<p>“you have distinguished yourself in the University’s largest and most competitive Early Action pool to date.”</p>
<p>This is a direct quote from my acceptance letter. I know that it was the largest Early Action pool but I am having second thoughts about it being the most competitive. Any thoughts?</p>
<p>Nondorf is making a mistake if you ask me. He is assuming that the yield from EA students will remain as high as it has in previous years. Yet, if you look at some of the acceptees, take a peek at the university of chicago class of 2014 facebook group, etc. it seems that the yield from the accepted students in the EA pool will in fact be lower than it has been in previous years as many appear to have been using UChicago as a sort of ‘safety’ school (there were 1600+ students accepted and barely any are on the facebook group when compared to the activity of other facebook groups from ED groups (where all who were accepted know that they are attending). Whatever, maybe I’m not 100% correct and don’t have any precise data to back up my claims, but yield will go down.</p>
<p>Anyways, why do they care so much about selectivity? Why do colleges feel the need to make sure that you apply to their school, lie through their teeth through every stop of the process, and then easily reject you? What end are they trying to accomplish? And before you say to increase the ‘prestige’ of the college, whatever that term even truly means, ask yourself why that even matters.</p>
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<p>Chicago’s yield has always been way below those of its peers. It has always been used as a safety school for the other top colleges. It will be used as a safety school this year as well, as will Yale and Stanford, since these are the top EA schools and Princeton and Harvard have no EA cycle. Frankly, I don’t see how yield could go down at Chicago significantly with the prestige boost it has received this year, especially since yield is already below those of its peers.</p>
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<p>Face it. Universities are nothing but businesses without taxation. They thrive on money and talent, and prestige is the best way to attain both of these.</p>
<p>Hyeonjlee - I understand about marketing, yield-protection,etc. There are others on CC who think UChicago is doing the same.</p>
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<p>You don’t know anything about any college’s average scores at this point - most of the class hasn’t even been admitted yet! I would caution you not to speculate based on anecdotes.</p>
<p>Actually, it’s perfectly plausible that one of the reasons Chicago admitted so many additional students EA this year is because they expect EA yield to go down. That could be because of the economy, or because of a change in the composition of EA applicants, or both.</p>
<p>Remember, too, that at this point the admissions people essentially know how many RD applications Chicago will be getting. (I’m sure that they have enough information to project within a couple hundred or so, based on applications received, accounts opened, test scores received, etc. There will always be last-minute stuff, and half-completed applications never completed, but the relationship of that to what they have gotten already is probably a constant.) It may be that the 2,000-application increase in EA applications is just a shift from the RD pool, and that overall applications are not going to rise much or at all. I don’t think that’s the case, but if it is it would make expanding the number of EA acceptances completely reasonable.</p>
<p>Or maybe RD applications are exploding, and shifting the balance of acceptances to EA is an aggressive move to increase the selectivity indexes, to encourage more EA applications next year, and generally to create a frenzy.</p>
<p>We’ll see.</p>
<p>So… how exactly do you think we EA admits will be “wooed?” :)</p>
<p>Speaking as a parent of an EA admit, money would be a good way to start… :)</p>
<p>Blah, all this increase in EA is making me feel down. As an international student, I’m def not going to get in now =/</p>
<p>I’m not entirely surprised by the facebook thing. EA and ED are very different beasts and EA applicant are apt to be less committed. Can only speak for my son, but Chicago was by no means a safety for him - he considered it a reach and was pretty surprised to be accepted. For him the main issue is distance, and whether it’s too intellectual and serious. He’s also tempted by the idea of being in Washington DC and having easy access to international related internships.</p>
<p>If you’ve been deferred you should really not lose hope. It means Chicago thought you were in the ballpark. Of course you should have contingency plans, my older son was deferred from both his EA schools (one of which was his first choice) and eventually denied, but is very happy where he ended up. A good friend of his, also deferred ended up waitlisted at one school and accepted at the other.</p>
<p>I think at RPI the biggest reason for the jump in enrollment was that they made the Newsweek list of 25 New Ivies.</p>
<p>JHS,</p>
<p>I suppose it’s possible EA yield goes down, but it seems unlikely. I’d argue that Chicago’s “allure” this year is about as high as it’s ever been, and with admissions getting increasingly competitive across the board, top students simply have fewer choices now than they had even a few years back. That bodes well for the EA yield. Of course, I think Financial Aid will factor the most into Chicago’s yield, so we’ll have to see how that plays out.</p>
<p>On another note, JHS, from what I know from some contacts I have at U of C, RD applications are also up a bit. It’s certainly not a booming increase, but unless something goes terribly awry, Chicago should field around 16-17K apps overall (at least). I think the second year of the Common App goes a long way to explaining the increase. </p>
<p>Arzachel, I’m assuming Chicago will “woo” its early admits mainly through the benefit of being the first one to have an applicant’s attention. An applicant is likely to do more research on a school that he/she has already been accepted to, and I’m assuming Nondorf is working hard on polishing up Chicago’s welcome to these students.</p>
<p>From what I know from people in the office, Nondorf has worked very hard on making the admissions office a warm, friendly place. In short, hospitality can go a long way, and Nondorf will work on making the EA admits more enthusiastic about the school, so that when the Yale RD rejection or Stanford RD rejection comes, the chicago admit has become much more enthusiastic about Chicago. Nondorf concentrated on student outreach, so I’m sure he’ll find ways to sweeten the pot, so to speak, with the EA admits.</p>
<p>Oh, also, there was a post asking why prestige is even important to educational institutions. Well, the answer is, as expected, schools are self-interested entities. Prestige, or the “worth, or value” of a school is the coin of this realm, and amassing more prestige promises more resources, better students, a more powerful faculty, and so on and so forth. Once schools start accumulating these items, the cycle then continues. </p>
<p>A former president of George Washington University was once asked, “what do universities want?”. His answer? “More.” </p>
<p>That’s pretty much it - schools, based on how they are set up, want MORE of everything - more endowment funds, more government funding, more talented faculty members, more powerful laboratories, etc. Prestige, as a proxy for value, promises a school the ability to get more of these items. It’s a continuing cycle.</p>
<p>Chicago has simply fallen into line with its peers here. The top schools still very much function as a way to perpetuate the power elite, and Chicago is entering the fold more and more on this front.</p>