<p>I was one of those "low grade, high talent" kids, which might explain why I'm still in the running even though I had a 3.54 with no killer awards or anything. But I'm curious, where do I fall within the EA and RD pool? The consensus seems to be that RD pool is weaker than the EA pool, which means I'll actually be at some sort of advantage come March? Does that mean I'll be at least average, if not stronger than the RD pool? Because I'm trying to figure out what to do with myself, and if I should (mentally) give up on UChicago. I think they must see something they like about me, or I'd have been rejected. I plan to continue to indicate my interest to them because it is by far my first choice school, but I don't want to spend too much time and effort and mental energy into something that isn't very probable anyway.</p>
<p>Well, honestly you can’t get your hopes up. If we’re going by normal Chicago admissions procedures, 50-60% of EA applicants got deferred. Obviously, they’re not all going to be above average during the RD round. Plus, RD acceptance rate is much lower than EA acceptance rate: 10% to 23%. </p>
<p>The idea that the RD pool is weaker than the EA pool is probably true to some extent, but the difference between the pools probably isn’t that great. According to Dartmouth’s stats, the accepted students of their ED program have lower statistics than the accepted students of the RD program, which says something about the supposed strengths of the two pools.</p>
<p>You should continue to support your application if Chicago is your first-choice school. Sending in extra materials will certainly help your case. Many deferred students get accepted in the regular cycle, although not terribly many - maybe about 10%. That means that you really need to set yourself apart from them. Keep working at it, but if I were you, I wouldn’t get too comfortable or optimistic…</p>
<p>I agree with phuriku, for the most part</p>
<p>however, the part on Dartmouth’s ED having lower stats than RD must be contextualized.</p>
<p>1) ED is binding, EA is not (i’m assuming you know this already) therefore,
2) ED is mostly average kids, and very homogenous. Since very high achieve students don’t want to bind cuz they think/know they will be accepted to a wide range of top schools, and want room to compare. Also,
3) low socioeconomic families tend to not apply ED, so they can compare packages. Some of these students are also very high achieving. Thus, ED pool is considered weaker than RD pool, and it is easier, no matter what colleges to say, to get accepted ED</p>
<p>EA, on the other hand, is not binding, and consist some of the strongest applicants in the nation who have prepared well and want some early results without binding policies. If you are deferred chicago/yale/stanford, I would say you have a chance at RD acceptance, and yes, you <em>might</em> even stand out more in RD pool. However, with a 3.54 GPA, you really need to work on some stuff. I’m assuming you have high test scores, that’s why youre deferred.</p>
<p>GL mang</p>
<p>u chicago seems to play with the admissions numbers. being deferred means just that- they will consider you for rd after reviewing all the applications and essays. advice- keep in touch with admissions, submit any awards or recognitions- speak to your admissions rep and let her/him know that u chicago is still your top choice. good luck!</p>
<p>@phuriku: Where did you get those figures? (“50-60% of EA applicants got deferred. Obviously, they’re not all going to be above average during the RD round. Plus, RD acceptance rate is much lower than EA acceptance rate: 10% to 23%.”) Could you post the link(s) for us?</p>
<p>@collegeftw 1570/2260 SAT. My guess of what kept me in was probably the top notch recs, as I probably impressed them quite a bit (one offered to write me, and the other two told me they wrote really strong recs for me). Also, I tend to attribute this to my essays, and the writing sample I sent them. Other than that, I’m not much of a standout… I’ll definitely e-mail the college reps and tell them that it’s still my first choice, and send some recent creative writing works, if that helps any. My GPA for the last two semesters were 3.72 and 3.83 (semester 1 senior year) at a very competitive school with the most rigorous courseload offered, so I hope the mid year report will help.</p>
<p>phuriku: actually, from what I heard, many, many more people were rejected than deferred. Are there any specific numbers you saw that would say otherwise?</p>
<p>Unlike other schools, Chicago is very secretive about its statistics. But this follows the trends of other similar schools. For instance, here are numbers from MIT’s 2007 EA report:</p>
<p>[MIT</a> Admissions | Blog Entry: “MIT Admissions Statistics 2007”](<a href=“http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/apply/admissions_statistics/mit_admissions_statistics_2007.shtml]MIT”>http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/apply/admissions_statistics/mit_admissions_statistics_2007.shtml)</p>
<p>So this given year, 11.2% were accepted, 13.3% were rejected, and the rest (75.5%) were deferred. It’s almost certainly similar for Chicago, from what we’ve been seeing. We know that 22.7% were accepted because there were 1580 acceptances from a pool of 6960. It’s logical therefore, that the reject rate will be close to the accept rate, probably 20-25%. This means that 55-60% were deferred. Even though this sounds like a lot, it’s a lot fewer than the number of deferred students from MIT, the other big EA school.</p>
<p>There were many more deferred students than rejected students. In RD, there will be a LOT of waitlisted students. Chicago feels bad about flat-out rejecting students for some reason.</p>
<p>(Don’t kill the messenger. This is just someone who has been observing these stats for years. I’m a fourth-year math major in the College.)</p>
<p>@phuriku: Do you have any idea how Chicago decides the difference between reject/defer?</p>
<p>@collegeftw re:“2) ED is mostly average kids, and very homogenous. Since very high achieve students don’t want to bind cuz they think/know they will be accepted to a wide range of top schools, and want room to compare. Also,
3)… they can compare packages. …, ED pool is considered weaker than RD pool, and it is easier, no matter what colleges to say, to get accepted ED
EA, on the other hand, is not binding, …”
I agree with your arguments, at least my experiences with my children support it. My S1 who is in college was in top ten of his class of roughly 250, accepted into colleges that accepted ED this year of students ranked in the 20s and 30s of similar class size. My S2 and I were debating whether or not to apply an ED along with a couple of EA schools. He ended up no applying the ED school but got accepted into both EA schools and we had a sigh of relief for not having applied to the ED school which deferred a kid in class rank in 20s (he’s ranked within top five and has a long list of good ECs). Just an anecdotal evidence in support of your arguments of relative strengths of EA, ED, and RD pools.</p>
<p>Impero: If I had a guess, I would say that rejected applications are those to whom Chicago would not grant admission under any additional circumstance, whereas deferred applicants are those who have the possibility of getting in if they send in additional supporting documents or if the RD pool is weaker than expected. It’s likely that in reality, few deferred applicants choose to alter their apps further. So those that do probably have an increased chance at getting in.</p>
<p>When you say supporting documents, would a revised Why UChicago letter work?</p>
<p>By sending additional material, does this really include creative writing?
Like for example, a short story? Or is this referring to as the above mentioned, an updated Why Chicago? Is there a page length maximum for the updated info?</p>
<p>How would you guys consider sending additional material to bolster your app?</p>
<ol>
<li><p>It was only a couple of years ago that they first deferred more people than they accepted (one of the blogs said so at the time), and I don’t think they have ever rejected more people than they accepted, at least not before this year.</p></li>
<li><p>Although the RD pool may on average be weaker than the EA pool, there is reason to think that it has some pretty strong candidates that were not in the EA pool: people who had reason to believe that they were legitimate SCEA candidates at Stanford or Yale, or ED candidates at Brown (which does not permit simultaneous EA applications, unlike most ED schools), and who were deferred or rejected at those places. That’s probably 10,000 ambitious, high-stat students, many of whom are likely to consider applying to Chicago RD but who couldn’t apply EA. Even if only 15-20% of them apply RD, that’s enough to make a big impact on the pool.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>That’s not to say deferred EAers don’t have a chance. They DO have a chance; every year a number of them are accepted RD. And, of course, many of THEM look just as good on paper as anyone who applied SCEA to Yale or Stanford. But one has to recognize that there is a systematic factor which drives many very strong applicants into the RD pool at Chicago.</p>
<ol>
<li> Re the Dartmouth numbers. The students Dartmouth ACCEPTS ED have lower stats than the ones it accepts RD. Not the pools, as an average. The likely reason for that difference is that Dartmouth handles almost all of its athletic recruiting ED. Athletic recruits may be anywhere from a quarter to half of Dartmouth’s ED class. Since they are chosen mainly for their athletic skill, not their academic accomplishments, as long as their stats are above a minimum hurdle, of course they are going to drag the average down for the ED acceptees as a whole. (Note that I am NOT saying that every recruited athlete is dumb or has terrible stats. But I am saying that, as a group, athletes’ average stats are lower than nonathletes’ average stats. That’s just life. And since athletes make up a high percentage of the ED accepted group, and a very low percentage of the RD accepted group . . . the ED group average is almost certain to be lower.)</li>
</ol>
<p>Well I don’t really agree with others who say that the EA pool is stronger than the RD pool… I think that UChicago accepts students from the EA pool who they know will most likely matriculate (obviously)… and so they would most likely be the type of students who may not have the most stellar grades, but who really show an intrest and committment to UChicago. I know at least 5 other kids from my school who applied EA to UChicago. One of them was accepted ED to Cornell (had near perfect GPA & SATs), and the other was accepted EA to two other Ivies / really difficult universities. With that said, I think that the RD pool has more kids with better grades and statistics, but the EA pool shows a diverse, creative, and talented group of kids who have a lot of potential to “Think. Thrive. Transform.” I think they’re more sure that kids with not so amazing grades but really big potential will commit themselves to UChicago than kids who have other amazing grades and an acceptance to UChicago would be one among the many.</p>
<p>*The 5 other kids were all deferred.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>a) If these kids were dedicated to Chicago, there’s no reason to accept them EA to spend extra time wooing them; they’d come anyway. </p>
<p>b) Why would a school take a risk on a borderline candidate EA when it’s uncertain he or she will matriculate and there is another round of applications from which to pull better applicants?</p>
<p>EA acceptees are those that would be accepted regardless of the strength of the RD pool. (Schools with ED, however, may accept borderline candidates in the early rounds because they know they will matriculate.) As a poster on the Yale SCEA board said, admissions is like a puzzle: Early admits are the edge pieces, and those deferred have a chance to “fit in” the middle depending on the relative fit of the RD pieces.</p>
<p>BTW, JHS, Brown no longer restricts its ED applicants from simultaneously applying early elsewhere.</p>
<p>I don’t quite agree with “a) If these kids were dedicated to Chicago, there’s no reason to accept them EA to spend extra time wooing them; they’d come anyway.” Colleges want to accept kids who will most likely matriculate. I know that a lot of kids who apply to ivies also apply to Chicago as a sidenote so when they get accepted to the HYP schools, they would most likely choose them over Chicago. With that said, any school would want a high yield rate regardless of whether it is EA or RD. Though UoC still obviously accepts kids with amazing grades, they really consider the applicants desire and commitment to attend.</p>
<p>I’m saying this as a student admitted to UChicago EA class of 2015 with a GPA below 3.7. I am not an URM, a first generation grad, a National Merit Finalist nor do I have a legacy. What I have is a passion in my intended major as exhibited through my extracirrics. I am well rounded, swim captain,DECA & NHD national winner, & distinguished musician… but I wouldn’t have ever thought in my wildest dreams that I would still get in. I think what really got me in through the door and not just deferred, is my personal essays & teacher recs. My Why Chicago essay delves into my knowledge of the school and the programs I want to pursue and how I’ve already begun pursuing these interests. My Find X essay is one of the most personal and creative essays I’ve ever written. Lastly, my teacher recs show a more in depth view of who I am academically that a GPA cannot even begin to explain. I’m so eternally grateful for my acceptance because though every school says they look at their applicants holistically, I feel like to Chicago, my GPA & SATs were only just numbers that didn’t mean much. My personal essays gave UChicago an insight into my passion for the school and my potential contributions back to the school.</p>
<p>^ Solemnly, it sounds like you wrote a great application, and congratulations on your acceptance. But you are wrong that Chicago considers “applicants’ desire and commitment to attend.” It doesn’t. It doesn’t track visits or contacts, or even whether people respond to the postcards – all things it would do if it cared about its yield that way. Along with every other top college, it wants the best students (as shown by everything in their applications, not just their “stats”), not the students who like it the most.</p>
<p>. . . and glasses, thanks for pointing out that change. That removes a little irrational wrinkle in the universe: Brown’s (former) unique “Restricted Early Decision” rules.</p>