Did u guys send loci to your regional AOs or the undergraduate admissions office email?
regional + portal for me 
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thank u!!!
Does anyone know around how many people are off of the waitlist? I know of 2 people who got off recently and they both did not apply for financial aid, so this waitlist might be need aware.
All waitlists are need aware
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Source for this statement?
What Colleges Don't Tell You About the Waitlist.
“4. Students who don’t need financial aid on the waitlist are often at an advantage even for a college which claims to be need-blind in their admissions process.
This is a dirty little secret that some colleges don’t often share. By the time they turn to their waitlist, they often don’t have any financial aid budget left. As a result, these colleges will only admit students who can pay the full freight.”
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Interesting. If this is true at need blind schools, I smell a law suit. I’m going to investigate more. I’ll call UChicago.
There are not going to be any successful lawsuits lol
Keep us updated on what they say! i think they are open on saturdays so it wouldnt hurt to call
also sick username! one of the best shows out there
Now when you think about it, if a college has a finaid budget, then it can’t make the admission process TRUE need-blind. It has to put applicants into two different buckets, one asking finaid and one not asking it.
Well, if one applies via Questbridge that’s not exactly “need-blind” either. Many applicants will also mention circumstances and divulge facts in their application that clearly signal need: location, school attended, education level of parents, E/C’s vs. work are all strong clues. Many families are also in touch with Admissions and Financial Aid to discuss their ability to get Odyssey, Empower and other need-based funding from UChicago, so the AO’s are clearly aware of who those families are. It’s no different at other schools. But that doesn’t imply that your application or mine will be decided based on ability to pay, nor is it in the interest of a top-ranked school known for “rigor” to be choosing its admits based on their financial profile. They won’t get the most talented class using that criteria.
The purpose of a financial aid budget is to meet to aggregate goals. It determines how much fundraising they need to do for future years, what the coefficients will look like in the allocation formula, and so forth. It’s not supposed to determine who is admitted that year. If they go over budget this year because everyone is just so awesome but needs full funding, then they have to change their coefficients for the formula in future years or raise more money. Conversely, if they aren’t using up anywhere near the aid they have reserved, they can be more generous and look harder to find those high-need “under-represented” gems. Most budgetary planning of this sort will also factor in an “overage” so that if they end up with more talent needing more aid, they can meet that without dipping into the endowment.
Finally, an undergraduate admissions department has many goals to meet; financial is merely one of them. Any university will gladly shell out a few more bucks if it means they are able to increase their Pell/first gen/URM representation with top talent. General-use funds within a university have blurry edges when it comes to allocation (NB: dedicated funds are a different story. For example, donations specifically marked “Odyssey” will need to be used for that purpose. However, my understanding is that unmarked donations to the College also tend to go to Odyssey and did even prior to the pandemic).
Admission off the waitlist at UChicago is an admission, and all domestic admissions are need-blind according to the College. International admissions are not. So it’s definitely possible, even likely, that international applicants with need are passed up for full-pay. But that applies to all rounds of admission: EA, ED, RD, W/L, Z-List. Looking at a couple of W/L admissions here and there that happen to be full pay is no indication of shifting their “need-blind” policies. Among other things, the data points are few and there is a bias toward full-pay for all elite admissions just based on the income levels of the applicant pools.
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Sure. But let’s say 12 students get off of the waitlist (seems to be a solid estimate). Right now, there are at least 3 people who have gotten off of the waitlist who did apply for FA. That makes the number of students accepted off of the waitlist at least 25%. I would assume that that percentage is higher than their ED, EA, and RD cycles
where did u get the 12 people getting off the waitlist statistic from?? thanks !!
This late in the admissions cycle, many have decisions elsewhere wrapped up, including those that have offered significant aid. For all we know UChicago is eager to dole out more FA but has determined that other admissions critieria are prioritized. The peeps in charge aren’t going to care about one more full pay kid. They ARE going to care about getting that interesting physics genius who they thought might choose an Ivy but wrote a compelling LOCI before Ivy Day and really really really wants to come to UChicago . . .
LOL, if they identified that physics genius, they should have already offered him a spot in the RD. Haha.
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Nope. Not if they thought he or she (let’s not be gender biased here, right?) wasn’t going to commit. Pulling from the waitlist is one way to protect their yield.
Anyone heard back from their regional AOs yet? When does UChi usually get people off from wl?
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Some people have already gotten off according to cc. My AO told me that she would keep me updated about the status of my application so really it’s out of our hands.
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