My son refused to apply to UChicago because he told me he was told by kids from his hs who have gone there that “it’s where fun goes to die.” He applied to many other similarly ranked schools, but was looking for a work hard/play medium amount balance?
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Yes - and it always has. Since its founding, the university’s #1 commitment - really, its only commitment - is to academic excellence. What this means on the “education” side of the equation - including, of course, undergraduate education - is that students are there to form the intellect. If you are not there to form your intellect - develop certain habits of mind, learn to see the world with a “different pair of eyes” or however you want to describe it - you will probably feel like a fish out of water. This is a very distinct mission from at least some of the Ivies. I’ve had this discussion with family members who attend(ed) Harvard College and it’s pretty clear that they are different from one another in terms of their mission and goals. At Harvard, for instance, academics and athletics are two sides of the same coin. Both are used to develop leadership skills. Athletics isn’t overseen by the top academic officer at the university. In contrast, at UChicago the purpose of athletics is to support the academic mission of the university and the entire department ultimately reports to the provost. That’s by design. And it’s the same for everything else - residence life, study abroad, RSO’s, arts, etc. are all offered within the context of supporting and promoting the distinct academic mission, and the university will generally withdraw support from anything that conflicts. It’s probably the main reason why Hannah Gray shut down the Lascivious Costume Ball in the '80’s 
I’ve decided that Play Tag is just goofing on people. He/she is s not real.
@tsbna44 - I am not “real”? That sounds strange.
People are saying directly opposite things about UChicago. Some say it is a specialty school. Others say it is not. Some say it is less prestigious than Columbia or Harvard. Others say it is one of the top ten universities in the world.
How is this not confusing?
@tsbna44 - I would put money not only on @PlayTag being real but perhaps being a tad more familiar with UChicago than he lets on. So be it, Tag - You’re It!
My above “duplicated” post disappeared so I’ll try again:
IMO it’s a mistake to equate quirky essay prompts and academic rigor with unhappy students. A lot depends on who is being admitted - and who is applying in the first place. If a student is merely chasing so-called “prestige,” that’s probably not the best recipe for achieving happiness in college. The number of scenarios for disappointment and disillusionment seem numerous - from not getting your #1 choice to finding out that your #1 isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. One thing I particularly like about the University of Chicago - and it’s just me being being biased - is that students there are actually expected to graduate wiser than when they first arrived. I would hope every other academic institution has the same goal for their students but sometimes I wonder. They might graduate more confident, more mature, more poised, more something. But are they more wise?
Why does Cal Tech, which I thought was one of the elite schools, have a mere 8300 applicants. Long Beach State 69,578.
I’d choose Long Beach State every day. If 69K+ applied, it “must be” more prestigious.
OK - moving on.
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Yes, with @PlayTag 's surprising eruption on our board we are witnessing a refutation of Fitzgerald’s observation that “there are no second acts in American lives.” Welcome back, old friend, we’ve missed you. A rest and a fresh start are never a bad thing.
People have different opinions, not confusing at all.
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A list of some of other colleges reporting applications in 2025 is below, as well as the increase over class of 2024. There appears to be a clear correlation between being newly test optional and seeing a large application increase. The listed colleges that saw the smallest application increase this year are all colleges that are not newly test optional, one of which is Chicago.
Among the colleges seelng larger increases in applications, there appears to be a loose correlation with selectivity… likely due to increased students now feeling that they may have a chance with the score barrier removed (this belief is often not accurate). For example, MIT students have had extraordinarily high test scores in previous classes, with a 25/75th ACT composite of 35 to 36. This high score range can be intimidating to many applicants, so it’s not surprising that MIT had a large increase in applicants this year, with scores no longer being required. However, many additional factors influence magnitude of application increase/decrease, so there are many exceptions to this selectivity correlation.
Colleges like UCLA (139,500 applicants), UCSD (118,360), and NYU (100,131) lead the number of applications, rather that the most selective ones. It’s debatable whether this indicates that they are more popular or not. They are more popular among typical in state HS students, even if they aren’t the most popular among specific subgroups of students. Continuing using MIT as an example, MIT is a unique college whose applicant pool is largely self selected. It’s a great college and a great fit for many students, but attending MIT would be a disaster for the vast majority of the HS population as whole. The kids who do apply to MIT tend to be among the small minority of HS students who would be a good fit for the college.
Class of 2025 Applications (ordered highest to lowest increase)
MIT: 33,250 – 66% increase
Columbia: >60,500 – 51% increase
Harvard: ~57,000 – 42% increase
Penn: ~56,000 – 34% increase
Cornell: ~68,500 – 33% increases
Dartmouth: 28,338 --33% increase
Tufts: 31,190 – 31% increase
Amherst: 14,767 – 31% increase
UCLA: 139,500 – 28% increase
UCB: 112,820 – 28% increase
Brown: 46,479 – 26% increase
Duke: ~49,500 – 25% increase
NYU: 100,131 – 20% increase
UCSD: 118,360 – 18% increase
Northeatern: 75,233 – 17% increase
Virginia: >48k – 17% increase
Colby: ~15,700 – 12% increase (previously test optional)
Chicago: 37,986 – 10% increase (previously test optional)
Florida: 52,530 – 6% increase (not test optional)
Bowdoin: 9,309 – 1% decrease (previously test optional)
MIT was test optional this year - so I would correlate it with any other TO school. All these schools - you may not have applied b4 but you would this year. If you have a 25 ACT, apply - just don’t include it.
Florida is the only state (public) that required tests and their schools were way down except UF. On the flipside, they haven’t announced, but at the time of deadline, 12k of the schools did not submit a test score so would automatically be excluded.
The key difference is whether it is newly test optional or not. Bowdoin is highly selective and test optional, yet it saw an application decrease this year. Bowdoin was the first test optional college 50+ years ago. In past years, a large portion of applicants are test optional, and it regularly admits a good portion of the class test optional. Kids whose test scores are a relative weak point on their application and want to apply test optional colleges have a much larger pool of highly selective colleges to choose form this year, so many of this group chooses alternative LACs to Bowdoin this year, such as Amherst, which had a 31% increase as noted above. The dean of admission at Bowdoin wrote,
"“We are noticing that our competitive peers who have become test-optional this year due to the pandemic are seeing increases in applications, while schools that have been test-optional prior to the pandemic are not seeing those increases,”
Chicago also falls in to this category of colleges that have been test-optional prior to the pandemic, so the smaller increase is expected than newly test optional colleges, like Ivies. However, in past years Chicago probably hasn’t had anywhere near as large a portion of test optional applicants or admits as Bowdoin, so I wouldn’t expect Chicago to see as strong a negative effect on applications from being previously test optional as Bowdoin. The net effect from the pandemic may instead be in the positive direction at Chicago due to increased general uncertainty, and a larger portion of students believing that applying test optional really isn’t going to be a penalty this year than in previous years.
@Data10 - lots of data! If Bowdoin and Amherst now have the same test optional rules, and are “competitive peers,” why did Amherst get so many more applications? Like what others said about UChicago - Columbia/Harvard, is Bowdoin more of a specialty school and less prestigious than Amherst?
I don’t know if this is the case every year or not - but Chicago offered my daughter (and I assume others) an app waiver if they filed a FAFSA. That could have brought more too - if - that’s not the norm. WUSTL offered a fee waiver as did Washington & Lee. Surprised to see top schools do this - but it also pads the #s.
We applied to U Tampa free, Ohio U free, Pitt free…and maybe one or two more. So from the low end (Tampa), Ohio U (did not apply) to mid-tier (Pitt, Miami Ohio) to high end WUSTL (did not apply), Chicago (did not apply) and W&L (did apply), lots of free app opportunities. I assume this also increases the #s.
It’s the norm. My kids are on FA and we’ve never had to pay an app fee. Could just be me, but IMO a fee waiver is more than offset by those quirky essay prompts! Also, applying to college is just less expensive now than even a few years ago! My son was able to self-report all his test scores with maybe one or two exceptions.
Data answered this. The most likely explanation is that Bowdoin is already TO. There does appear to be a significant TO-Effect at top schools implementing the policy for the first time. Perhaps it’s in proportion to how high that mid-50 range is. MIT, for instance, saw quite a jump. Would be interested to know Cal-Tech’s. Is that available yet?
I agree that there is a correlation between % increase in applications and how high the SAT/ACT score ranges were in previous years. Caltech doesn’t publish news stories about their admit rate or applications, so there may not be any information for a long time. Stanford adopted a similar policy a few years ago in an effort to "reduce the outsized emphasis placed on the admit rates at U.S. colleges and universities.”
See the common data set for 2020 data. One 2021 is released one can compare.
For 2020
282 men of 5707 accepted. 4.9%
254 women of 2300 accepted. 11%
Combined 6.7%
That’s the data from the previous year. I don’t expect Caltech to release this year’s data until later summer.
So much for the notion that Caltech is a meritocracy, unless you believe that female applicants are twice as qualified on average than male applicants.
MIT’s gender acceptance disparity is even worse, favoring females by nearly 3x over males in order to get the overall class balance to be close to 50/50.
These 2 tech titans love to claim how they are meritocracies that don’t favor characteristics like legacy,but the numbers clearly tell a different story. Of course, they can defend their gender-based class shaping in the interests of student body morale and creating role models, but they should never claim that they are an unbiased meritocracy.
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