<p>^That doesn’t appear to be true as some of the people that got accepted wrote some pretty boneheaded essays (at least, the topics were pretty boneheaded).</p>
<p>@motion: I know you were deferred (I was too, so I’m sad as well) but I think you know that “boneheaded” topic =/= boneheaded essay. I mean, Metamorphosis’ “topic” would be “I woke up and I was a bug! WHOA” but that would be greatly underselling how good the work is. I’m not saying that these essays were necessarily amazing, but that IMO topic is not a great indicator of quality.</p>
<p>I don’t think they placed
much emphasis on academic stats. I’ve got a 2300+ SAT (one-sitting) and top 1% of class…deferred.</p>
<p>I’m guessing that demonstrated interest was a big factor. They’re trying to up their yield and a sloppy/bad/short/insincere Why Chicago was probably a big REJECT/(maybe defer)</p>
<p>So perhaps SATs + Strong Essays (esp why Chicago) = Greater Chance of admission?</p>
<p>I’m also guessing that teacher recs played a big part. Don’t they look for students that their professors would like teach?</p>
<p>musictomyears, you’re probably right on the teacher recommendations aspect; however, my “Why Chicago?” essay, while not half-assed by any means, was probably the weakest part of my application and I was still accepted. I don’t think you can distill UChicago’s slightly eccentric admissions policies into a concise formula.</p>
<p>Hi All,</p>
<p>Obviously you can tell from my screen name that I’m a parent. I’ve been following these Chicago threads for the last few days and just wanted to comment on this thread a bit.</p>
<p>First of all, deferred or not, most of you sound like great students! As a parent, reading about some of your accomplishments gives me great hope for the future. If even half of what you say is true, you all are going to do some fantastic things in this life whether at Chicago or some other fortunate school. </p>
<p>Secondly, I think some of you are being way too simplistic in terms of conjecturing why someone did or did not get admitted. Although it varies from place to place, at highly competitive schools it’s truly not just about the numbers or a few exceptional ECs. It’s a combination of those things plus what a school feels it needs relative to what they already have. Adcoms are just social engineers trying to piece together what they think will be a dynamic class. Thus, they are looking at all kinds of variables - some of which are not always obvious. Being deferred or even rejected is less likely a reflection of you, or the quality of what you offer, as much as it is what a school is trying to engineer relative to what it already has. In other words, it’s not something where you can just say, “my SAT score wasn’t high enough” or “my EC wasn’t good enough.” The reality of is that most of you would have probably been snatched up in a heartbeat if not for a limited number of seats or some specific need the school is after this year (e.g. you play the trumpet, but they already have thirty - they really need more bassoonists this year instead).</p>
<p>That too is an oversimplification, I’m just trying to make the point that other forces are at work here, many of which are beyond your control. Thus, you can’t read too much into some of these decisions because you will never know what their big picture really looks like without actually being an insider. </p>
<p>It probably doesn’t help, but I imagine there will be plenty just as puzzled who were deferred or rejected from other schools you guys will sail right into under similar, but more favorable circumstances. </p>
<p>I know, easy for me to say, but I would bet dollars to doughnuts that just about all of you are going to end up in a great situation by the time this whole admissions debacle is all said and done.</p>
<p>In the past I could opine on the topic of Chicago’s admission criteria, but with the new regime there is simply not enough data to render an opinion. In the past Chicago did not try to build a class. I once read where Ted O’Neill remarked that he didn’t know what the “class” looked like until everyone was admitted. That is not how most approach admissions and perhaps not the way it is done today. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out this and the years to come.</p>
<p>idad, did chicago recently change its admsisions policy or something?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Head of admissions was changed to someone whose admissions philosophy is much different. There’s plenty of information about him (his name is Nondorf) on these boards.</p>