FWIW – and I love that I can sometimes say things out loud on CC that I can’t confess anywhere else – but our senior class had one student accepted at UChicago this year…I believe maybe 10 applied…and I was thinking over the weekend, how in the world did they choose this particular student? She has high stats but all the kids who applied did…but I’ve never met a less resilient student…every event drives her to tears…and I love emotional people, don’t get me wrong…but these are bitter tears…angry that things didn’t work out for her…and did work out for others. Anyway, those of you who were accepted are going to love her! 
Whee. Another Cue7 gloom and doom thread.
@SouthernHope - lol we knew a few like that in our grad. program 30 years ago. Maybe they want to give her something to cry about.
We were sad to find out that the others we knew who applied in my daughter’s class did not survive the RD round. Everyone had applied EA (inlcuding my daughter) and everyone had been deferred. D switched to EDII which obviously helped her case. One kid (a friend of my daughter’s) actually did get into his #1 which is a top 20 university so he’s very happy. Not sure about the others. All are “high quality” using any of the standard metrics.
Hold on. It may be helpful if I discuss the sources that give depth to my issue. Re University planning, the best template I’ve found is the Dean of the College, John Boyer’s, excellent 2008 treatise, “The Kind of University We Desire to Become.”
It’s available here: https://college.uchicago.edu/sites/college.uchicago.edu/files/attachments/Boyer_OccasionalPapers_V18.pdf
I encourage all Chicago stakeholders - from apparent grumps like me to the new guard of uber-confident optimists (@Chrchill and others) to read this document. Dean Boyer is an excellent and thoughtful leader for the College, and he presents great historical analysis here. (And a little “didja know?” - a longtime Professor and Dean at Chicago, James Angell, became president at Yale and was the chief architect behind Yale’s famous residential college system.)
I’m puzzled by the admissions strategy because Dean Boyer, in his 2008 analysis, lays out very clear goals. The most important goals are:
- A College size of about 5000 students, total
- 70% of undergrads in college dorms
That’s about the only documentation I can find about the PLAN for the college, that would hopefully be realized by about 2018. Can anyone else point me to guidance that may be more on point? What is the ideal size of the College? How many students should live in the dorms?
I ask because current policies and initiatives seem to be working in opposition to the outlined goals. In 2008, 56% of students lived in college housing. In 2017, 53% live in college housing. Further, the size of the college is closer to 6000 than 5000.
It looks like we’ve actually dipped in the number of students in college housing, and gone well above the number of students Dean Boyer recommends based on the university’s physical infrastructure.
I think my irritation stems from not knowing what the plan - what the goal - here is. I thought Dean Boyers’ work was the dominant boilerplate guide, but current numbers and initiatives hint otherwise. Instead, for the past four years, the response to over-enrollment has always been, gee-whiz, we’re so popular this year.
For those with Chicago sensibilities, hopefully this lack of awareness about institutional direction is NOT something to be lauded!
Does anyone know what the plan is?
"A College size of about 5000 students, total
- 70% of undergrads in college dorms"
Was told the exact same info over the past few years my kid attended (2012-2016 grad). I too am very surprised by the change the College seems to be heading towards.
@Cue7 You have introduced new way of categorizing UChicago stakeholders
- UCO’s
- AG’s
Love it!!
I think wrt to Dean Boyer, the 5,000 was based on what they thought was “Realistic and pragmatic”. They have shot through that, so they have been wildly successful in increasing college size. I know at one time increasing the enrollment to 3,000 was considered ambitious
The 70% goal is still not met, but they have revamped housing and built more capacity, so this might take a while.
When I see a poster using phrases like “piddly” and “shenanigans” and “disingenuous” and “substandard” and “overenrollment” and “lack of awareness about institutional direction” in every single post he or she makes about the U of C (just like he or she has done for years and years) it makes me think that the underlying motivation for the posts has little to do with whatever the current subject of discussion may be. There is some other axe being ground here.
In this case, no one in 2008, not even Dean Boyer, could have anticipated the rise in national popularity of the College in the past decade. I see no reason to assume that the University does not know what it is doing, that there is “no institutional direction.” It is far more likely that the conceptual goals have shifted ever so slightly since 2008 in light of evolving circumstances. I certainly would not go out of my way to ASSUME that a train is running off the tracks without any actual evidence other than my own speculation and bias.
So, perhaps, 5,000 was seen as “realistic and pragmatic,” but they are overjoyed to get 6,000. But the more students you get to meet goal #1 (increase the college size), the LESS you can meet goal #2 (70% in college housing).
If we had 6,000 students and, say, 60% in college dorms (an increase from 2008), I wouldn’t be concerned.
But we’ve overshot the number of students and also DECLINED in the number of students in college housing. To not meet these goals - for several years running - is puzzling to me. If one year the college is wildly over-subscribed, that signals that the next year should be more conservative for admissions. Instead, we keep over-shooting and praising popularity.
If you look at Dean Nondorf’s track record (he orchestrated like a 200%+ increase in apps at RPI) what do you think was going to happen at Chicago? Every year for the past 4-5 years, though, enrollment keeps going up and up…
All this wouldn’t be a problem if, in the past few years, someone articulated what the plan is, as Dean Boyer did ten years ago.
I can’t find any guidance about this, though. Instead, the biggest byproduct seems to be the strong echo chambers found on this board. Heaven forbid Chicago falls to #8 in the rankings next year! I wonder what all the uber-confident types will say then?
Are you really concerned that suddenly the College is going to realize that it just admitted thousands of students that it cannot accommodate and no one will have realized or planned for it? Really?
When I went to the College, a third of the College lived in the Shoreland, over a mile off campus, and came in by bus. Pierce was a disgraceful dump, and Woodward Court was mediocre. It was a terrible housing situation. It is infinitely better now. How that can be twisted into a negative is beyond me.
My kid’s a first year in North and I’ve been surprised to hear that they expect half of her class to leave the dorm at the end of this year. She says that she thinks it’s a credible estimate, given what she’s heard about other peoples’ plans. This is a brand new dorm with fairly luxe (albeit sterile) facilities and a good number of singles as well as some apartments. It was specifically designed with the goal of keeping students on campus beyond first year. OTOH, I think the local housing market makes that a challenge (you can get more space cheaper and you can stay/leave your stuff for multiple years). But I also wonder what more they could/should be doing toward encouraging people to stay on campus if the goal is to shift to a more residential college model.
There are a ton of available apartments all over the Hyde Park neighborhood. Upperclassmen and women traditionally have liked the extra freedom and privacy that living in their own apartments with their friends provides. I doubt that is going to change overnight, and I’m not sure why it needs to. It is the same at many urban campuses where the rental market is not particularly expensive, like UPenn.
@Cue7 Your ability to discern clouds in generally clear skies is a gift. But perhaps you could express yourself in pithy sentences? . Your sesquipedalian prose makes it hard to understand you. Sincerely – Proud UCO
The 53% occupancy in the dorms is one reason I think they can easily expand the incoming freshman class size. I am wondering what the final class size will be this year.
The main reason folks move out is the cost savings and transitioning to post college life. The University could simply mandate that 2nd years must also stay on campus and then you are done. You will basically have 100% occupancy, but I don’t think the college wants to take this approach
- My past posts on this and other boards (particularly the Penn board) reveal my strong aversion to early decision policies. I therefore attach words like "shenanigans" and "piddly" to moves made in Chicago's admissions office. I'm firmly against any early decision policies, and Chicago's refusal to adopt ED was a point of pride for me. The direction Nondorf's steered the ship gives rise to the words I've employed.
- Pardon, for my academic pursuits, I take care to edit and pare down my writing - which does tend to be long-winded. For a discussion board, I don't have the time.
As a Chicago grad of the 90s, a time when a famous Professor described Chicago as a “dirty, grubby place,” I am astounded by the optimism and fervent shunning of the “naysayers.” Chicago’s never had an echo chamber so strong.
(Source: http://www.nytimes.com/1998/12/28/us/winds-of-academic-change-rustle-university-of-chicago.html)
@ThankYouforHelp as an alum yourself, what has caused you to believe the administration is not behaving erratically? The admin was NOT a strong point of the school for so long, but there current decisions seem to be met with near-universal applause on this board.
Complaining about the University of Chicago used to be one of the main extra-curricular activities at the University of Chicago, ESPECIALLY if there was some merit behind the complaints. There apparently is no room for such complaint on the board dedicated to the school.
My, how times have changed.
Actually, I think the echo chamber thing is new. I didn’t experience it as much here last year, when I first started reading this board as the parent of a prospective student. I remember those discussions as a mix of pros and cons (with the same posters applauding some changes while being skeptical of others) and involving recurring debate over whether the soul of the university was at stake in various reforms.
@Cue7 Please take a lot what I say is with a twinkle in the eye – a little levity. BTW,. I am not an optimist per se; rather, an optimist with experience. But do enjoy your pessimism. Schopenhauer would be proud of you.
Starting dozens of threads over many years to relentlessly complain or worry about every tiny little thing one can think of, even things that seem like positives to almost anyone else… that’s not really objective discussion.
I’m happy to criticize things that I think need criticizing, and there are things that I would change if I could. I don’t want an echo chamber. But I get tired of seeing the same old “sky is falling” narrative applied to every action, inaction, news or non-news, good or bad, about the University. It sucks the air out of the room.
The strong disagreements between the UCO and AG factions on UChicago’s direction is a telling sign on how the University is changing. As the University attracts more mainstream students and those parents visit this forum, I think you are going to see a “more optimistic and supportive view” of the University. Maybe we are seeing a tipping point this year with the introduction of ED with many choosing Chicago as their first choice school. These stakeholders probably have little patience for the AG story line
What the AG side calls “Echo chamber” the the UCO side calls “School spirit”
I call it a safe space
Thankfully – the only one at UChicago