<p>xiggi was right about what U of C did last year. There’s no chance, however, that Chicago had an 80% yield rate for EA acceptees, although it may well have been not too far from 70%. And with MIT, I think he overstated class size, therefore underestimating the portion of the class filled through EA. The class is closer to 1.100 than to 1,300, meaning that 463 is closer to half.</p>
<p>Actually, UChicago admitted 1350 EA last year (out of 11143 EA apps) for an EA admit rate of 12.12%</p>
<p>Do we know that UChicago had only 11K EA apps this year? If the EA admit rate is 9%, then it’s likely more than that.</p>
<p>It’s rather amazing to see how the number of EA apps to Chicago has skyrocketed, though. Nearly doubled from the class of 2014 to the class of 2018 (from 5585 to 11143). No one else among the Ivies/Ivy-equivalents is particularly close when it comes to growth in early apps, though Northwestern is 2nd in growth (and first among ED schools) growing 60% from 1776 to 2863 over those years. Yale’s actually dropped during that span as both Harvard and Princeton started SCEA as well in the meantime:
<a href=“http://www.hernandezcollegeconsulting.com/ivy-league-admissions-statistics-2016/”>http://www.hernandezcollegeconsulting.com/ivy-league-admissions-statistics-2016/</a>
<a href=“http://www.hernandezcollegeconsulting.com/ivy-league-admission-statistics-class-2018/”>http://www.hernandezcollegeconsulting.com/ivy-league-admission-statistics-class-2018/</a></p>
<p>It seems these days that, besides throwing an EA app at UMich and maybe UVa, every high-achieving kid in the country is sending an EA app to UChicago as well (well, every kid who isn’t applying SCEA, at least).</p>
<p>I guess it helps to be one of the few non-niche Ivy-equivalents in the country to do EA. Going from being almost a non-player in the admission rate game to one of the most aggressive probably explains a lot of the increase as well (as does the burgeoning international applicant pool; the U of C arguably carriess a better reputation/brand-awareness in many parts of the world than it does in the parts of the States thanks to the Nobels).</p>
<p>Fwiw, please note that I did write about **attrition ** rate (and that is the opposite of the yield rate) and an indirect way to read what I wrote is as follows:</p>
<p>If one decides to use an attrition percentage of 2 to 5% for ED and 20 to 25% percent for SCEA and anywhere between 40 and 70 percent for EA = a yield of 95 to 98 on ED, 70 to 75% on SCEA, and anywhere between 30 and 70 on EA. Please note that the SCEA yield is very low in my example and probably should be 70 to 90 percent. </p>
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<p>PT, when it comes to Chicago, I tend to trust the numbers that are somehow seasoned. What might appeat as a tad out of date often end up a lot closer to the truth than the “stuff” posted in December and April, which I find to often be works of fiction. </p>
<p>Chicago has its own college rep on College Confidential – a long term member from her days as a student. Despite prodding that borders on being irritating, I do not think she has ever shared the most basic numbers in a timely manner. Inexplicably so, in my opinion. But that is just Chicago! </p>
<p>I would love nothing better than being able to quote numbers culled from the Common Data Set or from Dec 2014 press releases … but I doubt those are forthcoming anytime soon! /smile</p>
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<p>The numbers quoted date from last year’s cycle. At that time, a reasonable estimate would have been the CDS of 2013-2014. Here are the numbers of enrolled students at Yale and the source. </p>
<p>Total full-time, first-time, first-year (freshman) men who enrolled 678
Total full-time, first-time, first-year (freshman) women who enrolled 681</p>
<p><a href=“http://oir.yale.edu/sites/default/files/CDS2013_2014.pdf”>http://oir.yale.edu/sites/default/files/CDS2013_2014.pdf</a></p>
<p>@xiggi: Interesting.</p>
<p>Definitely a key reason to rank/tier by alumni achievements rather than all that self-reported stuff that USN uses if you’re going to rank.</p>
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By “angle”, I meant what direction you were coming from, but I think I see it now. I’ve visited Yale a couple times now in the last few years and their science programs have become VERY impressive. Nearly all rank in the top 10 or 20 nationally. That makes a good alternative to MIT. In fact, I believe they are beginning to ramp up even engineering as well and it’s the top choice of one of the local graduates who is a future engineer.</p>
<p>PT, I could see how a ranking based on alumni achievement could immensely entertaining. For UG, it would be just as useless as the THES/QES/ChineseJunk rankings that surface every year. But it would remain based in an extremely small percentage of students. Current rankings based on incoming students have the benefit of relevance to peers. </p>
<p>Interesting to see that yale has only 1350 seats, much closer to Princeton than Harvard in size.</p>
<p>Looks like MIT class size for 2018 was 1043. They profess wanting to be closer to 1000 than 1100 and have missed targets for the previous 2 years due to much higher yield.</p>
<p><a href=“First-year class profile | MIT Admissions”>http://mitadmissions.org/apply/process/profile</a></p>
<p>@Purpletitan - have you seen the barrage of marketing from Chicago which includes t-shirts, books, posters, constant e-mails etc? They do this to give the illusion of interest but are really just trying to increase their application numbers and consequently lower their acceptance rate. </p>
<p>Elite universities are not quite one-size-fits-all. Yale and Harvard have both been about the same size since they went co-ed. When Yale opens its two new colleges, it will be expanding to about Harvard’s size, it will be about 1,600 per class. Harvard and Stanford are both around 1,650 (as are Duke and WashU). Brown used to have classes that size, too, but it seems to have cut back to 1,500. Princeton was around 1,000 per class for a long time, but it expanded to 1,200 about a decade ago, in connection with opening a new residential college. Chicago announced at the same time that it was expanding its class from 1,000 to 1,300, but it came close to the 1,300 mark only a couple of years before effectively adopting a 1,500 class size. Columbia is about the same size as Yale. Dartmouth and MIT are both around 1,000, Penn is 2,300, Cornell 3,000.</p>
<p>Re the University of Chicago marketing: I don’t think it’s as simple as trying to inflate the number of applications in order to reduce admission rate. I think they feel that until recently there has been little public awareness of the University of Chicago outside of the traditional intellectual elite. Among other things, that meant that many good, ambitious students did not apply to Chicago, and that if they applied and were accepted they were discouraged from attending because their friends and relatives didn’t know anything about it. It also meant that Chicago struggled to find qualified low-income and minority applicants. The current marketing push --and WashU’s a decade ago – is trying to make as many people as possible aware of the university as a high-powered intellectual research hub with a beautiful campus and vibrant undergraduate life, like its competitors, and also to expand the economic and ethnic diversity of the applicant pool.</p>
<p>@singermom4: I believe I mentioned that the U of C went from being a non-player in the marketing/admissions game to being one of the most aggressive players.</p>
<p>However, the U of C <em>is</em> an absolute higher education powerhouse by several measures even on the international level, so you could argue that the rise in apps is just the perception catching up with reality (and the marketing is just aiding in doing so).</p>
<p>I believe Stanford is closer to 1750 these days and they are proposing to get even bigger based on the proposals on table.</p>
<p><a href=“Stanford Common Data Set | University Communications”>http://ucomm.stanford.edu/cds/2014</a></p>
<p>@texaspg. Actually Stanford has been closely hovering fewer than 1700 students (non-transfers) in past few years…they would like to increase that number to around 1800 next application cycle (class 2020)…and slowly continue to increase the freshman class size in subsequent years (all dependent on how quickly they can build the dorms with strict Palo Alto restrictions in play)…to accommodate the explosion of applicants who all want to attend…</p>
<p>@gravitas2 they seem to have an average of 1772 in undergrad based on a total over 5000. So where are all the extra kids? </p>
<p>in 2016 class, closer to 1780 said yes and they had to create space for an extra 100 kids.</p>
<p>@texaspg. If you look at the CDS you posted…most are coming from the category “other first-year, degree seeking” category…they are the transfers from other schools mainly and some may be “returning” older students (as you know they have a very liberal policy on taking a break from school)…remember…they lose many more students than their academic peers due to some leaving for the pros (many of the Stanford athletes who do this do return to complete their degrees but some don’t), Olympic training, and to startups…</p>
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<p>Well, what is the alternative? Repeating the past when it is NOT working? </p>
<p>A few years ago, Chicago (deservedly so, IMNSHO) was criticized for being a laggard in the competitive world of admissions. Schools like WUSTL/WashU paved the way to the form of uber-marketing we have not gotten used to. Chicago under a rather stale leadership did cling to the misguided notion that enough highly competitive students would be swayed by the uncommon application and consider the [fill the blank with your favorite adjective] essays. While it DID get the students they might have wanted it also … make them MISS on plenty of students who, despite liking the school’s tough academics and no-frills approach to education, were hardly impressed by the oozing pretentiousness of the admission people and … unfortunately plenty of applicants – successful or not. In particular, the often repeated purported pursuit of intellectualism (among 17 years old) was as annoying as misplaced. </p>
<p>In fact, I do applaud the changes made by Chicago. They were correct in analyzing how to BOOST their presence in the USNews by reallocating the resources in a way it mattered to Bob Morse and his acolytes. It did not need much than packaging the same information in a better way! Easy ROI if there was ever one! The jump in the rankings did not miss its target: the countless students who compile a list of targets based solely on the perceived prestige of a school. And, like it or not, prestige is often associated with a high selectivity index. </p>
<p>Having grabbed their share of the trophy hunters who somehow discovered that a NON-restrictive EA is no lose proposition, the next step was to convince many average applicants that the school would indeed reward the “not always stellar” applicants that was a tad different, and count on them missing the part that Chicago has always rewarded the competitive students who combined super high scores and GPA. They did reward them but MOST did not listen to the sirens’ songs and bolted for a “better” school. Better in the eyes of the rankings, that is! </p>
<p>Over the years, I think many have misunderstood my criticisms of Chicago. I think that replacing the old Ted with someone who learned how to “play the game” was a positive factor. Dropping --to a certain degree-- the obnoxiousness and the uncommonality were also good. Simply stated, a school such as Chicago owes itself to employ the people who understand what their job is all about in THIS century. </p>
<p>Could they be better? Absolutely! For starters, with their increasing success, the days of having to manipulate the data are over. And so are the days of considering all admission data as FYEO! To this date, the school and its officers still cling to misdirection and secrecy. Actually, the seem more interested in posting utterly stupid pictures of cats on their blog than basic numbers. </p>
<p>The next step might be to look at Stanford’s Dean Shaw for some advice in projecting the right image and understanding that disclosing a set of numbers is important in 2014. </p>
<p>In my book, Chicago went from a D- to a B! </p>
<p>As one who has been there, I can attest that in its own mind Chicago is the greatest university in the world. It believes it is a unique institution following its Moses, Robert Maynard Hutchins, into the educational land of milk and honey. Hutchins said the motto for Chicago should be this Whitman line: “Solitary, singing in the west I strike up for a new world.” There is a tinge of a cult-like atmosphere, although many other schools have one too. </p>
<p>Re Yale versus MIT, as noted, the STEM offerings at Yale are no slouch. It’s not MIT in math but it is top 10. It’s also 7th in bio, and 11 in physics (US News). Engineering not up there yet. OTOH, MIT actually has some strong humanities and social science offerings. In addition to their history of strong majors in such areas as economics and linguistics (Chomsky the Einstein and Newton of the field), you can major in history itself.</p>
<p>“Why I’m a History Major at MIT” Spoiler: He’s seriously into Civilization IV and so is his Medieval Lit prof–which is consistent with a stereotype.
<a href=“Blagoblagz*: Why I’m a History Major at MIT (Guest Blog!) | MIT Admissions”>http://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/blagoblagz_why_im_a_history_ma</a></p>
<p>this is a little off topic but I look at the numbers posted by JHS with interest. A rough estimate of students matriculating to the top schools using those numbers is 20,000. (HYPSM, Columbia, UChicago, Dartmouth, Brown, Penn, Cornell, and Duke). If I add in Northwestern, Hopkins, Berkeley and CMU, that number goes up to 29,000. This does not even include the Rice, Pomona and other top LACs, or other top public Ivies like UMichigan, UVA, etc. I find these numbers somewhat reassuring that a top student who applies to enough schools is quite likely to have a top school to go to. The numbers above are just actual bodies showing up for matriculation; number of acceptances is likely to be 30%+ more.</p>
<p>I wonder about the risk/benefit analysis of going non-restricted EA like UChicago did… for schools like Johns Hopkins, Carnegie Mellon. I think they would see a great rise in applications thereby enhancing their selectivity but their yield might suffer. </p>