<p>I always thought UChicago is one of those schools who just accepted everyone who’s qualified and don’t care about their yield rate. Even if they are exhibiting Tufts Syndrome, they are doing a very bad job.</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure that even when I got in back in '05, before we made 1st on whatever ranking report that was, before we went to the common ap, when UChicago was much less well-known, that even then there was no such thing as a student overqualified for the school.</p>
<p>For what it’s worth, way back in '05 (when some of my peers heard the school’s name and asked why I didn’t just go to my own state’s school instead :P), I got into both UofC and Harvard, and turned Harvard down because I honestly felt, after careful examination of the both, that UChicago was a better college. Coming up on 6 years later, and I’ve never once looked back with regret.
(although I do, on occasion, wonder why on earth I didn’t apply to MIT…)</p>
<p>There are incredible people at both schools - at all the top schools; far more than any one of them can take. Especially as they become more well-known and have more and more applicants, UChicago cannot possibly admit all the qualified, wonderful, quirky people who want to attend, and must exclude some from acceptance. I’d guess the question motivating such deferrals/waitlists/rejections is not, “what if we accept all these students and they don’t come?” but rather, “what if we accept all these students and they do come?”</p>
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<p>This made me laugh out loud. Do people ACTUALLY think in terms of “lower ivies?”</p>
<p>I am also curious- and this is not something I could tell from this conversation- how many people actually want to attend the University of Chicago and how many want to attend a highly selective school. The University of Chicago is its own deal in many ways, and if the admissions office doesn’t select students who buy into the institutional culture, it loses out on both ends (both students who aren’t into the institutional culture and those who are.)</p>
<p>When I was at Chicago it was a very heady and intellectual place to some expense of a “work hard play hard” idea that most colleges strive to say they have. (Maybe that’s not fair, but my peer group was very into philosophy and classics and late-night dscussions, not particularly into Greek life. I knew it existed- I just never had the interest) I think it still is a similar kind of place, and it’s something you have to want.</p>