That means they must have admitted somewhere around 1,050 - 1,100 EA/ED1. That’s consistent with last year’s (Class of '22) reported number which was around 1,100.
7% sounds awfully low for EA/ED1 as compared to other peer schools numbers IIRC. But ED1 may have 10% and EA may have 5% admission rate. If I assume a 40/60 mix of ED1/EA, the math will work:
Well, if memory serves, Class of 2021 Early rate was 9%: 1,200 admits, 13,000 applicants. And Class of 2022 was 8.5%: 1,100 admits, 13,000+ applicants.
The key this year is that 15,000 number for the applicant pool. Where did WaPo get it? But that alone could easily push down the rate, even if they keep the number admitted the same as earlier years.
It actually is that case that the WaPo number and the 7% admit rate tie in one with the other if UChicago admitted around 1,100 ED1/EA like they did last year.
Your numbers suggest that, for instance, 7,000 or so applied ED1 with 700 accepted. Anecdotally, it’s been reported that they rejected a good majority of ED1’s this year and allowed the remaining deferreds to switch to ED2 if desired. This seems a change from prior policies. But at the very least, it DOES imply that they perhaps had a swell of ED1 applicants. For EA, a 5% rate suggests that 400 were accepted out of 8,000 applicants. Anecdotally, those resulting admit numbers seem consistent with prior years.
Assuming that +2,000 really did apply Early this year, the addition could have been overwhelmingly ED1’s thinking they had an easier chance of getting in. Especially because prior ED1 admit rate estimates weren’t as low as 10%
More ED1 applicants means ED1 rate has to come down. That is the case even with same class size as last year. And Dean Boyer has said that class size will go down this year.
In fact, since Boyer specifically mentioned that Class of '22 - at 1,806 enrollees - was oversubscribed by 100, it’s reasonable to believe they are shooting for an enrolled class size of 1,700 as early as this upcoming year. Obviously, those who gapped last year need to be factored in; not sure how many but if the number is relatively constant year-over-year then it won’t really change the calculations. Anyway, if last year’s 77% yield is expected to be a repeat this year, then they will admit around 2,200 total, or another 1,100 in the ED2/RD round. If they think that yield will increase - say, 80% - they will admit a little over 2,100 total or another 1000 or so in the ED2/RD round.
Keep in mind that ED2 admission has already happened, but we don’t know the numbers. If we did, it’d be pretty easy to figure out how many RD’s they plan to admit, assuming that the above estimates are accurate.
The math on this defeats me, but I have a hunch that the ED1 rate has declined because the message has gotten out that being in it increases your odds, and this has had the effect of diverting more apps into it, thereby slightly diluting its overall excellence and diminishing the percentage selected from it. A point of equilibrium will no doubt be reached before it becomes, like Yogi Berra’s restaurant that became too popular, the admissions path that no one takes any more.
Playing devil’s advocate again , our calculation can be way off if the Class of 2023 ends up to be another big number. Dean Boyer did say that he wanted the total undergrad population to be around 6,800. But Dean Boyer has said a lot things lately that certainly raise a lot of eyebrows. It is not out of realm of possibility that Class of 2023 will be another 1,800+ number.
I have no idea who determines the undergrad class size: the Board of Trustees? The University Senate? Or President Zimmer with Deans Boyer and Nondorf at a dark booth at Woodlawn Tap :)) ? Suffice to say that the 1,700 number is not set in stone. It can be 1,750 or 1,650.
^ Correct - Boyer is paraphrased as follows: “The class size for each incoming class will be moving towards 1,700 and that’s where we will plateau for each class to create a population of 7,000 undergraduates.” So it may happen next year, or in a subsequent year.
Remember, though, how Nondorf kept admitting kids off the waitlist two years ago? They ended up with something like 1,740 (including gappers from prior year, no doubt). We were perplexed at that number. Well, turns out they were shooting for something around there. So my guess is that Nondorf’s seemingly renegade behavior at the time was completely with the go-ahead of both the College and Zimmer. So that would suggest that they truly did underestimated yield last year and overshoot w/o meaning to. Perhaps they were hoping for 50 fewer and ended up with 50 more instead. The rush to convert I-House into additional undergrad. housing supports that hypothesis. And it also suggest playing it conservative with this year’s RD pool in March and then fine-tune in April by pulling a few off the waitlist until they reach their goal.
At the student reception we attended, we were told that there were 15,000 early applicants, and roughly a 7% acceptance rate. There was no breakdown between ED and EA applicants. Before ED 2 Decisions were released, there were over 800 students who had joined the private Facebook group for admitted students (both ED and EA)
(The Washington Post doesn’t generally make up the news. If they said 15,000 applicants, they confirmed it in some meaningful way. That’s how high-prestige journalism works.)
^ Not sure anyone thought it was made up. BTW, University officials were recently bantering about 40K total applicants. Is that a good number or not, @JHS?
I thought I received a letter earlier in the year that mentioned they were not going to admit as many this year due to housing shortage and over admit last year. I’d be shocked if they had over 1800 again.
just extrapolating from my kids school last year, I would roughly estimate 50-100 gap year admits from last year. So have to subtract that from the numbers above…
Going to guess that, as foreshadowed last year, they’ve basically moved the admissions calendar forward, with close to 2/3 of the eventual enrolled class admitted ED1&2. If, in addition to those, they admit a bit over 1k in some combination of EA&RD, from which they get a yield of 50% (or maybe less), that’s the class.
, our calculation can be way off if the Class of 2023 ends up to be another big number. Dean Boyer did say that he wanted the total undergrad population to be around 6,800. But Dean Boyer has said a lot things lately that certainly raise a lot of eyebrows. It is not out of realm of possibility that Class of 2023 will be another 1,800+ number.