<p>Currently, which is tougher to get into? </p>
<p>U of C or NU?</p>
<p>Also, do most kids at either college have 4.0s?</p>
<p>Chicago's harder.</p>
<p>"Most" people do not have 4.0s (UW), but a fair amount do.</p>
<p>Really, </p>
<p>I'm pretty sure NU is tougher to get into especially in these upcoming years as the number of admissions are rising drastically at NU.</p>
<p>BTW, UChicago's admission rate is around 40% which is very high for an elite school.</p>
<p>Yes, their acceptance rate is high (35%, actually), but their applicant pool is much stronger than that of NU.</p>
<p>Berries N Cream: </p>
<p>Yeah, but I think the Chicago's pool itself is pretty self-selective. It's elite, but outside of CC and IL, not many people seem to know about it.</p>
<p>It reminds me of schools like Harvey Mudd, Olin, etc...jewels that people sometimes never get the chance to even see.</p>
<p>Anyways, I don't know which is harder to get into, but I think Chicago is harder once you're there. Grade deflation, strong core. Definitely more difficult.</p>
<p>uchicago is harder to get into. and more academically demanding</p>
<p>According to college board, Northwestern has an acceptance rate of 27% and Chicago has an acceptance rate of 40%. But as other people said, Chicago is pretty self-selecting. Also, in terms of social and campus life, the two are drastically different. I would be interested to know about people who were accepted to one school and rejected from another.</p>
<p>Northwestern is a bit harder to get in than UChicago for the simple reason that more people apply to NU than to UChicago. Admit rate for NU is considerably lower than UChicago and NU's incoming Freshmen stats are slightly higher than UChicago as well.</p>
<p>Handsacrosstime- That is incorrect. Chicago is very well-known in all business and academic circles. It has an incredible reputation.</p>
<p>^ Oh, I should clarify that I meant high school students may not know it as well. Sorry for the mistake. I guess, from my own experience as a S.CA student, not many people seem to know about it.</p>
<p>I gotta agree with Handsacrosstime. My cousin is a jr at Chicago and I didn't know that it was such a competitive school until coming to CC. However, I had heard of Northwestern and how competitive it is. </p>
<p>(Odd since one of my parents works in the admissions industry and I thought I knew which schools were more competitive)</p>
<p>NU's average stats are slightly higher than UChic's. Plus, the acceptance rate is way lower.</p>
<p>Chicago doesn't seem to focus that much on stats (i.e. SAT's and SAT II's), so if your scores are low, you still have a good chance if you write a great essay. You might not have as good of a chance at Northwestern though.</p>
<p>There's quite a bit misinformation here. Why don't we just post the facts that are readily available to us and let people decide for themselves?</p>
<p>2007 admission stats for enrolled students:</p>
<p>Chicago
SAT 1350-1510 (uchicago website)
SAT 1330-1530 (collegeboard)
ACT 28-33
Admit rate 34.7%</p>
<p>Northwestern
SAT 1350-1520
ACT 30-34
Admit rate 26.8%</p>
<p>shouldn't you also look at how many people apply to each school?</p>
<p>like 1000 out of like 7000</p>
<p>is a lot different than 3000 out of 18000 in my opinion</p>
<p>In the past, Chicago has had 9-10,000 applications per year, admitted 3-4,000, and ended up with a 1,200-ish incoming class. This year, we had 12,000 applications. Oh boy.</p>
<p>As Sam Lee pointed out, Northwestern does have an edge on Chicago in terms of numbers, both for standardized tests and for admission rate. While the SAT scores strike me as nearly identical, NU has clearly higher ACT midranges. </p>
<p>One could make the argument that NU has more competitive pull in the midwest/west, where ACT is popular. I think that's true. One could also make the argument that Chicago doesn't care as much about standardized test scores, which I think is also true.</p>
<p>To address the OP's second question.... a delicious few students at Chicago, NU, or any other elite college maintain a 4.0 throughout.</p>
<p>My unscientific impression is that Northwestern University is harder to get into, but that no school in the country is better than the University of Chicago for humanities & economics. An earlier thread showed National Merit Scholars (NMS), and not just finalists, matriculate at Northwestern Univ. in greater numbers than anywhere else except Harvard & the Univ. of Texas--despite granting only a tiny $2,000 per year scholarship at this very expensive private university. But I also think that Chicago & Northwestern do not share a high percentage of cross applicants. Many Northwestern applicants also apply to Penn & Cornell & Stanford, whereas Chicago applicants are probably more attracted to Swarthmore, Berkeley, Yale, NYU & Columbia, in my opinion. PR, however, reports cross applications and preferences a bit differently, clearly showing that students admitted to both Chicago & Northwestern prefer Northwestern. PR reports that the top preferences of Northwestern applicants are Harvard & Yale. PR published that Chicago applicants' top preferences are Columbia, Harvard, Northwestern, Penn & Yale.</p>
<p>Godfatherbob and bigreddawgie, what information are you basing your claims on? Northwestern has always been the tougher one to get into. Even UChicago students acknowledge this.</p>
<p>^I second your thought and wonder where Godfatherbob and bigreddawgie got their idea about Northwestern. If NU were some new-comer, then I would understand. But that's not the case and I remember 10 years ago, NU' selectivity rank was higher than it is now. Its SAT has been comparable with UChicago's for at least the past decade and its ACT has been consistently higher. One can argue Chicago cares less about test score, like uvalove said; but I want to point out NU admission is hardly all about test scores. It has Div-1 athletes and schools like communications (where film/theater/performing arts programs reside) and music that value non-academic talents very much.</p>
<p>That said, I'd say they are roughly equal.</p>
<p>Hmm, both are selective, but it seems like NU's becoming more and more elite. I was up there in November, visiting a family member who goes there and I heard the dean give a speech about how many people are applying to the school. I forgot exact numbers, but it's up at least a good 30%.</p>
<p>Then, UChicago, their admissions seems more lax because they're not on the common app. As a result, only truly committed kids apply because it's not as simple as checking off the box and writing an extra essay. This means that even though they accept 40% or whatever, that is of dedicated, qualified applicants. I know somebody with a 3.7 and 1500 SATs and good ECs not get in, but others with lower GPA get into UofC.</p>