UChicago 2017-2018 Admission's Statistic Hints

Nondorf is always cheerful and upbeat. Most likely not the type to be cruel or hurtful. But he was in front of a select group making “unofficial” comments so there is info. in his words- if nothing more than because total apps increased by 4000 over last year (he’s gotta be pleased there. . .). No doubt he’ll congratulate the RD admits in the spring when announcing the 1.5% rate at the April overnight.

"(Sorry. I know it’s not PC to say this, but I think it’s highly likely that a pool of Chicago applicants none of whom has applied to HYPS is going to be weaker academically, on average, to a pool of Chicago applicants all of whom applied SCEA to one of HYPS.)

@JHS would you please clarify why you think a pool of UChicago ED applicants who hasn’t applied to HYPS would be weaker than a pool who had? No worries about being PC, direct is preferred.

The applicants are all probably similar academically in that (with a few athlete exceptions) they all “make the cut.” At one level, HYPS, Chicago and many others are great schools with little between them. What I find strange is that we are comparing EA schools with Chicago’s ED statistic. Stanford and Harvard have a >80% yield EA, not binding anyone. Chicago is having a headstart of ~60% by binding their admits with ED. We know any school can in theory get 100% yield from its ED pool and taking a few desperate students from the waitlist… and marketing the dream with a few EA/RD carrots will keep the number of EA/RD applications high to keep the admit rate low, so long as the dream is still a credible one.

The purest measure of a school’s desirability, if one can call it that, must be found in its EA and RD yields, where agents have completely free choice. (If EA is not applicable, the number of ED applications in the context of its class size could be a good alternative measure), What is Chicago’s EA yield and what is its RD yield?

In fact, it is a strong likelihood that the change to ED was motivated by the Chicago EA or RD applicant being strong enough also to get a RD offer from HYPS, which led to Chicago recruiting too few of them in an open competition.

One consequential impact of having a higher intake at ED, however, is that socioeconomic diversity may suffer greatly. The NYT noted in 2014 that Chicago was already the lowest of its peer group for Pell Grant recipients in its student body (11.5% v 16.7% at Harvard, which was not the highest, and 15.0% at Stanford). https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/02/upshot/the-university-of-chicago-tries-to-catch-up-on-economic-diversity.html That Early Decision tends to favor applicants from higher income families is a well-accepted phenomenon (not needing to compare financial aid). The Chicago Maroon recently stated, “The majority of students did not receive need-based financial aid. 43 percent of students reported receiving some need-based financial aid…” whereas around 57% of Harvard undergrads do receive need-based financial aid according to its 2014-15 CDS. https://www.chicagomaroon.com/article/2018/1/9/class-2021-numbers/

The 2014 NYT article had begun boldly “The University of Chicago announced a significant new program … to recruit more low-income students and to help them while on campus.” REALLY? by going Early Decision? And for those low-income who do make it in, having just 43% of them receive financial aid? Really, UChicago?

Let’s hope Chicago does not just see this as a game of admit rates and yield for its admissions people.

I think Nondorf has successfully established the following: if you’re high-stats, unhooked, want to get into a top-10 university and are a full payer, the smart play is to apply ED to UChicago.

Your odds will be better because: (i) evidence suggests that UChicago admits a much larger percentage of the class early than any of its peers; (ii) ED always and everywhere gives a bigger boost than EA; (iii) UChicago reserves fewer spots than HYPS for athletes (because D3) and, seemingly, legacies (because apparently fewer apply - I keep reading on here that many UChicago grads who attended during the bad old days of 30-40% admit rates aren’t encouraging their kids to follow in their footsteps, and also that there are proportionately fewer wealthy alums whose kids would get an extra boost); and (iv) UChicago is underendowed relative to its peers and consequently has less extensive financial aid, so likes full payers.

UChicago is academically one of the world’s great universities, but until recently was much less selective than HYPS and wasn’t perceived as similarly desirable by most people. Nondorf’s great achievement has been to preside over a meaningful rise in the USNWR rankings driven by an increase in selectivity, yield and average stats, to the point where, at least by those measures, UChicago is well into the HYPS ballpark. It isn’t strictly comparable because the rise is driven by ED, carpet-bomb marketing and a tilt toward high-stats full payers (many of whom I believe would choose any of HYPS if they had the option, or thought they had enough of a shot there that they didn’t feel the need to apply ED to UChicago), but the headline results are undeniably impressive.

Regarding @milee30’s question: kids who apply SCEA are prima facie savvy about the admissions process (i.e., they know SCEA provides a boost and are organized enough to try to exploit it), and those who reasonably believe that they’re plausible candidates for HYPS and apply SCEA to one of them can be assumed to understand that they’ll probably be wasting their early bullets unless they have stats at the high level that those schools disclose for their admitted students. Accordingly, leaving aside the recruited athletes who are bunched in the early round (and who I’m sure @JHS wasn’t referring to) a group of students who applied SCEA to HYPS likely has very high average stats, higher than a group who didn’t, all things equal.

@DeepBlue86 “UChicago is well into the HYPS ballpark. It isn’t strictly comparable because the rise is driven by ED, carpet-bomb marketing and a tilt toward high-stats full payers (many of whom I believe would choose any of HYPS if they had the option, or thought they had enough of a shot there that they didn’t feel the need to apply ED to UChicago), but the headline results are undeniably impressive.”

True, but who really cares how they got into the ballpark? This is how one changes the game. At the end of the day, prospective students do pick up USNWR, and in most cases only USNWR, and see #3 and see 8% selectivity and believe it is a HYPS school. I hope that JN keeps this up. Pretty soon, maybe people will be saying HYPSC. If I were a HS junior, I’d play that old game theory problem in my head and apply ED to UChicago and EA to HYPS in hopes that if I didn’t get into UChicago, I’d get into one of the others. Like I said on an earlier thread, Barnes and Noble and Borders said much the same when Amazon came and ate their lunch. “It really isn’t apples and oranges because they don’t have store fronts.” Well now one is out of business and the other is a glorified Starbucks and Amazon rules the retail world. JN has a strategy and it is working brilliantly.

The letter to new students about safe spaces, the talk show road show about free speech and inviting Steve Bannon to debate on campus is putting UChicago in the national discussion. They are carpet bombing the populace with marketing literature, they are shifting their acceptance policies. And in the one ranking that the general populace looks at shows they are only just behind Harvard and Princeton. All of these actions are deliberate and in a playbook to put UChicago in a place to be one of the most influential Universities in the public eye. It has always been that in the academic eye, now they are taking market share by expanding their customer base.

HYPS offer only restrictive early action, under which applicants cannot apply to other private colleges EA or ED. An ethical applicant can’t apply ED1 to Chicago and EA to HYPS.

It’s unclear if JHS and DeepBlue86 are referring to ED1 or both ED1 and 2 at Chicago, but in discussing student preference and applicant pool strength, it seems those would be very different pools of applicants.

Since SCEA prohibits applying to other schools, applicants for UChicago ED1 are indicating that UChicago is their first choice among CHYPS since under SCEA and ED an applicant can only apply to one. DeepBlue86 believes that most students would choose HYPS over Chicago if given a choice so the Chicago ED1 applicants are mostly full pay strategic thinkers who believe that although they’d prefer to go to HYPS they wouldn’t be admitted, so are maximizing their chance to get into any top college.

ED2 is a different pool of applicants with different levels of information and motives because you add in the applicants who already know that they didn’t make the first cut at HYPSC or whichever other colleges they applied to early.

I don’t have enough information yet to draw a conclusion on motives for each of the ED1/EA pools, but I do think they are very different and should be differentiated between. On a personal and anecdotal level, it’s hard for me to believe that there is so little differentiating UChicago or that makes UChicago appealing that it’s a given that the only top students it gets are the ones that couldn’t get into HYPS.

@BrianBoiler, small point but one cannot apply ED to UChicago and SCEA to HYPS at the same time, nor to more than one of HYPS.

Slightly off topic, but DD helps out at MUNUC (Model UN conf for HS kids put on by UC students) that is attended by 2700 kids from all over the country and some internationals also. I was interested to see that last year, Dean Nondorf gave a spiel at the Opening ceremonies and admissions had multiple info sessions for the attendees. Gonna guess there are campus tours thrown in there also (conf held down at the Palmer). Not a bad way to make a good impression on a large set of high achieving kids. Of course, they do hold it in February… in Chicago…

@milee30 : @DeepBlue86 largely has it right. At every high school with which I am familiar, the kids applying SCEA to one of HYPS, as a group, are stronger in just about every respect on average than any other similarly-sized group of their classmates you could select. They have the best grades and test scores, they tend to be leaders and well-regarded by their peers, and their teachers and counselors are telling them they are the best and have a meaningful shot at the most selective institutions with the shiniest brands. They understand that as a practical matter they could very well apply ED to a college of a very similar quality level (now including Chicago) and have a much higher chance of success, but they are confident enough in their abilities and credentials to forgo that opportunity. When they are deferred by HYPS – as most of them are, except for recruited athletes and development cases, who do not wind up in other colleges’ admissions pools – all of those things are still true.

That’s not to say that every SCEA applicant is superior to every early applicant to peer institutions like MIT, Columbia, Penn, Duke, and, yes, Chicago. Of course that’s not true. But on a pool-wide basis, I am confident that the SCEA pool is a significantly stronger pool than the Chicago ED pool, and of course those two pools are mutually exclusive. Deferred SCEA kids, however, do show up – in big numbers, I suspect – in the Chicago ED II and RD pools.

Some here will argue that the SCEA population may have great stats and shiny resumes, but they tend to be prestige-seekers who don’t care about Chicago’s special intellectual qualities. And there’s a whiff of truth to that, but only a whiff. To begin with, for sophisticated applicants Chicago hardly lacks prestige. It doesn’t have quite the brand strength of HYPS – although it’s creeping up on the middle two – but with the possible exception of MIT there isn’t any other college with a clearly superior reputation in the places that should matter to a really smart, ambitious student. More importantly, Chicago’s unique intellectual culture isn’t that unique. An intellectually-oriented student will find more than enough peers at any of HYPS, and plenty of opportunity for a Chicago-type experience.

Of course Chicago gets some top students that could have, or did, get into HYPS. That was true even in the “bad” old days of 35% admission rates. Each of my kids had at least one friend who had turned down one of HYPS to go to Chicago. (The truth was, however, that key to their decisions were merit scholarships and distance from home, not intellectual superiority. Intellectual parity mattered, of course.)

The real question is whether Chicago is so well-differentiated that the most successful, most ambitious students should be willing to forgo a chance to apply to HYPS in order to have a meaningful chance of admission to Chicago? For some, maybe, but I don’t believe in my heart that’s the case. A rational kid with an opportunity to choose between Harvard and Chicago could very well choose Chicago after a lot of evaluation, and maybe should. But I’m not confident there are that many rational kids who believe they could get into Harvard who have done enough evaluation in October of their high school senior years to turn their backs on Harvard in favor of Chicago. Maybe someday, not yet.

We have different personal experiences. In our region, HYPS is highly valued but not exclusively. I am familiar with multiple top students who chose other colleges over HYPS and even more that only applied to other colleges since they were more interested in those colleges than HYPS.

Is it possible that you live in the NE coastal region? We have an ongoing debate in our house about how and why the political polls were so inaccurate in predicting the last presidential election. Part of my theory is that the concentration of news headquarters and political/polling organizations being based in the NE coastal region along with that region’s tendency to assume their preferences are shared by the rest of the country meant that the pollsters missed some shifts happening outside their area. A funny illustration of that was one of my friends who is a Princeton grad and moved here a few years ago; she was shocked to discover there are areas where it’s socially acceptable to be conservative.

Since there’s no way to determine whose personal experience more closely represents the experience of the UChicago applicants, it would be helpful if UChicago adds some questions to its incoming first year survey. If the survey reveals that most of the incoming first years view UChicago as an obtainable but less desirable alternative to HYPS that might mean a different marketing strategy than would be indicated if most of the incoming first years view UChicago as their top choice.

A number of UChicago fans on CC like to discuss factors differentiating UChicago from other top universities; from what I can tell, it boils down to the serious intellectual climate with fewer distractions than at peer schools, the institutional posture against political correctness, and a general quirkiness.

There are certainly some students who will love UChicago above all other top universities. I would guess that group would tend to skew towards Midwesterners (most people like to be nearer friends and family, all things equal), pure intellectuals who are less interested in a sports-oriented social scene, and students with right-of-center political views who believe they’d be more comfortable in the UChicago intellectual climate. I do think most students, particularly if they’re not from the Midwest, would choose HYPS given the option (and the Parchment data, flawed and skewed toward the Midwest though it is, seem to confirm this).

I think it’s fair to say - as has also been pointed out elsewhere - that the effect of Nondorf’s actions has been to make the UChicago student body look a lot more like those of the HYPS peers, and UChicago no longer the proverbial place “where fun goes to die”. Many view that as a good thing, but there seem to be some UChicago fans on here who believe the university risks losing some of its distinctiveness as a result.

Regarding @BrianBoiler’s last post, I’m skeptical that UChicago is the Amazon to HYPS’ B&N/Borders, and not just because HYPS can’t suddenly lose all their students and professors to UChicago. If HYPS really wanted to compete in the same way as UChicago, they’d adopt ED, send every National Merit Semifinalist/Commended 20 pieces of mail and a T-shirt, and allocate many more spots in the class to high-stats full payers. They would crush UChicago on selectivity, yield and stats if they did that, but it would conflict with other objectives (like increasing the proportion of first-gens), so they don’t.

In the meantime, though, HYPS seem to be doing OK. This morning, for example, Yale announced that they’d received over 35,000 apps this cycle (including over 5,700 SCEA apps), up 7.3% from last year and a new record (https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2018/01/30/yale-receives-record-number-of-apps/). This means, of course, that if the unofficial UChicago numbers quoted upthread are right, Yale got about 10% more total apps than UChicago, and over half again as many RD apps. Of course, that disparity reflects some front-loading of UChicago apps into the ED rounds, where UChicago now seems to admit most of the class, and an understanding that a UChicago RD applicant’s chances are almost negligible.

“In the meantime, though, HYPS seem to be doing OK.”

Of course! They are fantastic colleges that will continue to be fantastic and the stuff of dreams for millions of people. Stating that a college other than HYPS might be a student’s top choice does not in any way take away from the fact that for many, HYPS will always be the pinnacle of desire and achievement.

It’s the assumption that all top students with the top achievements would have the same personal preference and that their personal preference would undoubtedly skew to HYPS that is odd. It’s also a bit funny to frame the discussion in terms of what all top students want and then to discuss “Midwesterners” separately.

It’s a large, diverse country. Seems reasonable that preferences would vary and some of the variances would be regional or cultural. Unless CC has been changed to cater exclusively to the eastern Atlantic seaboard, I’d think it would be limiting to only think in terms of what applicants from that area prefer.

“send every National Merit Semifinalist/Commended 20 pieces of mail and a T-shirt, and allocate many more spots in the class to high-stats full payers. They would crush UChicago on selectivity, yield and stats if they did that, but it would conflict with other objectives (like increasing the proportion of first-gens), so they don’t.”

@DeepBlue86 if you don’t think HYPS doesn’t market you are sadly mistaken, while my DD got a little bit more from UChicago she was innondated with stuff from the ivies particularly Yale (sent a nice book) along with a ton of mail.

@DeepBlue86 My son did receive a ton of stuff from Yale, Stanford, and Princeton as well. Harvard was a little cheaper and only sent one or two snail mail, but two emails a week on top of that. The school that sent him the most was not Chicago, but Columbia. JHU and Colgate were also high, but he made first contact with both of them and did express interest early on. Chicago did send the only t-shirt.

No one said HYPS didn’t market. That said, the kids I know best were inundated by UChicago and got a few snail mail pieces from each of HYPS (plus a few e-mails from all) - sounds like your mileage varied.

Yes it did, for some reason Yale was very close to UChicago in the amount of materials they sent. The only school that didn’t send anything (and she never had any interest in and didn’t apply) was Stanford. So at least in this case you are correct about Stanford but not the ivies.

For students who are genuinely choosing between Chicago and a HYPS school as their first choice, the lack of ED2 at HYPS forces their hand – and strategy – in favor of HYPS. My son applied ED1 at HYPS (deferred) and is an ED2 candidate at Chicago. If his ED1 school offered ED2, he would have done the opposite.

Carpet-bomb marketing to one kid is beautiful courtship to another. My kid got an endless stream of mail from U of Chicago and recycled it all without a glance, but opened every piece from Yale like a love letter. As JHS suggested above, the marketing gurus have this figured out better than I do.

Also wanted to add, I agree with @CU123 about marketing - he got a TON of materials from the Ivies. Not the same level as Chicago, but pretty close - especially in the case of Yale.

Actually I think the opposite, my DD wanted to apply ED 1 to UChicago last year but I convinced her to SCEA to Harvard (she liked Harvard but felt UChicago was a better fit) and then ED2 to UChicago if rejected or deferred. She did and was deferred, and subsequently admitted to UChicago ED2. Her good friend was all in with Harvard (no close 2nd) deferred SCEA and then admitted RD to Harvard. Point is that if it’s close between UChicago and HYPS then “SCEA deferred” a majority will go ED2 to UChicago forgoing any RD opportunity to the SCEA school.

“This is how one changes the game.”

And the game does change, at times very quickly. Currently S is a hot ticket, but that has not always been the case. My dad has his Masters degree in engineering from Stanford. My mom will roll her eyes and explain that this is because the top three choices he applied to denied his application. And I don’t remember exactly which his top 3 were, but they weren’t H, Y or P. Back then S wasn’t the prestige powerhouse it is now. And when he graduated, he received solid, but not stellar job offers. Their first couple of years after graduation was spent living in trailers in various glamourous places like the middle of nowhere Nevada while he supervised blasting for road construction. Not exactly what top students think when they think S grad and their job prospects.

HYPSM are all fantastic and will continue to be fantastic, but it is short sighted to think that every top student wants the same thing, is evaluating on the same criteria or has the same preferences. I wouldn’t presume to know what the preferences are of the tippy top students, but I’m open to the idea that UChicago and Nondorf has recognized that not all top students have the same preferences and is making moves to attract top students who aren’t following the hive mentality for whatever reason.