I have no dog in this fight over Chicago. I just don’t think it’s reliable to report secondhand what someone heard from an admissions representative. Once they put it in writing, I’m happy to add.
SCEA is not desirable from applicants’ perspective, but it is way better than ED, especially UChicago’s extreme gaming this year.
The following have been confirmed by admision dean and staff at two receptions:
total applications 28,000
ED1 and EA – acceptance 9%
RD acceptance – 2%
only 0.5% of deferred applicants were admitted
total acceptance 8%
yield will be higher this year than last year.
also re @collegemomjam : You are simply wrong,especially this year. I can tell you that the top elite NY private schools this year almost everybody who applied EA was deferred. and only 0.5% of deferred were admitted. HYPS clearly more difficult to get into. But that’s it.
Total applications 28,000
ED1 and EA – acceptance 9%
RD acceptance – 2%
only 0.5% of deferred applicants were admitted
total acceptance 8%
This is only possible if a small fraction, around 1/7th, of all applications were RD, and everyone else submitted ED or EA applications. Otherwise you are not going to have 2% acceptance rate for RD and 8% overall. Now, since EA is non-restricting for Chicago, it is possible they get a lot more applications for EA over RD, but still it looks a bit strange to me.
Well were these numbers given at two events.
@Chrchill - I think EA was harder because they added ED, first of all. Second of all, I’m in no way saying that it is easy by any stretch of the imagination to get in to Chicago. But my feeling from the posts I have read and the people that I know that more often than NOT it’s slightly, not exceptionally, but slightly easier to get in to Chicago than HYPS…even though the stats may end up suggesting otherwise. So it is my opinion, and it is only an opinion because this is truly something that has so many variables it is impossible to derive completely accurate statistics, that the overall feeling that has been expressed by some, but not all, posters that Chicago is playing games to influence their numbers/perceived selectivity is correct. But a great school and extremely hard to get in, nonetheless.
@osuprof Also don’t forget ED2. No numbers given on that.
@collegemomjam Yes. Agreed re HYPS as noted above.
I don’t think U’Chicago is harder to get into than the top LACs either. Sure the latter may report higher acceptance rates, but they’re also bringing a very self-selecting group in the first place. I’ve already provided evidence for how much stronger Amherst’s applicant pool is than Stanford’s, and that seems similar to Harvard and Princeton as well. U’Chicago (and all the top schools) is getting a lot of applications from students who’re not qualified. Not so much at the LACs. Admit rates need to be taken with context.
Lol, thread has been derailed again 
Agreed. I think this is the case for a lot of schools. Impossible to really know for sure, and we will never have hard stats and facts to really prove any theory. Hence the numbers game prevails…
@osuprof: Indeed. If the various U of C early rounds admitted 9% and RD admitted 2% with a total of 28K apps and overall acceptance rate of 8%, for the numbers to work, there would have to be 24K apps in the various early rounds and only 4K apps in RD (80 offers in RD).
True, we don’t know what the numbers are like for ED2, but ED2 typically just doesn’t get that many apps.
@nostalgicwisdom seriously ! At the NY tippy tops private Amherst is a target for middle of the class applicants.
HYPS, UChicago, MIT, Columbia are all high reaches even for the top students.
@nostalgicwisdom I would expect Stanford’s test score pool to be a bit lower because the athletic powerhouse that Stanford is will surely attract many applicants that are huge Stanford fans but just aren’t quiete there scorewise to actually have a chance. I wouldn’t necessarily expect the same difference between other top national universities that don’t have such huge fanbases as all of these schools have pretty self selective applicant pools. Stanford is one of the most well-known schools in the US, and that must make it a bit less self selective than a lot of the other top national universities that are not as known so I would not assume the difference between Amherst and Stanford’s applicant pool (which I do not think was even that large) is the same as every other national university.
@PurpleTitan I don’t follow your math. We don’t know for sure how many ED1 , ED2 and EA there were. But Several reports were that ED1 and EA combined were 13,000. Do s this change your math ?
All things equal, I sometimes wonder how Stanford’s applicant pool would be affected if it were located in North Dakota, Alabama, or Nebraska.
@Chrchill: OK, if the U of C’s numbers are to be believed (and that’s open to question, as their past behavior has shown):
8% of 28K total = 2240 total admits.
EA & ED1 = 9% of 13K total = 1170 admits in ED1+EA
ED2 & RD = 1070 admits from 15K total.
x * .02 + (15000 - x) * y = 1070
We don’t know how many applied to the U of C ED2 but we do know that roughly the same number applied to ED2 at BU as to ED1. We also know that between 3000 and 4000 apply ED to Brown, Duke, and Northwestern, but the U of C doesn’t have engineering (or a lot of schools that Northwestern has). Between 1500 and 2000 ED to Emory, Dartmouth, and JHU (even though JHU does have engineering). Even being generous, say 2K-4K apply to each of ED1 and ED2 at the U of C.
If 4K ED’ed to each of I and II (and EA had the same 2% admit rate as RD):
ED1: 24.75%
ED2: 21.25%
If 3K ED’ed to each of I and II (and EA had the same 2% admit rate as RD):
ED1: 32.33%
ED2: 27.67%
If 2K ED’ed to each of I and II (and EA had the same 2% admit rate as RD):
ED1: 47.5%
ED2: 40.5%
Note that the school with the most SCEA apps (Harvard) only had a little over 6K, so UChicago almost certainly didn’t have 8K ED’ing to it.
In any case, the U of C is giving a massive bump to those who ED.
It seems like your chances to the U of C range from around 30% to possibly even above 40% if you ED, but they are almost nil if you do not.
And yes, taking in a decided majority of your class in ED most certainly would increase yield.
@PurpleTitan Chapeau !!!
I have to give the U of C credit for being trendsetters, though. Now that they are EA/ED1/ED2, I expect all the other non-Ivy private elites who are now ED (Northwestern, Duke, JHU, WashU, Vandy, Rice, Emory, Tufts) to become EA/ED1/ED2 too.
Eventually, Dartmouth will also switch to EA/ED1/ED2 and the rest of the non-SCEA Ivies will follow.
Such a development would actually be better for applicants. They would then be able to ED and EA at a bunch of places at the same time.
Of course, it would kill the RD round (which was what I had kind of predicted would eventually occur, with privates filling 80-90% of their class from ED1, ED2, EA, and WL).
New theory: Jim Nondorf is the Steve Bannon of UChicago. His ultimate goal: the deconstruction of the college admissions process.