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<p>Or, even better, so as to not waste the adcom’s time, just write: “My parents are making me apply. I don’t actually want to attend this institution. Please reject me.”</p>
<p>(Of course, the other option, if you’re feeling more creative, is to show yourself in an extremely bad light through your essays.) ;)</p>
<p>My parents reassured me that they will not force me to go to a given school just because I get accepted their, so I feel comfortable taking the application seriously. Having more options seems to be a no-brainer at this point. As for financial aid, that’s not really a variable for me as my family’s way too well off - first complaining about being accepted early, and now this? - so I’ll just put whatever I have left into these applications and see how things play out. </p>
<p>Thanks everyone.</p>
<p>Really, then, blow the other apps. You have nothing to lose - you already have Chicago as your ace in the hole, and you don’t have to worry about FA!</p>
<p>Friedman - unlike what Pizzagirl said, I would absolutely not recommend blowing off the other apps. You’ve worked hard in high school, and following maybe another week of diligent work, can send in compelling applications to some great schools. Having lots of options is NEVER a bad route, so I’d recommend not shooting yourself in the foot and closing doors. </p>
<p>I loved my own time at Chicago, but it’s never bad to perhaps have a Yale or Princeton acceptance in hand as well.</p>
<p>Your parents sound just like my parents. They really wanted me to apply for Yale EA. I told them that I would get rejected by Yale because I just wasn’t a good fit. I applied for UChicago and MIT EA instead. They kept on annoying me everyday, claiming that Chicago sucks, that I was too wimpy to apply to Yale, and that MIT had absolutely no statistical advantage for applying early. I showed them that plenty of lists rank Chicago higher than Yale, but they did not believe it. They said that I was just using Chicago as a safety. I knew that I was a better fit for MIT and Chicago; they would provide me better opportunities for stuff I want to do. Then I got deferred by Chicago because they didn’t receive part of my application for some reason. 
My parents said that I’ll probably end up at a community college and become a beggar. Next day, I got accepted to MIT. Now they don’t even want me to apply to Yale because it is inferior to MIT. Now they leave Chicago alone and start to claim how MIT is way better than HYP. 
Moral of the story: Don’t listen to your parents when you know what you are doing.</p>
<p>^ Grouptheory, you seem remarkably centered. Good for you.</p>
<p>I offer this only in case that some of the parents being described in these posts might be influenced by rankings. Here is the 2009 Times Higher Education ranking of world universities: </p>
<p>[University</a> Rankings | Top Universities](<a href=“http://www.topuniversities.com/world-university-rankings]University”>QS World University Rankings 2024: Top Global Universities | Top Universities)</p>
<p>Chicago fares quite well – 3rd in the U.S. It should hopefully give those recalcitrant parents something to mull over.</p>
<p>Rankings, you want rankings: [Top</a> 50 Colleges Ranked For 2009 - The best colleges & universities in the United States](<a href=“GoDaddy Corporate Domains - Protected”>http://www.collegecrunch.org/rankings/top-50-colleges-ranked-for-2009/) :)</p>
<p>Haha I will go somewhat against the grain here, and argue that, if one is lucky enough to get accepted to one of HYP, it’s best to consider that acceptance very, very carefully. Moreover, outside of academics, HYP may have a decen edge on Chicago. Most of the rankings cited to here indicate that, on an ACADEMIC level, Chicago is comparable to these other schools. As we know, though, colleges function as much more than purveyors of education. </p>
<p>With this in mind, perhaps those that have yale backgrounds on this board (JHS, beatitido) could speak more to this, but I don’t know if Chicago does AS MUCH as well as a Yale or Stanford or whatever. In terms of academics, it may be on par, but in terms of networking, opportunities, etc., a disparity may very well still exist. </p>
<p>One final note - just like any and all schools, not everyone is happy at a certain institution. Having said this, though, I’ve heard the common refrain that Chicago is quite similar in a lot of ways to Yale (less so to Princeton or Stanford), and if you are in love with Chicago, Yale very much could be a place with a similar level of academic offerings, but also offers more in terms of post-college opportunities and resources for its undergrads.</p>
<p>Cue7 and I are pretty much in agreement. There are probably a few types of people to whom I would recommend choosing Chicago over Yale. But in terms of academics, the two colleges are very similar, which is to say great, with a very intellectual tone. People at both get very engaged in their studies. Chicago may have a clear advantage in some areas – math, physics, economics – and Yale in others, but academically you couldn’t go wrong either place. Outside of the classroom, Yale has what Chicago wants: an incredible housing set-up that really adds depth to student life and creates a feeling of warmth and intimacy, strong student organizations (compare the 5-day-a-week, high quality Yale Daily News to the twice-a-week-if-you’re-lucky Chicago Maroon), tons of creative outlets, and much better developed internship / career programs. And generally much better lines to the corridors of power in New York, Washington, and Los Angeles. There is a sense of connectedness to the Establishment at Yale that Chicago lacks – although it is certainly possible to register that as entitlement and privilege, and to dislike it. There is more ambition psi at Yale than at Chicago, too, which over time tends to translate into more (and more visible) accomplishment.</p>
<p>This really isn’t meant to dis Chicago at all. In the most important areas, it really offers everything Yale does, and it is moving in the right direction in all the other areas, too. And Chicago has one great thing Yale lacks – a world-class city at its doorstep. If you don’t have the opportunity to go to Yale – and most people don’t – it’s hard to do better than Chicago. (I have similar feelings about Harvard and Princeton, although on the whole I like Yale more than either. Among the other great universities, I don’t think any is clearly superior to Chicago as a package, unless you really want to have an engineering focus, and I think Chicago is clearly superior to all but a handful.)</p>
<p>I agree with both JHS and Cue7 in their advice to consider an offer of admission to HYP very carefully, and also with Cue’s appraisal that Chicago is more similar to Yale than to either Harvard or Princeton. (I happen to know those three Ivies fairly well, especially HY). </p>
<p>I visited Chicago for the first time last April, and I was struck by the similarity in population and general atmosphere between Yale and the U of C. Frankly, I had expected to find a bunch of stressed-out nerds at Chicago, and instead the experience transported me back to my college years in New Haven. I saw a lot of very bright, engaged kids who looked simultaneously more relaxed and alive than at many of the other schools that my son and I had visited.</p>
<p>I will say this, though: if my son ends up at Chicago, I will have a higher degree of confidence that he will emerge from those four years with a first-rate education than I would anywhere else. (He was admitted early to the U of C, and he plans to apply to three other schools, including Yale, RD). The Common Core guarantees that students will not become merely expert technicians in one field but will be adept at deploying with fluidity the different modes of thinking that characterize various disciplines. To my mind, this equips them much better to make the interdisciplinary connections wherein much of creativity and innovation lie. </p>
<p>The trade-off for the more flexible curricula of HYP (and certainly of Brown) is that it’s possible for a student to wiggle through four undergraduate years without stretching him/herself very much. It doesn’t happen too frequently, given the breadth of interests of the typical Ivy League student, but it does happen, and I did see it at Yale. In fact, Rick Levin (Yale’s President) was interviewed a few months ago by PBS’s Charlie Rose; in response to a question about what might constitute the ideal curriculum, Pres. Levin said that, although it’s not popular with students, he would like to see more of a core curriculum in place.</p>
<p>But I agree with JHS’s assessment that HYP’s “access to the corridors of power” is nothing to sneeze at. I am convinced that, whether deserved or not, people look at you differently when they learn that you’ve attended HYP. It opens doors. On the other hand, having interviewed many people for jobs, I can tell you that a college degree from the University of Chicago is perceived as proof of both your intellectual chops AND your capacity to work hard. </p>
<p>All good things.</p>