U Chicago potentially will be the #1 most difficult school for admission this year

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Chicago ✅
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“If UChicago really felt that it wasn’t relevant, they wouldn’t leak out the info.”

Agree. I think this is an area where the administration is more focused on bragging rights and other silly stuff than the main goals. Along those lines, I think it’s unhelpful that so many of the recent discussions from admin have involved comparisons to Harvard and Stanford.

Does that mean colleges should never look around to see what their peers are doing to see if they or the peers are completely off track? No. But the comparisons should be a simple sanity check done every so often, not a huge focus.

Part of why UChicago has had its reputation for excellence even in the ‘dark days’ when the undergrad experience was pretty rough is because it provided a top notch education and wasn’t overly concerned with what the others were doing. Some of its moves - such as being one of the first elites to admit minorities and to go the opposite direction from the Harvard concern over ‘too many Jews’ - were not just the right thing to do but part of why it has been successful. Now that the college is focusing on providing not just top notch education but also a top notch undergrad experience, I don’t see how it is helpful to turn into a wannabe of other colleges, no matter how great those other colleges are. Let the UChicago product speak for itself. Take a look to make sure nothing is too far off the mark and turning away top applicants, but beyond that - stop worrying so much about the minutia of what others are doing and focus on internal excellence…

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@JHS at #158: my son sees it the same way you do. He views YSO as the best of the non-conservatory college orchestras, but we’ve had some conversations about this with him - should he get into another decent school, I suspect he’ll find that the caliber of talent is satisfactory and the level of necessary commitment on par with what he’s used to now in his current (collegiate-level) ensemble. He was disappointed that UChicago wouldn’t be sending any of his music supplements to the department of music for evaluation; four of his schools actually DO such. However, once you factor in the academics (which really are a first priority) UChicago beats out all remaining schools. That explains the EDII.

Couldn’t agree more about theater there. It’s really taken off. D has a bunch of theater-kids for friends so maybe a good representation of them reside in BJ.

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@Milee30 Agree, but this is an out-of-control system, so we are where we are - to the detriment of the poor high school students and parents who are trying to navigate it. All this calculating percentages and ranking obsession is sad, IMO.

@JBStillFlying I’m not suggesting that the UChicago Symphony Orchestra is of the same caliber as the YSO, however my daughter has been participating and enjoying it. They do 2 concerts per quarter including a super fun Halloween extravaganza with costumes and dancers. Your son should check it out, if he hasn’t already. I’m headed to Chicago (hopefully) this weekend for their Saturday concert - if Chicago airports can get caught up on all the cancelled flights from yesterday and today!

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@milee30 - I see it a bit differently - that UChicago isn’t trying to turn into a wannabee so much as to signal that its style is as sought-after as other elites with a different style. Nondorf is a Yalie and I wouldn’t be surprised to know that he is targeting that school’s popularity as something that UChicago is capable of achieving. He mentioned Yale at D’s local admitted event (in part jokingly). Not sure UChicago is looking to compare itself to NEU’s numbers (as one former poster adamantly insisted); however, like any aggressive competitor, it’s targeting SOMETHING. You need to know the competition in order to compete successfully. Nondorf wouldn’t still have his job if application numbers were headed in the other direction, regardless of whether the core applicants were as committed (they would be).

Everything about their shifting policies - changing admission plans, going test-optional, aggressive outreach and merit to first gen etc. - suggests that they believe there are a lot more potential admits out there - of all stripes and situations - than even just a few years ago. So application numbers DO matter. The higher the number, the higher the quality of the class. It’s like the National Merit competition: states with a huge number of SAT takers, be it mandated or just habitual, tend to have a higher semifinalist cut score than states like MN where the ACT is more popular, simply because when you raise the volume of PSAT-takers, you increase the values at the top of the distribution as well as the bottom. Even if the mean declines, the top can easily increase. That’s kind of what UChicago is trying to achieve with volume of applications.

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I understand your points, just don’t necessarily agree that number of apps is the best way to measure success nor what should be targeted. There are all sorts of ways to increase apps without increasing the quality of the applicant pool and maybe that’s what we’re seeing with some of the recent initiatives. We won’t really know until we see the results years down the road - composition of admitted student class, retention, success of the class.

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In all of this massive volume - they are looking for nuggets. If the AO’s can still easily find them and the quality is higher, then it’s worth it to increase the number of apps. till that’s no longer the case.

Agree that it’s a long-term strategy. Nondorf also oversees career advancement and placement which seems to me the best way to keep him properly motivated to continue the search for worthy matriculants. But after that - it’s a matter of what they are going to be doing for the school as alums and benefactors.

“@JBStillFlying I’m not suggesting that the UChicago Symphony Orchestra is of the same caliber as the YSO, however my daughter has been participating and enjoying it. They do 2 concerts per quarter including a super fun Halloween extravaganza with costumes and dancers. Your son should check it out, if he hasn’t already. I’m headed to Chicago (hopefully) this weekend for their Saturday concert - if Chicago airports can get caught up on all the cancelled flights from yesterday and today!”

@browniesundae, he’s checked it out including the repertoire (which overlaps the repertoire of his current symphony so a very good sign :slight_smile: ). I personally think that Halloween gig has gotta be a hoot. Two concerts per quarter suggests a serious level of commitment. Not sure he’d find an easy-to-get-to instructor for his instrument but we’ll have to see about that. Uchicago doesn’t offer a performance degree like its neighbor(s) up the road so no one in his instrument will be residing on campus; however, Chicago itself is a wonderful city for finding a great instructor, and the MOST famous of artists happens to play for CSO (not that he could take on my son as a student but a few lessons a year he can probably do. Musicians take cash and check). I think my son will have to see about instruction but this would be an issue at any of his options, since he’s not pursuing a B.Mus.

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Re: the 40,000 number, I don’t think we should take it as an accurate public release, or that it was intended as such. If you look at the context in which it was said, Rubenstein was going through the recent accomplishments of the institutions of each of the panelists. When it came to Zimmer, he asked how the U of C went from being relatively unknown to receiving “40,000 applications or something like that” – clearly not focused on how many applications exactly but just the fact that it’s now in the tens of thousands. And Zimmer too was focused on responding to that, coming up with an explanation of how things have changed. He probably wasn’t even paying attention to the exact number – and it would have been strange for him to say “In fact, it’s actually 35,000, not 40”. So I don’t think any of us should be surprised or disappointed if the published numbers are less than 40,000. Though I’m sure the university will eventually get there within the next few years!

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Re Nondorf and Yale: If Nondorf has a thing about Yale, it’s not just that he was a Yalie, or even the quintessential Yalie that he was. It’s that he was a (young) Associate Dean of Admissions at Yale when the then-dean retired. Nondorf was passed over in favor of Jeff Brenzel, an older man with no admissions experience but with more traditional academic credentials. Nondorf left almost immediately to become Dean of Admissions at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where he was an immediate success, and Chicago hired him three or four years later. I would think he should have gotten it out of his system by now, but I’m sure part of what was driving him when he first came to Chicago was a desire to show Yale what a mistake it had made. (I’m also sure Yale got the message.)

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^^ That’s interesting.

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@JHS - could be. Of course my impression of the guy is that he’s just crazy-good at his job and crazy-obsessed with it. In that sense, he’s quintessentially UChicago :slight_smile:

Edit to add - sometimes it’s just best to leave where your talent isn’t appreciated and gravitate to where it is. Many UChicago profs could tell a story or two there.

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This is worth repeating,

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@JHS Well I’m not sure how long that Yale snobbery will last given Yale is probably in the weakest position of HYPSM. I’m not sure there is really an alure to the whole “snobbery while stuck in New Haven” vibe any more – especially for a school that often times isn’t even grouped in with Harvard, Stanford, Princeton or MIT.

The pilgrimmage of Silicon Valley to NYC, which includes not only Amazon HQ2, but Google HQ2, Uber HQ2, Lyft HQ2 and IBM’s existing presence (IBM is #1 in Blockchain) will be huge for NYC area schools. I’m astounded that someone like JHS … who claims to know a lot about the mechanics of higher education … does not realize that Wharton’s success is due largely in part to its proximity to New York (as is that of Columbia, Princeton, Cornell Tech which offers an MBA). The reason IB, MBB, HFs can recruit so vigorously at Wharton is because it’s so dang close or alternatively Wharton/Penn students can hop on an Amtrak to Penn Station.

Universities and their endowments are peanuts compared to the influence of regional economies and industries. Stanford wasn’t a school that was seen completely on par with a Harvard or a Princeton until the tech boom of the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s. It was at this point that the fruits of their engineering labor took full bloom. The reason Harvard, MIT and Stanford are often considered the best among H(Y)PSM is because of … location, location, location! Cambridge and Silicon Valley – when it comes to technical talent – are the places to be. With that being said – New York, which is most definitely on a path to becoming not only Silicon Valley 2.0 but possibly in the coming decades, THE tech capital of the United States means more engineering talent for all NYC area schools including those directly outside of NYC (Princeton, Penn). So, no Columbia and Cornell Tech (which JHS suprisingly mistook for Cornell main campus) will not have all the fun.

Just as an example, in the months following Google’s announcement regarding its 2nd headquarters in New York (and 3rd office location in NYC alone), it was announced that Google would place its AI lab in Princeton with Princeton Computer Science essentially managing it. But that’s not all! Princeton and Microsoft just annouced a joint center for bioinformatics and bioprosthetic technologies. Columbia similarly has new partnerships with Amazon and IBM in Blockchain. Cornell Tech is well positioned to excel as well given it’s literally located across the river from Amazon HQ2 and the Dean of the school is on the board of Amazon.

@BrianBoiler I’m sorry to let you down, but Princeton, Columbia and Cornell CS/Engineering are among the best in the nation. Columbia’s engineering school may be ranked 1st in the Ivy League (11th in the country), but Princeton and Cornell are considered among the very best engineering and computer science programs in the nation (I would know given I studied CS and ELE) well on par with Berkeley, CMU, UIC.

As for Yale … 2 hours from New York - 2 hours from Cambridge … not sure whether that influx of tech talent is going to see the school as a serious option. UChicago is in a somewhat similar boat though it doesn’t have the name recognition of a Yale. Millennials are leaving Chicago in droves because there simply aren’t options in Chicago comparable to other regional economies.

The schools with the biggest upside for the future in my opinion are Princeton and Columbia while Harvard, Stanford, MIT continue to their dominance as THE great american universities. Elite schools with the greatest downside? UChicago, Northwestern, Rice, Brown, elite LACs, and yup you heard it here first folks – YALE. Boola Boohoo

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Reading post #171 creates the illusion of having stepped through the looking-glass and entered a very strange world. Great universities no longer have any substance or worth outside their engineering departments, and these are reduced to only a couple of fields, and those fields only fluorish in proximity to two cities. As for anything else of human accomplishment, learning, culture and thought, any consideration of all the other studies that great universities have fostered - missing from the analysis. I would call this satire, except that there appears to be no satirical intent.

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171: Lol. The rest of the universities should just shut down. The futility of running a University that is not on either coasts is so obvious, and while we are at it, can we just shut down all those useless humanities, social sciences, arts and other departments. They are such a drain on human existence and progress. And all that basic science research in Math, physics and chemistry that actually fueled most of the advances in CS, electronics, and Engineering: what a total waste of time.

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Never heard anyone say Yale isn’t on par with any college. I mean the fact that it is sought after “despite” its New Haven location speaks volumes. I mean, even the main character of Gilmore Girls went to Yale. lol

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171: Wrong in so many ways. First you conflate the Internet companies with all of Silicon Valley. There are many hardware companies (chips, telecom etc) who are far more key to Silicon Valley the the internet companies (that can set up shop anywhere)- and they aren't moving to NYC. As to moving to NYC in general, if you talking about talent availability, have you thought of Bangalore or Beijing? setting up a few outposts in NYC does not constitute a mass migration. You also conflate CS and Engineering- two separate disciplines. You are welcome to your opinion as to the top engineering schools, but having worked in engineering for 30 years for the two largest recruiters of engineering talent I can tell you your opinion is ..interesting.

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Again, no. NYC is not ever going to be close to the Bay Area when it comes to tech. Ecommerce and mobile commerce companies having mostly sales and customer service HQs in NYC does not change a thing.

IF ecommerce were to define tech, then Los Angeles would be the king.

And while Cornell Engineering is the best in the Ivies, it is far from top 10 in the USA.

I understand your wish for this to be true, but that will likely never be the case.

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To counter the doom and gloom, what are some positive things we can expect about UChicago in the next couple of years?

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The really high SATs are nothing new, my class ('18) had a 1510 average, which was supposedly second in the country after Caltech. I’m pretty sure those numbers from New Trier and Harvard-Westlake have dropped, at one point those were two of Chicago’s top feeders.

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Re: Positive things to expect from Chicago, the hiring spree in CS will hopefully pay dividends and help to rectify the College’s biggest blind spot. The university’s prestige will also continue to strengthen. The new Harris building (formerly New Grad) is phenomenal. Hyde Park is getting noticeably nicer every year, and so is the northern part of Woodlawn. The Obama library is coming in the foreseeable future. The Law School is now only a point off Harvard on the US News rankings (though I imagine they would change the formula rather than allow Harvard to drop to 4). Chicago Booth Scholars will likely follow the same path Chicago Law Scholars did and turn into a mega-money scholarship that locks up the top few undergrads in every class that want MBAs - I assume the naming was intentional and Chicago Law Scholars also didn’t start out with money attached.