Chicago's acceptance rate

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Chicago ✅
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<p>What I've found interesting is that the student reaction to someone getting into Chicago is "but you've gotten into [prestige name]! Doesn't Chicago work you to death?" However, when one mentions an acceptance to teachers and other highly educated professionals, the response is overwhelmingly positive, including when one mentions Chicago in the same breath as [prestige name].</p>

<p>Heck, UChicago is the only "worthy" school on DS's list as far as my mom is concerned. Then again, she grew up in Chicago and knew people who attended.</p>

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<ol>
<li><p>Northwestern and Chicago are about as different as two colleges can be if they're only 20 miles apart, have students that are indistinguishable demographically and statistically, and are not radically different sizes. I don't think Chicago is trying to be more like Northwestern, except to the extent that any baby steps it takes towards the golden mean are going to be steps in the general direction of Northwestern.</p></li>
<li><p>I think Chicago IS trying to be an eensie-weensie bit more like HYP. My general sense is that one of the things Chicago is trying to do to improve the undergraduate experience is to try to enroll more people who will do stuff with other students outside the classroom once they get there, found organizations, make things happen, etc. There certainly seems to be a lot more of that going on compared to a decade ago.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>A few years ago, I saw an incredible document -- over 100 pages, it must be on the web somewhere -- that was the report of some committee at Chicago charged with looking at university fundraising. There were three practical recommendations, one of which I know has been implemented, and the other two of which are what we are talking about. First, the report recommended expanding the undergraduate class size from 1,000 to 1,250. Done. Second, the report basically said "We need to have a happier undergraduate experience." Third, it said "We need more alumni who aren't academics or bureaucrats." </p>

<p>One of the things I like about Chicago is that you DON'T have to be a "leader" to get admitted. There really aren't that many leaders around, anyway. But I don't think that quality is held against an applicant anymore, or disregarded.</p>

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<p>JHS,
I think I know the document of which you speak. One of my husband's colleagues found it a couple of months ago and was telling DH about it. Part of it discussed how Harvard encouraged entrepreneurial leadership and has been able to expand its endowment via wealthy and successful businesspeople, in contrast to Chicago, where many people go into academia and make major advancements, but do not necessarily get rich and give back to the school.</p>

<p>I will see if his colleague can find the doc.</p>

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<p>I think that it is definitely true that Chicago is trying to improve its student life and extracurricular activities in a big way by attracting and admitting students with particular talents outside of the purely academic circle. My child, who is a second year now, was told at her interview that her grades and SATs were slightly lower than what they usually admit. But, she showed a lot of leadership qualities and is an accomplished musician,leading youth choral groups in high school, playing in orchestras and singing around the U.S. and the world. Well, they admitted her and she now sings in three major choirs at the school. I think that was the hook that got her admitted. They are now building a major new arts center and a whole new dorm complex. Student organizations are blossoming and the core curriculum has many more choices of subjects than in the past. So I think the analogy to a desire to be more like HYP than Northwestern is more accurate. Another side note is that sports are also getting more attention including a major new athletic complex, but the school shows no desire to relegate athletics or fraternities to the level of Northwestern. The schools will always be different and that is good. It gives kids more choices.</p>

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<p>"When S1 was applying he had three friends who were virtually tied for #1 in the school, had great test scores, EC's etc. He asked if they were considering Chicago. They all said no. The reason? Chicago was much to academically demanding, they wanted a place that had name recognition, but not the demanding work of Chicago. They felt all their work in HS was so they could go to a name college and not have to work so hard. Their reply suggested Chicago filters out top students as well."</p>

<p>Not gonna lie, I like this aspect of Chicago.</p>

<p>No prestige! Stick it to the man!</p>

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<p>I've seen this document before. It's very long, and, if you know your stuff, your U of C history, and campus today, very interesting. Some of the recommendations made are implemented and are a core (ha) part of student life.... </p>

<p>This link has been posted before on CC somewhere. Maybe I'll dig it out.</p>

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<p>If I remember correctly from from somewhere on my thinkenvelope site it said they accepted 3400 out of 12340 applicants. So it is now about 27% and dropping.</p>

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<p>It looks like the RD acceptance rate was around 19%:</p>

<p>EA: 4,500 apps, 1,500 acceptances, about 2,000+ deferrals (larger than number of acceptances for the first time ever, but not more than half)</p>

<p>Overall: 12,300 apps, 3,400 acceptances</p>

<p>Therefore RD (including deferrals): 9,800+ apps, 1,900 acceptances</p>

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<p>Some of the changes implemented after that document seem to be working: They received $100 million last year from an unknown donor.</p>

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<p>The SSAPT is a bunch of B#, or maybe a rationalization!</p>

<p>The real reason, IMHO, that Chicago is not more selective is just because fewer kids apply. The "why" is curious, though. I suspect it is because there is little of the traditional "prestige" associated with going to UofC. After all, many folks in Chicago think it is a public college!</p>

<p>So Chicago gets fewer of the applicants that just want to boast that they were accepted to, or attend, a well known place. After all, it is tough to get a reputation among the general public for strong academics. The ivies aren't famed for that. They are famed for their exclusivity. (and Penn, less exclusive, is less famed, for example).</p>

<p>Keep in mind that, of the 20,000 kids that apply to Harvard, a good half (maybe more? I have no idea) are auto rejects.</p>

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<p>^Huh?</p>

<p>What the ivies are famed for is strong academics. The general public has no idea how selective they are. (It knows you have to be really, really smart to get admitted, sure, but not how many really, really smart people are turned down.)</p>

<p>Harvard got 27,000+ applications this year. I don't know what Harvard's experience is, but four years ago the Yale people told me (and I believed it) that fewer than 20% of the applications they got were really not worth considering. The HYP applicant pool is pretty self-selecting, too.</p>

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<p>I'm convinced from reading CC that there are many kids who "throw an app and see if it sticks" to places like HP, odds be damned. It has been a lot harder to do that at Chicago with the Uncommon App. Self-selection rules the day. Hope it continues once the CommonApp invades Chicago's admissions process.</p>

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<p>What you said, and what I said, are not so different, CountingDown. I'll take my son's class last year as a case study. Harvard and Yale probably got 15-20 applications apiece (and accepted one student each). Chicago got three (and accepted one). But the average stats on the "pools" of students applying to the three schools were about the same, and all but one or two of the HY applications came from kids who were in the top 5% of the class and had a lot on the ball, a perfectly good case to make. (None, by the way, was the class valedictorian, who only wanted an engineering school close to home.) The one student Harvard accepted was ranked #7 in the class at the time of the application.</p>

<p>So, sure, a lot of those Harvard apps were thrown against a wall, but they were thrown against a wall by excellent students, at least half of whom, today, are at places like Penn, Brown, Cornell (and, yes, Chicago) -- not chopped liver.</p>

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<p>I would agree that the "average" person knows little about UChicago, but these are the same people that think Penn is a state school, have never heard of places like Middlebury or Reed, etc.</p>

<p>But in the professional world and academia people know the excellence of UChicago very well. Considering that you are attending college to enter these fileds, isn't that what matters?</p>

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<p>JHS, </p>

<p>Perhaps you don't know the difference between "exclusive" (my word) and "selective" (your word)? </p>

<p>Perhaps you hang out in circles where a large number of kids "were in the top 5% of the class and had a lot on the ball, a perfectly good case to make." Frankly, at most schools, being in the " the top 5% of the class" would not even be close to having a competitive package.</p>

<p>I stand by what I said. You are welcome to think that the majority of applicants to HYP are applying soley (or mostly) because of the great education offered, and that prestige has nothing to do with it. But don't expect everyone to agree.</p>

<p>And, if it is true that only 20% of Yale applicants were auto-rejects, or "not worth considering" in your words, then that may be one of the first accurate statements to come out of an admissions office in a long time. I'd rather put that in the category of statements like "we only put a thumb on the scale for legacies (yea, what a thumb...) or that 50% or more of US families are poor, according to Harvard's recent press releases on financial aid.</p>

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<p>When we toured Yale last year, the admissions officer himself said that Yale could accept a class and lose all of it, accept another class and lose all of it, accept another class and lose all of it, and be perfectly happy with the class they end up with and that it wouldn't be much different than the first class they accepted.</p>

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<p>Newmassdad:</p>

<p>My son's school was a large urban public academic magnet -- not the strongest school in the world, top to bottom, but one where there is a lot of academic focus, and being in the top 5% (25) of the class means a solid A average with lots of AP courses (or being in the IB program). A lot of the kids have significant extracurricular activities, research, competitions, sports, and almost all of them have paying jobs, too. Maybe half of them are immigrants or first generation Americans, often lower income, often URMs. In general, over the past decade the school has averaged 30-35 kids per year going to Ivy League or equivalent colleges. In the past few years, most of the kids taken by the most prestigious colleges have not been ranked at the very top of the class (the only kid accepted by more than one of HYPS last year was ranked #7 at the time of application), and the GPA difference between, say, #4 and #15 is usually miniscule.</p>

<p>At the other schools I know well, a top private and a smaller public academic magnet, both of which send more kids to top-level colleges, anyone in the top quintile of the class (20 or so) has historically been in play for HYP, and in the case of athletes often the second quintile.</p>

<p>So, yeah, I think most of the applications were meaningful.</p>

<p>As for legacy preferences, we'll have to agree to disagree. I know lots of legacy kids who have been admitted to HYP, and I can't think of one that was close to the line. (I don't think it's appropriate to talk about a thumb on the scales if a Yale legacy gets accepted at Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and MIT.) And I know lots who have been rejected despte stellar qualifications, including those who were accepted by equally selective non-legacy colleges. I think that the legacy preference is a Development Office marketing device, not a meaningful admissions principle.</p>

<p>1990Dad: That's a change in the speech. Four years ago, it was "If our entire admitted class died of a mysterious illness, and was replaced by our waitlist, no one but their parents would be able to tell the difference." It didn't suggest they could pick four equivalent classes.</p>

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<p>JHS, </p>

<p>Anecdotal data, such as what you discuss, is interesting, but hardly the basis for analysis. The fact that you know well qualified legacies who were accepted says nothing, although one would ask how you know their qualifications without being a school employee...The fact that you can think of a Yale legacy that also got accepted at Harvard may say more about the circles you travel in, and what your peers spend their time discussing, than anything about what the actual practices of these schools are with regard to legacies. </p>

<p>But no matter. You are entitled to your beliefs. And your beliefs are certainly widely held, whether or not they are true. Peace.</p>

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<p>JHS,</p>

<p>Let me elaborate a bit more on how we view this situation differently. I have no doubt it is true that, at a magnet school, especially one in the northeast or mid-atlantic, would have a high awareness of the difficulty getting accepted to HYP> I can also tell you that there are many places in the country and many high schools, some even in the northeast, that do not have this awareness. These schools, and more importantly, the families of their kids, are not well informed. All too commonly, they think that because their valedictorian, perhaps for the first time in many years, was a NM finalist (to use an example), that the kid is a shoe-in at Yale, Princeton or Harvard. After all, this poor unhooked kid is within the middle band of stats, and was all-state in band, so has great ECs. Of course, you and your friends know better, but why judge them with YOUR yardstick? </p>

<p>At any rate, you won't find a school or family saying "you're our best student in a long time. You should apply to Chicago." You will hear them saying "..apply to Yale." or Harvard. You will also hear others say, "Johnny is a double legacy..." and so forth. (yes, I agree, many legacies DO get turned down - at Harvard, about 60%!)</p>

<p>So I do think there are a good percentage of the applicants to HYP that are either misinformed regarding the odds or are willing to buy a lottery ticket in the off chance that something connects. After all, what's $60 bucks compared to a chance to get into one of the best known schools in the world?</p>

<p>Chicago? Because it is less well known, I posit that Chicago's applicants are a bit more aware of the good and bad of the school.</p>

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<p>^^^ I agree entirely with the above post
switching to common app will make more people "throw apps at" chicago, but not nearly to the degree at Yale and Harvard.</p>