<p>After a large increase in EA applications for the Class of 2014, Chicago is now reporting a 42 percent increase. This will make many very happy, as well as reignite the debate about the value of accepting the Common Application and rising in the USNews rankings.</p>
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[quote]
The University of Chicago has received 42 percent more undergraduate applications for its 2010 fall freshman class. </p>
<p>That’s 19,306 applications, and the university says it will accept 3,700 students — the same number as last year. That means 19 percent of applicants will be accepted. Last year 13,564 students applied to the school and 27 percent were accepted. </p>
<p>University officials say they think there are a number of reasons for the increase, including outreach and having President Barack Obama as a former faculty member. </p>
<p>I’m excited because S1 got in EA, but honestly, how much higher can UChicago run up the USNWR ladder next year? Even if they can hold the yield, which is not a forgone conclusion, do they really have a shot at displacing Penn or Caltech next year? I doubt it…okay maybe Penn…</p>
<p>Everything is possible, especially since the admission percentage plays such a small role in the final tally at USNews. To put things in perspective, admission rate account for 1.5% of the total score while elements such as alumini giving account for 5%. However, the biggest and more questionable item remains the Peer Assessment with 25%. </p>
<p>As far as dethroning Penn, considering how it has always been a “well-connected” lovechild of USNews, this might represent a real tough proposal. ;)</p>
<p>PS The yield has ZERO impact on the USNews rankings … as it should. I still do not understand why anyone, except for enrollment managers and people interested in silly bragging rights, pay any attention to this metric.</p>
<p>Given the other thread on UoC’s essay prompts, it might be interesting to see how many of these new apps applied with the Common App and the CA prompt, i.e., did not write a UoC special essay…</p>
<p>The Chicago supplement still required a Chicago “special” essay. In fact, using the Common app made applying more difficult in that applicants could no longer re-tool their common app essay and make it fit a Chicago prompt (which was reasonably easy, given the design-your-own option).</p>
<p>Xiggi, on the issue of yield and selectivity, I posted this in another thread recently:</p>
<p>I have a suspicion that higher yield corresponds to higher absolute selectivity among similar top unis. </p>
<p>I’m not referring to 1% or 2% higher yield, but when the difference is in or close to the double digit range. There is a good correlation between yield and cross-admit ratio among the competing elite unis. Successful applicants to the top unis generally have more options, and if as a group they tend to choose a certain college over another than perhaps one can make a case that the college with that wins the cross-admit ratio is more selective in the absolute sense. If this theory is correct, then a college that wins cross-admit ratio (because of the stated correlation, tends to have higher yield), may have higher absolute selectivity even with higher admit rate. This phenomenon may be explained by a high self-selectivity of the applicant pool of the college.</p>
<p>For example, if both college A and college B have an admit rate of 10%, but college A wins the cross-admit ratio by 50%, then college A may be more selective than college B in the absolute sense, i.e., it is harder for a randomly chosen applicant to get into college A.</p>
<p>OK, assuming that Student Aandnobees is a typical CC student with 2100+ SAT, great EC, and a reasonable rank. Based on the advice he gets thrown at him by a bunch of well-meaning adults and friends, he decides to apply to five Ivies, Chicago, MIT, Stanford for his 8 reaches, and then adds a couple of matches and safeties, mainly for financial security and possible merit aid. </p>
<p>After finishing his applicationa to the five Ivies MIT, and Stanford, how many additional essays would he REALLY need to complete the Chicago applications? Can he still write his own prompt? </p>
<p>It’d be nice to hear from people who actually just did this.</p>
<p>There are tons of them in the Chicago forum; that gets discussed a lot.</p>
<p>People do write their own prompts, but I have to say that the ones who talk about it most do not sound like they have a clue what makes a good essay.</p>
<p>It is pretty common for people to like their Chicago essays so much that they adapt them for other colleges – although that seems like a risky strategy, too, because everyone knows what the Chicago prompts are. My daughter did that – she worked for weeks on a Chicago essay and a separate Common App essay, but the Common App essay was never half as good as the Chicago one, so in the end she trashed it and rewrote the Chicago essay a bit to divorce it from the prompt. Still, it was probably recognizable, and may have hurt her some places.</p>
<p>I’m having a tough time understanding this if we are talking about any given year, and not the effect of yield for a future year. Maybe I’m not seeing something. Assume two lotteries- one with a $1 prize, and one with a $1,000,000 dollar prize. For each lottery 1/10 entrants win, regardless of how many entrants there are. I don’t see how it matters for any given game whether or not everyone would choose the million dollar prize. (Of course I understand school admissions are not games of chance, I’m strictly using this for the “percents”)</p>
<p>Now in the long run, increased yield will have an effect on admit percent. As a uni’s yield goes up in any given year, they may be able able to reduce the absolute number of students they admit for the following year. Assuming the number of applicants remains the same or increases, their admit percent will go down. So increased yield in any given year may increase selectivity for a following year, to the point where schools may flip flop in the selctivity percent at some point.</p>
<p>Is this basically what you are saying, or am I being dense. (Feel free not to answer my last question :))</p>
<p>In the past, most students did not write their own prompt. It will be interesting to see if this continues. There is also an optional “favorite things” essay in addition to the Why Chicago? and extended essay that many write. That would bring the total to five essays/ short answers using the Common App (as I believe Xiggi pointe out on a different thread). Still takes work to apply to Chicago.</p>
<p>actually, my son, who is a freshman in U Chicago, did NOT write anything special for Chicago application. His class was the first one that used Common App for Chicago. He applied EA and he did “write your own prompt” essay with a clear goal of having that essay be recycled everywhere for later RD applications. I think he put minimum effort in “why chicago” essay: it was about the strength of their econ department. Nothing about intellectual this and that. </p>
<p>He applied to U Chicago for its strength in the economics department, and applied EA with an “what the heck” approach. He did so little research on the school that he did not even hear about “where fun comes to die” or “life of the mind” slogans until after he was accepted through the EA cycle. </p>
<p>His common app essay had nothing about the “intellectual pursuit”. It talked about how he intends to be one of the world’s greatest financiers. When we learned about the Chicago tradition after he was accepted EA, I joked that he was accepted as part of Chicago’s affirmative action program for the formerly discriminated and persecuted (the dreaded unintellectual pre-professional type )</p>
<p>Now that he is there, and seeing just how much he LOVES, LOVES, and LOVES the intellectual vibes, it is actually very embarrassing to admit how much of a dumb luck it was that he actually ended up there. The other day, he called and said, the best thing about Chicago - the aspect he loves most - is the deeply intellectual one on one discussion he is having with his professors well into the night or over dinner. He calls these discussions “talk to professors. XXX courses” and say, these are the best courses. He say, he has fun with his friends (hummmmm whatever that means), and he has all the intellectual pursuit discussions with his favorite faculty members. </p>
<p>I am all for Chicago gaining momentum with increased application numbers, etc. I hope they keep their difference (intellectual vibes and all that) alive.</p>
<p>xiggi, sure he can write his own prompt - that takes care of the big supplement essay. Of course you have to make sure it doesn’t overlap with the essays on your Common Application. If you are lucky you might have an essay from another college you can use - my son sort of did this, but adapted his Georgetown essay to make it fit the Chicago “How did you get caught” prompt. Essentially he was asking “Did you catch me recycling an essay?” Then since he had, fairly obviously, recycled an essay he felt obliged to do the optional essay to “show he wasn’t a lazy bum”. In addition he also had to write a reasonable “Why Chicago” essay. He had five full sized essays for Chicago.</p>
<p>From what I can remember from past years MIT’s “What do you do for fun” essay and Stanford’s “Tell your roommate something about yourself” essay, might be reusable for Chicago’s main essay, though I don’t think either would typically produce results that would be a Chicago style essay.</p>
<p>I agree with JHS, that a lot of kids who have posted their optional essays (or described them), I think are on the wrong track.</p>
<p>hyeonjeelee, wasn’t your son’s essay about how he was the happiest kid in his high school because he pursued what he enjoyed and didn’t just take the regularly trodden path? A previous description of what he wrote made his essay sound both light hearted and like someone who had pursued an unusual interest (for that age) in great depth.</p>
<p>bovertine, the key is the “absolute selectivity”. If a college’s applicant pool is self-selective, then its admit rate is deceptive when applied to the general college applicant pool, i.e., an applicant chosen at random from the general college applicant pool will have less than the published admit rate chance of getting admitted. In my example of college A and college B, one explanation is that college A is more self-selective than college B.</p>
<p>I agree with your second paragraph, and you are not being dense ;).</p>
<p>Okay, I see that. Of course, I think the top 10 or 20 schools (USNWR-wise) seem to have very similar applicant pools (at least from what I see on my rare visits to the “Chances” thread). With rare exception, I sure wouldn’t be able to distinguish between most of them. And most of them apply to almost all of those top schools.</p>
<p>wow, you have elephantine memory!!! yes, in his main essay, he did start the essay with that line, and ended with a conclusion that he wants to invent the most innovative financial tool to reshape economics landscape. He even mentioned that Warren Buffet his his role model. Not exactly the career choice of the typical “life of the mind” Chicago acolytes. </p>
<p>I am just so enormously grateful that with zero planning, he somehow ended up where he fits best. The other day he called and said he is now glad that he was rejected by Harvard et. al. He said, based on what he heard and read, he did not think he, as a freshman, would be having one on one late night and dinner discussions with world renowned faculties at Harvard. This is not a sour grape. Harvard et. al are in general known to be more prestigious and would give him a lot better networking and connections in the world of high finance, but he is willing to work to compensate for Chicago’s weakness in this aspect, and in balance values what Chicago has to offer much more. So, it all worked out well.</p>
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