questions about chicago?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Chicago ✅
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<p>JHS - If I remember correctly, I don’t think there’s any significant gap in endowment between Chicago and Penn. Of course, things could change because of the econ downturn, but last summer I think Chicago had about a $6 billion endowment, and Penn had around a $7 billion endowment. Given that Penn is considerably bigger than Chicago (around 22k students in comparison to 15k students), the finances of the school’s are pretty similar. Same with Chicago in comparison to Duke and Columbia. </p>

<p>In terms of the other points, yep, getting more of a % of class from top ten % of HS class would help. In terms of giving, if I remember correctly, Chicago has about a 33% giving rate - comparable to Columbia. Penn’s around 38%, and Duke’s around 38%. My internet is slow today so I can’t find the exact numbers, but a quick google search should do the trick. </p>

<p>Right now, Chicago is right in the pack with Columbia, Duke, Dartmouth, etc. despite lower selectivity stats. In many other ways (faculty resources, academic rep), it outpaces these schools. If selectivity gets in line, I see no reason why the school can’t get a leg up on its immediate peers.</p>

<p>Neogop - You need to parse the ivies more finely and determine what each school wants. Getting into a Penn and Cornell - which are more numbers driven schools - requires different abilities than general acceptance to a Yale or Harvard. I disagree that getting into the “lower” ivies is “preposterously difficult” and that distinct from acceptance to U of C. If you look at avg SAT scores and grades, its pretty much all common ground for the school below HYPS. Getting into a Cornell or Penn is no harder or easier than getting a Chicago acceptance now. You may need to play the game better at UPenn or Cornell because of their ED policies, but its all about the same in terms of stats and requirements. </p>

<p>Also, you don’t like the fact that not being in the top 10% is held against you? Numbers oriented schools like Duke, UPenn, and Cornell do this all the time. Chicago is doing this more and more as it looks to bump up its stats in this category. Its just a sad fact of the nature of admissions today. </p>

<p>Finally, neogop, you talked about Georgetown and how it’s so popular despite not having a high ranking. What you have to realize is, in the world of fickle high school students, desirability of a school primarily comes down to a few factors for many 18 year olds: 1.) location of school (Gtown’s prime DC location helps here), 2.) Recognition and status (either through sports, rankings, or having a steeped history of eliteness, such as a Princeton or Yale), 3.) General reputation and word of mouth (being known as a “fun” school). </p>

<p>For schools like Chicago or (in the past) Penn, which don’t have a nationally-recognized sports program or outstanding location or national level of esteem (such as a Harvard) to rely upon, ranking becomes more important as a sign of status. Penn had some claim to status in the 80s and 90s as an ivy league school, but being the “gutter” of the ivy league certainly didn’t help. So Rodin targeted the rankings as a way for the school to elevate its perceived level of status. </p>

<p>Put another way, if Georgetown was ranked 23 or 9, it wouldn’t make much difference because it has a great location, great national recognition and status through sports going for it. Same works with Duke and its notoriety through sports. Now, if a UPenn or Chicago was ranked #23 rather than in the top 10, it would probably affect those schools a bit more adversely - especially Chicago, since Penn at least can cling to its association (however slight) to Yale, Princeton, etc.</p>

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<p>Chicago is now ahead of Penn in terms of endowment ($5.2 billion v.s. $5.0 billion). Endowment isn’t an issue.</p>

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<p>Ok, point taken on Georgetown from both of you. But, shouldn’t prominence (via great location, and reputability through word of mouth) lead to more applications (and it has)? And shouldn’t more applications lead to a lower acceptance rate (and it has that, too)? And should a lower acceptance rate and a good reputation and a good location lead to a higher yield? Well if it has all of those, and I’m fairly confident it does, why isn’t Georgetown ranked higher? Granted, it does not have the post-graduate repertoire that Chicago, Stanford, etc. do, but aren’t the factors above heavily weighted in the ranking formula? So, yes, I do think it is under ranked. And yes, I am still applying to Georgetown, but I do have my reasons for wanting to go to UofC more.</p>

<p>And my point about the Ivies was a little weak on my part, I will admit. The point I was trying to get across was that Ivies are very difficult to get into. That is pretty much a fact for most of them. That is pretty much a fact for most competitive colleges, UofC included. But I was trying to throw some of the bigger names out there to get my point across. This year my school sent no students to MIT, Caltech, or Stanford (although we have in the past) so it didn’t make much sense to use the “Top 10” for my argument. But I think the Ivies work equally well. They are all ranked in the Top 16, a pretty elite group, no? </p>

<p>As for UPenn and Cornell, yes the statistics are the same, but there is no denying that they are difficult to get into. Yes, they are popular because they are Ivies, but they also have large student bodies compared to the others. And yes, Cue7, I would agree that UPenn and Cornell are just about as hard to get into as Chicago. But that still doesn’t take away the fact that compared to all other colleges in the US, UPenn and Cornell are still quite elite. </p>

<p>And yes, I do think this 10% thing is a bit ridiculous. Also in my state, if you’re in the top 10% of your class, you are automatically accepted to any state school. These, quite often, are backups for my classmates who are not in the 10% (because it is terribly difficult to get into). But the state schools (predominantly UT Austin) are getting filled up by so many 10%ers that the kids at my school, who are probably on the whole more qualified, get rejected. So they’re getting taken off of their safety. Another question stems from this. If these big state schools are getting more 10%ers, which is a big factor in rank, have a low acceptance percentage, have tons and tons of money to run graduate program, offer good but not stellar academics, and get thrust into the public eye with national championship caliber sports teams, then why aren’t their rankings higher? Not necessarily Top 10 or even Top 20, but just higher.</p>

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<p>Neogop - go back and check out the link phuriku inserted in his post. To be brief, yes, selectivity matters (it’s 15% of the overall score), but peer assessment and faculty resources combine to account for a whopping 45% of the overall score. Chicago does very well in both these areas, and Georgetown lags behind the leaders in these areas. </p>

<p>Moreover, peer assessment and faculty resources are hard factors to change quickly. Selectivity, % of high schoolers etc in the top ten percent of the class can be modulated and enhanced much more quickly. Since Chicago already has peer assessment and faculty resources down pat, the selectivity can increase quickly.</p>

<p>For Georgetown, it may takes years and a lot of investment before peer administrators and professors see it as equal to the top schools in the Ivy League, Chicago, Stanford, etc. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great school, but doesn’t boast the wealth or academic horsepower of some of these other schools.</p>

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<p>Cue, you’re right about the Penn endowment. I don’t know what I was thinking.</p>

<p>Neogop, MIT and Cal Tech are among the very best in the world in almost everything they do, they just do fewer things than full-service universities. (But it’s not all hard sciences. MIT has one of the top linguistics departments in the world, and Cal Tech has great, but very quanty, political science.) Outside of its professional schools, there’s nothing Georgetown does where it is among the best in the world, except maybe international relations, and making it easy to get internships in the federal government. That doesn’t mean it offers a bad education at all – I would say the same thing about Swarthmore and Amherst, too, and people have great college experiences there. But it’s a very different model than Chicago has.</p>

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<p>I will cast my vote for Hugo Sonnenschein as the biggest reason for Chicago’s rise. Changes were needed and he got the ball rolling. </p>

<p>JHS, I just checked the Georgetown web site and found that they offer more than 20 Ph.D. degrees. My sense is that Georgetown’s “problem” is on the resource side. It has a small endowment and the medical school is losing money, which makes it hard to attract faculty.</p>

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<p>Another big issue for georgetown - they don’t have as much of an entrenched reputation in many of the academic disciplines. Building faculty and a strong academic rep takes decades and a lot of investment. Until gtown does that, it will lag. I agree, it’s lack of resources hurts it quite a bit. Also, whereas MIT and caltech are superb and abs world class in many many disciplines, gtown has intl relations/foreign service going for it and that’s about it. Yes, it has a very good law school, but from what I know, it’s not considered to be top-flight in the same way as MIT engineering or cal tech astrophysics. Good law school, comparable to a duke or ucla, but not really up there with the big boys -Yale, Columbia, Chicago, etc.</p>

<p>Yah in retrospect, looks like sonnenschen should be pretty pleased with what he accomplished.</p>

<p>Also of note, I did a quick check of endowments following the econ downturn. Pretty interesting: upenn 5 bill, columbia 5.5 bill, duke 4.6 bill, brown 2 bill, Chicago 5.2 bill. Seeing that Chicago is much smaller than Columbia or upenn and comparable in size to brown and duke this is a good place for u of c. With good direction, they are poised to create a little separation here.</p>

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<p>OK, I was too harsh on Georgetown. It does have some PhD programs. My impression was based on the fact that it essentially doesn’t show up in the graduate program rankings in anything I have ever checked. But I’ll add that children of friends have gone there for college and have been very happy with it.</p>

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<p>This thought might not lead anywhere, but…</p>

<p>I think the U of C is situating itself well to be the best kind of university it can be. There is the Chicago pre-1999 and Chicago post-1999 (post 1999: changes to make the Core more manageable, study abroad more feasible, and campus more pretty, more new, and more undergraduate-friendly). I also think it’s promising that the University has cultivated four huge gifts during my time here: 1) funds for the Reva and David Logan Arts Center, 2) the Mansueto wing of the Reg, 3) the Odyssey gift, and 4) the gift to the business school. Somebody in development is obviously doing their job fantastically well.</p>

<p>I think it’s fair to say there are universities out there that we will never be, so comparing ourselves to them is pointless. We will never be Northwestern, Duke, or Stanford (unless we want to field DI teams); we will never have the same history or social cache of Harvard, Princeton or Yale; we will never offer the same opportunities as Caltech or Stanford; we will never have the same Whartony dynamic of Penn. However, students compare us quite often, and I think administrators tend to think of Chicago in Harvard/Yale terms.</p>

<p>I hope Chicago administrators realize that as they move forward with big plans-- we can only be Chicago. In the future I think (hope) that more people will look at us and understand us better for who we are and what we’re all about, so that students can feel confident in choosing our school over one that might have more local prestige or special interest prestige.</p>

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<p>OK. Let’s apply some marketing terms here. When we do basic market research on brand position, two indices are included: unaided and aided recognition (like, what comes to your mind when you consider a cell phone: customers say, aha… iPhone and Motorola - this is unaided recognition. You can guess what unaided recognition is).</p>

<p>I think U Chicago is a terrific brand that scores low in the “unaided recognition” department. My son just graduated from HS that is ranked within top 5 in the nation among public schools (it’s a highly selective and competitive magnet school). Out of 65 graduating seniors, over 1/3 are going to colleges/schools ranked within top 20 in USNWR. Based on my reckoning, there are only three kids who applied to U Chicago. One kid was accepted but is going to a different school because of the paltry FA she got from UChicago. The other kid did not make it. My son has turned down a full ride offer from another school and is going to U Chicago paying a full sticker price. </p>

<p>Granted every single one of the kids who are going to top 20 schools, except my son, chose an east coast school that is sort of driving distance from NJ (our home state), but still they applied to all sorts of schools including some in the West Coast as a Pavlovian reflex. The fact that they did not even apply to U Chicago tells me something. </p>

<p>My son applied to UChicago purely based on the strength and reputation of its econ department. If he had not been such a die hard econ/finance bigot, he would have never considered UChicago either. In fact, all this brouhaha about “life of a mind” culture, we only learned about it AFTER he got accepted, NOT before. Once we learned about it, we got more and more excited to the degree that we decided to let our son turn down the full ride offer in favor of Chicago. So all this self selection myth was not a factor for us at the stage of application. In fact, I strongly suspect that “self selection” may work better for the “yield” phase - meaning, kids apply and are accepted, and then realize that they really like what Chicago offers vis-a-vis other schools they also accepted them, and eventually this excitement leads to a decision to attend UChicago. Even those that applied to Chicago as part of the “self selection crew” had to somehow have that school in their radar scan before they fall in love with and applied to the school.</p>

<p>A lot of HS kids with personalty type A apply to A LOT of schools almost compulsively as long as the schools are well known to be elite schools, even those they know they are not likely to chose because of location, weather, etc unless they are the last resort. In many cases at my son’s HS, Uchicago was not even in the radar, though it’s ranked so high with outstanding academic reputation. For instance, though we went to several college recruiting events held locally, I have not seen a rep from UChicago. Are they not making the rounds like other top colleges? Or, did I consistently miss only the Uchicago reps? </p>

<p>In the marketing field, the customer has to first KNOW about the product before s/he even goes into the mode of comparing it against other available products. I believe UChicago really needs to do basic marketing much, much better. </p>

<p>By the way, U chicago has a reputation for bad FA. Given that it has a larger endowment per student compared with Penn, Brown, etc, why is this the case? Perhaps, it’s just one of those unsubstantiated misconceptions. If so, all the more shame that there is such a pervasive “negative customer perception” on this. In the marketing world, it’s all about how customers see your brand/product, regardless of whether that perception is true or false.</p>

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<p>The FA at Chicago may be improving, but from what I understand it still seems to be hit or miss, that is, highly unpredictable. Chicago admission reps do travel the country even making it out to the PNW, so my guess is the make it to NJ. The University is pretty well known in our area and is greatly respected. Many kids don’t apply because of its reputation for rigor and the life of the mind. S1 & S2 have many friends who passed on Chicago because of this. Ironically, two who did really want to attend were rejected and ended up at Duke and Princeton instead.</p>

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<p>So yeah, random point from a bit back. Concerning financial resources, endowment isn’t a very big issue. It’s based on student spending, so take a look at the 2009 rankings. Chicago is ranked 7th, tied with Harvard.</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/578345-usnwr-2009-looking-data-xiii-financial-resources-rank.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/578345-usnwr-2009-looking-data-xiii-financial-resources-rank.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Hyeonjlee - I agree completely with Chicago’s lack of push in the marketing department. I know a lot of Chicago diehards scoff at the notion of “marketing” the school, and it smacks of playing a game Chicago normally didn’t play in its history, but I think it’s necessary.</p>

<p>I will say, though, please give the marketing a little time. While Yale, Harvard, etc. have been recruiting hard and doing this for decades, Chicago really just started to get in gear around 2000 or so. They just hired a guy (Jim Nondorf) who was in charge of student recruitment at Yale, and he worked well at Yale and then at RPI for a couple years too. </p>

<p>I think he was hired to specifically allow Chicago to get to the “next level” in admissions marketing. He’ll do recruiting and outreach much more aggressively than adcomm folks in the past did. </p>

<p>While we’re on the topic, any idea how Chicago can market itself better? I do wish that Chicago would do a better job of raising its profile in the region first - it’s gotta be well known at least in the city of Chicago. In contrast to this, I know Penn (I refer to it a lot bc it’s the other school I know well) might not have the best national reputation, but it’s very well known in Philly and the mid-atlantic. I don’t see why Chicago doesn’t match this in the midwest. </p>

<p>Bottom line is: Chicago misses out on too much fine talent. The top students at high schools all over the country are what we want, and thousands literally don’t even know about the school or apply. We can’t be letting talent slip by.</p>

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<p>Chicago does a tremendous amount of marketing, and it’s great marketing. I have no idea why it doesn’t make an impact at hyeonjlee’s kid’s school, but honestly it makes me think a lot less of hyeonjlee’s kid’s school to hear that. (I have decent awareness of famous high schools, and I had no idea that there was some high-ranked one in NJ, so I guess the ignorance runs both ways.) Chicago is not a popular application at my kids’ public high school, either, although it usually gets 3-4 applications from top students. But it gets comparatively more applications from several of the other top public schools in the area, and at one of the best private schools for the past decade it has been the second or third most popular destination for graduates (the most popular being Penn, by a mile).</p>

<p>My daughter barely knew anything about Chicago other than that a fair number of kids from her old school went there every year and her old teachers told her to check it out, until she started paying attention to its marketing materials. They were the ONLY college marketing materials she thought had a decent ratio of substance to b.s., and that didn’t insult her intelligence on a regular basis. Chicago went from being part of the pack to being a high choice solely on the basis of its letters, post cards, and viewbook.</p>

<p>One reason I admire Chicago’s marketing is because it doesn’t just solicit applications. It tries to solicit applications from people who might actually like the college.</p>

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<p>JHS - Having lived in Philly for a while and getting to know some Penn GSE grads who teach in the area, I know the Phila high school scene pretty well too. I’m going to have to disagree with you on a couple fronts. I think Chicago does well with the top publics (Masterman, for example), and quite well with the friends schools (GFS, Friends select, etc.), but very badly with all the top private schools in the area (Shipley, Chestnut Hill Academy, Penn Charter, etc.). </p>

<p>There’s a lot of talent slipping through the cracks here. I agree, Chicago does a good job of creating thoughtful brochures that cater to just the sort of people the U of C wants, but the message has not been broad enough. From what I know, Chicago just is not on the radar at all for top, thoughtful kids at an Episcopal or Penn Charter or Shipley. I’d imagine in the entire Inter-ac, Chicago just does not get many applications. </p>

<p>One reason for this is I think that Chicago, unlike other schools that recruit more aggresively, tends to stick with its core schools, and is a bit more reticent about reaching out to schools that do not serve as much as feeders. So, for example, Chicago does great at the friends schools in Philly, at places like Stuyvesant and Bronx Science in New York, Andover in New England, Indiana Sciences Academy in the midwest, etc. It doesn’t branch out perhaps as much as it should beyond this.</p>

<p>I do think, though, that this is changing. I believe Ted O’Neill made a visit to one of the inter-ac schools, either Chestnut Hill Academy or Haverford recently, and he spoke along with the dean from Penn. I expect Nondorf to follow suit. </p>

<p>Another big problem Chicago faces is that I really don’t think it stands as a prominent choice for top midwestern applicants. Penn dominates in Philly and gets the lionshare of great students, and Duke dominates in the Southeast, and Stanford is a prime choice around their region. Winning on the “home turf” is key for the top schools, and helps solidify a school’s standing in its region. Chicago still does poorly on this front. From what I know when I was at U of C, the top students at New Trier or Highland Park still saw Chicago as “that weird school on the south side.” </p>

<p>On this front, the Chicago admissions staff needs to work twice as hard - they need to cement the school as what should be a desirable, top-choice destination for bright, thoughtful students in the region. This comes through nurturing relationships with schools and, I think, with expanding the size of Chicago’s admissions office itself. The office seems spread too thin, and the school should invest more resources on this front. To be blunt, they’re playing catchup with the other Joneses in the neighborhood.</p>

<p>Having said all this - I think Nondorf is a great choice, and should lead Chicago down this general direction. He knows about cultivating relationships with counselors at schools, and everything seems to be picking up steam in Hyde Park. I do think it’s possible for Chicago to meet its target - getting a great applicant pool of around 15k-20k students. Zimmer has quantitative goals on this front. From what I can tell, in terms of the hard numbers, I think he’d want to get to around 20k apps in 4-5 years, with around a 15% acceptance rate. That puts Chicago on comfortable ground in terms of the “perception” of eliteness, but won’t lead to a mass-market appeal for gratuitous applications (something schools like Duke, Wash U, and Penn certainly look for each year). </p>

<p>Within 4-5 years under good stewardship, I think this is a forseeable goal for the school.</p>

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<p>I’ll go out on a limb here, Cue.</p>

<p>The Philadelphia private school market is incredibly segmented. You can tell a lot about a family’s values from the school they pick, and if you know their values you know what school(s) the kids will go to. There are occasional outliers of course – kids who grow up surprising, younger siblings, faculty brats – but for the most part biology is destiny is school choice. For that reason, Chicago is ALWAYS going to do better at Germantown Friends (where it does great) than at Episcopal.</p>

<p>You’re wrong about Penn Charter (also a Quaker school). Chicago is definitely on the radar there; probably a couple kids a year go. CHA may be improving, but for the past n decades it has not produced potential Chicago students in any meaningful volume. (My daughter described a friend of hers at CHA as follows: “He’s the only evidence anyone has that ‘smart CHA boy’ isn’t an oxymoron.”) It’s a really non-intellectual place. That’s somewhat true (less so) at Episcopal, too. The places where Chicago should be looking for more students are Haverford, Shipley, and Baldwin, and St. Joe’s Prep. Also, Chicago does pretty well at Masterman and Lower Marion, but it could do a lot better at Central and the less-established competitive suburban publics. It’s a little hard to improve your recruiting dramatically, though, when most of the eligible students basically have Penn as an admissions and financial safety. That may be changing, and as it does I bet Chicago does very well.</p>

<p>I don’t think you are wrong about the prominence thing, but the fact of the matter is that Northwestern is in the lead locally, and is not a half-bad university. (Completely at random, in her current training program my daughter finds herself teamed with a man who is like her twin: Same major, same interests within the major, public high schools about 6 miles apart, same selective summer program before 12th grade, 6-7 friends in common although they never met before, he went to Northwestern and she to Chicago, and of course they are doing the same thing post-graduation. He liked Northwestern a lot.) My favorite rising 12th grader has been visiting colleges. She would be a great Chicago candidate – intellectual, good student, nerdy behind a social facade, etc. – and she even has an idea that she should go to college in the midwest. She loved Chicago when she visited it, but . . . she loved Northwestern maybe a little bit more. I think because it seemed more familiar.</p>

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<p>JHS,</p>

<p>perhaps the reason why my S1’s HS is not nationally well known: too small (only about 60+ kids) and pretty recent (10+ year history). It draws a very small group of kids from a very large and prosperous county (I used to joke that my husband and I are the only card carrying democrats) with a highly competitive academic scene. Hence the kids selected are naturally high achieving (just a law of statistics). I also noticed that guidance counselors there were rather passive and do not do active advising - since the students themselves and parents are so into it, they don’t seem to feel that they need to do active counseling - they seem happy to “aid” (as in “focus on the paper work”). Hence, if the kids are not forthcoming with the Chicago application, they are not going to talk about it and they will certainly NOT reach out to students who they think will be a terrific candidate for U Chicago.</p>

<p>I still stand by my sentiment that UChicago does poor marketing. My son was targeted by some schools as early as 7th grade when he scored 1430 on SAT verbal and Math as part of the John’s Hopkin’s gifted program identification. Since then, and especially after he took PSAT, we were inundated with marketing materials from all sorts of school: zero from UChicago!!! He finished his dealings with ETS with 2400 SAT on one and only real SAT he took. If my son is not a good target, I don’t who know else would be? Or, is U Chicago so haughty that they will not stoop so low as to do target marketing simply based on such inane and superficial numbers like SAT??? Is there some kind of national radar U Chicago uses to spot that candidate with the “life of a mind” mantra genetically coded into their brain?</p>

<p>If we did not do our own survey on a college version of “who’s who in the econ scene”, he would have NEVER even considered U Chicago: it was simply NOT on the radar around here in this large, very academically competitive and wealthy school district. On the other hand, if S1 did not get an EA from U chicago, he would have automatically applied to Cornell as a safety. In fact, many kids form son’s HS automatically apply to Cornell. A couple of years ago, something like 20 kids (out 60+ total in the graduating senior class) got accepted by Cornell though only a couple decided to attend - I don’t know this years stat - even though among the East Coast schools, Cornell is very far from NJ. Cornell is generally considered “poor man’s Ivy” (poor, not in term’s of $$$, but in terms of intellectual & competitive heft). Even Duke without the automatic Ivy recognition and far from NJ - there are many kids who applied from that HS and several attending. </p>

<p>So, what’s wrong with this picture? </p>

<p>Chicago’s lack of active marketing simply leaves WAY TOO MANY good students on the table. It’s one thing if they considered Uchicago and decided not to apply due to whatever reason. It’s totally another if they did not apply simply because it was not even on the radar. I believe they need some very active marketing simply to increase the “unaided brand awareness” even before more sophisticated target marketing practice takes place.</p>

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<p>I don’t understand why Chicago doesn’t appear on the radar screen of an academic magnet school in northern New Jersey. What else is it supposed to do to improve unaided brand recognition? It has a near-monopoly on one of the Nobel Prizes. People associated with it were (deservedly) blamed for providing the intellectual underpinnings for starting the Iraq War, and blamed or praised for reforming the economy of a continent. A former professor was elected President of the United States. A current administrator left her job to be First Lady. It has highly-ranked professional schools, and highly ranked departments in a number of popular fields, including economics (of course), math, English, life sciences, physics, sociology, and English. It is ranked in the top 10 by USNWR. I don’t care much about USNWR, but I was under the impression that academically ambitious New Jersey high schoolers did.</p>

<p>Indiana Jones taught there.</p>

<p>It’s never (or not in the foreseeable future) going to have a BCS football team, a Sweet-Sixteen basketball team, or even a famous athletic conference. (Whose blood runs faster contemplating the next match-up between the Maroons and the Violets?) It is not going to have an undergraduate engineering school anytime soon. It would probably get more applicants if it did, but it doesn’t really WANT applications from kids who are set on going to engineering school. It’s not going to move to the suburbs, something that would probably make suburban potential applicants more comfortable, too.</p>

<p>I don’t know how much unsolicited mailing Chicago does. (They did some back in my day, I know, because I got it. My kids probably registered on the web site early enough so that it would be impossible to tell in their cases.) The champion of that is Washington University in St. Louis, and I know I have been dismayed to contemplate how much they must be spending on that program, and how desperate and generic it makes them look. (Most of the unsolicited marketing materials my kids got from colleges made the colleges look desperate and generic.)</p>

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<p>My son got marketing materials from top schools including Harvard, so I don’t believe that only so-so desperate schools do direct marketing. There were several college rep visits the HS guidance counselors alerted the parents about. None included a Chicago session. If they are visiting NJ, they are either not advertising the events well, or not in right areas. One session we went to was a collective session comprising of top schools including Harvard, a couple of upper Ivies and Georgetown. As ridiculous as it sounds, just being part of that session increased the profile strength of Georgetown in the minds of the audience.</p>

<p>Consumers are surprisingly simple minded on a gut level. Armed with a Ph.D. and an MBA, I consider myself fairly “aware” of the way my mind works and yet, I am surprised to notice how my mind works in a very simplistic way when it comes to gut reaction. For instance, even before I go into the “research and investigation” mode for buying a new car, my gut reaction tells me that I would NEVER even consider buying a Cadillac if I were shopping a luxury car (never happens!) because in my mind it’s the kind of a car Mafia boss will drive. Mercedes, the same story, because I know that in Japan, Yakuzas (Japanese version of Mafia) drive black Mercedes (I am not a Japanese). </p>

<p>Consumer’s mind is surprisingly lazy, and on a gut level, it will take an “easy way out” even among the most sophisticated consumers. To break out of this “easy path” takes a lot of mental efforts and endeavors, AND human minds do not like to work that hard. Any student of cognitive science will confirm this. All this happens almost on a gut level and perhaps even subconsciously, but subsconsicous mind is a powerful thing and often sabotages the best intention of a conscious mind (just ask any Freudian psychologist). </p>

<p>Apply this to the elite college shopping students and parents. The fact that U chicago has all these Nobel Laureates and Obama taught there may convince those buyers whose radar screen already captured Chicago to begin with to close the deal. But in order for that to happen, UChicago has to be firmly established as one of the “it” schools to begin with, and it is NOT, at least not in where we live. The default grouping goes like this. One group: “HYP, Stanford, MIT” Second group: mid/lower Ivies, Duke, Georgetown, JHU… (this is a wider group). Chicago stands out like a sore thumb on its own. Since “consumer” mind is a lazy thing, rather than create a new category and thus has more things to monitor and track, it sort of discards it. </p>

<p>U chicago should NOT gloat over the fact that they “defy” conventional grouping and cheap categorization since its unique “life of a mind” is such a previous thing. It’s all good and well for UChicago to use the unique “life of a mind” yardstick to select the right students for itself, but it should NOT allow this yardstick to limit the applicant pool. In order to select better “life of a mind” students, you need a larger applicant pool of competitive students to begin with (just a simple law of statistics). I am convinced that many “life of a mind” type high performing students who would have been a perfect fit for U Chicago are not applying because it did not cut the initial potential list of prestigious “it” schools.</p>

<p>As for us, I am so glad that my son is going to Chicago. I think U chicago is a perfect school for him, but he would not even have applied to it without its econ reputation after a careful research. It certainly was not one of the schools that were automatically on our radar screen. If my son had been like many students who are not so dead set on their future path/career yet, he would have ended up in a different school.</p>

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<p>Why Chicago is not on S1’s HS radar (public w/small selective math/science/CS program w/average SAT of program kids in the 2230-2240 range): 1) no engineering; 2) the state flagship offers these kids major $$$ and advanced standing; 3) perceived lack of prestige by parents; 4) many of the students are ready to take a break from heavy academics.</p>

<p>At S2’s school (public w/small, selective full IB program): 1) IB fatigue and the other reasons listed above (except engineering – not so much).</p>

<p>I agree with others that Chicago’s marketing materials catch the interest of those who would truly appreciate what Chicago has to offer. Both of my kids appreciated not having their intelligence insulted, subsequently visited Chicago, and found an environment that consistes of people who love learning and are not there just to grade-grub and punch the ticket to the next high-prestige school.</p>

<p>Sometimes, though, it takes only one person doing the “unexpected” to subsequently get a stream of applicants headed to a school.</p>