If the college simply does a courtesy email to the couple dozen students who are X far along in the app process but who didn’t submit a final app, that seems a reasonable way to ensure a technical glitch or emergency didn’t prevent a legit app. NBD. If the college is actually extending the deadline in general with no explanation or qualification, that doesn’t make sense.
@ccdad99 - it looks to me like in 2015 a few schools (including UChicago) extended the deadline for a few days based on where New Year’s Day fell in the calendar. In Yale’s case, it looks like they extended it from Thursday to Monday, given the intervening weekend and the fact that no one was likely to be in the admissions office on Friday, January 2. If this has happened again in the last four years, it would be interesting to know.
Call me gullible, but I really don’t think admissions offices care nearly as much about things like the difference between 38k applicants and 40k applicants. I think it is an odd piece of journalism to say based on a n=1 sample, especially when all the public facing material doesn’t say “We’ve extended the deadline.”
Perhaps they don’t want to go through the hassle of having angry parents and students calling saying “it’s not fair I thought I hit send.” So, they reached out to those that might fit that scenario? I know when both my kids went through this process they had schools reach out to them when they mid- or near final submit on the application decided not to pursue.
And @Nrtlax33, is it really “unsolicited” if an application was started or in process? Stop looking for the black helicopters, you’ll enjoy life so much more and not have any mental health issues, like the obvious inferiority complex and obsessive compulsive disorder you harbor towards all things UChicago.
@DeepBlue86 I don’t know and I was not following. Your explanation that gives the benefit of the doubt to Yale case in 2015 is perfectly reasonable. What I don’t find perfectly reasonable is you draw a completely different conclusion almost immediately when WSJ article reports something about UChicago deadline extension in a manner almost identical to the one reported by the cc poster about Yale. I am not going to split hairs, but in both cases you get an extra weekend to finish an already started application. Neither you nor I have any means of verifying any of these alternative explanations. It is all speculative. However, I have to give you credit for at least considering Chicago on par with top schools academically, a position not shared by every Chicago doubter posting here.
It’s starting to look like a non-story - not a general extension of deadline at all but merely a chance for those whose applications were incomplete by the stated date to go ahead and complete them by an extended stated date. If the Admissions Office contacted one or more kids who may or may not have known that their applications were incomplete, are we being asked to see in this a malevolent juicing of the numbers? It seems so.
This is a Nothingburger. UChicago has been fuzzy for at least a few years now. For Class of '21 it was “obviously” because they needed to trol* for more apps, given the dip that year. Now it’s “obviously” because they need to trol* for more apps. so they look even more popular than we were thinking. How’s about they are just fuzzy as a matter of policy?
AO’s know exactly what the quality of apps look like after the deadline - they can afford to be magnanimous if it buys them additional PR points. Chalk it up to the same trend as huge deferrals and waitlists. Schools don’t want to look mean or harsh. Nothing more.
My guess is the extension, if there is one, is mainly intended for those affected or displaced by acts of nature i.e CA fires. FWIW, my S started an app to G’Town last year; once the deadline had passed, he received an email informing him that they were really looking forward to receiving his app and, although the submission dreadline had passed, he could submit it by X date ( in February)
^^Bingo. Pretty much every top school extended the early deadline due to hurricanes and other acts of nature.
MODERATOR’S NOTE:
Indeed they are, and I have.
If you google elite colleges extend deadlines you’ll find a article written about this every year for the last decade.
Nothing new here.
Looks like Mr. Nondorf may have finally bested Yale in the number of applications this year if the 40k number is accurate. Yale received 36,829 apps this year which is itself a record for Yale and a 4.3% from last year. Maybe he was deliberately gunning for that?
Still skeptical about that 40K number. Could be that they were referring to the number of applications in each pool. Obviously RD and EDII will have EA/ED-deferreds in there.
Could the 40k be a combo of the undergrad, business and med schools?
Nope they don’t combine them at all.
I am also skeptical about the 40K number. As for surpassing Yale in the number of applicants, there are several other schools reporting a higher number of applicants than Yale.
At the risk of beating a dead, dead horse… who cares what number of applicants Yale gets? Really, truly is not - or should not be - a factor for UChicago. UChicago is a different place and it’s a waste of effort and focus to do the whole middle school comparison thing. The questions should be along the line of - is UChicago getting the correct applicant pool for their institutional needs? Whether that’s 2500 apps from perfect fit, extremely qualified candidates who are all admitted or 250,000 apps because most remotely qualified seniors in the US and abroad want to throw their hat in the ring, as long as UChicago is getting the nuggets it seeks the total number of apps (especially as compared to what other colleges are receiving) is not important.
^ Here is a slightly different viewpoint on Yale. My son applied there SCEA (deferred) and UChicago EDII as strong second choice (and now first choice) because he viewed Yale as similar but with the advantage of having the YSO (which he would have loved to join - and if he’s waitlisted at UChicago I suppose he might still be able to 
). Both schools are tops in his mind and similar enough. Harvard - different story. Just one kid’s perspective but I think @JHS would be happy to hear this
He also toyed with the thought of applying to Columbia but ultimately didn’t. He has too many top-heavy schools in his portfolio as is.
I’m not knocking Yale - it is a fantastic, wonderful, top notch college - and I hope your son gets into whatever his ultimate first choice is. My point isn’t that Yale is good or bad or better or worse, it’s that for UChicago’s purposes the number of apps Yale gets compared to the number of apps UChicago gets is just not relevant. One could have a more targeted marketing campaign, one could attract more of a certain qualified or unqualified applicant, one could be benefiting or suffering from surrounding conditions or fads, etc.
Comparing the number of apps that one college gets to what it considers to be alternatives and peers should be a brief glance to make sure nothing is too far off the rails or that the overall issues are known and understood. It’s a suboptimal metric far down the list of important tools. Not worth wasting much time on other than a quick occasional glance.
@JBStillFlying My wife and I deeply appreciated how closely our children’s academic experience at Chicago resembled (to the extent it didn’t surpass) our own academic experience at Yale, which we loved. But, yes, if you are looking for things Yale does a little better than Chicago, undergraduate arts of all sorts would be one of them. Chicago has made huge strides in that area, though – especially in theater (which is really popular there, and which derives energy from the truly vibrant theater scene in the city of Chicago) and music.
Our older child, living in a hip Brooklyn neighborhood and working very much in Establishment Manhattan has run into plenty of alumni of brand-name universities over the past decade. As a group she thinks it is Yale alumni who most resemble her friends from Chicago (many of whom are still her friends in New York), although obviously every college has a wide range of alumni who went there.
“My point isn’t that Yale is good or bad or better or worse, it’s that for UChicago’s purposes the number of apps Yale gets compared to the number of apps UChicago gets is just not relevant.”
- If UChicago really felt that it wasn't relevant, they wouldn't leak out the info.