https://www.wsj.com/articles/oberlin-university-of-chicago-and-other-elite-colleges-extend-application-deadlines-11548766801?mod=hp_listb_pos3
The deadline to apply for admission to Oberlin College was Jan. 15. Until it wasn’t.
The Ohio liberal-arts college sent an email blast last Tuesday alerting high-school seniors that the deadline had been extended to Feb. 1.
Other elite colleges, including the University of Chicago, George Washington University, Washington University in St. Louis and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, have also extended their application deadlines this winter.
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Delayed deadlines are a sign of the growing pressure many schools face to fill their incoming classes. They are receiving more applications than ever in part because stressed high-school seniors see record-low admit rates from some top schools, fret about their own chances and expand their list of targets. The Common Application makes it easy to apply to more schools without much additional work.
That all makes it challenging for colleges to predict who wants to actually enroll. Thirty-five percent of seniors applied to at least seven schools in 2016, up from 18% a decade earlier. In that same time span, the yield, or share of admitted students who enrolled at a given four-year college, fell to 34% from 45%.
This is crazy. They had record breaking apps at UChicago for EA and deferred so many.
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“We understand issues can often arise during the application process that prevent you from submitting by the deadline, and would never want those issues to hinder your college choices,” the letter said. “If you still want to apply to the University of Chicago, you can!”
My impression from the article is that those students who got deadline extension from UChicago did not request it. I am wondering how many e-mails UChicago sent out to ask students who don’t want to apply to UChicago to finish their applications. It is free anyway. You just need to say you are applying for FA and you should have free time since you have finished applying to all the schools you really want to go.