<p>How many did they accept under Early Action last year?</p>
<p>I’m not sure… But this definitely is not good news for me. But I guess I was sort of expecting the EA applications to go up this year… But not quite a 32% increase.</p>
<p>This has last year’s EA stats - [Despite</a> decline in early applications, admin expects overall rise insubmissions - The Chicago Maroon](<a href=“Delays keep Proof from silver screen – Chicago Maroon”>Delays keep Proof from silver screen – Chicago Maroon)</p>
<p>If they accept the same number of people as last year (under EA), then their acceptance rate will be 19% (8% decrease…). Wow, this really is not good.</p>
<p>Curses! Just my luck 
There goes any chance I had of getting accepted (and motion12345, I think about 1100-1200 early applicants are accepted each year).</p>
<p>It was 1146 last year.</p>
<p>I don’t know how many they’ll accept this year, though. I imagine that they’ll probably accept slightly fewer, since Nondorf is known for increasing yield. In addition, EA has a slightly higher acceptance rate than the general pool, so the overall admissions rate would be something like 17% if this trend were to carry over to the regular pool. However, it probably won’t. More than likely, the regular pool will have something like a 25-30% increase in applications rather than the 54% increase seen in EA (the 32% figure is in comparison to 2007, not last year). I think that the overall acceptance rate will be around 20% this year, but may be higher or lower depending on the yield (and expected yield).</p>
<p>Given the ease of applying to non-binding EA, I don’t think it is at all surprising that applications are way up. The word is out about Chicago. On the other hand, I’d be very surprised if total applications rise by much. I bet we’re just seeing a shift from RD to EA applications.</p>
<p>For perspective, Chicago got 1,200 more EA apps this year than MIT got last year. MIT’s application numbers used to run far ahead of Chicago’s.</p>
<p>It’s probably true that some of this represents a shift from RD to EA apps. Total applications are NOT going to go up by over 50%. Last year, however, total applications DID increase significantly, notwithstanding that EA applications declined.</p>
<p>By the time they make the final EA decisions, the college should have a handle on how many RD apps they are likely to receive. If it really looks like there has been a shift to EA apps, I could see them deciding to admit somewhat more students than 1,200 EA. If, on the other hand, it looks like RD applications will be up, then they probably won’t increase the number of EA admits.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Not true. And yes, RD numbers will head up too.</p>
<p>And you can’t blame the economy because Chicago is as expensive, if not more, than most (and has a bad reputation, merited or not, for chintzy FinAid). Some factor seems to have reached critical mass.</p>
<p>scary statistics errrrrr</p>
<p>If you’ll look at a few predictions from this year and last, you’ll see that when a school receives an X% EA boost, they usually claim that they expect a total ~X/2% application boost. Although this isn’t always accurate, it seems that this is what they tend to predict. So at the moment, the office of admissions is probably expecting something of a 25-30% total increase in applications. This means that (once again depending on what they’re expecting for yield, and I’m totally clueless on this matter) the EA acceptance rate should be something like 22-25%. This really isn’t that much of a difference from the 30% of last year.</p>
<p>The EA numbers are really stunning. This year, Chicago had more EA applications than Stanford and Yale, along with every other big-name school minus Georgetown. This is indeed impressive, and shows the potency of the new admissions office. It seems that not enough people are giving credit where it is due - Nondorf. If you’ll look at his comment in the article, he says:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Note the way that he talks. In particular, I noted ‘school counselors’ when I read this quote. If you see the USNWR ranking of colleges by counselors, Chicago ranks very low. This is probably because it hasn’t relied on counselors as a way of communication between the university and the prospective applicant. Nondorf seems to understand that human relationships make application numbers grow in ways that mass mailings cannot. He has probably tried to assuage doubts about the reputation of the university as a place for poor financial aid, for example. (Indeed, I expect that this year, financial aid should get a boost. If you’ll look at Nondorf’s work at RPI, not only did he help boost applications, he also helped boost financial aid packages. This should have an effect on predicted yield.)</p>
<p>I don’t see why there would be such a dramatic shift from RD to EA, and I do think that this is more of a growth across the board. There’s no reason why the university could persuade so many students to apply EA opposed to last year when such shifts were not seen at other universities (who seem also to want to boost their EA numbers). The university has always been in a popular location, and its potential applicant numbers may be seen by the number of yearly applications to Northwestern (which is roughly twice the size of our own). Nondorf has just figured out a way how to get the message across.</p>
<p>Awww this is sad.
I want to go to Chicago!!! Ughhhhhh oh well. </p>
<p>Good luck everyone!</p>
<p>read this:</p>
<p>[Mathacle</a> Blog: Another Increase for Early Decision for Class of 2014](<a href=“http://mathacle.blogspot.com/2009/11/another-increase-for-early-decision-for.html]Mathacle”>Mathacle's Blog: Another Increase for Early Decision for Class of 2014)</p>
<p>EA/ED application numbers for the class of 2014: </p>
<p>Yale: down 5 %
Stanford: up 4 %
Dartmouth: up 3%
Duke: up 32% (rumor has it that Duke “signaled” that they welcome students with “bumps”, and a lot kids are buying Duke lottery tickets)</p>
<p>Don’t know about MIT…</p>
<p>Nondorf does deserve credit. A lot of credit. This is exactly what he wanted – more applicant casualties. He was embarrassed that only 75 out of 100 applicants were sent away crying, their dreams destroyed. He won’t rest until 92 out of 100 applicants are devastated, which would put UofC up there with HYPS. The school went on a campaign to increase applications so that they could have a much lower acceptance rate. USNWR says that’s important for rankings. Chicago wants to rise in the rankings, and they are going to do so at our expense. So, congratualtions, Chicago. Way to go. More of us will be depressed that ever before.</p>
<p>I wonder if the quality of this larger applicant pool is as good as it has been in the past. Chicago has always been self selective and a haven for quirky intellectuals. Do the new applicants fit this bill or are they just paying attention to USNWR? I sure hope those who care for the school will be noticed in the admissions process.</p>
<p>Do you guys think they’ll pay more attention to test scores and gpa’s this year for the sake of boosting college ranking?</p>
<p>Even if I don’t get in, I sincerely hope that the adcoms accept people who look like they want to go and will shine there and not those who are applying for “name-brand”. Anyway, guys we all really want this so best wishes to all of you! Keep your chins up! :)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>They should. I made a post about this a while back, but Nondorf is known for boosting yield. The best way to boost yield is to pay attention to the most sincere applicants.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>To be honest, I don’t think the university cares about its ranking as much as people are saying. A high ranking is nice, but more important than anything is institutional health. Penn has a high ranking, but it’s not nearly as healthy as an institution as MIT or Stanford, with which it is tied for the fourth spot. The university administrators aren’t stupid - a qualified student body is much better than having a slightly higher ranking. Other institutions know this as well - of course MIT or Stanford could have 99% of its students be in the top decile of their high school class like Penn, but they know that it wouldn’t do much for their institutional health, so they avoid it even though they know it means that they won’t be ranked as highly. Expect a similar attitude from Chicago. Chicago will try to find the most appropriate and qualified class that it can, but these don’t necessarily align with test scores and GPA, and the administration knows it. On the other hand, test scores and GPA are loosely tied to applicant quality, so you may see some moderate gains in the upcoming years.</p>
<p>My only fear is that it may be very easy to feign genuine interest. Do a little research, submit a creative essay you wrote for another school, crank out the application and turn your back on chicago while setting your hopes and dreams on Harvard. </p>
<p>No matter how much admission counselors claim their expertise in sifting out the truly interested applicants, I don’t buy it. They can only read into it so much…</p>