Admit Rates, Standardized Test Averages, Cross Admit Results

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Chicago ✅
401

@HydeSnark - yes, I definitely think the student body is happier now. That’s hard to quantify, but that’s the vibe I get. The pie has definitely grown, too - yes, there are quirky Chicago types, but there are a lot more, well, winners on campus now. Serious, elite soccer players, presidents of student bodies, etc…

Also, @marlowe1 - while your affinity for the U. is strong, surely you must admit that there’s a much healthier array of options/supports surrounding students now, as opposed to the more monastic experience we had. There was no arts center, no nice gym, no Institute of Politics, no growing slate of restaurants when we set up shop in Hyde Park…

Finally, @JBStillFlying - per what DeepBlue says, do you see any tradeoffs with Nondorf - any tradeoffs at all?

402

At risk of beating a dead horse:

-First-year is clearly enjoying his time here, which is neat.
-My dude clearly hangs out in different social circles, because I have met students here who own 59 cars or are members of clubs with $5M entrance fees and let me assure you, they want the world to know it. (Both those figures are real examples).
-“Work harder lmao” is as substantive as “just be smarter” as a solution for the average student.
-Anecdata is one thing, but this article has actual numbers. We’re “the country’s least economically diverse top college.” https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/29/opinion/university-of-chicago-pell-grants-diversity.html
-There are tradeoffs and the college does stuff with that donor money, nobody’s denying that
-The tradeoffs do exist, as @DeepBlue86 and most of the current students on this forum have pointed out.
-I doubt our rich people are magically more gracious about their wealth than Hahvahd’s
-Happy Easter.

403

@DunBoyer - that sounds about right. Time for some on this thread to wake up and smell the tradeoffs.

404

Ah, @Dunboyer , so young and so cynical! These Pell grants are being wielded like billy clubs. Is what they tell us about the proportion of the entering class with parental income below $50,000 the sole measure of diversity - even economic diversity? And if Chicago needs to pull up its socks on the low end - and it does - I am nevertheless waiting to hear anyone on this board claim that the top end, though better represented than in past years, approaches the magnitude of the top end at the peer schools.

It was certainly once the case that the rich people - if you mean by that, students - were gracious - if you mean by that, not inclined to throw their weight around. That was because the thing that was valued on campus was brains, wit and unconventionality. Some of the rich had it, some didn’t. It groweth where it falls. The place was egalitarian in that sense. It’s hard to measure such things, admittedly, but perhaps that’s the point about culture - it’s not exactly measurable by Pell grant numbers and the like. Weber had a lot of use for Marx, but that was the big point that he thought Marx missed about culture generally. If you are saying that Chicago no longer actually has the culture I just described, then I take that as important testimony, anecdotal as it may be. But the rather different impressions of Mr. Hernandez are also testimony.

@Cue7 , you are conflating the accidental with the substantive. I know that as a U of C grad you are a student of Aristotle and you therefore know that what we humans seek is not happiness but the realization of the powers within us through right action. Pleasure, even happiness, is not the goal but merely a wishy-washy sort of thing that may come as a secondary effect. (Thomas Jefferson, who was too heavily influenced by that crackpot, Rousseau, got it all wrong.) Okay, so Aristotle needs a mild update: let’s say that it’s not only human fluorishing that is our goal but the achievement of meaning through the making of choices. Apply a dollop of Kant and a soupcon of Nietzsche to the fundamental sensibleness of Aristotle, and you will live a good life, if not always a happy one. In short your nice restaurants and gym and a host of other such improvements are okay with me as long as they keep their places and don’t take over the show. We don’t want sophists and hedonists to end up with Chicago A.B.'s.

405

A couple of grace notes:

  1. I don't know where everyone gets this notion that the Ivies have wealth-driven culture. The Yale I attended had some kids from families that were rich, from families that were famous, and from families that were both. It had some, but very few, truly poor kids. Anything approaching ostentatious display of wealth was social poison. You simply didn't do it. There was one kid -- the son of a Korean magnate -- who tried to buy himself status by throwing lavish, exclusive parties; it turned him into a pariah. Clubs like Skull & Bones always had some legacies, who of course tended not to be merely middle class, but they were pretty darn egalitarian overall, and they had almost no impact on the social life of the campus as a whole. Maybe things have changed, but the one kid I know well at Yale currently is not wealthy at all (her parents are both teachers), and she has had a wonderful experience there, academically, artistically, and socially.

There was one aspect of Chicago that, at least a few years ago, really underlined wealth differences among students. Nonwealthy students without substantial financial aid (which took into account on-campus costs) could not afford to keep living on campus, even if they wanted to, because the dorms and meal plans were so expensive. Wealthy students also moved off campus, but often to very different places – doorman buildings with private gyms and shuttles to campus. Among third and fourth year students, there was a lot of segregation based on wealth, something that would have been completely anathema to anyone at Yale or Harvard.

  1. There are a bunch of posts talking about "trade-offs with Nondorf." I don't think Nondorf is responsible for anything other than doing exceptionally well exactly what he was hired to do. I'm sure he is involved in making some of these decisions, but I am also sure that Zimmer and Boyer, and probably one or more Trustees, are fully aware of the issues and are the ones making the key philosophical choices. Nondorf isn't running the university.
406

"Finally, @JBStillFlying - per what DeepBlue says, do you see any tradeoffs with Nondorf - any tradeoffs at all?

  • @Cue7, yes. I believe there are trade-offs. But I think the net change is very positive and some of the "trade-offs" are in the right direction. For instance, if UChicago has a more socioeconomically diverse incoming class this fall as a result of Nondorf's efforts, that's a positive. There are benefits to bringing in a whole lotta different kids.

@DunBoyer - Probably makes sense to provide both sides of the story: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/13/opinion/university-of-chicago-admissions-diversity.html

Also, I’m hearing through the grapevine that they have significantly increased the number of Pells for Class of 2023. Given the percentage range I was quoted for TO/Empower admits, an increase in Pell recipients makes total sense.

407

@JHS you might be talking about the display of wealth being social poison in the context of American culture, but for some international students it is far from poison.

408

“Maybe things have changed, but the one kid I know well at Yale currently is not wealthy at all (her parents are both teachers), and she has had a wonderful experience there, academically, artistically, and socially.”

  • Anecdotally, the families who have sent kids to Yale from the Twin Cities are very, very wealthy. We know others (and of others) who are not in that category who have also gotten in but they have an exceptional circumstance (high-achieving children of political or ethnic refugees, for example). Our data set is non-representative, most likely, but it does skew wealthy.

“There are a bunch of posts talking about “trade-offs with Nondorf.” I don’t think Nondorf is responsible for anything other than doing exceptionally well exactly what he was hired to do. I’m sure he is involved in making some of these decisions, but I am also sure that Zimmer and Boyer, and probably one or more Trustees, are fully aware of the issues and are the ones making the key philosophical choices. Nondorf isn’t running the university.”

  • Trustees and Zimmer more than Boyer. But yes, he's executing the plan put forth by those making the key philosophical choices. It's important to point out that Nondorf's vision for helping all qualified candidates be offered the chance to study at UChicago is actually in line with some of the big picture ideas pushed by the trustees. For instance, Nondorf didn't approve "Empower" (ie that decision was likely above his pay grade), but he's enthusiastically for it and was able to implement it successfully this year (from what I am hearing, although we won't know for sure till after May 1).
409

@CU123 at #406 - and I’m wondering how many of those wearing GC are international. I had the impression that a good number were Asian internationals, but maybe that’s incorrect.

410

“There was one aspect of Chicago that, at least a few years ago, really underlined wealth differences among students. Nonwealthy students without substantial financial aid (which took into account on-campus costs) could not afford to keep living on campus, even if they wanted to, because the dorms and meal plans were so expensive. Wealthy students also moved off campus, but often to very different places – doorman buildings with private gyms and shuttles to campus. Among third and fourth year students, there was a lot of segregation based on wealth, something that would have been completely anathema to anyone at Yale or Harvard.”

  • How can there NOT be wealth differences among students at an elite university? LOL. Yale is seeing a good number of its upper class move off campus now, so perhaps it will see a similar phenomenon, unless every single off-campus option costs the same (not likely).

People do tend to gravitate to what they can afford, when there is a range of options. Harvard, in contrast, still requires that you remain on campus all four years.

411

@JBStillFlying - you haven’t yet pointed to what those tradeoffs are. You just continue to tout the positives of the nondorf regime (e.g., a supposedly more socioeconomically diverse class).

Also, if the admissions office touts “accessibility” and “access” - why don’t they publish more statistics, so applicants can make more informed decisions? We still don’t know the percentage of the class that is ED, the ED accept rate, etc. Why is withholding this info now the party line?

Relatedly, why won’t Nondorf even take interviews with the student newspaper any more?

https://www.chicagomaroon.com/article/2018/9/28/1814-students-class-2022/

From where I sit as an alum, Nondorf has been great. As @JHS has said though, he did take a system that was probably the most applicant friendly/non-gamey, and turned it into the most cynical version of the admissions craze.

Also, for JHS - yes, the trade offs are with the administration (most acutely, Zimmer), but Nondorf has taken the admin’s plan and injected it with steroids. He’s clearly the magic man and the linchpin behind the change. I don’t think the admin truly thought they’d see this level of change in just 8-9 years.

(Again, that’s good for me as an alum, less good more generally.)

412

Coming back after the pause that refreshes…

Go ahead if you like, @JBStillFlying, and try to convince yourself that the kids wearing Canada Goose are all vulgar Asian internationals. Seriously, I’ll bet nearly all of the kids I know from coastal prepville who’ve gone to UChicago in the past few years - and I know a bunch - own one.

As for the “trade-offs” being net very positive, and hearing you describe approvingly an ever-more pronounced barbell of the wealthiest and the poorest as “more socioeconomically diverse”: be careful what you wish for. This is the situation you find at the fancier Ivies, with middle-class kids getting squeezed, and it’s not a great thing. UChicago seems to be running after those schools.

Re: Yale and Harvard. Yes, a significant number of upperclass (some of whom are upper class) Yalies are moving off campus these days (a pity, given that the residential college system is one of Yale’s crown jewels). Some rich kids are able to live in fancy apartments or houses, some poorer kids think they can save on room and board, and, in today’s environment, some kids (including a few of the dreaded internationals) have special dietary needs or want to cook for themselves. Some average kids want to join a frat or host keggers in a college town where the drinking age is 21. The key factor driving all of this is the double-edged sword represented by the renaissance of New Haven in the past 20 years, particularly the areas adjacent to campus, which has made living off campus cheaply and safely, with plenty of eating/nightlife choices, much more of an option. This is a trade-off, and some of us can acknowledge that the negative aspects are meaningful.

Your assertion to the contrary, Harvard actually only requires first-years to live on campus (see here: https://college.harvard.edu/must-i-live-campus). The vast majority of students stay on campus, even though a number of the houses aren’t in great shape, because, among other reasons, living nearby is unaffordable for them.

413

“@JBStillFlying - you haven’t yet pointed to what those tradeoffs are. You just continue to tout the positives of the nondorf regime (e.g., a supposedly more socioeconomically diverse class).”

Off the top of my head:

  • It's a significantly harder school to get into.
  • It's become the Flavor of the Decade.
  • College does nothing to promote academic grad school (PhD) programs
  • Nondorf has a cult of personality in the admissions office; risks remaking College in his own image
  • College over-markets the Economics dept; Leavitt is over-rated.
  • Conflicted about Test Optional (waiting to see what type of student shows up on campus).
  • The College has really messed up the housing system, destroying/retiring long-standing traditions along with the houses.
  • Too many changes aren't a good thing. Having been through the admissions system twice now in three years, we've faced MAJOR changes to Admissions. It's unsettling.

“Also, if the admissions office touts “accessibility” and “access” - why don’t they publish more statistics, so applicants can make more informed decisions?”

  • This is a trend that is impacting more colleges over time. See Columbia which won't publish the numer of ED admits, and Stanford which has ceased publishing altogether.

“We still don’t know the percentage of the class that is ED, the ED accept rate, etc. Why is withholding this info now the party line?”

  • UChicago didn't publish the number of EA admits either. It's hardly a "new party line" LOL.

“Relatedly, why won’t Nondorf even take interviews with the student newspaper any more?”

  • No idea. Why don't you ask him?

https://www.chicagomaroon.com/article/2018/9/28/1814-students-class-2022/

“From where I sit as an alum, Nondorf has been great. As @JHS has said though, he did take a system that was probably the most applicant friendly/non-gamey, and turned it into the most cynical version of the admissions craze.”

  • Not everyone is going to be pleased with all the changes.

“Also, for JHS - yes, the trade offs are with the administration (most acutely, Zimmer), but Nondorf has taken the admin’s plan and injected it with steroids. He’s clearly the magic man and the linchpin behind the change. I don’t think the admin truly thought they’d see this level of change in just 8-9 years.”

  • He's magic, but he still works at the pleasure of the president and the trustees.

(Again, that’s good for me as an alum, less good more generally.)

414

“Go ahead if you like, @JBStillFlying, and try to convince yourself that the kids wearing Canada Goose are all vulgar Asian internationals. Seriously, I’ll bet nearly all of the kids I know from coastal prepville who’ve gone to UChicago in the past few years - and I know a bunch - own one.”

  • Seriously, I have no idea whether "all" are Asian Internationals who wear CG LOL. And I certainly wouldn't call them "vulgar"; in fact, I believe that's a tad offensive to them, my friend. I hope you didn't mean it that way.

“As for the “trade-offs” being net very positive, and hearing you describe approvingly an ever-more pronounced barbell of the wealthiest and the poorest as “more socioeconomically diverse”: be careful what you wish for. This is the situation you find at the fancier Ivies, with middle-class kids getting squeezed, and it’s not a great thing. UChicago seems to be running after those schools.”

  • Sure, for now - but my bet is that they don't stop there.

“Re: Yale and Harvard. Yes, a significant number of upperclass (some of whom are upper class) Yalies are moving off campus these days (a pity, given that the residential college system is one of Yale’s crown jewels). Some rich kids are able to live in fancy apartments or houses, some poorer kids think they can save on room and board, and, in today’s environment, some kids (including a few of the dreaded internationals) have special dietary needs or want to cook for themselves. Some average kids want to join a frat or host keggers in a college town where the drinking age is 21. The key factor driving all of this is the double-edged sword represented by the renaissance of New Haven in the past 20 years, particularly the areas adjacent to campus, which has made living off campus cheaply and safely, with plenty of eating/nightlife choices, much more of an option. This is a trade-off, and some of us can acknowledge that the negative aspects are meaningful.”

  • Yes. BTW, I should have said "upper div." to separate it from the double definition of "class" but you did understand that. NH has seen a resurgence that has made living off-campus relatively attractive. Hyde Park has had a jump-start on that because as a neighborhood in the city it has always had a variety of living options, some expensive, others less so. Over the past several years, it appears that not only have new, more expensive apartment options popped up, but RE businesses like Mac Properties have moved into the 'hood in a big way to purchase and renovate various existing properties. It's a great trend . . but it suggests, of course, that rents in the area are going up and that more wealth is moving in. This is by no means a trend unique to Hyde Park and the University of Chicago. I've no doubt that @JHS's observations that the College student off-campus digs represented a disparity of wealth, and even that some in the College were barely scraping by. Heck, that was me 35 years ago in grad school - hubby and I made our own furniture and took cast-offs. We never got to live in Swanky Regent's Park with the richie-rich kids LOL. So it's not exactly a new phenomenon, although seeing it at the undergrad. level can be eye-opening (and disconcerting).

Various levels of wealth isn’t so much a problem IMHO as, say, wealth among most of the undergraduates leaving a few out in the cold. We’ve visited a lot of universities over the past few years and there are several out there with a way more severe problem than what goes on in Hyde Park. (At one off-campus apartment, mumsy brought in the decorator. That sort of thing).

“Your assertion to the contrary, Harvard actually only requires first-years to live on campus (see here: https://college.harvard.edu/must-i-live-campus). The vast majority of students stay on campus, even though a number of the houses aren’t in great shape, because, among other reasons, living nearby is unaffordable for them.”

  • I stand corrected! I must have been thinking of a generation ago and thought someone told me recently that the kids still stay on campus all four years. Everyone I know who is attending and did attend H live(d) on campus for the four years. Maybe it's a very strong tradition. Would agree that Boston housing costs would be very steep. I think the on-campus housing trend is increasing at UChicago as well, given that the dorms are a LOT nicer on average then they used to be, and HP rents are climbing.
415

@DeepBlue86 - just to clarify that Harvard question, I think it’s perhaps more than simple economics. I recall my contact telling me her DC (H Class of '22) just went through the House Lottery and that everyone is expected (I thought she said required but not 100% sure) to live on campus for the remaining three years. Reading through the housing page, it appears that a small number is, indeed, “granted permission” to live off campus. But, given that this is something like 3% of the undergraduate population, I suspect it’s more than the high cost of Boston/Cambridge housing keeping those Harvard kids in their house year after year. Tradition, social norms, expectations all come into play.

I suppose a good check would be to examine how many BU, NEU, or MIT kids live off campus compared to Harvard kids. If 97% of those are in the dorms, then - yeah - it’s Boston RE prices.

Regardless, in marked contrast to H, UChicago has had a fine tradition of off-campus living for decades.

416

You’ve got to be kidding, @JBStillFlying. Let’s reproduce what someone else said, and what you replied:

Now here’s what I said in response:

You spinning that to pretend I’ve made an anti-Asian comment rather than you is what’s truly offensive, to be honest. Fortunately, I doubt anyone on here was fooled.

417

One way to try and figure out what kind of University you might want to attend, is to pay attention to the dog whistles hidden in that University President’s stated comments about the “Purpose of higher education”. Yale’s Salovey for example believes that one of the most important purposes of an Yale education is to help its students “spot and counter false narratives”. This is very different from Zimmer’s view which focuses on “imparting knowledge and helping a student think critically”

I submit that the terms “False narratives” and “Critical Thinking” both are very clear dog whistles and hint at very specific things (specially in today’s America) and are aimed at very different audiences. Presidents who believe in the “False Narrative” theme are going to structure the University’s policies and procedures very differently from Presidents who believe in the “Critical thinking and imparting knowledge” theme. This is likely to result in a very different college experience for the students attending these universities. These are not interchangeable and thinking that they are or that they don’t matter could result in an applicant landing in the wrong place and feeling very unhappy in retrospect

Some students will be drawn to the “False narratives” mission. Others will prefer the “Critical thinking” mission. I think the press coverage for Yale and Chicago also tells this story.

418

Re: housing at Harvard, Yale has a very similar system (the dorms were largely funded from the same source, in fact), and traditionally 90% or so of upperclassmen lived on campus (not as high as Harvard, because New Haven was always more affordable than Cambridge and there were more options, although the city was far less appealing). In recent years, the city has gentrified and moving off has become much more common.

There is another critical difference between the two schools: at Harvard, all first-years live in the Yard and in the spring “block” into groups which are assigned to Houses for the next three years. At Yale, you arrive affiliated with a College, and although most first-years live together on Old Campus, your roommate choices are limited to those also in your College (unless you transfer Colleges, which is complicated). Many students move off in order to live with their friends who are in different Colleges.

Yale has to a certain extent been responsible for the trend of students moving off campus. The university is a landlord, and facilitates students finding off-campus apartments via a proprietary webpage (https://your.yale.edu/work-yale/campus-services/campus-living). Harvard treats people moving off campus as rare exceptions and doesn’t encourage it. That said, if Harvard were surrounded by affordable housing, as Yale increasingly is, the picture would likely be different.

MIT, the other major university besides Harvard located in Cambridge, guarantees undergraduates eight semesters of housing and virtually all live in dorms, MIT-approved frats/sororities and university-sponsored group residences, apparently due primarily to the high cost of off-campus housing in the area (see here: https://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/living_off_campus/).

Re: other Boston-area schools - it’s hard to compare them apples-to-apples. BU guarantees undergraduates four years housing in a variety of formats and 75% of them live on campus all four years. Northeastern requires students to live on campus for the first two years but it isn’t clear to me that they guarantee it for four, etc.

419

I personally think that this goose ought to be killed, plucked, potted and cooked. But the true context of @JBStillFlying 's playful retaliatory jab was an earlier exchange in which Blue laid his prosecutorial lash on her and not in a playful way. However, prosecutors don’t like being teased, and we are by now all starting to become inured to a certain level of umbrage from that quarter. It does bear pointing out that the adjective “vulgar” was not used by anyone but the accuser. The underlying observation was merely offered tentatively and whimsically. The pejorative adjective might reflect obsessions to be found at schools other than UChicago.

420

@JBStillFlying - I’m puzzled by the tradeoffs you present, and also by your assertion that Chicago didn’t disclose early admit rates in the past.

Here’s an article where Chicago discloses its early admit rate from the early 2000s: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/e887/5b6a71631fb121a3f4b3b5b6217e45b42ef2.pdf

(Don’t those days look quaint - Chicago enjoyed a 29% yield on its early admits.)

Also, re your other tradeoffs, many just come off as brags about the current state of the university. Read:

We’re more selective! (It’s harder to get in now.)

We’re a hot school! (The “Flavor of the Decade”)

Nondorf is so good and popular, the College will be remade in his image! (Nondorf’s cult of personality)

Sound like pretty benign tradeoffs, huh? (The other points re marketing also seem fairly benign, and the housing/dorm situation goes well beyond the admissions office.)

I’d say going from the most sane, transparent, and applicant-friendly top-school admissions process in the country to the worst, most confusing, most obtuse system is a bigger tradeoff, wouldn’t you?

Also, the argument that a (minority) of other schools are being obtuse (like Columbia and Stanford), doesn’t make Chicago’s pendulum swing any easier to stomach.

@marlowe1 - above, you delved into philosopher infused depictions of “happiness.” I’ll quote a Chicago professor, David Nirenberg, who studies social thought: “[Chicago] was a locus of the Greek idea that you have to suffer into learning.” Chicago then engaged in 15 years of deliberate change to move away from the association of pain with the Chicago experience. (Yes, such an arduous journey can lead to happiness, but there’s been a clear move away from that, that even Chicago faculty have noticed.)

Source: https://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/March-2011/College-Comeback-The-University-of-Chicago-Finds-Its-Groove/