Some Northwestern/UChicago admissions insight

Parents Forum
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<p>I don’t think selectivity is very representative of student quality when you get to the top 10. I don’t think it should be used in the criteria for US News. What the US news does shouldn’t matter, but apparently it is driving decisions by the university administration.</p>

<p>If the only reason that admit rates dropped for Annasdad’s high school for NU was that the number of qualified applicants went up, then I don’t have a problem with it.</p>

<p>I don’t like the fact that schools are trying to force kids to commit to a school (via ED) or not get in at all. It makes it a gamble to apply to reach schools. If they are going to reject good applicants just for yield concerns, they should instead put them on the waitlist and ask them to commit to the school (e.g., write a letter expressing interest) before admitting them. </p>

<p>If they really just want kids who love the school, and that is the whole reason, well, I don’t know about that. Aren’t we always telling kids not to fall in love with the school before they get in? I got the feeling that NU people were pretty proud of their school anyway before all these changes.</p>

<p>There’s nothing wrong with going to a state school, but I don’t think it’s good if outstanding students are suddenly having only one decent choice because elite admissions are ultra-competitive and semi-elite schools only want kids in love with them.</p>

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<p>As a side-note, I don’t think it’s accurate to assume Annasdad’s posts are biased by what choices his kid will likely have. Multiple posters have been making this assumption, and I don’t think it’s a fair reading of his posts.</p>

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<p>Marketing tools are imprecise. If colleges had the power to perfectly differentiate, up front, students who do or don’t stand a snowball’s chance, then I doubt they’d waste their efforts on the ones who don’t. They caste a wide net because they don’t know precisely where the big fish are. </p>

<p>I don’t believe that higher rankings = better education. Ultimately, that is largely up to the student. But I do believe that schools with high rankings tend to have better facilities, smaller classes, bigger endowments per student, better aid, and more distinguished faculty. These things are desirable. They create opportunity. Their opposites are not desirable, even if they don’t necessarily preclude good learning experiences.</p>

<p>Before the USNWR rankings, elite college admissions were much more an insider’s game than are today. The St. Grottlesex feeder schools didn’t have to worry about Asian immigrants or brilliant first gens in flyover land who could quickly find a wealth of information about schools like Amherst and Bowdoin. And today, the not-quite-brilliant first gens who like the sound of Bowdoin, but don’t have the stats, can quickly find a half dozen similar schools where they stand more of a chance. So on balance, I think the rankings are good … and competition to improve them is mostly good, too.</p>

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<p>Interestingly enough, Princeton moved from 57 to 67% yield just by adding SCEA. Although much has been made of Harvard’s claim about SCEA commitments around 93%, Princeton had 86% which seems to have given them a superior yield.</p>

<p>NU has not changed anything other than trying to find kids who are more interested in NU than any other school. Outside of ED, interest is a very hard trait to measure and easy to fake but based on the increased yield, they may have identified certain ways. </p>

<p>OTOH, if the counselors at exclusive schools won’t tell them the kids will show up, 2013 will see far fewer admits. There is also another way to do it. If they see a trend from a school like IMSA that someone in top 10 won’t show up but 10-20 will, they will start admitting only those kids.</p>

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<p>U Chicago has taken the ‘Brand Perception’ theory very seriously. You will find in every forum, there is a very visible attempt to ‘Promote’ the brand, be it by focusing on the parameters weighed heavily by US News for College Ranking or by starting discussion threads like ‘Which one is better Stanford or U Chicago?’ Always, attempting to drag an institution which enjoys a better brand perception. It is unfortunate, that U Chicago which is truly a place for academically inclined students is falling into the ‘ranking game’. </p>

<p>I think, prospective students are very clear about their preference. While the parents may attach a great degree of pride while mentioning the ‘name’, their children do consider the location, type and look of campus, sporting events, the social life, while arriving at the decision. I know, this year, quite a few from a reasonably well known school in downtown Chicago, opted for schools with lower ranking, primarily from the’fit’ point of view!</p>

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<p>I don’t understand the last post. U of Chicago isn’t starting threads on CC about “who is better, Stanford or U of Chicago.”</p>

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<p>ED or SCEA is a good way to go, for any schools. The pressure is then on the applicants.</p>

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<p>Ugh! ED and SCEA are terrible for students. Unrestricted EA is by far the most student-friendly approach, and it is to the great credit of Chicago and MIT (and others) that that’s what they offer, despite the considerable incentives to adopt a system that screws applicants. I will be very disappointed if Chicago abandons that moral position to lower its admission rate by 1-2%.</p>

<p>Chicago has also gotten some real advantages from it. More students applied EA to Chicago this year than applied ED or SCEA to any college offering those options. By a considerable margin: Chicago had over 8,000 early applications; the big SCEA schools had around 5,000 each, and I think the colleges with the biggest ED pools had around 4,000 each. Chicago’s student-friendly rules mean that lots of students wind up paying attention.</p>

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<p>“Chicago has also gotten some real advantages from it. More students applied EA to Chicago this year than applied ED or SCEA to any college offering those options. By a considerable margin: Chicago had over 8,000 early applications; the big SCEA schools had around 5,000 each, and I think the colleges with the biggest ED pools had around 4,000 each.”</p>

<p>A cynic would say that U of Chicago benefited because it drew in more apps thus decreasing its admissions rate, while not requiring people to commit because U of Chicago is a unique school to commit to personality-wise, and it was a better way of “playing the USNWR game” than a move to ED would be <em>for that particular school</em>. I am not such a cynic, of course.</p>

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<p>I’m not such a cynic either. I think EA works very well for Chicago. They lure in a bunch of kids, both the obvious admits who will also apply to the Ivy’s and the less obvious ones like my kid who was a bit of a diamond in the rough. Then they have months and months to woo them with the Chicago brand. And woo them they did. My son received a calendar (which baffled me since it had the dreariest pictures!), a book of the convocation lectures (all very intellectual), an amusing book of the quirkier side of the school, a scarf, a handwritten holiday card with a flattering comment about one of the essays (my son’s favorite gift) and probably a couple of other things that now slip my mind. At one point my son laughed that even though he knew what was going on all the attention really did feel flattering. </p>

<p>I’m with JHS, I loathe ED and am no fan of SCEA either.</p>

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<p>My kid applied EA to Chicago, was accepted, and it moved to #2 on his list. Had he not been accepted to Williams, he would have braved the plane right and crossed the Hudson. At least I think so; he’s not the most adventurous soul.</p>

<p>He followed the U of Chicago admissions blog, which was charming, witty and just such fun.</p>

<p>(JHS I know you and your kids use Williams as the poster child for everything they don’t want in a school, but there are people who can like both. Both have the same kind of wit.)</p>

<p>Bard was a really early contender, too, because it’s EA also, and its conservatory made it attractive to my violinist. Those two early acceptances made the college process so much less tortuous than it was for my D who refused EA applications because she’s superstitious and did not want to jinx her ED application. She was deferred (eventually accepted) and we have a miserable three months.</p>

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<p>I, personally, have zero objection to Chicago (or any other school) sending these courting gifts to EA acceptees or any other student they so desire - they can send them a dozen roses a week for the whole year for all I care, but again, I think the cynics might say - so all of this courting comes at the expense of financial aid, investment in the classroom, doesn’t have any bearing on educational quality, blah blah blah.</p>

<p>Personally I say it’s high time both NU and Chicago - “owners” of top business schools - consulted their marketing departments to work the brand! Nothing wrong with that, in my book.</p>

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<p>Personally, I think Chicago sends out way too much junk mail and has a horrible database system if they have to send two copies of the same thing to most applicants, 2 or 3 pieces every month (that is 6 items).</p>

<p>This is before the applications are filed.</p>

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<p>Well, I am (bet you’re surprised!). Any claim Chicago may have had at one time to a “moral position” in the admissions game is in tatters. The long-time, respected dean of admissions was effectively forced out (he still works there in a different capacity) because he felt the moral position was to avoid being drawn into the USNWR Sweepstakes.</p>

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<p>Well, the good thing is, it shouldn’t really bother you, since you’re so convinced that good educations happen equally well at any school in the spectrum from Podunk State to Harvard - so the fact that U of Chicago is generally regarded as a top school should be irrelevant to you, and therefore what they do should be of no more interest than what Podunk State does. I mean, if I think the 25 different bottles of shampoo at the shelf at Walgreen’s all do the same thing, I don’t worry that one brand invests more money than I think is prudent on advertising.</p>

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<p>Just for the record, that’s not my position, and never has been. But since I’ve clarified that for you over and over and you still apparently don’t get it, I’m not going to bother to do it again.</p>

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<p>All the fighting in the world is not going to change the fact that some people value education quite highly and altered their entire lives in order to make certain that their children had every educational opportunity available to them. This is a matter of choice, and there’s not one single thing I can point to in that choice that does not make sense to me. Nothing will change a life more, or give more value, in the long life we all hope our children will have, so much as a good fundamental education. Personally, I prefer the broadest, most art based education possible, since the rest are skills. But, you see? This is also just a preference, and many reasonable people disagree with me on this, including one of my own children, who will doubtless be quite successful in life and very poorly read… except, I don’t believe that will always be the case either.</p>

<p>The important thing, in my mind, is that every single one of the kids in all of our houses KNOW we value education. Whether, like Annasdad, it is through a search for the best educational value he could help his daughter find, and he did quite well with that, in fact, or through the willingness to pay for the most expensive education. All these kids grew up in places where they were taught, through words, actions and commitment, that education is important and it matters.</p>

<p>NU and Uchicago are both really great institutions who have seemingly lately made a committment to getting “better” in one way or the other. Newer focuses and newer missions and this leads to a new look for them, to some extent, and there is not one single thing wrong with that. If this leads to a rise in the rankings, so be it. I think mainly, the goal was simply to become more attractive to certain students, which both have managed to do.</p>

<p>I think the rankings are ancillary. I don’t think Milsaps is going to rocket through the rankings even if they “Play the game.” The game requires time, infrastructure, a faculty already in place who can reasonably be seen to be a part of this type of institution. You can’t game the system to the top of the rankings, regardless of what anybody thinks. It can’t be done.</p>

<p>The rankings aren’t all that important to me. But, I am glad to see two old venerable institutions of higher learning shake off the dust and pay some attention to what they are doing and why. I think this is a good thing, not a bad thing. And I have no idea why anyone would want to argue with their methods, which include substantive quality changes and not a new coat of waterproof paint.</p>

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<p>Nice post, poetgrl.</p>

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<p>“better” - smart post. Maybe these schools, or Usnwr, should explicitly track the non-local quotient, non-local in the regional sense. If “better” means attracting more distant students, so as not appear to be a regional school, then regional folks, being from the local region, would not even consider those schools as a possibility unless their stats were absolute tops. I think many less informed people (not the OP) look around, see an excellent quality school nearby, and assume their kid has a chance there, and are shocked when their HS only sees one or zero kids admitted there. Why don’t these schools just say what they are looking for, or what they are trying to avoid?</p>

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<p>One more thought - maybe they should just say ‘only N kids from HS X’ so as not to appear too provincial.</p>