I’m finding much of this conversation mystifying. I thought the originally information was interesting- both paragraphs of it. I know little of Chicago beyond its persistent and marketing targeted to my daughter. And Harvard, it seems to me, can reasonably be considered a very general gold standard for desirability. Why would it not serve as a comparator of interest here?
What’s mystifying to me is that anyone outside the UChicago admissions office would care that their yield is a notch above Harvard’s.
How does that really matter, and what new information does it provide you about Chicago other than that they manage their enrollment more tightly?
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And given how yield can be propped up by taking a large portion of the class in the ED round, if we’re being fair, we should compare schools based on Regular Decision yield – when most of the admits have a choice of two or more schools. In the ED round, there is no choice unless the school is simply unaffordable.
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Well, I’m not defending a thesis here, so I’m unclear on why I need to provide rationale for finding a piece of information interesting 
I do, though, as more of a hypothesis-generating rather than hypothesis-testing exercise. I’d wondered how well Chicago’s marketing worked; I would not necessarily have guessed that their yield would be so high after experiencing their denominator- inflating efforts.
As a newb in these parts, I guess the reaction I’m finding surprising is the negativity around bringing up such stats.
It’s because the Chicago crowd consistently and repeatedly bring up such stats.
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On a forum meant for sharing information?!
I’m shocked, shocked I say.
The yield statistic here is misleading at best - they do inflate the denominator for purposes of getting applicants in the door, but then they undo that inflation off the books before calculating yield. So yield ends up meaning very little.
Let’s say, hypothetically, there are 1000 applicants in the non-binding EA pool that the university identifies as high-priority targets, and each receives a letter intimating that acceptance is likely if they switch to ED2, but if not, well, who knows whether there will still be room (or something like that, the language doesn’t matter here). Say that 50 of the 1000 accept, switch to ED2, and are offered admission. For purposes of the official yield stat, 50 offers were made and 50 were accepted - 100% yield from the offers made to this subgroup. But a reasonable person would note that actually only 5% of the original “soft offers” were accepted, so proclaiming 100% yield from that subgroup is problematic. By routinely making “offers” that don’t have to be counted as real offers of admission statistically, the published yield number can be as high as you want. In theory, this approach is headed toward overall 100% yield - wherein every single enrolled student pledged to attend before receiving an official offer.
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Thanks for walking me through that with a very useful analysis.
I’m shocked that the posters in this forum who usually come out swinging at any slight criticism of UChicago haven’t showed up…
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I can’t tell you how much marketing material we got for UChicago. Multiple pieces a week. And it was slick, expensive, and appealing. It certainly tried to highlight how “fun” UC is. You would never know about the “where fun goes to die” reputation. The thing is, my kid doesn’t have the stats to get in there. Neither does the kid down the block that got the same material. They both attend private schools. One way to increase the number of applicants and decrease your acceptance rate is to encourage as many people as possible to apply.
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Well, you got a lot from the “other team”.
The passion with which people defend U Chicago is only matched by the passion with which people trash U Chicago.
Though, to be fair, most of the people that have posted here until now are posting stuff along the lines of “we know that you’re great, enough already”. I expect that the “how DARE Chicago compare itself to Harvard!” people have yet to appear.
I’m waiting 
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Agree that UChicago sent perhaps the highest volume of unsolicited mail of any school. A constant barrage. That alone has a slightly off-putting effect, like begging for attention.
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For some reason my older D saw a lot more from U Chicago than my younger one (think she may have received one past card). Central College in Iowa has been the run away leader for mailers in the case of my younger one (never been to Iowa). Unsure if they are just blitzing everyone or targeting kids from our area.
To be honest, I haven’t really seen anyone trash UChicago. It’s definitely a great school (its attempts to lower its acceptance rate notwithstanding). I only find the constant need for acceptance and approval by its alumni on this forum amusing (and puzzling).
Maybe an (unwarranted) feeling of being 2nd tier to the Ivies exists on campus? I don’t know.
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An 85% yield is still noteworthy because they attract a very strong ED pool with a very low acceptance rate. Applying RD to schools that enroll the majority of students from ED is pretty silly and uninformed.
Tulane, Lehigh, Chicago?
I disagree. There are many reasons someone who is neither silly nor uninformed might choose to/need to apply RD to such schools. Of course, they should understand that their chances of acceptance are lower. But if an ED application can’t work from them, and they are interested in the school, then it is better to give RD a shot.
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Chicago (and Tulane, mentioned above) also have an EA round in addition to two ED rounds…so applying RD to schools with this setup is problematic. They accept very few RD applicants, and only those who meet the remaining unfilled institutional priorities will be accepted. Tulane only accepted about 106 students last year in RD…that’s it. We don’t know how many Chicago admitted in that round, because they are not transparent with this data (nor are many schools).
True. I forgot that some top schools, like Chicago, don’t have an EA round in addition to ED. It can be just ED1/ED2 and RD. If one didn’t apply to all appropriate schools in an EA round before they would hear ED decisions, throwing out RD apps won’t accomplish much unless it’s well down the selectivity spectrum.
At schools like Chicago, Northeastern, Tulane and others that offer both ED 1 and 2 as well as EA, how many EA deferred applicants that don’t switch to ED2 are accepted? Anecdotally, seems like very few - rendering EA as not really an option for unhooked applicants.
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Some EA students are definitely accepted but we don’t know how many at Chicago…EA is a better option than RD, nearly always at these schools. CWRU and U Miami also in this group of schools with ED I and II, EA, and RD.