They said that they mostly look for URMs and low-income families who seemingly cannot afford to get a tutor or afford books to study. Or sometimes students have to work so they dont have time to prepare for these tests and take them multiple times because of financial issues. Also, in fact, it has been proven that these test are difficult for URM’s (mostly Hispanic and African American) becuase of the way they are designed.
Hello guys,
I’m new here, but I applied EA and was just hoping for some insight into the admissions process. I come from Central Kentucky, which is an area that doesn’t have a lot of opportunities for excelling students, and although I think I have the stats to back up my application (36 ACT [the only one in my county], 4.0 UW GPA [my school doesn’t weight], National Merit, as many APs as my school offers, statewide awards in social studies [I want to be an anthropologist]), I don’t know if I really have that “hook” that sounds like it’s needed to get in EA. I know my recs are good, and I believe all of my essays were very “UChicago-y,” even my Common App one, but I just haven’t had the opportunities to do things like participating in research, organizing big community service projects, or even getting much assistance in my application process, because it’s rare for anyone from my region to go to an out-of-state school. I’m just wanting to know if the holistic review rings true and the college sees that I made good use of every (financially-feasible) opportunity that was given to me. UChicago is my dream school, but we decided not to apply ED due to financial reasons, and I’m hoping that decision doesn’t hurt my chances. Sorry, I’m impatient and can’t wait two days for a decision I guess.
@THFan17 what are your extracurriculars because people who typically get into EA from previous years are people who have good hooks such as being a URM with decent grades and a lot of ECs or an outstanding applicant with perfect test scores and grades like yourself but with an interesting EC collection like starting your own charity or playing french horn for state regionals.
@THFan17, I think you don’t fully understand the ED idea (forgive me if I’m wrong). ED, if you cannot pay for it after you appealed for your financial aid package, the ED “agreement” is off and you will not have broken any agreements or trust to the college; and let me tell you: I am pretty sure UChicago has the funds to give you all your needed aid - especially since they want to bring that yield up too!
@HKimPOSSIBLE I can relate to @THFan17. UChicago is my top school as well. I wanted to apply ED and tried so hard to convince my parents to let me. I explained that if we can’t afford it, we don’t have to go, but they still refused. My guidance counselor misunderstood the financial aid part of the agreement as well. Sometimes, its out of your control.
My ECs are somewhat mediocre, and that’s why I fear that I won’t get in on EA. I played golf and our team won regionals and placed at state, I’m captain of my school’s academic team and we’ve gotten several state awards through that, I play bass and make music by myself even though I’m not a part of a band or anything (my common app essay touched on this), I’ve had a part-time job for around a year now, and I guess I have average community service ECs. Like I said, nothing really special, but that’s partly due to a lack of EC opportunities: either I couldn’t afford to do them, I didn’t have the time, or they just didn’t exist. Part of that is geographical, so I’m hoping UChicago sees that.
@THFan17 Have you tried out for the UChicago Golf Team if you did they might recruit you and it is much easier because it is division III
@HKimPOSSIBLE I’m in the same boat as @CacciatoreDeco. My guidance counselor has had little knowledge with out of state schools, let alone elite schools like UChicago, so they didn’t quite understand the ED process, and then my parents (mostly my mom, my custodial parent) practically vetoed any ED because they want to compare financial aid offers. It’s also quite obvious that they want me to stay in-state for college like themselves and practically all of my peers. Like I said earlier, nearly everyone here stays in-state, especially if you’re not a recruited athlete.
@THFan17 absolutely contact the Golf coach. You can still switch to EDII with a FA pre-read if you can get interest from the coach if you get deferred. That would give you a firm cost of attendance you can review with your parents.
I have run across many School advisors that do not understand the complexity of the ED/EA/EDII/RD and the advantages that they offer. I am sorry to hear that was your case.
It has been a hectic week for all the EDs/EAs for elite colleges. My 3 friends got into their top schools, one to Northwestern, one to John Hopkins and one to UPenn. Also, I have been seeing a lot of reaction videos for EDs/EAs especially those who got into Stanford. Basically, us and MIT applicants are the last ones to go which is totally ironic because those are the most nerdiness schools in that spectrum of elite colleges.
@Youngmis123 I have not, even though I probably should have. I never considered myself that good so I never reached out, but in hindsight I probably should have. If I get deferred then I’ll definitely contact the coach.
Just got rejected SCEA to Yale. Now I’m most likely ED2 at UChig let’s gooooo
Rejected at Duke and deferred at MIT. UChicago let’s break this streak.
They say third time’s the charm 
Good luck @yoyoyoyoyoyoyo
@THFan17 As an alumni, I interviewed for Harvard for about 8 years. Had ~5-6 kids admitted that I saw. Then, later in life, I ran a program where I interviewed ~200 students/year from across the US for admission to Graduate Medical Training Program. I give this background to say, I have some modest experience in admissions.
You have an excellent resume, and your writing is above average. I’ll take that as a proxy for your general intelligence and emotional/social awareness.
So, you will have no problem with acceptances at good to excellent colleges. Your prospects for success in life are also excellent. None of that likely will matter in the next 36* while we all sweat out the wait for decisions from Chicago.
Admissions at this level of competition are idiosyncratic. They are trying to “compose” a class. So, a lot depends on who else is applying and NOT on your objective stats. This is why “Chance Me” threads at this level are, essentially, useless.
One AO told us at Swarthmore that they get down to levels of detail like - “We need a lacrosse goalie, let’s look at all of the people applying who might fit that”. Doubtful that Chicago does that kind of insanity, but they certainly have buckets. This gets close to the idea of quotas, which no one likes, but is part of the reality.
I hope something here is helpful. Good luck to all, I will see you on the other side of tomorrow!
So if I were to apply to all the ivies, rice, Chicago, Stanford, etc. and had these type of stats I would probably be accepted at least one due to this type of strategy colleges use in admissions?
@Hawkrunner2000 What stats do you have? You said these but i don’t know what these are
in our transcripts, are colleges able to see our grades by quarters or olny the final grade?
My bad. Class rank 11/596 in pretty good school. 34 ACT. 1550 Superscore. Strong EC’s with leadership. Strong essays.
I am panicking the require financial aid worksheet and the css profile I just submitted it today. Will that affect my early action decision tommorrow ?