantly beating down kids who announce that they have “always” wanted to go to Harvard and they just know they belong there. Why should it be any different for the kid who is in love with Chicago?
Twenty years ago, loving Chicago and being basically pretty smart was enough to get accepted there. Today, you probably need a lot more than that to avoid being tossed in the circular file after one reading, even ED. No one should be encouraged to believe that (or to act as though) Chicago is the only school for him. That’s not realistic. Anyone who is smart enough to be a good candidate for Chicago should be smart enough to be pursuing lots of different options for college. And if that doesn’t include an Ivy League college or three, I would really like to know what it is he sees in Chicago that he can get so much better elsewhere if Chicago doesn’t admit him?
Welcome to the UChicago forum…
Oh, c’mon ;-)…as if UChicago is the only place real students go to think…as if HYPSM didn’t have boatloads of really, really smart people chasing the life of the mind (as opposed to prestige, although that’s an added benefit), under the tutelage of professors I don’t think UChicago would scorn to hire. Spending some time on those campuses will reveal plenty of the intellectual creme-de-la-creme happily enrolled there (alongside the “sporting, leadership and gregarious” types to which @marlowe1 refers).
Regarding financial aid, @JBStillFlying:
Yale (to pick an example) disclosed that 20% of its class of 2022 are Pell grant recipients (close to 2x UChicago’s percentage), that 53% are receiving a Yale need-based financial aid award and the average need-based scholarship for aid recipients was $52,743, representing nearly 70% of the cost of attendance of $75,925 (https://news.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/Class_Profile_2022%5B1%5D.pdf, https://finaid.yale.edu/costs-affordability/costs#ECA). On average some 37% of Yalies (53% * 70%) are paying nothing.
Unfortunately, UChicago apparently doesn’t publish the Common Data Set, so I can’t compare detailed financial aid statistics for the current year, but the IPEDS database reveals that in the 2016-17 academic year, 63% of UChicago students were on grant or scholarship aid, receiving an average of $35,417. At Yale, it was 52% for $48,810. The average net price at UChicago was $34,834 as opposed to $18,053 at Yale. That seems to show that, two years ago, UChicago was spreading around some merit money but overall provided much less aid per student. Maybe things are changing now (perhaps the influx of ED-admitted full-payers is providing enough cash to pay more of the costs of those needing financial aid) - I guess you’d say time will tell.
https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=university+of+chicago&s=all&id=144050#finaid
https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=yale&s=all&id=130794#finaid