This is a place where we can collect the “tidbits” and “sound bites” that are dropped at various accepted student reception and other venues where UChicago Officials tell us things about this next class. For example last year at an admitted student open house in Philly, the regional AO let us know overall acceptance rates, average SAT scores, etc. Already, we’ve had President Zimmer tell us that there have been around 40k applicants in a Davos event. And last year Dean Boyer has stated that the class size will be smaller for class of 2023. What else have we heard?
15,000 early applications and a 7% early admission rate, from a poster who attended an early admissions event. It’s also on another thread.
Have there been any receptions with intel yet?
There will be a bunch of receptions in April including the overnights. Hopefully lots of intel then.
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/22141155/#Comment_22141155
Apparently it’s a 5.9% admit rate this year.
If we assume that the admissions office is expecting a yield of ~ 80%, that would mean some 37,000 applicants.
I get 1700/.8 = 2125, 2125/.059 ~ 36,000 applicants. If they are targeting last year’s yield, then the number of applications is closer to 37,500. All that is premised on a target enrollment of 1700.
If, however, they are targeting 1750 enrollees, then number of apps. must have been in the range of 37,100 - 38,500.
Most likely application #'s were north of 36K so - at minimum - 12.5% growth over last year. Healthy.
^ Yep I was assuming around 1750 target enrollees – it’s probably in the 36-38k range, depending on these factors.
But in any case, as you say, it’s a healthy increase!
I wonder how these estimates of applicants jive with the 40k number from Zimmer? I guess you could say he rounded to the nearest 10k.
^ If the number is 35,000, then a round up to 40K sounds ridiculous. If the number is north of 37,500, then it doesn’t.
@BrianBoiler my own argument has been that we shouldn’t pay too much attention to that number: http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/21958720#Comment_21958720
That was quite e leap on that 40k assumption, no one, not even Zimmer said that there were 40k apps.
But Zimmer didn’t correct the trustee guy either.
The Maroon just published an article on this year admissions cycle /a link to a recording of Dean Nondorf at an admitted students reception just like last year:
https://www.chicagomaroon.com/article/2019/4/1/uchicago-acceptance-rate-drops-record-low/
Just under 35,000 applicants?
35,000 x .059 x yield = 1,750 (ideal class size according to Boyer: 7,000/4 )
The implied yield will be around 85%.
The impressiveness of an 85% yield depends an awful lot on (a) what percentage of the slots were filled ED with essentially a 100% yield, and (b) to what extent they played yield management games in the RD round, waitlisting candidates they thought were likely to be accepted by competitive colleges.
For example, if they filled 2/3 of the available slots ED, that would mean a 65% yield on ~900 EA and RD admits. That’s actually very impressive – Columbia, for example, only had a 50% yield on its RD admits last year, and Brown 45%. But it’s somewhat less impressive than MIT’s overall 77% yield with no ED program at all. And it also raises the question exactly how Chicago is getting an RD yield so much higher than Columbia’s or Brown’s. Maybe it is admitting more than 2/3 of its class ED. Maybe it is making choices in whom it admits based on how likely they are to enroll as opposed to how strong a candidate they are.
The yield is a nice number, but it’s not something to celebrate that much unless we have a lot more information than we do.
^ What was to prevent them from having an 85% yield the past couple of years? This is the third year of ED and the third year that yield has gone up. They’ve likely been playing some sort of “yield game” every year (as pretty much every school does in some form or other). That doesn’t explain the trend.
Personally I think you can pull just a strong a class out of the ED pool then any other pool. Especially since you have two, ED1 and 2. Given that, the admits from the RD and EA pools would a) have to be very desirable candidates b) show a strong affinity for UChicago to be admitted. AO’s have a decent ability to ferret out those who want to come to UChicago vs those who are just throwing there app in the hat.
It was interesting that they deferred ED1’s and allowed them to re-sign up as ED2’s. Not sure how that worked out - most who posted about it either moved on or were rejected ED2. I still wonder if they offered that this year because they didn’t have a good - or large - ED2 pool. But the alternative theory - that many of these kids were strong and they wanted to re-consider them as binding - is just as reasonable. You don’t know what’s coming in ED2 till the deadline (my son, for instance, sent his application in right before year-end). Anything could happen, even a rejection I guess.
Other intel now points to SAT scores rose around 15 points. The comment didn’t say if this was the average or the range. I suspect it means the average. Last year the average was quoted as 1510 and this would mean it is now 1525.
Mid 50 range for Class of '22 is 1490 - 1560. Average might be closer to 1525 last year, which puts this year’s average closer to 1540. Hopefully Nondorf will provide a number over the next few weeks.