@Cu123 - True! She told them she wanted money from them but the EA deferral was a big “NOPE” so then she just wanted in. Perhaps they appreciated the honesty!
Actually, she, too, had been vacillating - but the other school also had ED and were pretty up front about lack of merit or need-based if you go that route. She would have applied EA if they had offered it. Perhaps UChicago’s EA allowed her to get her foot in the door. I think there is a benefit to that signal, as long as you turn in a quality application.
There were two receptions this past weekend. I attended the one on Sunday. Nondorf apologized for misstating the numbers on Saturday. He said that the earlier number that he quoted was not correct, and that the # accepted was not 10% (1300) but instead 1100.
I really like that U Chicago has all these options. My D applied EA with the thought that if she got in EA, she wouldn’t submit an application to 4 other reach schools. I’m sure there were plenty of other EA kids who felt the same way. So I think EA does increase yield.
EA does help with yield because many times those kids are eager to be at UChicago (they just can’t commit ED at this point). UChicago has always had a huge number of early applications relative to other schools.
The real question is how many were accepted ED vs. EA. Last year it was a 2:1 ED preference on 1200 accepts. Which group was cut by 100?
@f77a9b82 thanks for updating us on the numbers that Dean Nondorf corrected on the Sunday admitted students reception. We were at the Saturday reception in NYC, but glad that he restated it with correct #'s Sunday.
why should ED1 versus ED2 matter that much at all? Any way you look at it anyone in ED2 stills wants to go to Chicago enough to commit anyways
@booklady123 I switched to ED2 even though Chicago is my first choice as well, the only reason I applied EA is because is frankly I didn’t think it’d ever make a difference in my application decision. I think ED2 says UChicago is your sons first choice just as much as ED1 would’ve
@etruhart18 It may not matter much but there is the real question of strength of the pool for each, number of slots left for RD/ED2 once the EA/ED1 slots are allotted. These are number games that have real affects on outcomes in the ED2 and RD pools. I actually wonder if they look at the RD pool at the same time as the ED2 pool since the apps are do at the same time.
Stuy has a senior class of over 800, and this year there were 165 National Merit Semifinalists, around 20% of the class. If 346, or around 40% of the class, applied to UChicago, I wonder how many UChicago will take, and how they’ll choose them.
It seems to me that this illustrates how ED can help UChicago create the class stats profile that it wants. Let’s assume: (i) the Stuy senior class SAT/ACT scores and GPA mirrored their relative performance on the PSAT; (ii) the UChicago applicants were distributed evenly across the Stuy senior class by test scores and GPA; and (iii) 100, or a little under 30%, of the UChicago applicants from Stuy applied ED (spread evenly over the Stuy UChicago applicant pool by academic profile).
This implies that around 66 (~40%) of the National Merit Semifinalists applied to UChicago, and around 20 of those (~30%) applied ED. This is probably understated, because my assumption (ii) above is conservative; the UChicago applicants are probably skewed toward the upper end of the class, so there are likely more National Merit Semifinalists among them. On the other hand, though, perhaps a disproportionately large number of the National Merit Semifinalists will apply SCEA to HYPS or ED elsewhere.
The Stuy class is generally unhooked, with few recruitable athletes, URMs, legacies or development cases (although there will certainly be plenty of first-gens). If I were an unhooked Stuy kid who didn’t have a cancer-curing-type accomplishment, and was therefore competing in the Hunger Games with 165 National Merit Semifinalists, with nothing other than high scores and grades putting me into the top 10 university conversation, I’d strongly consider applying ED to UChicago as the best edge for getting into one of the schools in that group.
Therefore, if my numbers are reasonably accurate, UChicago can lock up something in excess of 20 super-high-stats kids - around 1.5% of the UChicago freshman class - from Stuy alone through ED. Coincidentally, that’s how many enrolled at UChicago from Stuy last year: http://stuy.referata.com/wiki/College_Decisions_2017#University_of_Chicago).
@deepblue86 Heh, “cancer-curing-type accomplishment, and was therefore competing in the Hunger Games” made me chuckle. Reminds me of a piece by Frank Bruni’s 2016 satirical College Admissions Shocker article: “ ‘We had exceptional applicants, yes, but not a single student we couldn’t live without,’ said a Stanford administrator who requested anonymity. ‘In the stack of applications that I reviewed, I didn’t see any gold medalists from the last Olympics — Summer or Winter Games — and while there was a 17-year-old who’d performed surgery, it wasn’t open-heart or a transplant or anything like that. She’ll thrive at Yale.’ ”
The amount of kids who go to top tier schools at Stuy is staggering, and probably higher than the wiki page indicates. The page is self-reporting, so a lot of students didn’t report at all.
“I actually wonder if they look at the RD pool at the same time as the ED2 pool since the apps are do at the same time.”
Let’s suppose a strong candidate applied EA, was deferred to RD and didn’t switch. And the EDII pool turns out to be sub-par. Wouldn’t they give that early kid get good second look? Or would they fill with RD? Who knows - but they MUST be looking at the other pools as a Plan B concurrently with EDII. Thing is, an EA who doesn’t switch is still probably considered more likely to attend than an RD. Guessing they have applications waiting in the wings just in case one of the later pools looks particularly weak or unenthusiastic.
@DeepBlue86 the “Hunger Games” analogy seems apt if over 300 applied from one school alone! My kid’s school had 8 apply her year and when the shooting stopped she was the only one left standing (she might well have been the only one who applied binding also). Not that she didn’t like her classmates but I suspect she’d have been a bit disappointed if she knew 20 other kids from her high school - with that many you’d probably see at least some of them regularly. Yes, the dynamics are different and they are all supposed to be making new friends. Sometimes. We know plenty of kids here locally who have attended college - including some pretty elite colleges! - and even roomed with their “bestie” and D17 was really hoping to get away from that mentality.
“the “Hunger Games” analogy seems apt if over 300 applied from one school alone! My kid’s school had 8 apply her year and when the shooting stopped she was the only one left standing”
At my son’s school this year there were 2 ED1 and 7 EA applications that we know of, so 9 total just in the early pool. Could be more than that because the school keeps the apps confidential. My son and the other ED1 were both accepted and all the EAs were deferred.
Not sure how many EA deferred converted to ED2 or how many new ED2 and RD apps there will be, but historically UChicago only admits 1-3 from this school so maybe the 2 EDs were it.
If one is deferred EA, does admissions suggest the option of changing to ED2? Frankly, it would have never occurred to us that one could switch things around like that. Does not apply to us but curious if admissions brings that up.
I believe it is on the admissions page. Last year (first year of ED) someone asked the question, admissions said yes, and that opened the door to switching. @JBStillFlying will probably have more info.
Yes - it’s an option. They don’t suggest it but they do allow it - they’ve been very flexible about that. The only thing you probably cannot do is switch to EDII after being deferred from EDI - but you never know!
"Changing Your Decision Plan
If you would like to switch from our non-binding EA or RD decision plans to a binding Early Decision option, please email collegeadmissions@uchicago.edu to let us know of your change in plans and download, complete, and submit an Early Decision agreement form by uploading it to the “Forms” section of your UChicago Account.
Please note that our deadline for decision plan change from Early Action to Early Decision I is November 15th. Our deadline for deferred Early Action candidates or students who previously selected Regular Decision as their decision to change to Early Decision II is January 6."
There was another admitted student reception this past weekend. I went and this time I recorded the audio on my phone so I could remember exactly what Dean Nondorf said. Here is a transcript from yesterday’s reception.
So this confirms the 7% admit rate that @Chrchill posted elsewhere. What shocked me was the extremely low admit rate for those deferred from EA.
I also have an audio recording of the reception yesterday. Unfortunately, I cannot post the link here due to the terms of service. But if you want to listen, send me a PM.
