<p>Sorry for this thread. I know UChicago is a very reputed institution and it has very good faculties (and students). But, I heard that international Olympiad medallists are usually rejected by UChicago, thinking them as overqualified (I heard that this has something to do with yield--idk). Is this true? Is being an Olympiad helpful for getting admitted to UChicago (or it is harmful..:D)? Please do not be harsh at me. I just wanted to hear from you people.</p>
<p>UChicago is a top 10 institution; no student is overqualified. If a student is rejected, that means the adcoms thought another student to be a better fit.</p>
<p>I doubt it. I don’t think UChicago plays the “Tufts game” of rejecting people because they are overqualified (and probably using it as a safety)… pretty sure that UChicago isn’t a safety for anyone at this point. It steals some cross-admit students from the Ivies (even HYP) all the time.</p>
<p>Nobody is overqualified for Chicago, nor have they been so concerned about their selectivity ratings that they would reject a super-qualified applicant. If you are serious about Chicago (and not thinking of them as a backup for other schools), go ahead and apply.</p>
<p>I disagree with the above posters, mainly because we simply don’t have enough information to know how the admissions office makes all of their decisions. I imagine that, for the most part, UChicago doesn’t engage in too much yield protection, but we can’t tell for sure. Adcoms keep reasoning for decisions confidential, and its entirely possible that in some cases, they take impact on yield into account. How would the general public know? </p>
<p>To the OP - since you can’t know how adcoms make decisions, and how they determine the candidacy of specific applicants, it’s best to make a strong, clear effort with all the schools that interest you. Don’t worry about factors such as yield protection because, at the end of the day, you’ll never know for sure why you were denied at a certain school. Don’t think about that, and focus more on preparing the best application possible!</p>
<p>It’s possible they may be unlikely to accept very strong applicants who essays don’t demonstrate any passion for the school but I think it’s pretty unlikely that they’ll reject or waitlist strong applicants who are actually interested in attending.</p>
<p>UMTYMP - we just don’t know. It’s also possible that there’s a kid who is really passionate about UChicago, and might love it, but the adcomm feels that, for whatever reason (known legacy status, et.c) the kid will be going to Harvard, and is therefore rejected. It’s tough to make any real conclusions, since we have no data whatsoever.</p>
<p>Sure nobody outside of the admissions office has any real data on this and the admissions office would be unlikely to admit to rejecting strong applicants to boost yield. That being said if this happens at all, I think it’s much more likely to happen to kids whose applicants don’t seem to convey real interest in the school than others who seem really interested.</p>
<p>Ignoring the idea that anyone can be overqualified for one of the top universities in the world, yield protection just doesn’t make sense. If they’re trying to keep rising in the rankings, competing with HYPS for cross-admits, they won’t reject those tippy-top applicants; they’ll accept them and woo them with merit aid and scarves. </p>
<p>I imagine, however, that they do reject or waitlist qualified applicants who don’t show any interest in Chicago specifically. It has a relatively idiosyncratic culture (and a core curriculum besides), and they (a) don’t want and (b) won’t win in a cross-admit battles with applicants who aren’t looking for those things.</p>
<p>The University does offer some merit aid. Presumably this is to entice top applicants that they really want. So I think far from just rejecting the best students, they try to sweeten the offer a bit. (…Unless someone goes out of their way to suggest they aren’t interested in attending–which would have the same affect as it would in a job interview.)</p>
<p>I think it’s just egotistical on their part if someone were to believe they were too overqualified for UChicago. It’s not possible, as it’s one of the top schools in the nation. I’m not familiar with UChicago’s admissions history as I didn’t apply and so didn’t look it up, but it could be possible that, similar to WashU, UChicago’s Adcoms will waitlist a very strong applicant if they think that their school is not that applicant’s first choice. Possible? Yes. For sure? I have no idea. No one can really speculate as to what goes on in Adcoms’ heads.</p>
<p>If they could accurately predict who was going to attend (and they just admitted those students,) the yield rate would be 100%. I think they know they win some, they lose some.</p>
<p>Things could always change (or have changed already, but not been noticed). However, at least so far, the University of Chicago admissions office has never, ever looked like it was rejecting students it wanted because it was trying to protect its yield numbers. Never, ever. </p>
<p>On the graduate and faculty levels, Chicago is competitive with anybody, and would never even think of backing away from a head-to-head fight with Harvard or anyplace over someone they wanted. I believe the admissions office has had that as a mandate for undergraduates as well, at least since the Zimmer era began.</p>
<p>Also, if yield were a big deal for Chicago, it could get a 10%+ improvement just by switching from EA to ED, whereas guessing about who is going to attend and who isn’t is not likely to improve yield by more than a point or two. It’s really not worth the effort and intellectual corruption involved.</p>
<p>Finally, I think HYPS admissions is tough enough to predict, even at the level of the best students with highest skills, that it would be terrible strategy to turn down a desirable student because he or she might go to Harvard. At least some of those students aren’t accepted at Harvard (or Stanford, Princeton, Yale, etc); it’s not a guaranteed loss at all to accept top students.</p>
<p>JHS - </p>
<p>Certainly, when Ted O’Neill was in charge, he spoke openly about UChicago’s admissions policy: “We accept the very best, and we take as many as we can get.” During that time, given these statements by the admissions office, it seemed as if UChicago did not engage in any yield protection at all.</p>
<p>Of late, O’Neill’s older mantra does not seem to be repeated as often, if at all. Also, since we don’t know anything about how the office makes decisions, it’s hard to conclude, definitively, that UChicago “never, ever” looks to protect yield. I’m hopeful that generally, this isn’t the case, but we certainly don’t have all the information available to us.</p>
<p>I didn’t say they have “never, ever” acted to increase yield. I said they have never, ever looked like they were rejecting people they thought might go to Harvard in order to increase yield. I still think that’s true. And while the O’Neill mantra may not get repeated as often, my unscientific perception is that the current admissions strategy produces more cross-admissions with Harvard, not fewer.</p>
<p>It’s definitely something that I assumed last year coming into Chicago - I do know a few kids who have competed in math Olympiads and have placed, so I don’t believe the admissions office would reject over-qualified people, its more that ‘over-qualified’ candidates will also gain admission to schools like MIT or harvard and opt to attend those schools.</p>
<p>JHS said: "And while the O’Neill mantra may not get repeated as often, my unscientific perception is that the current admissions strategy produces more cross-admissions with Harvard, not fewer. "</p>
<p>Maybe - who knows. Just by virtue of having a considerably larger class (~1400 now in comparison to ~900-1000 for most of Ted O’Neill’s days), this could certainly be the case. </p>
<p>Also, I don’t think UChicago engages in widespread yield protection (read: rejecting highly qualified admits for the sake of increasing or protecting yield) in some sort of systemic way, but who knows if this happens occasionally. </p>
<p>What’s intriguing about subjective admissions is the double talk that can occur. A highly qualified student can be rejected from UChicago because he/she didn’t show “passion” for the school (whatever that means). In the alternative, this can certainly mean rejecting a student who it seems would be likely to go elsewhere.</p>
<p>Again, I don’t think it happens in any sort of systemic way, and I certainly hope it doesn’t happen in any systemic way. On a case by case basis though, who knows. Adcomms have discretion to make pretty much any sort of decision they want on a file, with relatively few constraints. When people ask about the reasoning for these decisions, at best we can shrug - it’s a black box to outsiders, and probably should remain that way.</p>
<p>I think its important for UChicago to screen those who dont show “passion” for the core and life of the mind. If not, they will have a population of students who are brillian but unhappy. That is a disservice to the school, the students, their classmates and the professors.</p>
<p>Its also important for them to screen those students who will inevitably choose to attend more esteemed peer schools (like WashU).</p>
<p>
Though of course we must all agree with your last sentence, it makes little sense for the university to engage in yield protection of the type you point out. How many kids do you think are great fits for UChicago and yet have extenuating circumstances that admissions knows about and believes will be decisive? Not many, I’d imagine. And if the point of yield protection is to protect the yield figures, why should the university mess with the normal admissions process for the sake of a small number of candidates who won’t change the numbers either way? Considering how difficult it is to separate potential yield protection from fit for the vast majority of other potential cases, I really don’t think there’s much reason to believe the university engages in such practices at all. It certainly makes no sense for applicants–before or after receiving their decisions–to worry about it.</p>