questions about chicago?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Chicago ✅
1

<p>Hi,</p>

<p>I have a couple of questions:</p>

<p>1.) How come the acceptance rate is so extremely high, yet the undergraduate class relatively small? What's the reason for that?</p>

<p>2.) How come UChicago isn't as popular, since it is probably one of the best non-Ivy league schools in the country?</p>

<p>3.) Besides Core and the great social sciences departments, what else is special about Chicago specifically?</p>

<p>Thanks!! I hope I don't sound ignorant or anything, I really am curious.</p>

2

<p>Chicago’s acceptance rate has been dropping dramatically in recent years. It is presently somewhere in the 25% range which is comparable with other highly rated universities of its caliber. Chicago is generally described as self selecting, meaning that student’s applying there generally have very high qualifications. They know of the schools intellectual quality and top education and apply there for that reason. If you look at the statistics of entering freshman, you will see that SAT scores and gpa’s are in the same range as most ivy league schools. Students who don’t have these qualifications generally don’t apply, while they will apply to Ivies for the heck of it because they are so well known and often their parents encourage them to do so. Hence higher admission rate because less qualified students don’t bother to apply. In the past this had a lot to do with the fact that the common application was not used at Chicago and this dissuaded many less qualified applicants from just giving it a shot. This year Chicago accepts the common app. but still requires the quirky and time consuming essays.
Another reason for less interest among certain students is that Chicago does not have a highly ranked and massive athlectic program. No big fanfare around football, etc. Frats and sororities also get less priority. Some of this is changing with a popular Divsion III athletic program, a gorgeous new athletic center and just more interest. Also the arts are gaining much momentum with a major new arts center being built. In general there is much more emphasis on the quality of student life in addition to pure academics.
Chicago’s location also has something to do with it’s being less well known among the general population. Eastern schools and some West Coast schools get much more publicity. The midwest is just not as appealing to many people, although Chicago is a fabulous world class city and the campus is gorgeous( somewhat similar to Yale, but smaller ).
The core and social sciences are great at Chicago, but so are the sciences, particularly math and physics. As I noted, the arts are increasing dramatically and the music department, at least with regard to non-performance, is one of the best in the world, although still small.
Internship opportunities are great, with programs that pay for top internships at some of the country’s greatest institutions. Fellowships after graduation are given to Chicago students in large numbers since the school is so highly regarded.
All in all, it is a great school which is no longer under the radar so much.
If interested in it, take a trip to see it and get to know the students. It might very well be your type of school.</p>

3

<p>Newenglandparent is generally right on. Also, English and Classics are very highly ranked departments, and anything having to do with the Ancient Near East. And in the sciences Biological Sciences is a very big deal, not just Physics. On the arts side, however, the description above may be a little . . . um, aspirational. There were exactly four visual art majors in this year’s graduating class, two of whom (I believe) were double majors with something else. Theater and music are vibrant and larger than that, but still small, with most of the activity coming from non-majors.</p>

4

<p>

In addition to the self-selective argument above…</p>

<p>1) Chicago has EA rather than ED. Most ED and SCEA schools aim to fill up roughly 48% of their class with early admits, vastly increasing their yield.</p>

<p>2) Chicago has a relatively low yield (38% last year). This is partly due to Chicago’s financial aid, which is extremely hit-or-miss compared to other top universities. This has been improved in recent years, which undoubtedly has played no small role in increasing yield.</p>

<p>3) Chicago’s ranking shot up about two years ago after university officials [met</a> with](<a href=“From Lance to Laundromats, band fad clasps campus wrists – Chicago Maroon”>From Lance to Laundromats, band fad clasps campus wrists – Chicago Maroon) USNWR representatives. Like it or not, rankings have a lot to do with popularity, and Chicago’s higher rank has recently brought it renewed interest and applications.</p>

5

<p>Actually, Chicago’s 38% yield is perfectly good. If you back out ED (where yield is theoretically 100%, and practically not much less than that), only a handful of colleges (mainly most of the Ivies, Stanford, and MIT) have RD yields much higher than 40%, and many have RD yields that are 30% or lower. Things aren’t quite as simple as that, because Chicago probably has a higher yield (~50%) on its EA acceptances, and a lower yield on RD acceptances. As far as I can tell, Chicago fills about half of its class with EA applicants. </p>

<p>Also, Chicago’s yield has NOT increased significantly in recent years. Its yield has been above 35% for a long time. What has increased significantly is the number of applications it receives, while the number of people it accepts (which is purely a function of expected yield) has remained almost constant. Four years ago, Chicago got about 8,600 applications, and accepted 3,700 of them. This year, it got over 13,000 applications, and accepted 3,600 of them. Interestingly, no college’s yield seems to change much year to year – a 2% change in yield year-to-year is almost unheard-of – except for situations where the rules change dramatically. When Princeton ended its ED program, under which it had taken 50% of its class, its overall yield dropped a lot of course, although it is still much higher than its RD yield was back when it had ED.</p>

6

<p>Their financial aid has not improved, at least not enough for me to attend. They are extremely strict when it comes to finaid policies deciding who gets what amount. In my case they rejected my non-custodial waiver request , because my dad wasn’t “incarcerated/dead” which meant that we were on “agreeable terms” despite the numerous reports from unbiased, third-party officials who proved otherwise. It really stressed me out when they did this; i was ready to call up the cops for some false charges on my dad when cornell came around and accepted my waiver. Which, for what i want to study, is actually a better school for me, so in the long run things worked out better than i could’ve imagined.</p>

7

<p>

I merely noted that yield has been increasing, which it ever so slowly has. I certainly made no claims to a rocketing yield. </p>

<p>2004: 32.3%
2005: 32.9%
2006: 32.9%
2007: 32.3%
2008: 34.8%
2009: 33.8%
2010: 34.3%
2011: 36.5%
2012: 38.3%
2013: 36.4% (based on 5/8 Maroon article)</p>

<p>

The constancy of those numbers should not be overestimated; Chicago has used its yield predictions to slowly increase the number of freshmen. Chicago is roughly 28% larger than it was 10 years ago.</p>

<p>2004: 1046
2005: 1076
2006: 1117
2007: 1165
2008: 1220
2009: 1231
2010: 1260
2011: 1314
2012: 1328
2013: 1330 (as of 5/8 and excluding admitted waitlistees)</p>

8

<p>I am an international student who got accepted by both Cornell and UChicago. I ultimately picked UChicago despite receiving nothing from UChicago and quite a lot of financial aid from Cornell. I think eventually my choice will pay off. I know two people who are currently enrolled at Cornell, and they are both in the sciences. One of them is my cousin. One began his research endeavor in his second year and the other one in his third year. I have to say that I was not very pleased about it.</p>

<p>As you might have guessed, the unbelievable number of research opportunities attracted me when I was making my choice. The University of Chicago has a grad-undergrad ratio of almost 2:1. I asked a couple of students at UChicago and they all consistently reported to me that they began their research endeavors in their first year, normally in their winter or spring quarter. As an individual who wishes to become a professor, I am thrilled to be able to work with world-class faculty in my first year, well, hopefully.</p>

9

<p>To the OP, the University of Chicago is a difficult school. I know a couple of students who are part of the Class of 2013 got turned off by UChicago because they want easier college experiences. Not surprisingly, most of them already knew that they want to become doctors or lawyers, and they did not wish to risk their career goals by potentially getting lower GPAs. I think this can partially explain UChicago’s low yield.</p>

<p>I am not one of those people. I believe that if you share the passion for a specific subject, you will ultimately excel, regardless of how difficult an institution is.</p>

<p>Oh and, of course, UChicago may not have as much sex appeal as, say, the Ivy League.</p>

10

<p>I would also like to comment on the athlete scene. Being in Division III is actually a good selling point for many students. Ordinary students like me will not be able to participate in athletics in a Division I school. We’re simply not good enough to be in Division I. At UChicago, the only thing that can potentially bar you from participating in sport is time commitment. That’s it. I’d rather be a player in a Division III school than a spectator in a Division I school.</p>

<p>Oh and also, the Core may turn off a lot of students, especially pre-professional students, who already know that they want to become ___________ (fill in the blank with any profession). They don’t want to spend time on the humanities for example, if they want to become doctors. This can also explain smaller applicant pools.</p>

11

<p>IBclass: UChicago has been expanding its class since the early 60s, when the College hit a low of under 1,500 students and the University seriously considered abandoning it. The jump you note was not slow creep, it was a specific decision seven or eight years ago to expand its class size from a target of 1,000 to a target of 1,250 (which seems to have become 1,300), pursuant to a recommendation from McKinsey and a faculty-administration long-range plan. The construction of the Max Palevsky and South Campus dorms were part of the same plan. The ideas were (a) the college would have a more vibrant alumni community if it produced more alumni, and (b) student life in the college would be improved by having more people with different interests.</p>

<p>And, yes, yield seems to have increased by .45%/year on average over the past nine years, with a couple spikes up or down along the way (one of which taught the college that it COULD house over 1,300 first-years). That’s a big 17 kids/year. Not Beatlemania. A good chunk of that increase in recent years is probably due to Questbridge and the Odyssey Scholarships.</p>

12

<p>They also found out that the undergraduate part of the university actually could turn in a profit if managed well (it seems to be).</p>

13

<p>I’d agree with what many posters have all ready said, but I think we should more finely parse out what we mean when we compare Chicago to “the Ivy League schools.” This sort of analysis always work better if we define our schools more carefully. Do we think Chicago lacks the “sex appeal” (as Divine Comedy suggests) of a Harvard or Yale or Princeton, or just all the eight ivies? Is Chicago’s acceptance rate “extremely high” when compared to Columbia or Yale’s, or Penn and Cornell’s?</p>

<p>There’s an undercurrent in this thread comparing Chicago to its peers on the east coast, and I think we should define our terms more carefully. There’s a big gap in selectivity, “sex appeal,” etc. between say, a Yale and a Penn, so simply stating that Chicago lacks the appeal or selectivity of an “ivy” is problematic. </p>

<p>It’s also difficult to state that Chicago lags in popularity merely because of the Core or because of grade deflation. Columbia has an even more rigorous core than Chicago, and doesn’t seem to suffer much because of it. Similarly, at least for the past 6-7 years, the myth of Chicago grade deflation has largely been debunked.</p>

<p>I’d expect, of course, that the answers to the questions posed on this thread lie in the confluence of factors listed above. There may be more to the story here though…</p>

14

<p>

Columbia has two things going for it:</p>

<p>1) It’s an Ivy. Obviously it’s not a good way to choose colleges, but sadly it’s true – many applicants are obsessed with the Ivy League. One need look no further than this website.</p>

<p>2) It’s in NYC. Like NYU, Columbia gets a tremendous boost in applications due to its location. The city of Chicago simply doesn’t have the same pull as NYC (or possibly Boston, SF, LA, or DC) – partly because of the weather, partly because many applicants want to live/work in NYC after graduation.</p>

15

<p>IBClass - I agree completely about being in NYC - that’s a huge draw for students. </p>

<p>In terms of being “an ivy,” again, this is a problematic and very subjective way to figure out differences between one school and another. A number of other schools - Stanford, Duke, Williams, MIT etc. do extremely well in terms of student recruitment and “popularity” without this tag. On the other hand, I went to UPenn for graduate school, and the school certainly seems more unknown than many of the other “top 10” schools such as a Duke or MIT. Being an ivy or not does not always guarantee a higher level of recognition. </p>

<p>The Ivy League now is more or less a proxy for a top school. Chicago certainly stands as a top school in terms of financial resources, academic reputation, rankings (as subjective as they may be), etc. Chicago’s “popularity,” however, does lag behind many of its peer schools, and I’m suggesting that the reason for this is more nuanced than the standard “it’s not an ivy; it’s too rigorous” approach. I don’t know exactly what the answer is, just that sometimes people get too simplistic about it.</p>

<p>In terms of subjective factors amongst fickle high school students, maintaining its standing in US News, continuing to drop the acceptance rate to give off the perception of eliteness (a tool used quite well by Penn and Duke and their ED, big-numbers admissions approach), and continuing to enhance the student life of the College should serve the school well. These aren’t factors that make a great college, but they are factors that students care about a decent amount. Chicago has just recently begun playing this game (whereas Duke, UPenn, etc. have been doing this for years). </p>

<p>(Quick Note - I also think the U of C should try to make a bigger splash in the city of Chicago as well - right now the U of C’s footprint in the city itself is far too small. There’s no reason for Northwestern to enjoy a better presence in the city than U of C. Emphasizing the relationship between the U of C and a world-class city could work well for both the school and the metropolitan area. Certainly, a successful bid for the Chicago 2016 Olympics would be HUGE here.)</p>

<p>I expect, with the maintenance of the factors I described above, in ten years or so, the standard refrain of Chicago “not being an ivy; being too hard” will not be uttered nearly as much. Chicago may continue to lag in popularity, but I hope the discussion becomes more detailed.</p>

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<p>To IBClass and others - for more information on how a school gains status, definitely read or skim Jerome Karabel’s “The Chosen.” It does a great job of reviewing just how schools (starting at the top with Harvard, Yale, and Princeton) attain and maintain status and the perception of eliteness. Here’s a hint - it goes WELL beyond merely being an ivy or just having a good ranking one year in US News.</p>

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<p>

It’s physical science is also good I have to say. Chemistry and physics are great at Chicago (note that the oil drop experiment was done at U of C). It’s med school is amazing</p>

18

<p>^^ and the first self sustaining nuclear reaction was built beneath the football field.
That always makes me smile :D</p>

19

<p>I always wonder if those football players got enough radiation to cause cancer…</p>

20

<p>Actually, I think at that time the football program had been abandoned, however the university still had the stadium.</p>