Chance my friend?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Chicago ✅
1

<p>My friend, as well as a large group of my friends have applied to Chicago. Only one was accepted, and the rest were deferred. One friend in particular is determined that he'll get in, even though he's been deferred, and seems completely confident of this, and the fact that Chicago is very prestigious and his stats aren't exactly elite, as well as the 42% increase in applications implying probably a sub-10% acceptance rate, I'm worry that he might be rejected and probably become depressed if he does. Here's a summary of his stats, tell me what you think.</p>

<p>School: Public school in KY
ACT:30 (not sure of breakdown, no writing) this seems to be his weak spot.
SAT I/II: not taken AFAIK
GPA:3.9-3.98, probably about 3.95 (unweighted)
AP: European History (5), US History (5), World History (5), Biology (5), Government (5), Statistics (Senior Year), Literature (Senior Year), Psychology (Senior Year)
ECs: Debate, Newspaper, NHS, and plenty of others, this is one of his strong suits, He won state at least one year in debate, been featured in the newspaper.
Essays: He's an excellent writer, and I can only imagine were excellent.
Recs: Probably some of the best student/teacher relationships i've ever seen, got one from a teacher who ran for house representative one year, just depends on how well the teacher can make the rec I suppose.
Interview: He had an interview where the interviewer asked him whats the weirdest thing you've debated? and then he replied and they debated for like the entire interview on the subject, he said it was great, but I wasn't there, I imagine it was.</p>

<p>He's the kind of guy who's able to convince you that your red shirt is blue, voted most likely to succeed, received the Harvard book award, top 10% of our class, as well as just being a great leader, though it doesn't always shine through on paper. Don't know if he mentioned this in his application, but over the past year he's lost over 200 lbs, from 392 to 189 as of yesterday at our Superbowl party.</p>

<p>I think he definitely deserves the acceptance, but I'm afraid that with all the extreme competition, and the fact that paper doesn't always show a person justice that he'll be rejected. I tried to get him to take AP Calculus, b/c he's a very good math student as well, but he opted for the easier class for his senior year, which I don't blame him, but I think it would have helped his chances, and I'm really not sure how heavily they'll look at that, especially since he applied undecided (i think, if not biology major maybe(?))</p>

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<p>Why do you think he deserves to be accepted? Everyone who applied to UChicago from my school was deferred (one got rejected), and most of them (sadly, not me) have a stronger profile than your friend. I’m not saying that he’s going to get rejected; just trying to say that he should be a little less arrogant because he isn’t a ‘shoo-in’ by any stretch of the imagination.</p>

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<p>Unfortunately, his chances of admission are a bit slim. Chicago’s RD cycle will have about a 12% accept rate (and that includes those taken off the waitlist), so given an arbitrary 8 applicants, he’d have to be ranked first, which is unlikely to happen given the number of amazing applicants to Chicago every year. He does have a shot, though, and since admissions can be a crapshoot, you never know, he could get in.</p>

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<p>@motion12345, that’s kind-of the point. I’m saying he’s genuinely a better student than his profile says he is, and I’m also saying that the admissions office likely won’t see that, especially considering the volume of applications they have to go through.</p>

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<p>^ Nobody ever said the admissions system is perfect. From how you describe him, he seems very impressive. I wish him the best. He certainly puts me to shame (I’m an EA admit). Why didn’t he prep more for the ACT?? His AP scores show that he can handle standardized tests well enough.</p>

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<p>Some students do much better on APs than on the SAT/ACT. I got 5s on all of my APs (Calc BC, Physics C Mech, Physics C E+M, Stat), all during Junior year, yet I only managed a 31 on the ACT. Said applicant does sound impressive, but if he didn’t get in EA (where over 1 in 4 applicants were admitted), I have a hard time believing that he’ll get in RD (where under 1 in 8 applicants will be admitted). In any case, best of luck.</p>