<p>UChicago has a 41%-42% yield for the class of 2015 based on 3446 admitted. Also the number of total undergraduates is about 5400.</p>
<p>New College First Year (Freshmen) Students = 1411, Transfers = 45</p>
<p><a href=“http://registrar.uchicago.edu/statistics/enroll_summary/Aut11-Summary.pdf[/url]”>http://registrar.uchicago.edu/statistics/enroll_summary/Aut11-Summary.pdf</a></p>
<p>As an applicant, I certainly don’t think a decreasing admit rate is a good thing. I want to get in.</p>
<p>Chicago’s yield trails nearly every one of its peers despite the fact that its supposed to attract a more “self-selected” population of individuals who want a college with a more intellectual bent.</p>
<p>I wonder if Chicago’s yield will actually decrease this year as more and more highly qualified applicants view it as a backup. It was better off before IMHO.</p>
<p>goldenboy8784 is a very “classy” Duke alumni.</p>
<p>he definitely has some issues.</p>
<p>Goldenboy: Chicago’s yield has actually increased recently - why would it be preferable for the school to go back to lower yields? Chicago’s yield is comparable to Duke’s, and not far from schools that use ED programs more vigorously to increase yield. </p>
<p>The yield may fluctuate a bit this upcoming year, but I’d rather have around ~40% of the admitted students attend, rather than ~30% of the admitted students attend, as was the case about 10 years ago.</p>
<p>Also, given the plummeting accept rates for most top schools, its hard to view any “top 20” school as a backup nowadays, let alone schools in the top 5 or 10. Again, a strong ranking, and the fact that Chicago is separating a bit from peers it used to be clustered with (Cornell and Northwestern in the early 2000s, Duke and Dartmouth in the mid-late 2000s), can only be good for the school.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>no top 10 school is anybody’s backup. </p>
<p>Anybody who applies tp HYP plus U Chicago and/or Penn as a backup and nowhere else runs the risk of NOT going to college next fall</p>
<p>goldenboy:</p>
<p>Wake up, you’re living in the 90s. Chicago is ranked 5th in the nation and top 10 in the world. No one considers Chicago a backup anymore. Chicago’s yield will rise this year. It also isn’t as low as you think it is - it’s at the same level as Duke, and is about the same as the RD yields of the Ivies that use ED to guarantee a higher yield.</p>
<p>All I know is that this increase is most likely bad news for me, the EA applicant.</p>
<p>Yes, I should add, in the 90s, Chicago WAS a backup school, just like Penn and Cornell used to be backup ivy league schools, and Duke and Georgetown used to be backup schools. Now, with everything as competitive as it is, there aren’t really any backup schools, maybe in all of the “Top 20” schools.</p>
<p>(I mean, given how competitive they are, can Wash U or Northwestern or Cornell or Rice be considered “backup” schools - they all have superb SAT averages, very low accept rates, etc.)</p>
<p>Does anyone know how many EA applicants also apply ED to another very selective school, such as Penn or Brown (my daughter also applied ED to Penn)? If there are a lot of them it would seem like the way Chicago handles early applications contributes to a lower yield since someone admitted to an ED school is required to attend.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>if we agree that this year is not an outlier, radically different from other years, if anything, with radically increasing number of EA applicants and overall outstanding increase of total application number, the yield has GONE UP last few years. If anything, there are plenty of rumors and anecdotal data that the yield among the EA admits is higher than the RD.</p>
<p>MIT would have the same problem (unrestricted EA), yet, there is NO evidence whatsoever that EA yield is lower due to the kids applying ED to other schools.</p>
<p>EA is worse for yield than ED, but (a) it draws a lot more applications, (b) not just from the wealthy, and (c) it doesn’t require students to make final decisions early in the year. So it’s the right thing to do, and worth losing a few yield-points over.</p>
<p>I bet someone at Chicago knows pretty precisely what percentage of their EA acceptees are accepted ED someplace else. I bet they also have a pretty good guess as to the percentage of EA acceptees who would not have applied to an ED program, and the yield on those students after the post-EA marketing. And I bet the benefit of the latter outweighs the loss on the former.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Couldn’t agree more. I applaud UChicago’s adherence to EA rather than ED or SCEA. It’s the right thing to do.</p>
<p>This conversation brings up a related thought/question…I wonder how “blind” Chicago’s admissions staff is to applicants that apply EA, but whose applications show they are legacies at peer institutions with ED programs (Dartmouth, Duke, Penn). Would their concern with yield influence them at all to deny admission, even as a tie-breaker, making the assumption that the applicant is applying ED, and will be admitted, to the legacy peer institution.</p>
<p>The rise in EA applications and decrease acceptance rate is no cause for celebration at all.</p>
<p>You guys are lucky; you get the goldenboy-lite version on your forum. In the Michigan forum, he is at his classiest best! ;)</p>
<p>As someone who was accepted into both Duke and Chicago I can say unequivocally that no one views Chicago as a safety anymore. It is a great school and we view it with respect and admiration here at Duke, I hope that these feelings are mutual, and that the comments of a few students don’t sully the relationship between our great institutions.</p>
<p>Happyman2, why did you choose Duke over UChicago? What were some “tipping” factors that led you to choose Duke?</p>
<p>My post was totally misconstrued. All I was saying is that U of Chicago had a unique identity before when it had the Uncommon Application as an intellectually quirky school and I feel like that has been diluted a bit with the adoption of the Common Application which is both a good and a bad thing depending on how you look it. On one hand, you get a more diverse set of applicants in terms of interests and talents but on the other hand the “Life of the Mind” mantra of the school might evaporate a bit.</p>
<p>I have a great deal of respect for U of Chicago and consider it to be the best school in the Midwest. Both Chicago and Duke used to be Ivy backups but slowly we’re both starting to win a meaningful share of cross admits with those schools following Stanford and MIT’s lead.</p>
<p>Could someone explain to me why the change to the Common App. is so often viewed as such a watershed moment in defining UChicago’s ongoing identity? I realize this change was resisted by a lot of loyal UChicago students and alumni, so I’m very open to the possibility that I’m just missing something here. But on the face of it, I’m not sure what it could be.</p>
<p>Since UChicago preserved its quirky essay prompts after migrating to the Common App., it seems that the only major change is that now applicants don’t have to re-enter their demographic data in order to apply to UChicago. Why is that such an earth-shattering change? Yes, it probably means that more people apply now, because it’s less trouble. But why is that, in itself, such a bad thing? If more applicants is really bad, then why not make people apply orally and in Latin?</p>
<p>But seriously, I’d love to hear from someone who believes that the Common App. was the proverbial “beginning of the end” at UChicago, because maybe I’m just missing something.</p>