We know that the College received around 15,000 apps.
I am guessing they will be looking at total offers or around 2,100 based on last year’s 77% yield.
If we assume they split the 2,100 evenly between the two rounds (1,050 - ED1/EA rounds, 1,050-ED2/RD rounds), their overall admit rate for the ED1/EA round overall was about 7%
I have an admitted friend who tells me that the ED/EA ratio is running 85%-15% among students polled on the admitted FB page. Assuming that not everybody admitted has joined the group/answered the polls or both and further assuming that most of those are probably EA, I think a reasonable estimate of the actual ED1/EA split could be 70-30, so they admitted 735 ED1 and 315 EA.
If you look at the Ivies+Duke, and estimate that Chicago got towards the lower end of the ED apps in that group, that would put the ED apps between 3,500 to 4,000. This could mean that Chicago’s ED1 admit rate was approx 18% to 21%
4,000 apps seems low for the EDI pool. NU got over that number. Early apps. jumped by about 2,000 this year and some of that had to be additional EDI apps. The signal has been clear now for two years: UChicago accepts a good number of EDI’s. Why wouldn’t the total number of binding increase as a result? I think the admit rate is closer to 10% than 20%. Even 15% implies around 5,000 EDI’s (given your accepted numbers) and I think they could have hit close to that two years ago when the new admission plans were first introduced.
UChicago is a tad different from the others who offer ED.
@JBStillFlying It is interesting that you should say that. At another forum, there was a poll asking applicants which Ivy Plus school they intended to apply ED/SCEA. Around 9% of kids voted for Chicago. Yale and Penn had the most students. After the actual results were announced by the other schools I ran a regression (Yeah, that AP-Stats course did come in handy ) against this number to estimate how many apps Chicago may have received. The regression fit suggests that Chicago may have received 5,000 apps in ED1 round. I did not use that number however because Chicago does not really have an engineering program and I felt that factor could depress the number of ED apps.
@surleyhuman - that’s some good work there! Still thinking that 5,000 is low but it’s the best estimate available, since UChicago doesn’t release it’s own detail. What’s bewildering is why someone would apply EA when the admit rate is 4%, unless they figure they can just switch to EDII if it doesn’t work the first time. This year - surprise! - they’ve also included EDI’s in the EDII pool. This is another example of how difficult it is to predict admit rates for any one pool of applicants. UChicago’s application policy is taking shapeshifting to a whole new level - perhaps attempting to grab more of those Harry Potter fans.
Some circumstantial evidence for the EDI pool being higher is that they seem to have deferred a small number and rejected a good majority of, presumably, mediocre applications (based on anecdotal reports). Don’t really have a way to translate that observation into good estimates, however, as this could just signal a shift in admission policy rather than a specific response to a larger-than-usual reject pile (seriously wondering whether Test Optional impacted this - SOMETHING caused that jump to 15,000!). The biggest (to me) piece of evidence is what’s happening on the SCEA front. Yale got 6,000+ early apps, for instance. And then MIT gets around 9,000+ non-binding EA’s. Add 'em up and you get something north of 15,000 which is what UChicago supposedly got under the two plans. No regression - just a theory that the two early pools are, indeed, distinct from one another and attract different kids as a result.
Not sure how to read the engineering trends. On the one hand, engineering/STEM has become increasingly popular over the years. On the other, social sciences - particularly Econ. and Polisci - have also become a dominant area of interest among top universities in general - not just UChicago. Perhaps as long as you major in something analytical, you’ll find a job once you graduate from one of these well-connected institutions.
@JBStillFlying You raise some very interesting points. Several factors could affect the ED applicant pool, some positively, some negatively
Regarding engineering, anecdotally I noticed that a majority of Asian kids are STEM/engineering focused and I read somewhere that this demographic as well as whites form most of the binding pool applicants. I thus thought Chicago may get less applicants than the other schools that have engineering. Chicago also doesn’t have the Ivy prestige ring around it. There is also a perception that it is a tougher academic environment than its peer schools, which may depress applications.
Having said that, Chicago has CS which is quite popular now, so that may even out the engineering downside a bit. Grade inflation is also slowly asserting itself in Chicago given the increase in the number of honors graduates over the years.
Also, I know many dislike rankings, but they do affect the number of applications to a school specially in the ED round and the fact is that Chicago is ranked above most Ivies in the one ranking that prestige focused applicants care about. I don’t want to open the can of worms on ranking methodology and comparing the rankings, but the other rankings like WSJ/Times. Money, Washington Monthly, Niche etc just don’t matter as much as USNews among prestige focused applicants.
As another interesting data point, Duke another top 10 non-Ivy got almost 5K ED apps this year (they do have the basketball halo this year though)
Another factor that may positively affect Chicago’s ED applicant pool (at least in the ED 2 round) is the fact that HYPS are steadily decreasing their intake from elite private schools as they diversify and those kids are increasingly turning to Chicago much more than other private schools for some reason. I saw a compilation which showed that in the most recent tally, Chicago now ranks 3rd behind only Harvard and UPenn among Ivy Plus universities in admitted students from the top 25 private schools. The increased presence of Canada Goose jackets on campus (as mentioned in a different post in this forum) may point to this remarkable and rapid change in Chicago’s demographics. This change alone may have a large and positive impact on Chicago’s endowment in 30 years.
So what does all this mean for the ED applicant number? Your guess is as good as mine
Another positive will be the “test optional” specifically and the rest of the “Empower Initiative” generally. I don’t think the motivation for the change was to increase the applicant pool for the purpose of lowering acceptance rates, but it will definitely be a consequence of that initiative. When you target a demographic with an under represented population, you will get a response. I would be interested to hear how many “test option” applications were sent and how many were accepted. I’m projecting the first number will be measured in the thousands and the second in the 5-50 range. I also suspect that UChicago will be very coy with that data. If you find out 5 of 5000 were accepted that will pretty much guarantee less than 5000 will use it the next year. Not that the motivation is to increase applicants from an under represented population to increase rankings, but to increase the applicants from an under represented population to truly find UChicago students.
Couple that with a smaller class next year, or at the very most a equal size class, I suspect acceptance rates to continue to drop and yield to continue to rise.
The early applicant pool has been around 13,000 for a few years now. If the estimate of 15,000 is accurate then “test optional” could have played a direct role in that jump. And it’s not clear that under-represented groups would have been the only ones employing that. A well-off, demographically unhooked brilliant kid with an LD mild enough to preclude ACT/SAT accommodations (hard to get!) but severe enough to warrant an IEP and testing accommodations at school . . . that kid might have been admitted as well. Lots of options once you go test optional.
@JBStillFlying I agree others will utilize it, but since it was coupled with the Empower Initiative, I think it isn’t a far fetched deduction that it is targeted at the Under Represented pool. Agree, that it is linked to income and not minority status. But the entire Empower Initiative is there to get people who would be great UChicago students that don’t currently do as well on tests because they can’t do the prep courses or hire coaches or take the test multiple times because they are working to support their families, etc.
My S19 applied EA. Our HS never even had a student apply, at least in the last decade. This year Chicago inundated kids with brochures, emails etc. He didn’t apply EDl because of financial reasons - this was before I knew about NPC and really understood how financial aid works differently for various schools, regardless of EFC.
He did submit his ACT score - 32.
Well, he was happy to be deferred, because he really thought he’d be denied.It may not make sense to some, but I get it. So he is now part of the EDll pool.
If not for the mailings, I don’t think anyone from our HS would have applied.
People mock UChicago’s “Carpet Bomb Marketing Method.” I really think it is brilliant. We also probably wouldn’t have considered UChicago without the mailing. Although our athletic recruiting service first pointed out that UChicago along with CMU and JHU would be great fits. Some of it was cool just to see how they are branding the product. I guess I’m just a advertising geek, but some of it was pretty ingenious. It is always very professionally done, and always talked to the brand. Now if you were to tell me that $1000+/student paid tuition goes towards recruitment, I might have an issue since I’m now paying tuition…
We are totally on board with the the mass mailings from UChicago. Thank goodness they were persistent. Plus their mailings have a high production value.
Not to get you all off topic, again., but I love their promotional mailings! My daughter saved all of her UChicago mailings over the last few years (she had a hefty stack) and used them in her optional video supplement. I don’t know what the admissions people thought, but I thought it was clever.
My daughter even assigned superlative awards to colleges based on their marketing materials. I can’t remember all of them, but UChicago definitely won for their sheer number of mailings and wit. I remember Oberlin having very unique brochures as well. Carleton won the prize for the most clever item sent - a frisbee.
So… while some potential students immediately throw their “junk” mail in the recycling bin, others choose to scrutinize every detail and then save all of it to look back on later.
Factoring in both the expected increase in applications as a result of going test optional and admitting a significantly smaller class size this year (1700 vs 1800+), UChicago may well have an overall admit rate below 6% for the class of 2023–quite astounding considering that a little over 10 years ago, it was closer to 40%.
I don’t consider this off-topic at all. Advertising generates leads, when closed properly leads turn into applications. The better and more efficient the advertising, the more people apply. Right now I’d say UChicago is drinking the coffee. Because…
If you look at the top 25 schools in the USNews ranking that have ED/SCEA as an option (excluding Chicago, since we don’t know the exact number of ED apps) The total number of ED/SCEA apps to these schools for the class of 2023 was 64,671. 10,424 were accepted (excluding Columbia,Vanderbilt, WashU since they did not publish their numbers, probably around 1,600 to 1,700 total).
USNews Top 25 ED stats
Median # of Apps: 4,315
25th Percentile: 2,373
75th Percentile: 5,505
Median Accepted: 769
25th Percentile: 565
75th Percentile: 935
Median Acceptance rate: 17.8%, probably much lower for the average unhooked candidate?
I would have expected this number to be much higher. Even expressing a binding commitment doesn’t seem to give the average applicant a good shot at these schools
^ agreed. Despite the negative press, early decision hasn’t exactly declined in popularity. Many are using it to signal that the school in question is a clear first choice.
The average (defined as not hooked) applicant’s chance of acceptance isn’t as simple as saying the acceptance rate of average appliccant is X% therefore the average probability of acceptance of the average applicant is X%. I would say that the probability of acceptance of a UChicago type student is much higher than the acceptance rate. Out of every 100 ppl that apply, 70 are not UChicago type students. Their acceptance probability will approach 0%. I won’t say equal 0% because probability just doesn’t work that way, but I will say very very very very close to 0%. Now, Nondorf has said in public that he could totally eliminate the class that is accepted, and the second class that was accepted, and stay with the third class and have a class full of UChicago type students. So I will go as far as saying that if you are a UChicago type student, your worst chance of acceptance is roughly 33%.
Now, if you are a UChicago type student and you apply ED1, broadcasting that you are committing to UChicago if they’ll have me, I suspect some statistician with time on their hands could figure out the chance of acceptance to a number +/- 5%, but being a Kellogg Marketing grad, I’ll ball park that number of somewhere around 50%.
So, if you know you are a UChicago type student and you want to go there, put your efforts into making sure your application shows someone that you are indeed a UChicago type of student and you have about a coin flips chance of getting in.
) against this number to estimate how many apps Chicago may have received. The regression fit suggests that Chicago may have received 5,000 apps in ED1 round. I did not use that number however because Chicago does not really have an engineering program and I felt that factor could depress the number of ED apps.