Deadline Extended 6 Days :O

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Chicago ✅
21

It does almost seem as if they WANT the admit rate not to be publicized all that much. But I do wonder about how narrow those ED demographics actually are. The ones we know all got FA but maybe that’s a skewed subset for some reason. The low income kids are obviously going to apply EA on the advice of their counselors but that’s actually because they tend to be a desirable demo. for many top schools and can therefore, for lack of a better word, “afford” to be price sensitive. The middle income families seem to have a lot of suspicion about ED - we were included in that category - but the reports back about releasing good faith applicants due to financial differences seem to be genuine, and the school does seem to reach deep in terms of meeting “demonstrated need”. Unlike other ED threads I was following at NU and similar, no one seemed to be complaining about their FA package at UChicago.

So perhaps that suspicion will be allayed over time - in part, perhaps, through those marketing materials - or maybe UChicago realizes that there will always be a narrow demographic and plans to benefit from that in order to offset aggressive pursuit of other categories with generous merit aid. Not sure which - “conventional wisdom” on these threads seems to suggest the latter. But IMHO @marlowe1 also has a good point - we’ve heard informally through the grapevine that the primary concern is matching up those who are the best fit for UChicago with desire to attend. The College has always had a large contingency of 1st choicers in it’s EA pool. In the past some of these kids would get decent merit aid when, in fact, they would have attended for a much higher price. Running the ED experiment allows the College to test that hypothesis and the fact that they are repeating the experiment for a 2nd year means they liked what they saw the first time. So I think to them it’s not a matter so much of admit rate or yield, as it is a matter of fit and prudent distribution of funds. Focusing on the latter as opposed to the former just seems a lot smarter if your goal is to ensure the long-term success and vibrancy of the institution.

22

@marlowe1 is correct in his analysis, this is a process and UChicago is the only top 10 school that people regularly don’t recognize as such. Over time the admittance policies may change again as we are only looking at year 2 of ED.

23

Ah, Chicago ED - the great wedge issue of our time (that is, our time on cc)…

Look, @JHS , I know you’re a Chicago patriot, and we need to take on board what you have to say about most things, including the bad effects of ED. But I’d be interested as to whether you acknowledge any good effects. ED does result in a greater proportion of the class having Chicago as their first choice. Does that have any weight with you at all, good or bad?

That metric isn’t the end-all and be-all and shouldn’t come at the expense of all others, but in itself it seems undoubtedly good to me, especially given that Chicago, unlike its peers, has historically been a very different kind of place, a place you hated or loved. You were more likely to love it if you knew what it was and wanted what it had to offer. I know it’s not quite that special a place anymore, and I know you and others would like to see it become more like an ivy league sort of place. Therefore I’m not at all sure I know your answer to my question. Indeed, I take it from your sarcastic suggestion in (a) above that you don’t acknowledge anything good at all, just a vulgar reach for better statistics. You’re not alone. There’s a big herd here on cc saying stuff like that.

As for (b), I believe the ED demographic at Chicago might prove to be a bit different than at other schools, in part because of the unique features of the school alluded to above. However, if the result proves to be a rise in the wealth of admitted students, that is not a good thing. Granted, Chicago has a long way to go to catch up with its ivy league peers. Some would argue, though not me, that it wouldn’t be all bad if the average kid at Chicago came from a wealthier demographic. To the extent the ED option is causing this drift upwards I’m for combatting it fiercely with information - about the need blind admission policy, about the Odyssey program, with statistics that show the lack of any real difference between the aid packages awarded to ED kids and those awarded to other kids. The kids - or really, their parents - who will mainly be deterred by the choice of ED will be those primarily upper-middle class types who are looking for the very best of all possible deals through comparison shopping. I don’t see that demographic or that motivation as needing to be cossetted sufficiently to make me want to modify a program in order to suit them. And is it really the case that the kids who formerly applied EA before the introduction of ED came from such a very different demographic?

The virtues of the ED2 round aren’t written in the stars, but I’m realist enough to know that the lure of HYSP is such that many a kid will want to take a first shot at one of those places. I sort of like it that having shot the bolt, such a kid still has an opportunity to elect Chicago over all the other schools in the world. Chicago needs kids who are cut from other cloth than the pure laine of ED1. Perhaps on that point we can agree.

24

Regarding EDII the statistic I’d like to see is the one that shows what percentage came from EA-deferred vs a new application.

25

I just learned something from my kid in the dinning table last night that a girl in my kid’s school who applied SCEA Yale and got differed, and the reason Yale gave the school counselor was that the girl’s data was too good that they were not sure if she would eventually commit to Yale or not… so there Yale is going to admit her in RD round and she will not apply any other schools. Same thing happened to another kid of the same school last year to Princeton, differed in EA and admitted in RA per counselor for the same reason. So at least two schools of HYPMS did the same trick, differ and send a message to the school counselor which will lead to admit/reject. I’m no more surprised about students with super stellar data being rejected by HYPMS. UChicago doesn’t have to “want to look as selective as HYPSM”. They all basically play the same game

26

So the Ivy’s are de facto admitting ED? If so that’s pretty slimy because SCEA prohibits applying to any other school. Still, the non binding aspect is real. Maybe it depends on how good they are at figuring out who from early round is committed. They probably publish the early yield stats – anyone know what they are?

27

Well if that’s isn’t a devious way to have an ED round without actually having ED, then I don’t know what is.

28

last year there are two kids in the same school admitted to Princeton. one was admitted early, the other got differed early but admitted during RA, the differed kid has slightly better stats than the one who’s admitted early, and the school counselor was notified the reason of difference. I learned the reason last night, no more surprises. a lot of people say essay matters, I guess it does, to ensure the AO that you will commit to the school which is indeed essential

29

@JBStillFlying 's point winds up being much the same as mine: In the best case, ED allows Chicago to enroll much the same students it would have enrolled anyway, but at a meaningfully lower merit aid cost. Because they are affluent students and can afford to pay full freight, or full freight less relatively minor need-based aid. That’s not such a horrible thing (although I might not say that if my kids were applying now!).

As for the merits and demerits of ED: On CC, for forever, I have taken the position that less well-to-do applicants should be less afraid of ED than they are. Compared to EA, ED is a vastly better deal for the college, but it does allow a student to send a “first choice” signal, and that’s not a bad thing in and of itself. And no one is trapped by ED into paying more than they are willing to pay, as long as they can muster the gumption to walk away from the first-choice college. My negativity towards ED is really based on the arguments and data in the Bowen and Bok book, which is probably out of date now, to the effect that regardless of how it should work, how it does work is as an affirmative action program for affluent preppies (and affluent kids from Cadillac-district suburban high schools and urban magnets).

My attitude is also heavily influenced by the fact that I don’t think either of my kids – both of whom adored the University of Chicago, both of whom are strong Chicago partisans, and one of whom essentially seems to be there permanently – or for that matter most of their Chicago friends, whom I admire greatly, would have been ready to apply ED in October or December of their 12th grade years.

@marlowe1 is valuing very highly what newly minted 12th graders think; I value more what upperclass college students and college graduates think. Few if any 12th graders have done enough research by October to know that Chicago’s intellectual tradition is the best fit with them. My daughter (who is a very thoughtful long-term planner, and who was ultra sophisticated about colleges) could barely distinguish between the Columbia core and the Chicago core when she was in 12th grade, and as far as she could tell the advantage went to Columbia. Now, years later, she could talk for an hour about the relative merits and problems of the two systems, but I doubt there are two dozen applicants a year with any but the most superficial understanding of them.

There are lots of reasons why a student might decide that Chicago was his or her first choice, and not all of them involve deep respect for Chicago’s curriculum and intellectual tradition. A lot of kids want to go there simply because it has the best right-wing economics department and business school connection in the Midwest. The anecdotal information on CC together with the University’s own public reports suggest that a large portion of the undergraduate population fits into that mold. I fear those people – and premeds who want a prestigious school in Chicago, and flipped a coin between Chicago and Northwestern – make up a significant portion of the ED pool. That wouldn’t bother me if I thought they were being weeded out, or at least thinned, but that doesn’t seem to be what’s happening.

30

These threads have included some lively discussion on the merits - or not - of attending UChicago if your goal is med or law. Seems the grading policy discourages some with those goals from considering the school (or at least prompts them to look into whether there will be negative consequences).

Not sure ED has done anything to encourage application by or acceptance of right-wingers looking to major in Econ. or cozy up to Booth. Those types have existed for awhile. Anyway, those in the know will tell you that the econ. dept. is anything but right-wing LOL. The undergrads who major in economics might be a different story, of course. But when I was in Sem. Co-op in Sept. browsing through the Econ. section I noticed some surprisingly non-right-wing texts and books of interest. Maybe things are different over at the UChicago bookstore :slight_smile:

Totally agree that an 18 year old will have imperfect perceptive on the benefits of the Core at UChicago vs. Columbia. And that many kids will apply to both schools thinking there are similarities. But perhaps we on CC are parsing too fine on that subject. Truth is, both schools are distinctive from OTHER top liberal arts programs in that they even offer a Core.

Our daughter wasn’t ready to apply ED in 12th either. She wasn’t even 18 at the time. When she was deferred, she changed her mind. Two reasons for that: 1) she thought she’d be accepted with merit. It wasn’t forthcoming, so now it was an issue of just getting accepted - this she explained in full to her AO. 2) She had given the entire subject of college a lot more thought since October. In the midst of the application season, I guess her mind finally decided to focus on reality and she began to prioritize. Was that a mature strategy? IDK. It worked for her and the outcome, in everyone’s view, was the right one. Not everyone thinks and processes in the same manner or even at the same speed. That same hesitation at first (she’s ALWAYS been that kind of kid - it took her awhile to warm up to our kitchen remodel 10 years ago!) is the same personality that’s given her the gift of thoughtfulness and ability to think w/o panicking. She’d be great to have around if you are trying to evacuate from a fire LOL. And she has the thoughtfulness and intellectual depth to really appreciate the atmosphere at UChicago (though she claims that all the econ majors are “jerks” so maybe @JHS is on to something).

31

@newHSmom - I believe that you were told this, but that counselor’s story sounds fishy to me, or maybe it got garbled in translation. Schools like Yale and Princeton get yields of >80% on SCEA admits. A kid who’s applied early has indicated that that school is their first choice, and they’re very likely to accept an early offer. If Yale or Princeton really thinks the kid is terrific and doesn’t want to lose them, the best strategy is to show the love and admit them early in the hope that this will ensure that they won’t apply anywhere else. You get deferred and then admitted if you weren’t a slam dunk, it seems to me.

In this regard, every year I see very-good-but-not-absolutely-tippy-top legacies at these kinds of schools deferred SCEA and then admitted RD. Why? Because they’re good enough that the school expects to admit them RD, but not so good that the school can’t bear to lose them. In other words, the school is willing to risk angering these candidates’ families (who may be important to the school) by deferring them, and risking that the kid goes somewhere else, because the family will be mollified when the kid finally gets the offer and it won’t break the school’s heart if the kid doesn’t take it. In my experience, the legacies who are admitted early are the true superstars who would clearly be admitted even without the legacy tip and who the school truly doesn’t want to risk losing.

Finally, unless your counselor is better-connected than any counselor I know, if I were an applicant I would most certainly not take their word that even though I was deferred by Yale or Princeton I shouldn’t apply anywhere else because - wink, wink - they’ve quietly promised to admit me RD. That sounds like a very high-risk strategy.

@JHS - in my narrow slice of the world (not the Midwest), the UChicago niche is high-stats full-payers (often not sporty or party-hardy) who have a strong profile but are unhooked at HYPS (and, at their high schools, they’re competing against a lot of classmates with connections at those universities). And I can certainly believe that many of them are attracted to the intellectual atmosphere of UChicago and view it as their first choice.

32

@DeepBlue86 there is no reason for school counselor to make up a story to her student, and there is no reason that my kid would misinterpret the counselor’s information because this is their season of admission. every senior kid pays close attention to every piece of information they hear. For you information, the princeton differed kid of last year did not submit any additional material except for mid term grade and then got accepted RD. you can tell me why if the counselor’s story is still fishy to you?

33

I can totally see a counselor being assured that the kid will be admitted in RD. My guess is that counselors call the AO’s regularly (esp. if the HS has a relationship with the college admissions office and tends to send a few every year) and this is the kind of heart-to-heart that they are told. The exact message may get lost in translation by the time it makes CC but we know for a fact that these sorts of dialogues take place between our kids’ school counselors and other selective schools so not sure why the Ivy’s would exclude themselves from that sort of thing. It’s off the record and the kid is in no way told not to apply anywhere else. And sometimes it doesn’t even work out after all.

Those with stellar stats and credentials who are deferred from early round ARE precisely because they aren’t sure of the kids’ commitment. We know of one. The school (MIT in this case) knew she would be given the mega bucks elsewhere and they wanted her to write them an expression of interest to make sure. They were up front, her counselor was up front, she thought about it, she said she would, she did and she’s there now competing for them in a D1 sport. Now, did they REALLY think she wouldn’t come? Yeah - because she just wasn’t quite 100% sure till she was deferred. BTW, IIRC MIT doesn’t admit internationals till regular round so, all else equal, it’s MUCH harder to be admitted that round. Someone’s welcome to correct my recollection on that.

34

We can worry about much else, but I don’t think we need to worry that ED is making Chicago undergrads too conservative. The Maroon survey just published (polling the first class admitted under the ED regime) had 2.6 percent of that class calling themselves “very conservative” and 8.6 percent calling themselves “moderately conservative”.

Because less than all those who choose the ED option are motivated by a high-minded longing for a Chicago education doesn’t mean that a significant number of them aren’t so motivated. We had one instance - in the negative - here on the cc board of a poster who had applied to Chicago ED but decided on reflection that he was oriented more to a pre-professional education and that Penn was really his dream school. He converted his Chicago ED application to EA and was deferred. He made no mention of financial considerations playing any part in any of these decisions. What really mattered - and I notice it over and over again in reading the posted comments of kids regarding the outcome of their applications - was that the atmosphere of UChicago (that very high-minded studiousness and seriousness) is the fundamental appeal (or turnoff, as the case may be). Though I agree that seventeen-year-olds are a long way from full information about themselves and schools, that’s not to say that a significant number don’t have some idea of who they are and what a school like Chicago is. Chicago doesn’t need to recruit every single kid from this group, but surely the kids so recruited will generally be happier and more productive landing up at what they endearingly call their dream school. ED, though not without its negatives, is a tool for making that match.

35

@JBStillFlying I thought MIT was different. They don’t play this game. They have neither SCEA nor ED. my kid has been admitted to MIT of course he didn’t apply to any other school even though he could

36

Agreed, @JBStillFlying - I think most of the time, though, it’s seen at schools worried about being used as safeties (e.g., “Tufts Syndrome”). HYPS have yields from 70-80+%, and I don’t believe they’re as concerned about this. I can more easily imagine it happening at MIT, which, although it’s obviously a tippy-top school, is fundamentally different from HYPS and may lose students who aren’t sure they want the MIT experience.

It’s true that there are close relationships and dialogues between certain AOs and GCs, and I guess anything can happen, but this sounds like the sort of thing that was much more common decades ago - back in the days when an Exeter GC and Harvard AO would work out together who Harvard would take that year.

37

@newHSmom at #34: the “game” of deferring those who they were afraid might not commit? We have one data point but based on that I’m afraid MIT is guilty of playing it.

38

But, @DeepBlue86 - I think Exeter has been replaced to some extent by other organizations and connections. But they still might “work that out”. Esp. if they find that it’s highly correlated with positive outcomes over the long run.

Personally, I think ED is a bit more honest process. :slight_smile:

39
  1. I have never heard of a HYPS admissions officer telling a GC that a kid deferred SCEA would be admitted RD. Not saying that it has never happened, but I've never heard of it. Nor, honestly, have I ever heard a story about a kid whose application was so good the school he applied to SCEA was afraid to admit him. There is no logic in that for me. I know that the private school my kids attended for many years essentially required that their students treat an SCEA acceptance as an ED acceptance. The school would not cooperate in submitting additional apps, and would not support the student at other colleges if asked. (That probably wouldn't apply if there were a really good reason for keeping another application alive. But there never was.)

Honestly, any school whose counselors have that much of an in at HYPS is a school that would likely apply the SCEA=ED rule. It would totally be in the school’s interest to do that – the last thing they want is their best students competing with one another head-to-head everywhere. They do everything they can to avoid that! So why in the world would a college defer a top candidate SCEA if it planned to accept the person RD?

On the other hand, I’ve seen the dynamic reported by @DeepBlue86 many times: great but not utterly compelling legacies deferred SCEA and accepted RD. That’s the pattern for almost all of the legacy kids I know who have gotten into my alma mater.

  1. I have only seen kids walk away from an SCEA acceptance in two circumstances: (1) A Y or P legacy who really wanted to go to Harvard, but who applied SCEA to the legacy school, was accepted, and then later accepted at Harvard. As noted above, these were not private/prep school students. (2) A fabulous URM candidate not poor enough for full financial aid at HYPS who effectively gets bought by a full-ride merit scholarship at someplace prestigious like Duke or Michigan.
  2. @marlowe1 : Of course a rich kid who already applied ED doesn't switch to EA for economic reasons. You know he's not really price sensitive, because he applied ED in the first place. That has no bearing on whether non-rich kids avoid applying ED in the first place.

Did you read @JBStillFlying 's account of her daughter’s thought process? Does that match your idea of ED filtering for kids who are extraordinarily good fits with Chicago? I sure don’t read it that way.

  1. Not only would even the smartest, most sophisticated high school seniors have trouble distinguishing between Columbia's core and Chicago's, they would also have a great deal of trouble understanding the real-world differences between the voluntary cores offered at Stanford and Yale and the mandatory ones at Columbia and Chicago. Or understand exactly what it means if a college offers an ultra-elite boot camp math course like Math 207 (Chicago) or Math 55 (Harvard) vs. colleges with strong math departments that deliberately avoid such courses. Or, say, the difference between drama at Yale and drama at Northwestern.

I question whether 17-year-olds are great judges of their relative fit for any two colleges that are basically in the same category. Luckily, it doesn’t matter much, because fit is a fuzzy target. A kid who is only in the ballpark of fit when he applies will fit like a glove by the end of his sophomore year.

  1. @JBStillFlying No one publishes early admission yield statistics. That's a state secret.

I think you used to be able to guess roughly what the SCEA yield was by assuming that they were aiming to fill 40% of the class from the early pool. But the early acceptance numbers have been increasing fairly steadily everywhere, both SCEA and ED. I think there’s no chance any of the SCEA colleges is filling as little as 40% of the class from the early pool – that would mean that their early admission yield was lower than their regular admission yield, and I strongly doubt that.

40

Could be incorrect here but I think my kid’s filtering was very much the exception, given her personality and the timing (we actually found out several weeks after everyone else did). Had it been this year instead of last she - and we! - would have had a lot more time to get used to the idea. Applying ED is a family decision and, truth be told, so is applying to any top school. There are exceptions, of course. But it’s very different now from when hubby and I applied to school! - far more complicated, a lot more expensive, and parents involved with and engaged during much of the process.