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<p>Ding ding ding. Chicago used to have the most esoteric, specific, and/or thought-provoking essay questions of any top school. Unless you knew that it was one of your top few choices, the vast majority of students are not going to take the effort to write an essay on these topics like “How did you get caught?” You can’t substitute your other essays to answer that. Now, UChicago has the common app and you can write your own question. Thus, top students who may be interested in UChicago in the past but didn’t see it as a top choice now say “what the heck; might as well apply” whereas before writing that additional essay on a topic that can’t be re-used for any other school wasn’t worth the effort. I honestly think the change in applications and selectivity is as simply as that - or, at least, accounts for something like 2/3 of the change. Look at what happened to Columbia when they changed to the common app and they didn’t even have crazy essay questions beforehand like UChicago did.</p>