<p>I know the number of undergrads at U of Chicago is now around 5,000. But I feel like that number used to be signficantly lower... maybe around 2,500? Does anyone know when or why they decided to increase the number of undergrads? What impact has that change had on the experience of being an undergrad at U of C?</p>
<p>For a few years, in the 50s or 60s, I’m not certain exactly when, I believe the undergraduate headcount at Chicago fell below 2,000. It was at that point that the University considered ditching the college altogether. Instead, a decision was made to recommit to it and to try to revive it.</p>
<p>For most of the 90s, Chicago was running at around 3,500 undergraduates, probably inching upwards to an expectation of 1,000 per class. (That’s part of why admission rates were so high during that period – they could basically expand the class to accept anyone they wanted.) Sometime in the early 2000’s, there was a big strategic planning task force aided by McKinsey or one of the other snooty consulting firms. The relatively small size of the college was identified as a structural weakness Chicago had compared to its academic peers, since undergraduates turn into alumni, and alumni financial support is part of the backbone of successful universities. Chicago had other problems, too – what alumni it had tended to feel very ambivalent about the college, and it seemed to select systematically against students who might someday become rich enough to give serious money – but enlarging the college classes was a core recommendation of the task force. So the class size was expanded by about 1/3 in the middle of the last decade.</p>
<p>That is such a cynical reason to increase the class size. 
Maybe a focus on how to make existing alumni less amibivalent (improving their experience?) might have been better than just enlarging the pool.</p>
<p>In the mid-70’s, class size was about 500 per class. In late 70’s, class size went up to about 600 per class.</p>
<p>It wasn’t cynical at all! The task force basically concluded that having a relatively small, relatively ambivalent college was an existential threat to the university, and was the primary cause of Chicago having fallen behind its academic peers in endowment. And the response was hardly just to increase class size. There was – and there had been for several years before that – a concerted, energetic program to improve the quality of undergraduate life, as well as to reach out to alumni and try to re-engage them. </p>
<p>The effort to improve the quality of life in the college has been spectacularly successful. The current Dean of the College, John Boyer, has now held that position under four different University Presidents (which is unprecedented), and the reason why is that he has been dedicated, systematic, and successful in building a better college experience, from updating the Core, to building new dorms, new labs, new gym, new arts center, to sponsoring an explosion student organizations. </p>
<p>And part of that has been to change somewhat the kinds of students they were admitting and recruiting. When the only thing that mattered to admissions was intellectualism, it was hard for extracurricular organizations to get traction. There weren’t enough leaders to keep things going, there weren’t enough athletes to field teams (much less have spectators in the stands), and there weren’t enough people willing to risk a B in order to put on a play or a concert. That’s not a problem anymore, and partially it’s because they have used the class expansion to expand the range of students in the college.</p>
<p>People grouse about Chicago admissions looking more and more like Harvard’s or Yale’s, but the fact of the matter is that Harvard and Yale vs. Chicago pursued fairly different strategies for their colleges in the mid-20th Century, and looking back it’s pretty easy to say that Harvard and Yale’s strategy proved much more successful. Chicago has had to work long and hard to correct what it was doing wrong and catch up again.</p>