<p>In summary, the only major changes are that Chicago's average SATs rose from an average of 1420-1530 to 1440-1540 and that student representation from the Midwest fell to 26% from 30%+ last year, compensated by a rise in student representation from the Mid-Atlantic. Class yield rose to 46% from 40% a year ago. </p>
<p>I don't have much to say this year about the statistics except that, as I expected, SATs rose further, and are now higher than Harvard's. Many people around here were expecting Chicago's SATs to decrease, mostly due to seeing small pieces of anecdotal evidence of people with 2100 SATs getting in and 2400 SATs getting rejected. I'm fairly sure that the rise in SAT's this year to a level above Harvard's is a clear indication that Chicago isn't practicing a significant amount of yield protection. However, I doubt that will stop the criticism, as the original critics were people who couldn't perform a simple mathematical analysis.</p>
<p>Ivies have yields from 49.5% to 82% for class of 2016. Duke 47%, NWU 43%, CALTECH ~33%. For schools which have early decision programs, their yields will be high. Other top 25 schools stay between 30% to up 70% (MIT, STANFORD).</p>
<p>46% is low-ish, but only because Chicago is an EA school. ED schools have higher yields because everyone they admit early has to attend. All of the Ivies minus HYP are EDs, which is why their yields are so high.</p>
<p>UChicago’s yield rate increased 6 points in one year–a 20% increase, the greatest percentage increase of any of the top schools last year. Its yield has increased from somewhere between 25-28% back in the day…back in the 80s or 90s (I would have to check…) Anyway, the point being it’s on the rise…</p>
<p>Will be interesting to see how things play out over the next few years as the admit rate declines…and the yield rises further…</p>
<p>CSIHSIS: As others have said, outside of HYPSM, high yield is generally attributed to use of Early Decision. ED is a great way to boost yield by ensuring that a portion of your admitted class (sometimes up to 50%) is nearly guaranteed to enroll at a 100% clip. </p>
<p>UChicago’s yield is quite surprisingly good, I think. For pretty much any school outside of the tippy top (HYPSM), an open-market yield of about 50%, with no use of ED, is quite impressive. Duke, for example, uses ED but has a 42% yield. Dartmouth, even with ED, has a 49% yield. </p>
<p>So, UChicago’s yield is very strong. Of interest, I’m curious to see whether UChicago will use ED in the future - it’s conceivable that the overall yield would rise to 60-65% with such a change.</p>
<p>A lot of people dismiss parchment and I don’t think it is a credible source either. However, it is inaccurate to say that Chicago beats all except HYPSM according to Parchment. In fact, Chicago is shown to lose cross admits to both Penn and Duke. I don’t mean to be confrontational, I’m just pointing out the facts :)</p>
<p>kenyanpride: I don’t think Parchment has many “facts.” So, UChicago “beating all except HYPSM” according to Parchment isn’t a fact, just as UChicago losing cross admits to Duke and UPenn isn’t a fact. Heck, according to Parchment Penn splits cross admits with Yale 50/50, and also takes 75% from Dartmouth. The numbers just don’t seem to pass the sniff test. </p>
<p>Outside of the tippy top, I don’t think yield indicates anything much between the next ~10 schools. Schools can manipulate yield figures in various ways to get to very respectable total figures (e.g. between 40 - 60%). Outside of the tippy top, students can generally select based on fit (whatever that fit may be, e.g. location, curriculum, etc.). So Columbia, may remain quite “hot” given its location, Cornell may struggle a bit on that front, and so on and so forth.</p>
<p>It’s hard to imagine how brutal top 10 university admission would be in next 10 years. Every year, it’s getting increasingly harder. Since I’m an international, I’m more curious about international statistic which UChcago doesn’t provide. My guess is average SAT for internationals would be higher than that of overall admitted students. So I’m slightly concerned my score of 1500/1600 is not so competitive.</p>
<p>I’m really tired of this HYPSM against UCHICAGO . It is not UCHICAGO #4 in the rankings , ahead of Stanford and MIT? When it is going to be clarified clear enough that UCHICAGO is in the same level if not above some of this schools academically, prestige, etc. It is getting really annoying and unfair the way some people talk about UChicago as a second tier school compared to the HYPSM. Get your FACTS straight, and them compare UCHICAGO to HYPSM.</p>
<p>Rhg3rd - the breakdown by ethnicity is really interesting. UChicago’s Class of 2016 is 27.31% asian, 7.5% african american, and 12.5% hispanic. These numbers are all about 50% increases from the previous year.</p>
<p>I imagine that some of this is due to unexpected returns on yield - e.g. maybe a higher proportion of asians than anticipated accepted UChicago’s offer. Nevertheless, as Nondorf’s team continues to work out the kinks, it appears as if UChicago will seek to have pretty diverse classes - maybe around 20-25% asian, 10-15% african american, and 10-15% hispanic each year. </p>
<p>Overall, more than a dip in selectivity, I think this is a great trend. Frankly, UChicago used to be considerably less diverse than many of its peers, primarily because the school was just not that appealing for various minority groups. I’d imagine in the 90s, there was maybe a 10-15% asian population, maybe 5-10% hispanic, and very few african americans at all (maybe 3-4%?). </p>
<p>Now, one of the biggest benefits of becoming more appealing is a surge in interest from minority groups. This is an overall benefit for the university, and one that I think is worth the previous controversial changes (e.g. switching to the common app, playing more “big numbers” admissions, etc.).</p>
<p>@Realeducation, I have no doubt that UChicago is on the same academic level with HPYSM. The only difference that separated them are the prestige. Prestige that comes from long history of universities and reputation that survived for long time. For lot of normal people who are not so knowledgable in top universities, all they think of top universities are HYPSM or Ivy plus. It’s just the public awareness. You can probably figure out that UChicago’s official acceptance rate is 16.3% whereas MIT’s and Columbia’s are 9.7 and 7.0%.</p>
<p>It takes time to build up prestige. Some schools like Brown with very low admit rates have relatively low prestige compared to other ivies and the top 10 schools.</p>
<p>UChicago is definitely shifting to a more typical student body. Varsity athletes and Community Service is at an all-time high. Obviously they are doing their very best to combat the image of a antisocial, no-fun, anti-community image that people project on them.</p>
<p>I am glad that the SAT range still counts only Math and Reading. My scores on those sections are… superb, to say the least.</p>
<p>UCHICAGO does not need time to build prestige, I think that a University with 89 Nobel Prize have enough prestige already. All this ignorance is annoying , you are confusing popular prestige with academic prestige. Anyway one goes to college for a great education not for a popular prestige based degree. Good luck in your college search and admittance. My kid is already a VERY PROUD CLASS OF 2016 UCHICAGO.</p>
<p>I think UChicago needs more time to build similar prestige as other Ivys. Although I think it will take more time for admission rate for UChicago to be lowered to the similar level as other Ivys’ because every year, most of the prestigious univ get more applications, I believe UChicago can join HYPSM or HYPCSM or whatever people say. Yes, people who are not aware of UChicago in terms of academic prestige, they are ignorant in education field. My parents were one of them, but they still admired HPYSM. It will take a quite a long time for UChicago to build such prestige that even ignorant people are aware of it. I’m not sure how many factors affect the level of prestige, but I can guess long history, maintaining top 10 national university ranking for a decade, putting some resources and effort on advertising its school contribute to building prestige.</p>