Didn’t UChicago receive a bump this year because of COVID? All the news articles say more students are applying to a larger number of schools in this COVID year.
And the use of one 600 word essay explains why Columbia gets 22,000 more applications?
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The increase at UChicago roughly parallels that of Common App applications generally (up 10%):
Columbia and UChicago are peer institutions with some similarities. They are both in big cities and both have a strong emphasis on a core curriculum.
But in several ways they are quite different. NYC appeals to many in a way that Chicago does not. And Columbia is highly liberal, which appeals to some although others would say it is intolerant. In contrast, UChicago has a strong emphasis on free expression of all viewpoints. And of course, Columbia has the prestige of being in the Ivy League whereas many in the public can’t tell the difference between UChicago, and University of Illinois-Chicago.
At the start of her senior year, my D fully expected to apply to Columbia as she loves NYC. Then, even though she is quite liberal, she was turned off by the intolerance she saw at Columbia and dropped it completely (never started on an application there). Her first choice shifted to UChicago and she is very happy there.
In other words, fit is important. I am quite sure that UChicago could get outstanding students that fit UChicago with far fewer than 38k apps. The same is true of Columbia. Most of the applicants would not thrive academically at either place, and some fraction would not fit philosophically at one vs. the other.
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The Chicago “ethos” may not be as rebarbative and its name-recognition as minimal as they once were, but these things are still regularly discussed on cc and elsewhere and are a turn-off for many. Chicago’s popularity may be growing, but it is still somewhat of a minority taste among the elites. Even the writing of that darned essay must put an upper lid on numbers of apps, not simply because churning out a few hundred words is in itself a big chore but because it has become so well-known that the words have a mysterious talismanic importance at this school and must be pondered and crafted very carefully. Perhaps the very knowledge that writing well means so much acts as a brake on the enthusiasm of those not so comfortable with wordsmithing.
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The goal is to get the best possible students, and be as selective as possible. So, did UChicago’s admissions office just have a bad recruiting year?
Or, are Columbia and Brown just a lot more prestigious and popular?
If Columbia added a short free form essay, their apps wouldn’t drop by 22,000.
Let me simplify it for you: More unqualified students applied to Columbia this year than did to UChicago. The number of qualified students applying to each is roughly the same.
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Maybe I’m misunderstanding this @hebegebe - UChicago wants those unqualified applicants too, right? Without them, Columbia looks more selective than UChicago. Again, isn’t the goal to get the best possible students and be as selective as possible?
UChicago got more apps than Princeton, MIT, and Dartmouth. Even schools that got more such as Duke, Brown, Columbia won’t really matter much since they have low yields. Everyone says most of the extra applicants at the other schools were junk applicants–simply people who were were unqualified for any top school but applied because they thought–oh, well, with test optional maybe they’ll get in. I doubt this delusion will last too many years applicants realize marginal aren’t getting in anywhere. Even the schools themselves admit the applicants were unqualified ones:
https://www.■■■■■■■■■■■■/the-ivy-coach-blog/college-admissions/the-pandemic-impacting-admissions/
Princeton MIT and Dartmouth are considerably smaller colleges than UChicago, right? Isn’t UChicago around 1700 (maybe 1800) a class, and Princeton, MIT, and Dartmouth are around 1200?
It looks like Chicago is bigger than those other schools, and will be less selective than them.
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You beg an important question, @PlayTag : Is prestige and popularity what it’s all about? You may well be right in your assumption that those allures are driving the numbers of gross apps at the ivies. We have been hearing that tune forever on this board. Be that as may, are gross numbers of apps a rational way to measure a good recruiting year?
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Isn’t the better question: are the gross numbers of apps and selectivity the metrics a college’s board of trustees cares about?
Is UChicago’s Board different - and they don’t care about keeping up with Columbia and Harvard?
Depends on how the AOs are compensated and/or their performance measured. I don’t know how Chicago does it, but at some schools increasing app numbers is one factor in how AOs’ performance is evaluated.
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There are roughly 20k spots at the Ivy Plus colleges (Ivy League plus Duke, MIT, Stanford, UChicago) per year.
Let’s suppose we could identify the 20k most talented students that are graduating this year that want to attend one of these colleges. Are you really suggesting that with 38k applications that UChicago is not getting its share of those 20k most talented students that are a fit for UChicago?
Put another way, if UChicago got only 1700 applications from those top 20k kids, and everyone who applied was an ideal fit for UChicago, then it’s resulting class wouldn’t be any different than if it got 38k apps.
After a certain point, number of applications does not reflect quality.
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UChicago is more selective than MIT and Dartmouth and as selective as Princeton. UChicago has as high of a yield as any of the other schools. And it gets more students from the top high schools than any other school. When the dust settles that will continue to be the case this year. The other schools simply got a lot of junk applicants. The Ivy League is sort of.a middle class American thing. When you’re super rich like Gates, you go to the best school–UChicago. You don’t need Harvard; Harvard needs you.
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@hebegebe - UChicago wants more than just its share of talented students though, right? Doesn’t it also want to look as selective as possible?
If Chicago got 1700 apps, had a 100% accept rate and 100% yield, they would look unselective. That’s not a good look.
@WRHarper - are you using last year’s numbers? I thought we didn’t know the selectivity for this year, as Princeton etc. haven’t released their numbers yet.
Isn’t the data you’re using from last year - and doesn’t account UChicago’s softer application numbers for this year?
@Mwfan1921 and @PlayTag , I don’t know what the Trustees and Aministration are actually looking at but I know what they should be looking at - the quality of the student body and, in particular, at this school, to what extent those students reflect the Chicago ethos. That ethos famously is different - some say a lot different, some less so - than at the peer schools. There are plenty of good quality students out there, the question is whether the ones who come to Chicago are the right ones for this school. A single scale of generalized excellence does not exist to measure these things.
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What’s your obsession with UChicago? You joined CC 3 hours ago and have posted only about it. If UChicago is a fit for you, that’s great. If not, plenty of other good places for you to consider.
I have one child at UChicago and another at Harvard. So far, my observation is that UChicago seems to be considerably more rigorous in its normal courses compared to Harvard’s normal courses. In terms of student body, Harvard seems to have a larger talent spread: It has some that are exceptionally strong, but also many that are academically weaker than a typical UChicago student. In other words, UChicago admissions is doing just fine.
@marlowe1 - I just looked at the bios for UChicago’s Board. It looks corporate - with a surprising number of people who didn’t even go to UChicago undergrad. Lots of MBAs and JDs.
I’d be surprised if they acted much differently than the board at Columbia or Penn.
@hebegebe - my obsession? I’m really interested in UChicago, and want to post about it. I thought we could do that on this board? I’m new to CC - are there some limits or rules I am breaking here?
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