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<p>Good clarifying example. Yes, these tech schools (MIT, CIT, CMU, HArvey Mudd) probably have significantly different applicant pools.</p>
<p>I think I saw Caltech has an admit percent of around 17%. As low as that is, I think it is probably actually even harder to get into Caltech than that would indicate.</p>
<p>PCP,</p>
<p>yes, this is the most amazing part also to me, and wholly unanticipated. Even in chicago, not every student wants or pursues it, but the fact that it can be done and the opportunity is there is truly amazing to me. My son said: the other day, I was having dinner with with XXX (the faculty he just loves) and his wife in the dining hall, and he and I were deep in a conversation over history and what not, and his wife interjected and said to her husband “your face is beaming!”. </p>
<p>Ahhhhhh, I wish I could go back to be 18 and study at a place like that!!!</p>
<p>^While reading your post above, for a moment, I was 18 again…then I came back :(.</p>
<p>hyeonjlee, no elephantine memory - your son was memorable. Your son sounded charming and smart - and gave me hope for my sons’ application to Chicago - which as it happens panned out. :)</p>
<p>To be fair to Harvard - I did have dinner with faculty from Harvard from time to time and probably could have had meals more often. I remember freshman year arguing about The French Lieutenant’s woman with Sam Beer who was well known for poltical philosophy. I had meals as part of the French table regularly with a faculty member. The master of our house who was a law school prof ate regularly with the students, and professors in my department periodically would have a class over for dinner. Robert Lowell used to eat in our house dining hall. I was pretty shy and didn’t always take advantage of the opportunities.</p>
<p>An interesting quote from the Chicago Maroon:
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<p>Looks like they are sensitive to not diluting (too much at least) the College’s distinctiveness.</p>
<p>I think one of the morals of the Story of Hyeonjlee’s Son is that counter-programming can be a good strategy. Can you imagine how tired the Chicago admissions staff must get reading paean after paean to “the life of the mind”? If a smart kid comes along and says, “Not me! I’m just here for the prestige and to get rich!”, that really breaks through the clutter. (Hyeonjlee’s son may have been even luckier than she thinks! He probably got all sorts of credit for having the balls to be iconoclastic – as opposed to being merely clueless about Chicago’s vaunted identity. Plus, it turns out he wasn’t even telling the truth about himself. Given the chance, he’s just another generic Chicago LotM groupie. Next up: Scav Hunt!)</p>
<p>By the same token, I imagine someone applying to Dartmouth with an essay that said, effectively, “I’m a hipster lipstick lesbian and I hate the sodding outdoors and boy jocks. I want to meet the folks who are doing that medical outcomes research, open up a hip second-hand store with designer clothes for moose, and maybe find out if there are some girls up there who are hungry for a woman’s touch.” That’s pretty much an instant admit.</p>
<p>JHS,</p>
<p>Haha, this is very funny, and you are absolutely correct in saying “Plus, it turns out he wasn’t even telling the truth about himself. Given the chance, he’s just another generic Chicago LotM groupie. Next up: Scav Hunt!)”. </p>
<p>Not that he hid the truth intentionally: it’s just that he would not admit to the world that he is an intellectual type (he thinks that’s uncool), and would like to shock me by saying he parties all weekend. But in reality, he can’t really hold much alcohol (darned inherited trait from my side), and admits that an inability to have an interesting and thoughtful discussion is a real turn off for him both for men AND women. So, he was the Chicago type after all: just did not know it, and therefore, did not emphasize it in his application.</p>
<p>Hmmm. Looks like U of Chicago’s passing around the EA accepted student’s quirky essay didn’t keep a lot of people from applying. :)</p>
<p>actually, I thought that quirky essay publication was a brilliant marketing ploy. It bought Chicago media time during the crucial last minute dash week.</p>
<p>OK. I am subscribing too much to the conspiracy theory. It may have been an innocent move, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it was done intentionally to drum up interest and recognition for Chicago and media attention before the finish line of application due dates. </p>
<p>Nondorf is well aware of the the power of the internet board discussion (I have some personal anecdote to back this up, but I won’s say here). He was WELL aware of college confidential. He surely would have known that a letter to the applicants like that would have been immediately followed by a flurry of activities on this board and made people think and look further up on what Chicago was up to. Honestly, I think the letter was not intended just for the applicants per se who received the letter in email, but to the general pool of target applicants, not just this year, but for next year and beyond. </p>
<p>Chicago’s problem so far has NOT been that it’s not an amazing academic institution. It was the fact that it was not on a radar scan of may potential Chicago type kids and there was a lack of name recognition among the target population that befits its academic ranking and such. Under this circumstance, even a notoriety helps that puts Chicago’s name in the media. It caught people’s attention and made them LOOK. From this point of view, Nondorf’s letter was a brilliant move.</p>
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<p>Dartmouth is already admitting ‘unconventional’ students. They’ve had their own organization for years. :)</p>
<p>Panarchy, a recognized underground society, was founded by the alternative Phi Sigma Psi fraternity. </p>
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<p>[url=<a href=“http://www.dartmouth.edu/~panarchy/about.htm]panarchy[/url”>http://www.dartmouth.edu/~panarchy/about.htm]panarchy[/url</a>]</p>
<p>The only person I know who attended Dartmouth was a sensitive gay architect who hales from NYC and the Dominican Republic. Needless to say my image of Dartmouth is not the stereotype!</p>
<p>I know Dartmouth admits unconventional students. That’s my theory. It’s desperate for them. Although I don’t see how you could get “othered” at Dartmouth for using “mind altering substances”. The people I knew at Dartmouth consumed mind altering substances – usually in liquid form, but not exclusively – with frightening frequency and volume.</p>
<p>(A comment by one of my relatives, who was part of the same social set as Tim Geithner when they were at Dartmouth: “It turns out he was really smart! Who knew?”)</p>
<p>News everywhere even in Bloomberg and Businessweek (owned by Bloomberg now). </p>
<p>Plenty of Wall Street type reads Bloomberg News. </p>
<p>[Chicago</a> Sees 42% Applicant Jump in Competition With Harvard - Bloomberg.com](<a href=“Bloomberg Politics - Bloomberg”>Bloomberg Politics - Bloomberg)</p>
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<p>LOL–I see your point.</p>
<p>I read that they intend to accept about the same number of students (3700).</p>
<p>If they get good at courting the admitted students to matriculate just the way they got better at motivating the potential students to apply, then they may have an overcrowding problem. I recall JHU or some top school seriously underestimated their yield last year and ended up with a freshman class too big and some kids had to have a triple room, etc. </p>
<p>Already, all indications are, Nondorft (the new dean) is doing an exceptional job at courting the EA admits by sending personalized letters, etc. </p>
<p>I would hate to see my son ending up in a triple room next year as a sophomore. Or perhaps, even if triple rooms become a necessity due to overcrowding, it will only affect the freshmen?</p>
<p>Your fear should be appeased by early May. That is when they announce to dip into the waiting list pool!</p>
<p>hyeonjlee – I don’t know what they did the last two years, but there were definitely some forced triples my son’s first year. He was slotted to have one, but then one of the kids didn’t show up at all. It’s something that happens lots of places.</p>
<p>Two years ago they were over enrolled and took no one from the wait list, so it does happen. With the new dorm, though, I doubt there will be a lack of room.</p>
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<p>And all this time I was under the impression that Chicago’s “quirky” essay prompts were a real problem, because they were turning off smart students who would otherwise be good candidates for Chicago, and Chicago really needed to revamp them! (ducking and running)</p>
<p>As someone who has worked with U of C undergraduates over the years, they are now much more frequently into the professions in spite of the “core”. Many wish the core didn’t exist. For a large number of students who didn’t get into the Ivy League, the U of C was the top academic school that admitted them. Many, many factors have to do with the College’s new selectivity. IMO, this is the largest. U of C students as a group are much less interested in learning for learning’s sake, and much smarter than they used to be at the same time.
IMO, the undergraduate students as a group from 1990 to 2002 or so were not very bright. Today’s undergraduates finish your statements before you are finished. Just as smart as the graduate and professional school students here, IMO. That decidedly did not use to be the case. Yeah, I know there are ranges, etc. But they are smarter, and easy to tell they are. But the “quirky, U of C” intellectuals are fewer and far between.
The little secret is that the University wished it didn’t have to admit so many of the “quirky intellectuals” all along. Now they don’t have to, and they don’t.</p>