<p>UChicago is one of my absolute favorite schools, but I am extremely uncertain about whether I should apply early. I know that applying EA gives one better chances of admission (Somewhat), but I think I can improve a lot for the RD round. I plan on taking the SAT in October, and my practice tests from the Blue Book have been around 2300 with consistent 800s in Math. I have an 800 in Physics and a 730 in Math 2 (Plan on retaking Math 2 and taking Literature in November). I think my ECs are pretty well focused, with a lot of them running all 4 years, and I think my teacher recommendations and essays will be great. </p>
<p>However, my GPA is my main concern. Right now it's only approximately a 90 unweighted (I am guessing that is a 3.5. Also, if freshman year counts less, it would be closer to a 91-92). My school does grade pretty rigorously, but I am hoping to do extremely well first semester senior year to improve my application. I will be in AP Calculus AB, AP Physics 1, AP Comp Gov, AP Lit, Chem Honors, Philosophy, Music Theory 2, and JROTC 12 first semester senior year, so do you think an outstanding record first semester will give me a better chance RD than applying EA?</p>
<p>My main worry is that I won't even be deferred EA due to my GPA. I would actually be happy with deferred, just I don't know what the usual EA reject looks like. I really want to show my interest to UChicago as much as I can, just I don't know how much of a risk EA will be.</p>
<p>Thank you for any advice and information that you can give me.</p>
<p>It’s impossible to say what will happen with your application, but if you achieve the SAT score you think, and if your EC’s and rec’s are as good as you say, then I think you have a good chance to be at least deferred from EA. Then you can really kill your first semester of your senior year and get in RD. Best of luck to you.</p>
<p>Also, you should keep in mind that UChicago looks at GPA in the context of your school. You said that your school grades rigorously, so that will help your application. Also, just looking at your classes for next semester, they’ll see that any imperfections in your grades are a result of challenging yourself, so that works to your advantage as well. If UChicago is one of your top choices, I think applying EA can definitely work to your benefit.</p>
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<li><p>Cosmological, in the spirit of the University of Chicago, let’s use our math skills to approach this problem. If your unweighted GPA is a source of concern, how well would you have to do first semester of your senior year to raise it by some meaningful increment, say 2 points (on a 100-point scale), for your application? How likely is that to happen? What if your school uses trimesters, does that help?</p></li>
<li><p>You understand, of course, that I am not a University of Chicago admissions officer. But it makes sense to me that, before they reject a candidate outright at the EA stage, they would ask themselves, “Might we view this applicant differently if he or she had a great first semester of 12th grade?” If the answer is “Yes,” then I imagine that the only thing they could do would be deferring that application to RD. If the answer is “No,” then the applicant will be rejected; but the applicant would have been rejected anyway in the RD round, great fall grades or not. </p></li>
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<p>My point is that improving your GPA before applying is really not that critical. You are not going to make your chances worse by applying EA. You should understand how you measure up against your classmates, especially those applying to Chicago, in terms of grades and rigor. But it’s hard to find a downside to applying early, especially if you weren’t planning to apply SCEA to Harvard, Yale, Princeton, or Stanford.</p>
<p>It’s no contest! Apply EA! My D was on the fence last year but applied EA, was admitted, and will be attending this fall. I don’t have the stats in front of me, but the EA acceptance rate was over 10%. The regular rate was below 5%, I believe, so you definitely increase your chances applying EA. And since it’s non-binding, you have nothing to lose. I say go for it.</p>
<p>Wow, you’re in the <em>exact</em> same situation as I’m in. Not sure what to tell you other than that I am trying to figure this out myself. However, my thoughts are that if they are gonna reject you EA a GPA improvement wouldn’t have saved you anyway. Ya feel? Rejection early is a strong statement so it pretty much communicates that the applicant is a wrong fit in a variety of ways (not just GPA). </p>
<p>@JHS For me it was more about showing that I can have near perfect grades in a very tough curriculum than it was about raising my overall GPA.</p>
<p>@herewego1 Yes, I’m hoping that’s the case because I am spending a lot of time on my essay to make it as great as it can be. It would take a while to list my ECs but I’d say I am a pretty angular student, with a lot of my ECs centered around science, but that I am also well rounded with 4 years of Band and JROTC and similar things. Hopefully you’re right in that the GPA alone won’t lead to an early rejection.</p>