@JBStillFlying precisely why the EA deferred and the SCEA’s switch will benefit UChicago with some seriously talented kids.
RD will come down to essays and engagement as the only form of differentiation to fill the last 20% of slots.
Assume the worst, and whatever happens, happens. We’ll be happy and find a home wherever we go, that I’m sure of. It was a long road here, and I think I speak for everyone when I say this- we grew as humans and learned a damn lot both about ourselves and the world. The wait tomorrow is going to be terrible.
I sincerely wish everyone good luck, and I’m confident that we’ll all end up where we are meant to be.
Hey, do they release decision in email or portal?
@NorthLeftCoast Thanks for looking up the numbers! Was going off the top of my head. Hoping to do these just by filling the class - with two ED options that seems to make more sense. Yield will be significantly higher this time. But yikes - 34,000 applications last year? Is that 34,000 applicants or are they counting a deferral into the regular pool as another “application”?
@heydudekid you will get an e-mail telling you to check your portal. Your portal will say there is an updated message for you - when you click on you can read the decision.
Or you can just refresh both the cc thread and your portal every 5 seconds. Most will be opting for this strategy.
@JBStillFlying UChicago’s website says 31,411 total applicants. I would infer that to mean individual applications. An article in The Washington Post from April 2016 gave the number as 31,286 with an admit rate of 7.6% compared to 2015’s admit rate of 8.4%. The article also said it was the total of applicants.
What time will the decision come out?
Should be 4pm CST
@worldchanger97 great article supporting your post.
@fbsdreams Yes I was personally deferred from an SCEA school and went on to apply ED II to Uchicago, so assuming others did the same this will probably be an extremely competitive pool.
Re strength of the ED2 pool. I remain baffled as to why people assume that kids who were rejected or deferred from an SCEA school and who believe they are not going to be admitted to that school (or to any other SCEA school) RD represent the strongest candidates in the UChicago admissions pool.
Certainly, there were kids who could have been admitted to an SCEA school, but who preferred UChicago and applied ED1 or EA. Certainly, there are kids who, having been deferred SCEA, still believe (some with good reason) that they have a decent shot at their SCEA school and/or other peer schools including UChicago, and they’re in the RD pool.
Yes, there will be some very strong candidates in the ED2 pool – kids who applied to UChicago EA (not knowing how important ED would be), kids for whom UChicago was always a second or even first choice (not a consolation prize) but who were encouraged (for whatever reason) to play their EA/ED chip on HYPS, kids who discovered/fell in love with UChicago after Nov 1st. But there are strong candidates in every pool and no real reason to believe ED2 cornered the market on the best ones.
As a legacy applicant, I may have a greater chance in the ED-II pool.
Legacy has become a smaller and a smaller deal I feel, especially at highly competitive schools like Uchicago or other Ivy Leagues. It will help yes, but in no way will something like Legacy save an application. Maybe if you are competing for that final spot it will help put you ahead of someone identical to you, but if not it won’t do that much.
Either way, it is going to be competitive. Either way it is going to be insane and most will not get in, but also with a school that has an admit rate of about 7.8% it will be hard to get in no matter what happens. It does not mean anything about you as a student, it just means that there are a lot of other kids amazing like you.
We will find out for sure today. Good luck everyone.
@exacademic I’m not sure why you mention that the SCEA applicants would represent the “strongest” candidates to UChicago. It has not been inferred in my opinion and this pool would be in addition to the UChicago ED and EA pool.
However, just based on sheer numbers (Harvard received 40,000 applicants this year) statistically speaking with only 2,000 slots will be filled - 300 +/- of which are athletes - the overwhelming majority would look to other schools as they will be rejected or deferred. It’s just a numbers game. Distinction based on test scores will surely be statistically insignificant. I believe that is the strength of the UChicago selection criteria (essay, engagement, fit, etc).
The same is true with the RD round for Chicago, the pool will be incredibly strong regardless of the HYP just based on the fact there are a minimal amount of slots left.
Any thoughts on someone who applied SCEA and got IN, who would then apply EDII to UChicago? In other words, UChicago is first choice but want to apply to Harvard/Princeton/MIT early to maximize chances there. Because UChicago has EDII I can then apply to UChicago and commit if/when get in.
Would have to be a particularly strong candidate to try this strategy. Most would say you apply to UChicago first but if the SCEA school is a close second, I can actually see this strategy happening in at least a few cases.
@fbsdreams, re post #248, thank you, thank you, thank you for posting a link to that Aims of Education address. Not long after it was given, UChicago sent that out as a monograph, I read it then misplaced it. I’ve been looking for it ever since. One of my faves.
@JBStillFlying, you may be over thinking things. If UChicago is really the applicant’s first choice, then they should apply to only UChicago EDI unless due to a low income knew in advance that they would be getting better FA at HYP. As to MIT, I don’t think anyone gets an advantage to applying EA there. Since they don’t have SCEA at MIT, your hypothetical applicant could apply EA to Chicago and MIT and then flip the application to EDII if deferred by Chicago in the EA round. But this makes my head spin! @-)
Ross BBA or UChicago (UCIB or econ degree) for investment banking placement?
My kid could have been in that position had she applied this year rather than last. Had legacy status at two SCEA schools (double legacy at one). Last year, our logic was let her take whatever advantage accrues from EA at her first choice school (UChicago) because it’s non-binding and she can see what happens at the other two in RD. From our parental perspective, that a minimax regret strategy rather than an optimization strategy. When she got in EA, she convinced us to let her accept the offer rather than apply anywhere else. But the possibility of her being able to consider multiple offers had been the bridge that carried us over into allowing her to spend her EA chit on Chicago rather than a school where it would maximize her legacy advantage. And we thought it was a move she could afford to make precisely because we thought she was a strong candidate for the SCEA schools regardless of legacy.
Had we been faced with this year’s options and had we correctly anticipated how much of a difference ED would make compared to EA, I think we would have said SCEA one of the legacy schools then ED2 Chicago.
So yeah, JBS, point well taken that kids who, in the past, would have been strong EA candidates for UChicago might have chosen ED2 this year to maximize their edge in two pools (SCEA, ED). Last year, there was no such option for UChicago vs. HYPS.
@exacademic Your daughter was admitted as a legacy applicant to UChicago?