I think most summer schools of top colleges do say that what was achieved matters more at the summer school rather than the school you went to for summer.
If not most, then definitely all.
If someone is attending college courses for a quality grade during the summer program, that could be very helpful. Most other programs, unless something highly specialized like in the arts (ie intense studio programs), are not going to be helpful beyond giving the student some enrichment and/or great essay material. That’s true for UChicago and just about everywhere else.
What is the admission rate for RD?
about 2% or less lol
Nope @bellab5
Its about 8.4 combining all the ED’s, EA’s and RD’s.
EDII and RD have about the same rate. EA has a lesser rate than RD, but EDI had a higher rate. Sources tell me (idk if im allowed to link them here, so i wont), that itll be about 8-9% anyways.
THe reason for a lesser EDII and EA rate is as ED just gets over and the main app pool then lies to RD. They want to focus on the most apps, hence have this as a strategy.
Guessing closer to 3% for new RD applications and, based on prior years, something tiny for the handful of deferreds admitted every year. A lot depends on size of the pool. It seems that new RD’s have a better chance than deferred, if history repeats itself.
@TheGuy1: the admit rate you posted would be extraordinary indeed, given that the RD rate was only 4% last year according to Nondorf. Are you suggesting that the pool is smaller this year?
I can’t imagine the pool would be any smaller this year. Last year, according to a Chicago Maroon article, “the University received 32,291 applications and admitted 2,329 students for a 7.2 percent acceptance rate. This is a steep increase compared to the 27,694 applicants for the Class of 2021.” Those who follow UChicago much more closely than I do, don’t you think they’ll have another increase in total apps this year?
As for the ridiculously low percentage of deferred EAs who eventually get in, why do you suppose they don’t just reject more of them? It’s not as if they’re short on extremely strong apps, and in the end a deferral doesn’t seem any kinder if the rejection just comes three months later.
@TwoHearted we are always looking at it from the perspective of the applicant, not the admissions office. They have a ton of apps to sort through, why make a determination of rejection on an application your not absolutely sure you want to reject? Only when the admission officer is doing his/her final whittling down in March does he/she really know who they are accepting/rejecting after having a reasonable amount of time to make that determination. Personally I doubt admissions officers love EA/ED, just forces their timeline.
@TwoHearted: two answers: 40,000 has been hinted at for apps. this year by a recent panel including Zimmer and one of the trustees, and anecdotally, it DOES appear that they rejected a good number of EA/ED1 this year.
@JBStillFlying, Wow–40,000! That’s a huge increase. My son must not have been the only one getting a witty and well-designed new postcard from UChicago every week last year. 
And @CU123, I hear what you’re saying, and I know they don’t take these things lightly or keep kids hanging for no reason. I guess I was thinking of Dean Nondorf’s reported (and recorded, I think?) comment that “the admit rate for students who were deferred in the early round was just 0.5 percent.” Seems like they probably could have just rejected a few more of that 99.5% who were deferred and ultimately rejected.
(But of course I’m still glad my S was deferred and not rejected yet, and I’m still hoping he’ll be among that lucky .5% to get an invite in a few weeks…)
@TwoHearted - had they not rejected more earlies, the admit rate would be lower than .5% for those deferred. EA/ED1 alone was 15,000 this year, a 15+% increase from prior year.
All I’m saying is it definitely can’t be as low as 4%.
Since there are so many dec. rounds for UChic, its hard to analyze all the data.
The no. off apps may have reduced, though i highly doubt that. A safe bet is 5-9% pure RD.
TheGuy1 - they had the dec. rounds last year. And the year before.
Hypothetical, but if the RD admit rate was 4% last year, and this year has even more regular apps. than last year, wouldn’t that make the RD rate even LESS than 4% this year?
Also, the EA/ED1 admit rate is 7%, based on the numbers shared at the early admit events. RD rate is typically lower than the early rate.
True. What I’m saying is the rate should be lower than 4 for more apps obviously, but 4 seems a very unreal rate for RD’s.
A reasonable one would be 5-9 IMO.
I thought EA rates are way lower, since many are taken in EDI. Hence after EA, EDII has a lower rate. (I think)
So RD should have a fair chance.
EDI>RD>EA>EDII (IMO)
There’s no point left to apply to UChic for RD if most of the class is filled in with a lesser applicant pool in 3 rounds before the RD one, and most of the total apps for UChic are fighting for the least no. of spots left after.
Taking the least no. of apps in from the most no. of apps as a pool just doesnt make sense.
I’m pretty sure you’re right though, but the above 2-3 lines I said make sense as well. It’s just scary, senseless, and pointless in that regard then.
I’ve heard many are waitlisted RD in the recent decision years as well. That stretches the whole process way too long for way too many.
Just a bit of history: the regular decision admission rate, all-in including the addition of deferreds, was 4% for the class of 2020. That was three admission cycles ago. And if you look at other top elite schools their regular decision admission rate is about the same. However, one must keep in mind that admission rate, or “chances on paper”, would not be the same thing as personal chances. Obviously personal chances and admission rate tend to be correlated, all else equal. But a prodigy or hook who got in SCEA to Harvard and is trying his or her chances at other top schools might have near a 100% probability of admission to university of Chicago and other Ivy’s in the regular round. And somebody with marginal qualifications or fit who happened to get deferred might simply be a no-go in the regular round, regardless of what the admission rate is.
Returning to admission rate, it’s reasonable to believe that University of Chicago will choose 2100 or 2200 for admission. Half of those have already been chosen in the early round - EA and ED1- with a total applicant pool for that round of 15,000. The number of new applications for early decision two and regular decision is likely to be greater than 15,000, and RD apps will likely surpass ED 2 apps. With maybe an admitted number of 600-700 RD and 400-500 ED2. Those are guesstimates, of course.
^ Could not agree more that it is completely scary and for many it’s also pointless. The odds against admission can be formidable for the average applicant. Would love to see a world where everybody applies to fewer schools and chooses them all very carefully. And admission rates approached 20% for the top schools as opposed to 5%. Admission rates are being driven by application numbers. The more that number spirals out of control the lower everybody’s chances on paper. But also the lower the correlation between admission rate and personal chances. For some candidates it might simply be a completely uninformative statistic.
@JBStillFlying Makes sense.
Though the only use of admissions rate for an app (who is academically qualified, as MOST apps are) is to tell the general admissions trend over the years. THats all. Nothing else regarding admissions matters. It doesnt get more competitive, since all apps are personally eval’ed.
@TheGuy1 - the thing about UChicago is that it actually HAS become more competitive. Admit rate was somewhere in the range of 30% in 2006. It’s been a moving target and Nondorf has been relentless about changing up the admision policies to keep things hopping. But the big driver is simply the number of applications. The reason that the admit rate was 30% in 2006 had everything to do with number of apps. UChicago had a (slightly) smaller college in those days.
@JBStillFlying That’s seriously unhealthy for everyone.
Why has this happened though? Foreign app increase? and/or increase of importance of goin’ to college?
It’s just bad. Nevertheless, I read an article which says that the number of good and really passionate apps increase ever so slightly yearly, but the number of people mindlessly trying these colleges without knowing a thing about what to do; just trying to shoot their shot without any good ‘profile building’ are increasing at an alarming rate.
If thats true, this whole thing’s way more interesting.