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<p>CC is not exactly the most unbiased or extensive collection of applicants . . .</p>
<p>I say chill bro. No use worrying about the whys and hows of admissions; your profile looks fantastic and I’m sure you’ll have successes galore in college and beyond. Relax, enjoy your winter break, play some Call of Duty, listen to some Bruckner. Life is good; you just have to realize it.</p>
<p>actually i’m playing starcraft 2 lol!</p>
<p>azndark, I feel you bro, some of my really qualified friends got deferred. Your stats seem pretty darn nice though, so don’t worry, I would say you have a really good chance at other great colleges. But the stats you listed of someone else, it may be that that person is a URM…or a legacy…both of which would increase his chances tremendously.</p>
<p>the guy was native american</p>
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<p>Ah, so that’s why you were deferred. We play League of Legends at Chicago xD.</p>
<p>I know people who were overqualified but rejected. Some of you say that there is no such thing as overqualification. Well, if you get into Harvard and Cambridge, does that make you overqualified? or is Chicago better than those schools?</p>
<p>anyway, do you think this means that pure academic test results aren’t as emphasize in Chicago as much as essays/character/recommendations/EC?</p>
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<p>You’re making the presumptuous/arrogant argument that there is a distinct hierarchy of schools. Harvard is clearly superior to Chicago, so anyone who gets accepted to Harvard should get accepted to Chicago. This is the convoluted and confused argument at work here. I’m not going to write exactly why this is incorrect (because it should be obvious to any thinking individual), but I will say this: Harvard’s average SATs (2210) are just 10 points higher than Chicago’s (2200) and Chicago’s SATs are about 50 points higher than MIT’s (which hang around 2150). </p>
<p>For anyone to think that there is a clear hierarchy of Harvard >= MIT >> Chicago is absurd and mainly due to bourgeois East-Coast elitist mentalities. That people with these beliefs actually exist is testament to the validity of Chicago’s campaign to increase visibility and national recognition. There’s no way to increase visibility outside of invasive marketing, since otherwise the East-Coast bourgeoisie will simply continue to shove their elitist opinions of superiority down our throats.</p>
<p>yeah I agree ^</p>
<p>although “rankings” of schools should give you rough idea of where school stands (heck, schools themselves dwell on raising their outward appearance through SAT scores and such) but definitely don’t get carried away with these ranks. Don’t simply choose Harvard, f.x, simply because its “ranked” higher than Chicago.</p>
<p>And if someone gets into Harvard and Cambridge but not chicago, great! They have somewhere good to go. Don’t bank on or lament or criticize chicago simply because a perceived better college accepts you.</p>
<p>and top colleges all have somewhat different tastes. Its not unseen for a student to be denied yale or harvard but get in princeton. Uchicago is definitely ne of those elite colleges, so its selectivity will not match harvard’s exactly.</p>
<p>“Fit” could be the reason. That applicant may have presented him/herself very much a tech person but not much else. One can present onself as strong in science/eng AND very well rounded to fit both institutions. Both MIT and UChi are top ten schools in the recent ranking and I do not see how a person can be “over-qualified” for UChi.</p>
<p>that friend of yours is a really good fit for both Caltech and MIT. UChi adcom agreed to this, probably.</p>
<p>@op, re:That’s exactly why his deferral makes me think that Chicago is trying to protect its yield!!! </p>
<p>IF Uchi was so concerned about yield, the first thing they ‘would’ do is lower that fam contribution and eliminate/reduce loan, both significantly, and the second thing they would do is to switch from EA to ED. Two years ago my son and his friends enrolled at Cornell instead of U Chi because of the cost of attendance (wrt loan and fam. contribution) and that was the sole reason.</p>
<p>I got deferred but don’t think I over qualified for Chicago, even though I was accepted EA to both MIT and Caltech. It’s all about fit between an applicant and the university. I go to a competitive private school and this year we do have a couple HYP-caliber candidates who were surprisingly deferred by university of Chicago.</p>
<p>This really irritates me! People are so focused on the scores and gpa that they don’t realize that UChicago cares more about <em>fit!</em>
UChicago isn’t like an Ivy or MIT that is just looking for impressive stats. That’s not enough for them. Admitted students tend to be intellectually curious and want to go to UChi because they are passionate about learning–not because of its prestige.
And if you were deferred and can only think, “but I have a 2400, 4.0, and international awards,” then you weren’t right for UChi anyway.</p>
<p>So then, what do you say it means when you have good enough test scores and grades, put your heart and soul into those essays, had a discussion on bookstores and your love of cognitive science with an interviewer, and still get deferred?</p>
<p>not only do have the scores, but my essay talked about my innate curiosity and I really just do care about learning. but i got deferred…</p>
<p>@azndarkvader, I am in the same boat. Got deferred. Life is unpredictable and unfair at times. But there always another great school out there that fits better for you. Jack Welch did not get into Ivies and studied at Illinois. He then moved on to become CEO of GE. Warren Buffett did not get into Harvard and look at who is laughing now? Even the Dean of Harvard Business School admitted in an interview that Harvard made a big boo boo.
Just move on. Whereas U of C is a great school, that is why we are all on this CC in the first place. However, there is a life beyond getting into U. of Chicago.
Cheers and congrats to everyone. I am sure we all will make our marks in our lives one way or the other down the road. Let’s drink to that.</p>
<p>@azndarkvader</p>
<p>hmm… LOL</p>
<p>Your stats and essays and cognitive science major look almost identical to mine… maybe that’s why we both got deferred. Fail. D:</p>
<p>@ phuriku: I agree with you that this is a pretty arrogant thread in general. However, I think people are confusing the assumption that “Harvard is superior to U Chicago” with the assumption that “Harvard is more selective than U Chicago.” The opinion of East Coast elitists is not entirely the problem here. Most intelligent people who know what they’re talking about would agree that “Harvard is superior to U Chicago” is a baseless and at best highly subjective assumption. However, it is undeniably true that “Harvard is more selective than U Chicago.” The problem seems to be that people are unable to reconcile this with the fact that some applicants may be accepted to Harvard and rejected by Chicago.</p>
<p>The answer to the problem is this: Harvard is more selective, but not by a significant margin. Both schools are selective enough that they may reject anyone. The main difference is that Harvard is more popular, so there is more luck involved because of the higher volume of highly qualified applicants in the pool to begin with. It has nothing to do with being better.</p>
<p>If you were deferred with excellent stats, it’s because for one reason or another those stats weren’t enough to make them certain they wanted you. They also seemed to defer a lot of people (like Imperio and I) who were all-around qualified but with weak GPA.</p>
<p>I wish I was applying a few years ago when U Chicago was less popular and could take a chance on people who got off to a rocky start in high school, but they have done a fantastic job of drawing more and better applicants. I’m just happy I was at least deferred along with all the “overqualified” people.</p>
<p>My guess (could very well be wrong) is that while both Harvard and UChicago are extremely selective (let’s define that as < ~20% acceptance rate), they look for slightly different qualities in applicants. Harvard may look for “confidence and critical-thinking”; Chicago, while definitively looking for those qualities, may also look for “intellectual curiosity”. I would say that applicants accepted to Harvard (or Yale or Princeton) but not to UChicago failed to demonstrate interest in Chicago, or failed to demonstrate intellectual curiosity. And therefore that person was rejected. Because their application did not portray what the university was looking for. </p>
<p>That’s my guess. I could, of course, be entirely wrong.</p>
<p>I think I was misunderstood. When I said “better” i meant more selective. Obviously each college has its own specific environment, but Harvard and Cambridge are definitely more selective than Chicago (a requirement for international students into Cambridge is to be in the top 2% of the entire international pool). This however, does not mean that either schools are better than Chicago. The wrong assumption I was making was not which school was better, but that if you can get into a more selective school, then logically you should be able to get into less selective schools. </p>
<p>btw: if I got into Harvard and Chicago, I would still go to Chicago</p>