“Imagine the powerhouse that a university would have to be to be on top of so many lists, a powerhouse like UChicago.”
In fact, the rise in the college rankings (using clever admission tactics as well as making substantive and positive changes to the culture of the College) is merely a return to where UChicago rightly believes it ought to be. It has always been a “powerhouse”. It’s at a crossroads now so let’s watch to see what happens. Numerous discussions have taken place on CC and other forums regarding a slippage in some rankings and what does the university intend to do about that etc. It’s a brutal business and it takes a boatload of dough (something UChicago doesn’t have a lot of esp. in comparison to its peers among the top five of USNews). That’s another topic for another day.
@JBStillFlying
You didn’t misrepresent but UChicago did. If UChicago told its applicants what you just said, there wouldn’t be 13-18K EA applicants. That number would drop significantly and admit rate would increase correspondingly.
College rankings are so misleading and I would argue that USNW ranking is the worse thing that happened to college admission, but that’s another topic for another day.
@1NJParent where are you getting the 13-18K number? And last year the number of applications dropped 10%. Admit rate increased by .8%. So yes - introducing ED might have caused a drop in applications. If apps increased this year over last that’s not due to ignorance about ED vs. EA unless everyone was given the Neutralyzer.
@JBStillFlying You mentioned in a previous post there were 13K early applicants last year and I was given an estimate of close to 19K this year. Even CWRU had something like 12K early applicants this year, so the range I gave for UChicago is not unreasonable. Wish Chicago would release its data.
^^ If Uchicago has 19K early applicants I’ll eat my laptop. Where did you hear that?
Best guess will be a return to 31,000 or so total. Perhaps 14,000 earlies. You could be correct that the number is notably higher than last year, given the anecdotal info. we have that they admitted a whole lotta EA’s (that just didn’t happen last year!). Or . . . they just admitted a larger % of EA’s relative to ED’s than last year. Who knows? No one has released their early admission data at this point, have they? UChicago doesn’t release theirs at all; however, parents who attend the admit events usually post the numbers they hear. Last year’s numbers, for your reference:
13,000 early applicants
1200 admits
2/3 were ED, 1/3 EA (so 800/400)
@Fstratford - I was wondering the same thing last year when we figured out that they only had 15,000 or so Jan. 1 applications. And that was BEFORE hearing about that 2% RD rate . .
The point I’m making is that UChicago plays the ranking game to improve its ranking and is less than totally honest and transparent with its applicants in so doing. The exact number of early applicants is irrelevant except that it’s a very large number (much larger than those of schools of its size). BTW, nobody outside of UChicago AO and admin knows the exact number since it’s kept secret, along with other crucial data. By playing the EA/ED game, UChicago was able to increase the number of its early applicants dramatically relative to schools of its size through EA while improving its yield with ED, gaining an undeserved ranking advantage.
@1NJParent: UChicago’s ranking didn’t change as a result of “playing the EA/ED game”, as you call it. Not sure what “ranking advantage” you’ve seen to date, deserved or otherwise. Also, UChicago has had loads of early applicants relative to other schools for a long time, not just after introducing ED last year.
There is a point to be made that UChicago’s secrecy for the past several years regarding its early pool is deceptive - but that’s not the point you are making. Get your facts straight first - THEN make your point.
@JBStillFlying
“UChicago has had loads of early applicants relative to other schools for a long time, not just after introducing ED last year.”
You misunderstood my point. UChicago had loads of early applicants for a long time because it had, and still have, EA. What changed is it now also has ED. ED helps UChicago improve its YIELD significantly while keeping admit rate low with its EA program.
We’ve been down this road before on cc. For those like @1NJParent who are determined to believe that it’s all about rankings, well, every feature of policy is thusly interpreted. Every feature of the history, culture and educational mission of the University is ignored - or unknown - with no inclination to be further informed. To a hammer everything looks like a nail. However, at the University of Chicago debate requires responding to arguments and counterfactuals such as those @JBStillFlying has been presenting, not just repeating the same dubious assertions without addressing the critique of those assertions, much less constructing a connected argument. Profs at the University say that it’s their mission to make kids question every unexamined belief they come into class with, or at least learn to support those beliefs by argument and after taking on board counterarguments. That’s a good habit to acquire early.
“^^ If Uchicago has 19K early applicants I’ll eat my laptop.”
Pictures, please! I’m going to figure out how we get this item - parental unit consuming laptop after losing UChicago related bet - on the upcoming Scav list.
@milee30 - would love to provide them if we can find a way to load on CC . . Let’s hear the numbers first. IIRC the first admitted events were in late Jan/early Feb. If anyone is planning to attend please report back with stats!
I’m just following along here and think it’s worth pointing out that a number of schools have seen 10-15% increases in early applications over last year, with interesting exceptions being Harvard and Columbia. So, if Chicago saw a significant increase in early apps, it wouldn’t be surprising.
I made this list a few weeks ago and haven’t updated it since. Maybe it isn’t a fair comparison because some are EA, some ED. Percent increase in early applications over last year:
Rice 19.5%
Cornell 17.4%
Duke 16.3%
Penn 15.1%
Boston College 15.0%
MIT 13.9%
Dartmouth 13.6%
Yale 12.7%
Brown 10.5%
Notre Dame 9.6%
Princeton 8.0%
Northwestern 6.0%
Johns Hopkins 5.3%
Harvard 2.4%
Columbia 0.0%
@JBStillFlying - I have no dog in this fight and no guess as to whether the early apps were 19k or not, just think we need to have a Scav item that involves parents, betting and consumption of an electronic device.
No idea if they have multiple admitted student open houses and only invite students to certain ones, but the admitted student open houses my son was invited to this year are in April. If those are the only ones, we might have a while to wait to see if you have to eat your laptop.
@milee30 - I think the ones last year for EDI/EA were in limited metro areas (one in NY, for instance). If they aren’t planning that this year then it’s quite possible that Scav. will happen before I need to eat my laptop. My D17 will be relieved - not sure she wants me involved in Scav #:-S
“You misunderstood my point. UChicago had loads of early applicants for a long time because it had, and still have, EA. What changed is it now also has ED. ED helps UChicago improve its YIELD significantly while keeping admit rate low with its EA program.”
“If UChicago had only one early program, whether EA or ED, its ranking would drop.”
If keeping only one early program leads to a rankings drop, then how come Columbia hasn’t introduced EA by now? Or are you suggesting that it’s UChicago’s particular placement at #3 (ahead of Stanford and Columbia, tied with Yale) that has to be maintained with the game of ED, because it shouldn’t be there otherwise?
The current 2018 rankings (released fall 2017) are, I believe, based on fall 2016 entering class data. That means that UChicago remained #3 based on its prior, one-early-program, admission plan. Wouldn’t we have seen a slip in the 2018 rankings if one early program was not sufficient to keep the ranking high?
Also, UChicago’s admit rate actually slipped to 8.7% when it introduced ED. Yes, the yield is higher but the admit rate is closer to 9% than 8%. Won’t that cause a slip in the 2019 rankings?
Early admission is great but admit rates are based on total numbers, not just early numbers. If UChicago is front-loading it’s admissions to early-only, then it’s admission rate will not improve and may even start to climb. What, then, will happen to rankings in your view?
