University of Chicago yield was 85% for students offered admission; Maroon admit rate was 5.4% overall.
By comparison, Harvard University yield was 83%, which was down from 85%; Crimson admit rate was 3.1%.
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No doubt boosted by deferring most EA applicants and pushing them to ED2, and rejecting those who don’t convert.
But general question: why do the Chicago folks always push ratings, yield and other such stories about the school every time something pops up in the news?
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If anyone has leaked info or estimates of ED rates for UChicago class of 2026, I’d love to see that posted here too, or a reference to another thread.
I don’t get it – they don’t need to thump their chests. Those of us who pay attention to these things know the immense quality of UChicago. The bragging is unnecessary.
There’s an old saying which is apropos: “Act like you’ve been there before.”
And, frankly, small differences in year-to-year selectivity at a school of this quality don’t really mean much.
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Because the school is a notorious gamer of the USNWR rankings and has been pushing this stuff for years now.
Exactly.
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Indeed, excessive boosterism can give a negative impression of the school, or at least those associated with it. Chicago is not the only school where that has happened on these forums.
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I don’t know . . . this characteristic is so commonplace among UChicago boosters around here, one has to wonder . . . for what self-perceived inadequacies are they trying to overcompensate?
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This says Class of 2026. Do you have numbers for 2027?
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Class of 2027 hasn’t been admitted yet, that’s this coming year’s 2023 grads who are applying now.
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Right?
If they feel like they aren’t seen as an elite school, or Ivy-quality… they need not worry.
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Well, it’s amazing that many were willing to convert from EA deferral to ED. They were either well off enough to full pay or trusted that the aid package would be strong. And these students clearly wanted to be there.
U of C isn’t getting the tippy top kids from our rigorous public HS but they are very very good. Build a class with people that want to be there. Seems similar to what Tulane is doing further down the ranking list.
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Here’s the link to Class of 2026 profile, if any one wants more detail:
Yield is primarily a function of 3 things – selectivity of the college; use of early admission policies; and for lack of a word, uniqueness of the college.
Students generally don’t apply to notably less selective colleges as a backup in case the more selective college rejects them. For example, a student who prefers UIUC to Chicago probably wouldn’t apply to Chicago as a backup in cases UIUC rejects them, so they don’t impact Chicago’s yield. However, a student who prefers Chicago to UIUC is far more likely to apply to UIUC as a backup, so they do impact Chicago’s yield.
Another key factor is preferably admitting students who are likely to attend, particularly with how large a portion of the class is admitted by a restrictive early policy, such as ED or REA/SCEA. If you admit 99% of the class ED and 1% of the class RD, you are obviously going to have a high yield, near 100%. Some selective colleges admit the majority of their class in their early round, which has a strong impact on yield.
By “uniqueness”, I mean colleges for which students do not see other alternatives, as an adequate substitute. For example, BYU and USAFA often have >80% yields. There isn’t a good alternative for either college.
I expect Chicago’s higher yield depends on all 3 of these factors, particularly the first 2.
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Because there is a long history of The Ivies trying to exclude Those University of Chicago Upstarts from the ranks of The Very Most Prestigious Colleges.
Ivy Believers and Fans: “How dare those Flyover Country Rubes and their newly established ‘University’ claim to be on par with the Most Elite and Venerable Institutes of Higher Education which are where God intended, on the East Coast. It’s bad enough that we have to treat those Stanford upstarts as equals, but they are at least on a coast, among the Bastions of The Elite of the San Francisco area. But the idea that the Country Bumpkins of the Midwest could produce a Institution of the Very Highest Education that could compare to the True Academic Aristocracy is laughable”.
Chicago: “But we ARE just as good as you!! Look at our Very Low Acceptance Rates!!! Look at our Very High Yield, Look at our Very High Wealth and our Famous Alumni!!! We also have Free Speech!!! Our walls have just as much Ivy on them!!!”.
This “discussion” has likely been going on for at least a decade, definitely from before I joined CC. It is a bit incomprehensible to those who do not belong to one of those groups, especially since threads generally start in the middle of the discussion.
PS. I think that Chicago is an amazing college, and I agree that they do not need to wave their acceptance rates around to prove anything. I also think that the attitudes of Ivy believers, that Chicago Is Not Worthy are ridiculous. But that’s just me.
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Well, from experience, Northwestern (and surely Chicago) is every bit as challenging to gain admission as all but possibly HYP and MIT is a wholly different animal, a ferocious one. 
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So - 17% of Harvard students likely were offered the opportunity to attend an at least equally-reputed university, but only 15% of UChicago students?
Sounds like those numbers favor the quality of Harvard applicants. 
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17% of Harvard’s accepted students were also offered admission to Chicago.
Seriously, which colleges have the most application overlap with Chicago? Northwestern? Columbia? Yale, Penn, Harvard?
I regard the first paragraph of the original post as informational and in accord with the topic title. It’s not clear to me why some people click on topics of this type and then feel free, directly or indirectly, to criticize the original poster, who apparently provided accurate information for those who may be interested in it. However, regarding the second paragraph of the original post, it’s not clear why Harvard should be chosen as a basis of comparison for UChicago.
Well, that second paragraph is precisely the driver behind this whole thread of comments. There is a persistent theme among UChicago supporters to constantly tout rankings and showcase the school as being better than the Ivies. It’s a strange phenomenon that I don’t understand given that Chicago is known to be a great school. Stanford is an excellent example of a school that’s considered by most to be on par with the old Ivies, yet I’ve not encountered a single person pushing rankings. Not one. Everyone knows Stanford is amazing and they don’t need to keep telling people - unlike Chicago.
So, if OP had only posted the first paragraph I doubt this sequence of posts would have followed.
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Inferiority complex?
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