<p>I would say with any competitive school you have to be a stand out applicant first.. Perceived of interest only will help a little. I would bet that interest in the school is rarely U or Chicago's reason. They probably think almost everyone who applies is interested enough.</p>
<p>As someone who has for some time believed that UChicago is, holistically, an excellent fit for me, UChicago’s rapid rise in recognition is somewhat disconcerting. The university is nearing the top of the US News and World Report rankings list. I can remember back in my earlier high school days seeing an acceptance rate for UChicago in the 20’s, and today it is approximately 100% lower. The sort of kids that think that 2400/4.0 applicants automatically get into Harvard, Yale, and Princeton are starting to include the University of Chicago in that list. UChicago is becoming one of “those schools.” You know, the schools that are on everybody’s college list. The schools that the applicants themselves know nothing about but are applying to simply because of the location of the school on the US News rankings. Of course, these applicants generally get rejected from the schools when the admissions office can tell the applicant has no real interest in the school. But a lot of these applicants also have really excellent statistics, so is it ludicrous to assume that they may be smart enough to emulate a sort of interest in the schools that they are vying to attend due to prestige?
Does it take a passionate letter about “the gooey sap you feel late at night” to tell the University of Chicago that you truly want to go there? Or does the University simply have to cave in to rising prestige and start admitting applicants based solely upon how impressive of an applicant they are and regardless of how interested they are in the university, much like the way Harvard admits students?</p>
<p>UChicago’s acceptance rate is going down because they are getting more applications than ever before not because they’re changing the way that they accept students. James Nondorf, the dean of admissions, came to do a presentation in my area and he said about 60% of students that have a perfect SAT score or a perfect 4.0 get rejected. To UChicago, GPA and test scores are not everything and that’s not going to change anytime soon.</p>