chicago - northwestern

Applying to College
21

<p>NU is definitely harder to get into, BUT UChicago is much more demanding as a school. I knew a girl last year at my school who was rejected from NU (her dream school), but accepted to UChicago. She was the valedictorian and had a 31 ACT, but was involved in barely any extracurriculars and no sports. </p>

<p>UChicago definitely looks for people who can think outside of the box and have a creative edge to them (The UNcommon application, etc). Have you seen their application questions?
EX) Pick a picture and tell us what it wants? (something along these lines)
So standardized scores are not their top priority. </p>

<p>And one last thing, NU hasn't accepted anyone from our school since the past 2 years.</p>

22

<p>how are you coming to the conclusion that northwestern is harder to get into?if anything the numbers show is that the average uchicago aplicant is stronger than the average nu applicant.a higher acceptance rate along with a lower yield and identical sat ranges is a testament to the fact that the applicant body at the u of c is stronger stats wise</p>

23

<p>This whole NU vs U of Chicago faux-competition is so pointless and tiring. They are both excellent schools. They are both hard to get into. No one will go wrong going to either school. U of Chicago has a higher acceptance rate off a smaller admissions pool, because it's more self-selective due to its unique character, whereas Northwestern is a more "typical" elite college experience. </p>

<p>If U of Chicago were *so uniquely quirky that only a very small number of applicants applied, and 90% of them got in, no one would look at that 90% and claim that U of Chicago was "harder to get into." </p>

<p>Can someone find / figure out the number of applicants for each spot in each entering class? That will put the admissions rates in perspective too.</p>

24

<p>To me, the more interesting comparison would be the percent overlap... i.e. of the students who apply to both U of C and NU (I don't know how many that is, but I assume a lot of top applicants from the midwest), how many get into both? How many get into one? Which one do they tend to get into? How many get into neither?</p>

<p>A long time ago, somebody showed me the revealed preference ranks or whatnot, that showed (maybe?) that for students deciding between U of C and NU, 55 percent chose NU, 45 percent chose U of C. That, to me, shows that the schools are pretty much on even keel, and perhaps that extra 5% boost to NU is owing to its athletics and fraternity scenes, which NU has and U of C does not have to the same extent. Or that 5% represents students who want a school with an engineering program. Or a combination of things.</p>

25

<p>How does Loyola University Chicago compare with both NU and UChicago?</p>

26

<p>Let's start over. We have yet to define what 'hard to get into' even means. </p>

<p>Take, for example, a favorite example of mine: MIT vs. Caltech. Caltech blows MIT out of the water in statistics and the two schools have about the same admission rate. So is it the case that Caltech is harder to get into than MIT? Well, getting into Caltech is pretty straightforward: you take the hardest classes and do well in them, you get amazing SATs and SAT IIs, and you show a great amount of passion in your application. For MIT, the criteria are different, as they look at more subjective criteria such as diversity which Caltech pays no attention to. As a result, there are many people who get into MIT but don't get into Caltech, and conversely, there are many people who get into Caltech but don't get into MIT. It's obvious that neither one is more selective than the other - unless we create a more specific definition of selectivity.</p>

<p>Similarly, the admissions criteria of Northwestern and UChicago vary greatly. Getting into one is no easier than getting into the other. Check the UChicago EA Admit thread and you'll see 2400 SAT 4.0 GPAs deferred. Without a doubt, NU would accept these people, but the Chicago admissions team must have seen something troubling in their applications. On the other hand, Chicago has and continues to admit people such as Billy Cottrell (William</a> Cottrell - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) despite their low GPAs. The admissions team must have seen something within these people that would make them great students. After matriculation, Billy Cottrell excelled at Chicago and went on to get his PhD from Caltech, a feat no one would deny the significance of. Also without a doubt, NU would not have accepted Billy Cottrell. See where I'm getting at?</p>

<p>
[quote]
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.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Actually, as you now see, we don't. In fact, a lot of UChicago students believe that they are more intelligent than Northwestern students. I am not one of these people.</p>

27

<p>Northwestern is a lot of times confused with northeastern by common folk ("is it that school in boston")</p>

<p>UChicago sounds like a public school as well</p>

28

<p>Saying which school is harder to get into or has a stronger student body is like saying a pot is better than a tea kettle.</p>

29

<p>^^hey, don't laugh at northeastern. they are rising rapidly and totally remind me of USC in the 90s.</p>

30

<p>"Northwestern is a lot of times confused with northeastern by common folk ("is it that school in boston")
UChicago sounds like a public school as well"</p>

<p>That may be, but so what? The people who matter know both places. That's why "prestige" as measured by what the average man on the street knows is meaningless.</p>

31

<p>"A long time ago, somebody showed me the revealed preference ranks or whatnot, that showed (maybe?) that for students deciding between U of C and NU, 55 percent chose NU, 45 percent chose U of C. That, to me, shows that the schools are pretty much on even keel"</p>

<p>I agree. It would be a self-selected group who would have applied to both NU and U of C anyway ... it wouldn't include kids who were, for example, looking at NU vs WUSTL vs Penn vs Cornell vs Michigan. </p>

<p>As an NU alum, I really hate this pseudo-war. They're both excellent schools, just different. I don't think it makes either side look better by tearing down or attempting to tear down the other.</p>

32

<p>
[quote]
"a higher acceptance rate along with a lower yield and identical sat ranges is a testament to the fact that the applicant body at the u of c is stronger stats wise"

[/quote]

UChicago's higher acceptance rate and lower yield do not necessarily make the applicant pool stronger. It does mean that UChicago is less able to attract its top students. How could you assume that just because it has a lower yield, a lot more of its accepted students than NU accepted students were accepted to better schools? There are so many factors (for one, UChicago's financial aid) that go into a student's decision.</p>

33

<p>"On the other hand, Chicago has and continues to admit people such as Billy Cottrell (William Cottrell - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) despite their low GPAs. The admissions team must have seen something within these people that would make them great students. After matriculation, Billy Cottrell excelled at Chicago and went on to get his PhD from Caltech, a feat no one would deny the significance of. Also without a doubt, NU would not have accepted Billy Cottrell. See where I'm getting at?"</p>

<p>To be fair, he was a special case (convicted of fire-bombing??). Maybe other schools that didn't accept him after sensing his troubled character. </p>

<p>Btw, it's not entirely fair that people say that Northwestern cares only about stats. It (along with WashU, Rice, and Emory) actually accepted me as a transfer despite my low HS GPA (but a strong college one- 3.8) and ACT, and I'm not a URM. On top of that, it's harder to get into these universities as a transfer. Undoubtedly, they appreciated my essays and teacher recs. My only rejection was from Cornell ILR, which is ironic given that it had the highest acceptance rate of all 5 (60% vs. 20% for NU, for instance).</p>

34

<p>
[quote]

UChicago's higher acceptance rate and lower yield do not necessarily make the applicant pool stronger. It does mean that UChicago is less able to attract its top students. How could you assume that just because it has a lower yield, a lot more of its students were accepted to better schools? There are so many factors (for one, UChicago's financial aid) that go into a student's decision.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>You're not reading what I wrote correctly. The point that im trying to make is that despite its extremely low yield as compared with its peer schools, and its very high acceptance rate, again compared against other elites, Chicago is able to have the same score ranges as a school like Northwestern and probably the large majority of the Ivy League. Yes, most top applicants at the U of C that don't matriculate end up at HYP or other top 10 schools. I don't think its difficult to figure that out especially on a site like CC. That being the case, the logical explanation for the virtually identical SAT ranges between NU and UChicago support my assumption that the U of C applicant pool tends to be a bit stronger.</p>

35

<p>
[quote]
</p>

<p>To be fair, he was a special case (convicted of fire-bombing??). Maybe other schools that didn't accept him after sensing his troubled character.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Dude, this is the exact point hat phuriku was trying to make. He was a special case, but nonetheless a student that Chicago took a chance on. That's what distinguishes Chicago's admissions not only from Northwestern;s but probably from that of most elite schools. Personally, I would've sent his folder to the reject pile immediately, but look at how successful the kid turned out. There a lot of special cases at Chicago that probably wouldn't have gotten into any other schools of Chicago's stature.</p>

36

<p>


</p>

<p>UChicago's maintenance of high-level stats despite a low yield and a higher acceptance rate does show that its applicant pool is strong, but this not an indication that it's necessarily stronger than NU's pool. You can't say that if NU's yield were to go down that so would its stats to a level lower than Chicago's. We also can't say that NU's stats would be lower than UChicago's if it were to accept 36% of its applicants. We don't have information on what NU or UChicago's applicant pool stats look like. As such, we certainly don't know if the majority of UChicago's rejected students have high stats in the first place to claim that its applicant pool is stronger.</p>

37

<p>


</p>

<p>Did you read the parenthetical part of my statement? He was a special case but not in a good way. I will definitely not admit a brilliant student who I sensed would commit such atrocities. I don't care how brilliant he or she is.</p>

38

<p>Firstly, I don't think Dean O'Neill thought, "hm, a future criminal, let's take him!" but rather "hm, an undernourished mind, let's take him!"</p>

<p>From what I've seen from U of C admissions, (both on CC and in real life), the admissions committee is cool with taking high-school dropouts, former drug addicts, etc. if they show academic promise and a commitment to excel. By and large, the students I know who fit these special circumstances do extraordinarily well here.</p>

<p>Secondly, I think that we have to think about the multiple dimensions in which one is a "strong" student. I'm a good example. I had grades and scores that made me an unspectacular applicant as far as elite colleges go (i.e. I don't think I would have gotten into NU had I applied), but I had other things going for me, academically and extracurricularly, which stand out as unusual (i.e. I did independent projects in math and English just for the fun of it and was not awarded grades or credit in return). Just because I couldn't be bothered to perform at my best on tests does not mean that I'm not a strong, motivated student, and I think for a school like Chicago, innate academic ability counts a lot, but motivation counts even more. Students who are "strong" and a good fit for Chicago are not necessarily students with strong tests and scores.</p>

<p>Another quick anecdote: one of my good friends here was a B student in high school. He's as smart as any, but he had had particular problems regarding fitting in to his high school's particular framework, and had a low self-esteem, further perpetuating the low-ish grades. He's absolutely flourished at Chicago and is one of the best students I know here.</p>

<p>I actually fear that the admissions office at Chicago is becoming too numbers-oriented, as I don't see another way for the admissions office to sort through the thousands and thousands of applications that they are getting. If I were to apply again, particularly in this year, I question whether I would have gotten in (heck, I've always questioned what the admissions officers were on when they decided to admit me).</p>

39

<p>One thing that is confusing about the U of C admissions is that their undergrad admission's process or philosophy as you call it quite differs from their grad school's. I heard that their law school + B-school + med school place much emphasis on hard numbers such as LSAT, GPA, GMAT, work experience, etc. Also, their grad schools are much more competitive to get into since their admit rates hover in mid teens to single digit. (for med school)</p>

40

<p>I'm the same as unalove but didn't care to toot my horn the first time around so I'll do so here. As someone with pretty low SATs (1890), it's amazing that I got into a top 10 university. In fact, I'm almost certain that I was put directly into Caltech and MIT's auto-reject pile for my awful test scores.</p>

<p>I was actually kind of in a Cottrell-like situation in high school. In 10th grade, I was considering dropping out because my classes were dull and I simply hated the high school atmosphere. Fortunately, I found another public high school that was more appropriate for me, but regardless, I stuck with my own curriculum rather than the school's. I covered 3 years of high school Japanese in a semester, and finished with some crazy math courses on my record. Regardless, my grades weren't the best because I wanted to truly learn the material rather than do homework (in fact, I didn't do any homework my 12th grade year, but still managed to pass through my test scores), which I then thought was an utter waste of time. I was pretty apathetic about the SATs and SAT IIs, and I really didn't care to concentrate on the exam itself, even when it was right in front of me. I thought it was all rubbish. In retrospect, there's really no reason why MIT or Caltech should have accepted me - I was definitely a risk of a student. Someone who refuses to do their work or concentrate on tests is definitely asking for trouble.</p>

<p>Well, in O-Week, I tested into Honors Analysis, a class into which only 10 freshman a year are invited. (Supposedly, it's the hardest math class in the nation so they're very picky about who gets to even attempt the course.) In there, I've done pretty well, although I admit to not concentrating on problem sets as much as I should, especially at times that I think I can get more benefit from doing something else. I'm also the only freshman in my Japanese class (the majority are grad students, actually), and I've received the highest grade on every test I've taken. I have a 3.7 GPA (fairly above average), and I'm expecting a boost after Winter Quarter's grades are submitted.</p>

<p>I'm definitely a risk student (though I have no plans of blowing up SUVs in the future, and teaching Calculus/Chinese to my prison inmates thereafter), but I think students like myself thrive in a college atmosphere, whereas we don't thrive in a high school atmosphere. I think a fair amount of intellectual students are similar, and I think a good portion of our student body is composed of such students. I don't see how this translates into the supposed fact that Northwestern has a better student body or is any more selective than Chicago. In all likelihood, if I had applied to Northwestern, I would have been flat-out rejected, but I think I would have been one of the top students at Northwestern if I had matriculated.</p>

<p>I know that Cottrell-like students seem like a rarity, but I don't really think so, and I know a hell of a lot of people with such personalities who got rejected from top-notch schools. For example, one of my friends got rejected from Caltech so decided to matriculate into the University of Washington where he's taking some crazy math graduate classes. He's probably the smartest person I know, and he almost certainly would have thrived at Caltech, but... he was a risk student. He should have applied to Chicago... we surely would have had some room for him (though I share unalove's concern that our admissions process is becoming too numbers-oriented due to the fetishes of our president). In my humble opinion, the best students are the risky ones that no university seems interested in... remember Einstein?</p>

<p>
[quote]
One thing that is confusing about the U of C admissions is that their undergrad admission's process or philosophy as you call it quite differs from their grad school's. I heard that their law school + B-school + med school place much emphasis on hard numbers such as LSAT, GPA, GMAT, work experience, etc. Also, their grad schools are much more competitive to get into since their admit rates hover in mid teens to single digit. (for med school)

[/quote]
</p>

<p>This is just how the professional world is. Trust me, our undergrad and grad students are pretty different from each other.</p>