<p>
You post on pretty much every single thread where NU’s stats are mentioned. If you don’t think that’s obsessive, then I’m completely flabbergasted.</p>
<p>Also, you know about every single school’s stats down to the last point. I guess admissions is your passion and that’s fine, but that doesn’t preclude it from being an obsession.</p>
<p>And finally, Northwestern has consistently attracted a lot more applications than UChicago, like thousands more year after year. If it really wanted to lower its acceptance rate, it could shrink the class size easily down to UChicago’s level. Does it want to do that? No. UChicago’s class size is what, 1400? NU has had 2,100. Given a 33% yield, if NU had a class size of 1400, it would accept 1400 x 3, which is 4,200 admits out of a pool of 30,000 so 14% acceptance rate. But the target size is 2000, hence an estimate of 6,000 admits for an acceptance of 20%. It’s just a matter of class size, not differing prestige. The comparison you made actually makes UChicago look bad-- why does it only have 19% acceptance when the class size is so small? NU would have a sub 15% acceptance already at that level. Oh, that’s because it fails to attract enough applicants! Despite resorting to desperate measures to get EVERYBODY to apply. NU doesn’t have to go to such lengths yet gets thousands more applications every single year.</p>
<p>I suggest you analyze the numbers more carefully before making any wild conjectures. I know you have a vendetta against NU, but that doesn’t mean you can throw reason out the window.</p>
<p>Those things said, I have tremendous respect for UChicago, especially as of late. I’ve found that it’s been trying very hard lately to get rid of students like you in an effort to improve its image-- it no longer wants to be known as a place for tactless, obsessive nerds but rather as a place for likable scholars. UChicago is definitely changing for the better, but I don’t know if you are included in its vision necessarily. The same institution you have been fighting for has turned against you and will continue to do so in the coming decades.</p>
<p>Phuriku, first off … wow.</p>
<p>For somewhat not “obsessive” about NU, you’re pretty obsessed.</p>
<p>I don’t know if it’s ignorance of the facts triggering these rants and your manipulation of data (unlikely) or just some gripe against the school (very likely).</p>
<p>The facts:</p>
<p>Northwestern has for years had one of the lowest rates of ED contribution to entering classes of any elite university (35%, this year’s number, is in the setting of a dramatic increase in ED applications and is the highest number ever at NU). By comparison, Columbia sits at 45% this year, Penn at 49%. If you haven’t yet done so, I’d suggest you post similar rants on their boards. They, and many other like-minded schools, certainly seem more deserving, by those numbers, than NU. But then, you might not feel the need to waste time on these other similarly “inferior” institutions when compared with Chicago.</p>
<p>By the way, if a belief that ED is unfairly compromising to someone “from a poor family,” I’d suggest your ire is a bit misdirected. Schools like Hopkins and Wash U are still not need blind and offer academic scholarships without regard to income. But then I’ll guess when it comes to these schools you’re not as “obsessive.”</p>
<p>Over the years I’ve known and counted as friends almost as many Chicago grads as Northwestern grads and hold significant respect for what the U offers. In its defense, I’ve never met any alum or active student so inappropriately obsessed with prestige as phuriku. My warning to any Chicago prospie reading his posts - he’s in no way representative of the student body you’ll find in Hyde Park.</p>
<p>Phuriku it seems painfully clear that you regret your U Chicago decision and suffer from latent Northwestern envy, but its not tooo late! You can still transfer - and I for one will welcome you with open arms and forgive all your trespasses.</p>
<p>For anyone who is interested, the target numbers for this year are roughly:</p>
<p>Target class size: 2025
ED accepted: 715
Target RD matriculation: 1305</p>
<p>Source: President Schapiro</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>phuriku,
Your analysis is flawed. You failed to consider there are way more EA admits than ED admits. ED’s yield is higher but the impact to the overall yield is limited by the small number. EA’s yield is lower than ED’s but its impact on overall yield could be higher because of its much larger number. </p>
<p>A fairer (though not perfect) comparison would be looking at the yield from RD only.
See above. If JHU/Duke/NU are playing games, UChicago is also playing a game, albeit a slightly different one. I’ve also read that some CC members received SPAM emails from UChicago, saying files are missing in their “applications”…etc. when the students never show any interest before. </p>
<p>
Northwestern has put a lot of effort to recruit URMs and students from low-income families since Monty became the President. If you really care about social justice, why didn’t you notice that? </p>
<p>You do seem obssessive about NU. Columbia, Duke, and Penn have significantly larger percentage of ED in their classes; yet you keep raising this issue only on NU board.</p>
<p>I’ve known a couple of NU grads, one of whom was a beginning reporter up here in Bozeman. Another was a physical therapy major of some sort. Very nice kids but not too bright.</p>
<p>The UChicago kids I’ve known have all been some of the smartest people I’ve met, albeit, here in MT., you don’t come across all that many top-ranked students.</p>
<p>In any case, I feel sorry for Phuriku. It seems like all the mean kids are ganging up on the smartest kid in class. High school redux, anyone?</p>
<p>^^^^Needless to say your impressions of the couple of kids you’ve met in the vacuum of “top-ranked” students in MT is clearly a much more sophisticated measure of the true gravitas of NU graduates then any “cyphering” going on in this thread.</p>
<ul>
<li>A digression -
Hi, just stopping by to say I’m quitting CC.
Phruiku reminded me why I was planning on doing so for so long. No offence to him, but ego stroking and disparaging and ridiculous nit-picking this has been bothering me for a while, although I haven’t seen to too often lately.
It really bothers me to see posts like those on this thread when I feel that higher education really should be above this kind of crap. Our education should be a noble experience, not one of superiority-inferiority complexes, depreciation, and ■■■■■■■■. I had always thought of academia as an arena of friendly rivalry, cooperation, and mutual respect. Who cares if you go to Harvard or Haverford. And I am glad to not see too much of this in the real world. But clearly on CC, we can’t have mutual respect across the board for elite schools. Prestige seems to reign king here.</li>
</ul>
<p>So here it is to my last post.
Not that anyone should care.
I don’t even know why I posted this, just wanted to get it out.
Carry on.
Peace out.</p>
<p>^^^While I agree that phuriku’s postings are clearly agenda driven and not terribly informative. The posts that are questioning his statistics and logic do go towards flushing out misconceptions and add to the public discourse. To assert that “prestige” plays a role in college choice is not to condone it but to acknowledge a fact. To bury your head in the sand and say “I wish it wasn’t so” is not terribly constructive. That being said - Peace out to you as well :D</p>
<p>Well, as a current applicant…this blows.</p>
<p>^Man, apparently if you were $65 dollars richer for ED or if we got some more Bolsheviks here things could have saved you</p>
<p>Eh, NU is definitely in my top 5, but I couldn’t commit to a school ED because financial aid is going to be tricky for me and my family, going to need to compare packages.
But it would have been nice though.</p>
<p>haha ya just joking. I was worried about FA, but NU was verry generous. I will be very well taken care of.</p>
<p>Archie, we don’t have a physical therapy major, at least not undergrad.</p>
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</p>
<p>I guess UChicago people have started flocking to this thread now…</p>
<p>Archiewaldron, do not underestimate people. Just because somebody doesn’t look smart doesn’t mean he/she’s not smart. I know a girl here who looks like a complete “dumb blonde” but has an extremely powerful intellect. She plays it cool in social situations though, making it easy for people to associate her with the stereotype. She couldn’t care less about looking like she’s lost in thought or pondering the greatest math problem of civilization or something like that, which is essentially pretense anyway. You and Phuriku certainly would certainly love to harp on that and use that as selective evidence to make your point, but you would be wrong.</p>
<p>I know you like Phuriku and all but his stats were actually below median for Chicago and that’s why he loves Chicago so much for admitting him in spite of that, and hate on more numbers-oriented institutions like the rest of the top 20 who were not as forgiving. Understandable. But this makes him a far cry from being the “smartest kid in class” that you claim he is. That label is typically reserved for superstars by any measure, quantitative or qualitative.</p>
<p>guys guys we should be honored that uchicago students care so much about the prestige of northwestern as to come specifically to comment on a thread in the northwestern forum. that in itself should show how highly regarded we are.</p>
<p>With the yield (of RD applicants) decreasing every year, I hope Northwestern doesn’t become another “Tufts.” in the sense that people are applying here because its a “good” safety school without knowing much about NU.
I do think that Northwestern has improved with its financial aid programs, academic programs, and marketing ability. The record number of applications is commendable but I just hope for the day when Northwestern’s yield can compete with similar schools like duke, JHU, cornell.</p>
<p>“• Admissions: The University received 30,529 applications for next fall’s entering class, a 10.5 percent increase from last year and almost double the number received only six years ago. They include approximately 2,200 early decision applications, up more than 25 percent for the class of 2015, following increases in the previous two years. The early decision pool was both strong intellectually and reflected the University’s commitment to diversity. “A large share of those 715 [early decision admits] are kids who had such high ACTs, such high SATs, such great recommendations, such great essays, such great extracurricular [activities], and probably, most importantly, such great GPAs and APs that they could’ve gotten into any number of Ivies, but they only wanted to go to Northwestern University.””</p>
<p>taken from: [Year</a> Two: President Talks with Community : Northwestern University Newscenter](<a href=“http://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/stories/2011/01/state-of-the-university-coverage.html]Year”>Year Two: President Talks with Community: Northwestern University News)</p>