@cupofgalaxy same here in Pak, no sleep for me
@zeeaich which major did you apply for? 
@cupofgalaxy Mathematics with a Specialization in Economics wbu
I’m an international applicant and I did not apply for FA and I got an email asking me to confirm if I wasn’t and I had to disregard the email if so. Why would they do that when I already filled in the common app saying I’m not asking for FA?
@zeeaich I applied as an English major! Which topic did you pick for your extended essay?
sorry @dr0wning those are in order of importance greatest > least
@hope1938 Woah! My common app is about pancakes!
@dr0wning - Glad to know that you have a similar profile as me. From what I know (from friends in UChicago) - essays complemented with recos are the single most thing they focus on applicant’s creative thinking abilities.
My neighbor is a student there and I have few other friends who graduated last year. All have said the same thing - education here is very different and ground breaking - disruptive thinking.
Hmm. A highly selective school, but seems to be more hope that how it looks. When I look at my HS naviance, there is a large difference in the UChicago “real vs nominal” acceptance rates. Just for my HS only, there is a large pool of applicants a year. The overall acceptance rate has been around 14% (EA 28%/RD 7%). Assuming there is test score/gpa point that broadly indicates a level of preparedness for the rigor (not being snotty or elitist or specific, nor implying that there even exists a minimum, but just a presumption). For my HS, I decided to place that point at a 4.0 wtd gpa, 31 act, 2100 sat writing, which seemed to be reasonable based on the naviance info. That changed the overall acceptance rate to about 20% - that’s a full 6 percentage point or 40%+ difference! Curious if your school naviance stats kinda give the same results?
@TravelTime23 - Naviance is not a good information source (IMO). Some better sources are as follows:
http://chicagomaroon.com/2015/04/14/record-low-acceptance-rate-as-applicant-numbers-increase/
http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/university-of-chicago-1774
http://colleges.startclass.com/l/1152/University-of-Chicago
http://collegeapps.about.com/od/collegerankings/tp/most-selective-colleges.htm
http://www.acceptancerate.com/schools/university-of-chicago
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/early-admission-rates-for-class-of-2019/2014/12/18/67db5036-86c4-11e4-9534-f79a23c40e6c_story.html
Its around 9% (summary).
@shivaya. Hi. I’m thinking that they do a lot of marketing to attract applicants and broaden its branding. And I was curious how much higher the “adjusted” acceptance rate might be looking at an arbitrary subset of the total applicants. Agree that naviance info only as good as the data it collects.
@shivaya I suspect TravelTime23 is giving information based on his/her school not as an indication of the overall pool, but as a sign of the odds applicants from decently rigorous schools will face.
I don’t think many will dispute that UChicago’s applicant numbers are inflated by their extensive marketing efforts, which convince some kids to apply despite having borderline qualifications. Thus the acceptance rate is about 8%, but would likely be 10-11% if UChicago’s marketing was on the same level as most peer institutions. That, plus the fact that @TravelTime23 likely attends a fairly rigorous school if they’re willing to accept students with a 31/2100, can easily explain a rate of 14% for this student’s HS versus 8% for the entire pool.
I do wonder what sort of sample size we’re dealing with here - Naviance isn’t generally reliable until you have 20-30 applicants in the last few years, especially for colleges where the acceptance rate for a HS might triple thanks to a pair of strong students in any given yea taking the number accepted from 1 to 3…
@TravelTime23 How many applicants is this Naviance chart based on? Also, how far back do the results go - I gather UChicago’s acceptance rate has been cut in 3 over the past decade or so, and has changed drastically even in the last 3-4 years.
Do you guys know if UChicago uses TurnItIn?
They probably have some way to check for plagiarism.
If you wrote your own essays, you should have no reason to worry.
Hi @NotVerySmart. Large pool of 25+ past 2 yrs and 99+ last 5 yrs (excl 2016). @shivya It’s just my HS only, and not trying to imply broad exactness, just that there is a bigger spread. Preciseness not worth debating imo, but throwing out some tidbits of hope to all us applicants. Another observation I see is that UChicago can detect genuine interest because the matriculation rate of EAs accepted is around 80% at my HS.
@NotVerySmart I did write my own essays, but a few lines are similar to a book review I read recently on Goodreads. Hope they don’t suspect anything.
@TravelTime23 - it’s great that 80% applicants have been from your HS. May I ask if you are in IL?
To clarify, still a highly selective range acceptance rate for my HS. Nothing magical @shivaya going on in my out-of-state school. Just sayin that the real chance of acceptance for many is probably different than the stated rate. Im still being realistic about my chances, but I also think the window is a little larger. The roughly 80% is NOT an acceptance rate!!! Its the percent of accepted kids that enroll. Didn’t mean to confuse.
I honestly cannot wait for the 18th anymore.