Schools that are like Chicago, but less selective (?)

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Chicago ✅
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<p>The question mark added because some of the schools I'm going to mention have similar admissions standards to Chicago. My general point in this thread is highlighting schools that a student who is competitive for admissions to Chicago and likes Chicago should consider, but would fall more into the match/safety category for a competitive Chicago applicant.</p>

<p>Contributions greatly appreciated, as is an attempt to keep this list alphabetical.</p>

<p>Asterisked schools are the most competitive, but I felt they belonged on the list.</p>

<p>Bard
Barnard
Brandeis
Bryn Mawr
Carleton*
Carnegie Mellon
Case Western
Colorado C
Emory *
Johns Hopkins *
Lewis and Clark
Macalester *
McGill
Mount Holyoke
NYU
Oberlin
Reed *
Rice
Rochester
Smith
St. John’s College
University of Pittsburgh
Vassar
Wash U *
Wellesley
Wesleyan
Whitman C</p>

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<p>Vassar and Barnard are most competitive as well.</p>

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<p>Isn't the UChicago admit rate already really high.. mid 30s% or something?</p>

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<p>self selecting pool...lower number of applicants...higher accpetance rate</p>

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<p>I second what beefs said, self-selecting pool. Many applicants who apply are very qualitified to go to U of C, so the acceptance rate is high.</p>

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<p>I think your assessment of how hard it is to get into colleges is a little off.</p>

<p>Barnard, Carnegie Mellon, Oberlin, Rice, Vassar, Wellesley, and Wesleyan are all quite competitive; some of the others are, too. My guess is that any of those schools is a little more selective than Reed or Macalaster, although the differences aren't such a big deal. Anyway, none of them is really a safety for anyone who isn't a shoo-in at Harvard. Match, maybe.</p>

<p>Your assessment of comparability may be a little off, too, although there I think your list is pretty good. My kids have a number of friends at Pitt, and one of them actually applied to it. But one consistent thing they hear from those friends is "not an intellectual atmosphere." Bard, too -- I know it seems attractive to some Chicago people, but based on what I have heard and the kids I have known there, I can't fathom that.</p>

<p>A few schools I would add to your list (because my kids did):</p>

<p>Michigan (you can pretty much tell your chances based on stats, even out-of-state)
Boston University
University of Toronto (arguably better than McGill, strong in many areas Chicago is)</p>

<p>And if someone is willing to look at LACs, he or she should definitely consider Grinnell, Kenyon, Denison, Colorado College, and the colleges in Maine, all of which are probably a tad less competitive for admissions than the ones you listed (except maybe for Bowdoin), and still offer some first-rate experiences.</p>

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<p>Nice list. 5 of the schools you mentioned I'm actually applying to.</p>

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<p>JHS, are the kids you know at Pitt in the honors college? </p>

<p>unalove, is your list based on campus atmosphere as well as admissions standards? I like your post about chances, and am very glad you enjoying helping and procrastinating via the internet!</p>

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<p>Setting aside student strength / selectivity in the spirit of the post, I think trying to make a comparison between UChicago and second tier LAC’s is somewhat off. They are not research universities, so unless you are solely valuing the core and the intellectual mindset related to it, places like Reed are basically in a whole different universe in my book. The course selection is much more limited, the faculties are not really that involved in research, there is no trickle down in courses from the graduate level, far less speeches / forums, and so on. I would argue places like Brandeis and Rochester have a feel much closer to the U of C than would say Vassar or Smith.</p>

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<p>Hard for me to see how CMU is like Chicago. Techie school, no core, hard to take classes outside your program, little liberal arts focus. good school though.</p>

<p>And some of the others seem curious, too, like Case and NYU.</p>

<p>Perhaps the OP can expand a bit on what "similar" means?</p>

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<p>Sure.</p>

<p>As one can probably tell, I don't really know admissions and selectivity besides USNWR and my own knowledge of whom I know at each school, so that's quite flawed. I didn't want to present a second-tier list, but rather an alternatives list.... if you're competitive for Chicago, you have a very good chance at all of the schools I listed, as well as Chicago. I just want to broaden options, really.</p>

<p>Chicago has a lot going for it, so it's hard to find another school exactly like it. Instead, I took some variables and isolated them. Not a big sports scene and nerd-friendly? CMU. (They have a really cool special humanities program).</p>

<p>Urban and intellectual, with extensive liberal arts? NYU.</p>

<p>Sends lots of students on to PhD's? Oberlin, Bryn Mawr, Reed.</p>

<p>Again, the list is not perfect, but these are all schools that I liked and I wondered that maybe other students out would like them too.</p>

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<p>What do you all think about Skidmore? That is one of my D's safeties that she heard had a bit of the feel of Chicago. We will see it when she goes for her IDP at Bard in Nov. </p>

<p>Agreed JHS, Michigan is also on my D's list. True also about Barnard, Carnegie Mellon, Oberlin, Rice, Vassar, Wellesley, and Wesleyan being competitive.</p>

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<p>Oh I forgot to add, we have when D2 was at U Chicago's summer program we found things it had in common with D1's school (New College of Florida). Both schools had dorms designed by I.M. Pei, student run coffee shops and kids more interested in intellectual discussions than football.</p>

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<p>I'm actually applying to UChicago, Reed, St. John's, and New College--all places mentioned in this thread. :P</p>

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<p>
[quote]
Isn't the UChicago admit rate already really high.. mid 30s% or something?

[/quote]

That's because Chicago's yield is low (NOT because it's self-selected). Considering the stats of those admitted, it's not easy to get in.</p>

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<p>Haha, every other school I'm applying to other than my safety is on this list!</p>

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<p>Just to be clear -- I don't personally know any kids at Pitt. My children know several; more my daughter than my son because of a statewide program in which she participated between 11th and 12th grades. Some of her friends are in the honors college. She told me last year that the kids she knew at Pitt mostly reported a very un-intellectual atmosphere. The ones at C-M though -- and she pretty much only knows arty humanities types -- seem to love it. C-M has a very good writing program.</p>

<p>She had some trouble choosing Chicago over NYU. NYU is like the dream urban school -- the coolest place in the universe, pretty much. It has great faculty in lots of areas she cared about. I don't know that Mary-Kate and Ashley were the world's biggest intellectuals, but she knows some pretty focused, intellectual kids there. But not in the same concentration as at Chicago, and (she thought) more scratching and clawing by students to stand out. And NYC can be lonely, especially for the non-rich.</p>

<p>Re LACs: I think most 18-year-olds don't think very much about the differences between a real research university and a LAC, and I think that the one's who do often don't care that much. There are plusses and minuses each way. Lots and lots of kids who are interested in Chicago are also interested in Reed and/or Swarthmore (and/or Columbia, often, of course). There's no question those schools attract a lot of students who would also like Chicago, and vice versa. Vassar, too, although I find that a little surprising. One friend of my daughter's went sleepless for days deciding between Vassar and Chicago. My son's bff, an intellectual boy who always only wanted a LAC, chose Vassar, too.</p>

<p>If I look at where my kids' intellectual, reasonably high-achieving buddies from high school wound up, if they didn't go the Ivy/Stanford route, it's not so different from unalove's list: Chicago, Vassar, Smith, NYU, Carleton, Macalaster, Reed, McGill, Toronto, Rice, Wesleyan, Oberlin, Haverford, Beloit (only with lots of angst, that one really preferred Macalaster but got a better finaid deal at Beloit) . . .</p>

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<p>My S had a horrible time choosing between UofC, Brown and Williams because all three are such great schools. I guess it's hard to see what united them, but for him there was a common thread. I think it was some kind of sense of humor. Chicago's admission blog was witty, hilarious actually. Can't say much about Brown. Williams' purple spotted cow (and other things) sold him on Williams. He found different things to love about all three. In the end, he chose Williams for the mountains and intimacy. It might surprise people who think Williams is very jocky, of his 25 person entry on two play varsity sports, whereas 3 are in the orchestra with DS. And he has had many intellectual conversations there. He reported with excitement that everyone got the Stephen Hawking and Shroedinger's Cat references in episdodes of Family Guy and House.</p>

<p>Of course, neither of these is LESS selective than Chicago. My point is that kids see similarities where others don't if a school meets a particular need of theirs. This isn't something anyone can predict from the outside. Students just have to keep slogging away and investigate as many schools as they can.</p>

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<p>Well, I can't edit, so I'll add that Bard first among his slightly less selective choices. Although JHS quite rightly opined that it's not evident that Bard and Chicago have anything in common, for S they shared an intellectualism that one can feel by visiting Bard or reading its website.</p>

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<p>These comments are all so helpful. We are going to be very happy once my son finally knows where he is going. (Well, we hope we're going to be very happy, LOL.) This college search process is tough.</p>