UChicago Class of 2020 Applicant Thread

Has anyone been asked to send first quarter grades?

Does anyone have a guess as to what the projected 2016 overall admission rate will be?

I would assume around 9-10% for EA maybe 7% overall

It looks like the Molecular Engineering major is not ABET accredited. Is this a huge disincentive for students to enroll?

@Lift35 9%-10% EA acceptance rate? Impossible, it’s definitely way higher than that. Even for harvard and yale it’s in the 16% range.

Harvard and Yale are single choice. I think that makes a difference.

@TrazCapDEV yes but Yale and Harvard use restrictive* early action meaning none of those applicants could have applied anywhere else EA or ED

Harvard and Yale use REA, thus they have higher admit rates earlier. Schools like UofC and MIT have early admit rates of 8-11% because there are no restrictions.

So, I sent in my SAT scores about three weeks/a month ago, and there has been no update to my UChicago Portal. Has this been the case with anyone else?

My regional admissions rep said around 11% EA, 6% RD. The EA apps are generally stronger so he gave the advice that if you are writing your essays last minute, you are better off applying RD, where the apps are weaker.

I think it is always beneficial, in the case of UChicago, to apply early.

They defer a huge amount of applicants, so if you don’t get in early, you’re probably getting deferred to the regular round. So if you are writing your essays last minute, do it for early and maybe you will get lucky, if not you will be reevaluated in the regular round.

Also, I think the difference in acceptance rates make up for the stronger applicant pool in the early round. I think someone who gets in early would get in regular, and vice versa.

are the essays the most important for UChicago?

@CoolGurl101: Yep.

I think I took a lot of time on the UChicago essays compared to my other applications, so I’m pretty confident that I won’t get denied. Acceptance would be awesome since this is one of my top choices, but there’s a high probability of deferral since I believe a little more than half of their EA applicants get deferred. Best of luck to everyone! Just two more weeks until decisions :-SS

I’ve always thought UChicago had this really quirky streak. I mean, what other school will ask you what’s so odd about an odd number? I’m guessing that they put huge emphasis on the applicant’s personality and creativity, which can’t be exactly measured by test scores, hence the reallyweird essays XD

I didn’t spend as much time on the UChicago essay compared to my Common App essay, but did I go crazy and personal on it! Definitely one of my favorite works, and IMO, much better than the CA essay. I’ll be heartbroken if I get denied, so UChicago please accept your fervant admirer!

I heard about 12% early?

UChicago doesn’t release their EA acceptance rates, but from the looks of it, they aren’t that much higher than RD. Probably because they’ve been trying really hard to lower the acceptance rate to look more competitive among the Ivies. However, the acceptance rate for deferred students is supposedly at 10%, which is still higher than than regular anyways.

I have a feeling that UChicago’s acceptance rate is deflated. Their aggressive marketing and increasing name recognition leads to students applying who aren’t qualified to get in. I’ve seen this in my own school.

^

@gearsstudio hit it on the nail. With so much marketing there’s inevitably very unqualified applicants and a large number of them

@Lift35 Exactly, I feel this is especially the case for high schoolers here in the Midwest. All the free marketing from the US News ranking probably further contributes.