<p>the essays are definitely extremely important. I had an ACT score of 33 (taken in the middle of my junior year), was the class salutatorian, was the president of a club and in others, the student director for two plays, the captain of the regional champion academic team, had the highest unweighted GPA in my class, and was still waitlisted. I've never been too hot at writing, so I'm suspecting my downfall was the essays. And I wanted to major in economics, too, so that was definitely a huge hit to me.</p>
<p>Wow. Yes, it seems that Uchicago places a lot of it's determination of an applicant by its essays. Taking from what Pierce08 said, you could be great at everything but get waitlisted or deferred. I guess they're looking for specific people.</p>