http://chicagomaroon.com/2016/05/31/university-admits-record-low-7-9-percent-to-class-of-2020/
I frankly don’t know how Chicago is getting 30k+ applications and generating a 66% yield.
I’m sure that Admissions Dean Jim Nondorf’s raises and bonuses (rumored to be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars) will only increase, of course. They seem to have worked out a very good formula on predicting who to accept and who will attend.
Seems like popular perceptions of the College are finally catching up to the perceptions of the College in academia/law/government/business and other such fields (explains the high yield). Boyer et al have also succeeded in creating a vibrant social atmosphere to complement the vibrant intellectual climate. Explains why year after year, retention rate at Chicago is the highest in the nation, along with Columbia and Yale. It probably also has something to do with the fact that living in cities is fashionable with millennials right now, explaining the similar popularity of urban peers of Chicago like Penn and Columbia.
I believe the 2482 admits include people off the wait-list. The previously reported number was about 100 smaller.
If 66% from those 2482 intend to enroll that will be 1638 for class of 2020 which will be very big. Most likely some students from those 1638 will take gap years. Considering summer melt the final class size for 2020 may be between 1550 and 1600. It seems the College is really expanding again.
BTW the 66% yield rate is impressive considering UChicago does not have ED or SCEA. The College has improved its FA significantly with the No-barrier program in the past years. It has also increased the merit money cap from 15K a few years ago to 35K this year. I have seen a few people getting 30K, 35K. I think the merit money plays a big role to the yield jump since it is the only way for a no-rich no-poor family to reduce the cost. Ivies/Standford/MIT do not offer merit-base scholarship so UChicago and a few others are in a unique position among its peers.
I bet students are also expanding their vision about where they want to attend. The Northeast was the preferred destination for students planning to attend private colleges and universities but I think that was when fewer people traveled very far and the NE was considered the preferred destination in general. People are less parochial these days-so I think there is more recognition that the best schools are not all located in the Northeast.
Uchicago has always had an excellent reputation but fewer people were willing to contemplate college in states outside a very narrow range.
Jeepers, I would hope so! His performance has been extraordinary. He has accomplished everything for which anyone could have dreamed of asking, and in half the time anyone could have imagined when he started. His pay darn well ought to reflect that.
Where are you hearing these rumors about his bonuses?
2,482*.66 = 1,638
…damn, that’s a big class
Can’t believe they took people off the waitlist
(My conspiracy theory is that the yield is so high this year b/c the giant clique of facebook-active people are oddly socially aware and not that weird.
It’s very unusual)
Looks like my speculation on class size based on Facebook and number of beds was not just speculation
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-chicago/1888946-class-of-2020-size-p1.html
I think you can glean some interesting tidbits based on all the information that has been trickling in about the 2020 admission cycle, assuming the numbers released have been fairly accurate on the days they were released.
For example even though the University did not release the number of folks taken off the waitlist, you can back into that number. based on the slight difference between the admit rates published earlier and updated now in the Maroon along with the yield rate. It looks like they took off less than 100 folks off the wait list.
Another interesting stat that emerges is that UChicago deferred about 85% of the applicants in the EA round.
@tutututututuru - re rumors about Jim Nondorf’s pay raises, look here: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/09/higher-educations-aristocrats/
It looks like Nondorf made $220,000 in 09-10, his first year as Admissions Dean. By his third year, he made $470,000. Now in his 6th year, I wouldn’t be surprised if his salary was $600,000+. That’s a tremendous amount of money for an Admissions head.
(I’m not overly impressed with the publication citing the figures, though, which is why I state that this is a rumor.)
@JHS - re Nondorf’s performance, his results certainly merit increased pay, but they also reflect the profound shift Chicago’s made in its admissions approach. The admissions wing is now part public relations firm, and Nondorf is the leader of this movement. Big bonuses seem to be paid for applications received and yield increases, and considerable attention goes toward the US News ranking.
For a great discussion of this shift, please see (former Chicago Admissions Dean) Ted O’Neill’s writing on the subject, titled “Admissions Failure”: https://thepointmag.com/2016/examined-life/admissions-failure
A good quote from O’Neill reflecting on his time as Chicago’s Admissions Dean:
"Once, and I remember the day, to try to keep up, we hired consultants to help with our “marketing,” a word that had embarrassed us just years before. Their first bit of advice was that it was mistaken to tell applicants anything until we absolutely had to. If we told them something, then they would have some reason not to like us, and therefore not to apply.
The idea was to tease, to speak in generalities, to show pretty pictures, and at each stage of this courtship to “fulfill” the students: that is, to give them something. We thought, naively or rebelliously, that we should fulfill them with arguments, and words. Now Chicago, even Chicago, has sent inquirers and applicants sunglasses, t-shirts, pizza cutters and beach towels, all to ensure they are fulfilled."
While O’Neill eventually resigned in protest of this approach, Nondorf has clearly embraced it with aplomb.
(Note, O’Neill states that current Chicago students are still curious and engaged, but the selection process has changed fundamentally - and in ways that are probably not healthy for the applicant pool - for the kids.)
I for one am ambivalent about this change. On the one hand, my Chicago degree has appreciated over time. It’s better to be ranked 4 rather than 14 in US News, and it’s nice to be tied to a school that has generated demand. Frankly, Chicago was always the weird school with weird students in a weird neighborhood, and it’s a welcome change to be a “hot” school.
At the same time, as former Dean O’Neill attests, something seems to have been lost.
^ I read the article and the response from an alumni interviewer and it made me sad. That marketing plays such a strong role now in any college is worrisome. I understand the need for marketing but this seems Machiavellian in nature. Where are the ethics?
I’m hoping that there are some other factors for UChicago’s popularity such as Obama’s presidency bringing attention to it.
I first started paying attention to UChicago when I started looking into colleges for my son and noticed that it was a school that had a very unique approach and seem to attract some very bright but unpretentious kids from my son’s school. I really liked that. My S ultimately was not interested in applying but I continued to research it and again was really intrigued by the uniqueness of it. When my D was beginning to look into colleges and I brought it up, she was not interested either. I gave up pitching it as a worthwhile school for her to consider.
But then I started to notice that the kids that were interested in the Ivies had it on their list. When I asked one particular student why it was on her list- she mentioned the rankings and that Obama was associated with the school during his career. Nothing about the Core, nothing about life of the mind, nothing about scav, nothing about the unique application questions… It was weird. This girl had a list that practically had all the Ivy schools plus UVA. She was all about prestige. UChicago would not have been on that type of kids list when I first became aware of it. So the tide may be turning indeed. I know one anctedoctal experience does not qualify as a trend but it does make me wonder.
And my D came around after hearing the pitch from the UChicago admissions who I have to say, gave some pretty specific information and not a bunch of generalities. For whatever it may be worth, UChicago is now cool with a different set of kids. Is it a good thing or a bad thing? Not sure. I do think that the kids stuck on prestige still have the Ivy schools on the top and would choose those schools over UChicago.
Yes, my D got in and she’s going. It was her top choice and although she had one Ivy on her list, it wasn’t the top choice even if she had gotten in. I’m hoping it stays quirky enough for her to enjoy her years there.
^ when you say Ivy schools keep in mind that there is a big delta between the top and the bottom of the ivies. Not all ivies are the same. So most people faced with the HYP vs Chicago choice would choose HYP, for people who face the Chicago vs Penn/Columbia choice the split is more even but prob still slightly in favor of Penn/Columbia but when you look at Chicago vs Dartmouth/ Brown/Cornell I would not be surprised if nowadays Chicago wins over all these three schools, especially for Brown and Cornell.
^I think that all you’re saying is that people who applied to Chicago based on prestige will go to a more prestigious school if they get into one (and that a majority of those still consider Columbia or Penn more prestigious than U of C). But that analysis ignores the kids who value what U of C offers more than they value what the Ivies offer. If they get in EA, they may never face the choice between an Ivy and U of C (they withdraw or decide not to submit apps to 2nd/3rd choice schools) or, if RD, their 2nd/3rd/4th choice schools may be non-Ivies (MIT, Swarthmore, state flagship). In either case, their preference for U of C over any of the Ivies falls out of the discussion.
Hopefully, Nondorf and co. recognize the existence of the group I’m describing and their goal is to identify/admit those kids and to increase the number of them. My take on the marketing efforts is that they are dog-whistling (purposefully) rather than trying to be all things to all people. And the Uncommon Essays (and the weight attached to them) suggest that U of C is looking for a specific kind of student and has developed a strategy for finding such kids.
Yeah, USNWR and prestige is driving the number of apps, but what’s also happening is that HYP ain’t what they used to be (in some ways that’s certainly progress and in other ways maybe it isn’t). My DC is headed to Chicago next year for the same reason I headed to Harvard almost 40 years ago – it’s where we each thought we had the best chance of finding kindred spirits – smart, serious/intense kids (and adults) who love to read, think, talk, and figure things out and who are more interested in ideas than in making money or networking.
I was at a hair salon recently where the young stylist recognized the T-shirt of the school I was wearing instantly. Said the valedictorian from her school went there. She even knew about Scav! Who could have imagined?
@exacademic - you’re looking at @Penn95 terms too myopically, and implying that students make matriculation decisions in a binary way (e.g. they either go for prestige OR seek kindred spirits). (I also think @Penn95 is using the term “ivies” to mean, generally, top schools. MIT, Stanford, Swarthmore, Duke etc. could all be included in this bucket.)
I don’t think you intend for your analysis to lack the requisite nuance, but I’ll spell it out here:
Many factors play into a students decision, and schools often try to hit a sweet spot. Chicago used to offer a lot in the “find your kindred spirits” department, but very little in the prestige department (at least for the past 20-30 years). It wasn’t interested in hitting a sweet spot, in the way that UPEnn and Columbia were/are. Now, it’s trying to broaden its base. It’s done this with great aplomb.
What former Chicago Admissions Dean Ted O’Neill aptly points out, though, is that something is lost in this whole process. Chicago may now have become one of the biggest culprits in this, along with many of its peers.
Again, here’s the link, because O’Neill’s piece is worth reading: https://thepointmag.com/2016/examined-life/admissions-failure
Nope, I’m looking at this demographically and historically. Marketing, outreach, and publicity surrounding need-blind admissions have made Chicago visible and attractive to nerdy kids who would never have applied before. That’s a good thing – not a betrayal or reorientation or dilution of the school’s mission. What’s valuable about U of C is its commitment to a certain kind of education – not that it was largely unknown to people outside academia (and affluent Midwesterners).
I read the O’Neill piece (before I posted actually). I thought it was mostly self-serving hand-wringing, especially when he acknowledged that the kids in his classroom are up for the challenge that is Chicago. Compare that to Pinker’s comments about today’s Harvard undergrads https://newrepublic.com/article/119321/harvard-ivy-league-should-judge-students-standardized-tests. Sample sound bite:
“Knowing how our students are selected, I should not have been surprised when I discovered how they treat their educational windfall once they get here. A few weeks into every semester, I face a lecture hall that is half-empty, despite the fact that I am repeatedly voted a Harvard Yearbook Favorite Professor, that the lectures are not video-recorded, and that they are the only source of certain material that will be on the exam. I don’t take it personally; it’s common knowledge that Harvard students stay away from lectures in droves, burning a fifty-dollar bill from their parents’ wallets every time they do. Obviously they’re not slackers; the reason is that they are crazy-busy. Since they’re not punching a clock at Safeway or picking up kids at day-care, what could they be doing that is more important than learning in class? The answer is that they are consumed by the same kinds of extracurricular activities that got them here in the first place.”
Basically, to the extent that I see Chicago’s niche changing, it’s not because U of C is chasing after (or has become the consolation prize for) the kinds of kids who are today’s Harvard undergrads. It’s because there are fewer and fewer options for kids who want college to be a challenging, academically-oriented experience.
@exacademic said:
“Basically, to the extent that I see Chicago’s niche changing, it’s not because U of C is chasing after (or has become the consolation prize for) the kinds of kids who are today’s Harvard undergrads. It’s because there are fewer and fewer options for kids who want college to be a challenging, academically-oriented experience.”
Wait, what? Chicago - the school - MADE the decision to become less of a niche school. The very reason there are fewer options for kids who want challenging college options is completely because more and more colleges have chosen to eschew that path.
I don’t think this is simply a “things were better in my day,” play from O’Neill and Harvard’s Pinker. They are quite sincere about their comments, and Chicago’s “nerdy” pool is certainly diminishing. Once you advertise the ability to take classes at the business school, open up engineering as a course of study, introduce grade inflation (see gradeinflation.com), lessen core requirements (and greatly expand the types of classes that count for core classes), reduce BA requirements (see the decision to drop the thesis req for history majors), and beef up career advising, the composition of the student body will change.
U of C is committed to thoughtful education - this is true. Their approach now is more diluted than it was in the past. It’s no longer an intellectual boot camp. This is probably a good thing, but it’s because of intentional decisions made by the school.
From what I see, Chicago’s nerdy pool is growing and diversifying. Kids who are Chicago types but who, in the past, either wouldn’t have known that or wouldn’t have been looking at any expensive private (or foreign) schools are now applying and matriculating. The kids I know entering Chicago today are smarter and have better academic credentials than the people I know who are my age and attended Chicago as undergrads in the 1980s.
Chicago would not have been an appealing place to me then; it would be high on my list today. And I didn’t choose schools based on median GPA or the availability of an engineering major or whether a thesis was required. “Boot camp” and the embrace of anhedonia just never struck me as essential elements of a robust and meaningful intellectual life. The “life of the mind” doesn’t have to be ascetic. And leading an ascetic life (or suffering) isn’t a mark of intellectual seriousness.
So, to me, if Chicago’s niche was “highly academic” then that hasn’t changed, though UofC’s position in the niche has changed as other prestigious schools have abandoned it. I suppose if the niche was “monastic” then, yeah, there’s been a deliberate change. But, as a non-alumn, I see monastic as an artifact of neglect and something that has impeded rather than furthered UofC’s mission.
True that. DD, a legacy who said she would never attend because she didn’t want to be so ‘predictable,’ was gradually won over by the marketing material that relentlessly arrived at our house. I kept my mouth shut as she went through her metamorphosis. Definitely of that nerdy pool but one that likely would not have applied nor matriculated 10 years ago without the ‘interesting’ mailings.
Saw my internist today, a UC BA/MD, and told him DD will be attending. He started bemoaning that his DD ended up at Yale rather than UC 10-15 years ago, and how he wished she’d gone to UC instead which he thought a better fit. He blamed himself ‘talking too much about it’ as the reason she declined UC. Not much PR from UC back in those days and hearing dad go on and on apparently did not do the trick.
I, for one, am glad that they are casting a wider net and being more aggressive about reeling in the kids who appear to want to be there. The surprisingly high yield attests to that.
I fail to see how the Engineering types are less nerdy than the Liberal Arts types that UChicago traditionally attracts. Nerd, geek and all the braniac words originated with Techies and Engineers in mind. So now that UChicago attracts more Engineers/Applied Scientists, the nerd factor should be pushed up not down.
At the very least, it is just swapping one kind of Nerd for another.