<p>I haven't seen these numbers reported anywhere else yet, but Jacques Steinberg's NYT blog says that Chicago's EA applications increased by about 1,100, or 18.5%, vs. last year, to a total just short of 7,000. In the process, it passed Georgetown (and stayed ahead of MIT, and probably Yale and Stanford, too) as the EA application leader among snooty colleges. Its increase was the largest in absolute numbers of any of the schools reported, EA or ED, and in percentage terms was passed only by Northwestern's increase from 1,700 to 2,100 ED applications. (Note: All of the EA schools get far more early applications than any of the ED schools, precisely because EA is so much more student-friendly than ED.) </p>
<p>To answer your next question: If they admit the same number of applicants in the EA round as they did last year, that would imply an EA admission rate of about 24%. If they go back to their historical pattern of EA admissions, which saw fewer people admitted EA, it would be more like 18%. </p>
<p>For a little bit of perspective, the EA admission rate for the college class of 2009, six years ago, was just under 50%. In fact, the number of EA applications they got this year isn't much less than the total number of applications they were getting 10 years ago. That's a heck of a change in a short period of time! (I know, for most of you 10 years seems like a long period of time, because 10 years ago you were just learning to read, add, and subtract, and look at you now . . . But, trust me, 10 years is a very short period of time in the glacial life of a university.)</p>
<p>Last year, when the EA application number went up by 56% vis a vis the class of 2013 (33% up from the previous all time high of the class of 2012), they kept the EA acceptance rate (28.5%) more or less the same as that f the class of 2013 (29.9%). This and the fact that the overall app number went up by 42% from the previous year created a HUGE difference between the acceptance rates of EA vs. RD (RD acceptance rate at below 15%)</p>
<p>The question this year is, will Nondorft keep the EA acceptance rate again more or less constant at close to 30%? If this happens, and the overall application number again rises (most likely), the difference between the EA and RD acceptance rate may even approach 3:1 (EA acceptance rate around 30%, RD acceptance rate around 10%). </p>
<p>I highly doubt it - more likely, they will admit about the same NUMBER of applicants (not the same ratio) - which is the case JHS is assuming. But it remains to be seen what the admissions office will decide in terms of the number of EA acceptances… </p>
<p>U Chicago is going through a pretty significant change, so everything is in flux.</p>
<p>Also, it’s worthy of note that Chicago usually doesn’t release numbers until early December so they can get all apps in (which is why you don’t see this number reported anywhere else but some random NYT article). Which means that in total, the number of EA apps will probably be over 7,000.</p>
<p>IMO, Nondorf will admit about 1700 people EA, about the same as last year. Correspondingly, the EA acceptance rate will go down a little to about 23-24%. Admitting more than 1700 people to keep the 30% EA rate constant would be insane. Assuming a 2% higher yield this year, the regular decision acceptance rate would plummet to about 8% (3 points lower than the 11% it was last year).</p>
<p>^ And no, these aren’t fact, because I know for a fact that Chicago is still counting (and accepting) applications that weren’t turned in properly. They did it last year, and they’re doing it this year. Also, do you really think there would be such perfect, round numbers in admission (for instance, Rice getting exactly 1000 apps or BC getting exactly 6200 or MIT getting exactly 6500)? These are estimates.</p>