<p>I agree that it's important for UChicago to keep its personality. </p>
<p>Correct me if I'm wrong Byerly, but I don't think he/she said any thing against the actual quality of education in the school. He is merely suggesting methods to attract 'better' students that would also be happier at UChicago, which would lead to a better campus environment. </p>
<p>The flaw I see there is that a 'better' applicant is supposedly defined by a 2400 SAT and 4.XX GPA. If you go to the thread where everyone posted their stats and whether or not they were accepted/deferred/rejected, you would see a lot of students that got 1350-1450's and not perfect GPAs get accepted whereas students with 1500+SAts and 4.XX GPAs are sometimes deferred or even rejected. This is becasue UChicago doesn't believe in having a simple formula for admission, especially one that values such stuff too much. UChicago looks at the essays/recs/ec's to evaluate the students personality and possibly their compatability with the university. While almost every college advertizes such a practice, I think UChicago is the best example that actually implements it. I'm not saying that a perfect SAT/GPA student would be a shoe in at Harvard, but UChicago values other factors more. So basically they think a student with a meaningful essay might be a better student in the long run than one that has amazing scores. However, like it was mentioned earlier, it's not like UChicago's admission 'criteria' or the new classes profile is low/bad.
Can they admit more students with 1600/2400's and 4.0's? Yes, but at the expense of giving up the uniqueness of UChicago. </p>
<p>I'm not sure how ED would work, but I think UChicago views it as trapping the student, and I agree. The way I look at it, a student that really wants to go to UChicago can apply EA and then choose to go. Let's say there was ED and he applies and gets in that way, no problem right? But what if you have a student that applies ED and gets in, but he later changes his mind. He can't back out now, and he would be sadder at school. If there was ED, the students that would apply there are the same students that would apply as EA students, are they not? With EA, you would get more applicants becasue there are more students that arent 100% sure that they want to go to UChicago that would apply EA and wouldn't apply ED. You would always have students that end up changing their minds or hoping they didn't apply ED, and although its their responsibility, the result would be students that really don't want to go to UChicago but are forced to do so. </p>
<p>Although I don't believe that the USNWR are accurate and am against them and those who believe that a school ranked 7 is definiately better than a school ranked 8, I think real rankings are important. idad, how old are those rankings? I remember seeing something similar a while back, but I think it was from 2001. I may be wrong though. I think if there was such an annual ranking, or even one done every 2-3 years with meaningful criteria, it would be great. </p>
<p>It's interesting to see that in America the actual college ranking has more importance when discussing a college rather than the ranking of a department. In Turkey, you always say, ie, i go to UChicago and study Economics. I think that makes more sense that the actual ranking of the college as a whole, but I see why thats important (most students are undecided of their majors). I also think rankings for undergrad majors is important, and only then can we have a genuinely meaninful general rank. </p>
<p>Sorry for babbling on and repeating. Time to work on an application essay :(</p>