I just want to point out that UChicago has never been a fan of these standardized exams. It has never required SAT II subject tests, though most students still submit them anyway. I don’t see going test-optional for SAT II hurting the calibre of students accepted/matriculated. Likewise, while UChicago no longer requires SAT/ACT for the vast majority of students (except students who attend high school outside the US), majority of applicants will still submit SAT scores. I don’t expect any change in admissions going forward.
Just for the record, this really doesn’t “game the rankings.” The US News ranking already gives the U of C maximum value for SAT and ACT scores, and the ranking fomula does not consider yield and barely considers admissions rate.
I have found that when people talk about “gaming the rankings” they rarely consider how the ranking formula actually works.
“…does not consider yield…” That will be news for almost every thread that talks about rankings. I didn’t know this, thanks for the clarification.
@ThankYouforHelp - the rankings do indeed take yield into account - by accounting for the school’s acceptance rate. One of the easiest ways to drive down acceptance rate significantly is to increase yield - e.g. lessen the total number of students a school accepts.
See here: https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/how-us-news-calculated-the-rankings (under student selectivity)
If Chicago’s yield today resembled its yield from even a decade ago (around 38%), it’d need to accept around 4300 students to get a class of ~1700. The acceptance rate, through that, would be about 15%. Instead, with a current actual yield of 70%, the acceptance rate is around 7% - that’s a big difference, and makes a difference in the rankings.
So @Cue7 what rank would UChicago be if say acceptance goes from 7% to say 4%? Would they vault all the way from 3(tie) to 3(outright)? I think that is the jist of the above post. The gain for the change would be small. If they went from 7% to 50% acceptance rate then you might be onto something.
Anyway, the more I think about it the less inclined I am to look at this as a rankings play. I posted on another thread that it could be a tactic in a “share of voice” play though. UChicago is going for the “It School” tag. Couple Empower with the previous climb in USN&WR ranking, the publicity on “Safe Spaces,” etc., and in terms of who are people talking about in the top 10 it is UChicago. This will help with fund raising, this will help with faculty recruitment, this will help with all the things College Administrators really care about. While they may never vault HYP in the rankings, they can claim to be the “new cool school” that everyone wants to be apart of.
@BrianBoiler #24
“While they may never vault HYP in the rankings, they can claim to be the “new cool school” that everyone wants to be apart of.”
The Gates certainly agree. 
I think they could also be going for “pointy” kids whose pointiness does not include test scores.
For example: I am thinking of kids who have done something great in non-traditional areas like music (a youtube musical star), entrepreneurship (built flappy bird), social media (has followers the size of India), social justice (some kind of a malala) or political campaign (that kid whose free photo collection is used by all major presidential candidates or that Iraqi kid at Uchicago sponsored by Brad Pitt or some actor?)… or whatever. Or someone who skipped 5 grades and finally ended up at a cohort where he is just above average, but still thriving. Or someone who has raised his brothers and sisters, by working nights and weekends without the help of a drunk dad and yet got decent 3.7ish gpa. Or someone who manages their farm in place of his parents who have gone too soon.
There are a lot of possibilities. Poor and underrepresented kids, especially.
To me those people be given the chance without being pre-screened out by a low test score. (In the past, we would tell those kids that they may have a good story but they really need to be at the 50% range) Their essays need to be read. They clearly have what it takes to make decisions that maximize their opportunities at UChicago.
^I think those are the students UChicago used to admit before they went all out to focus on USN rankings and test scores a decade ago (their test scores were similar to Duke/JHU’s back then vs higher than HYP’s today). This would let them get those students back while still maintaining their crazy high test score averages (since anyone with relatively low scores would withhold them). It’s a very clever strategy.
I will say, if the SAT/ACT are worthless as predictive metrics (as Nondorf says, and as many have long suspected they are), I have few issues with the move on principle.
The greater focus on “intangibles” this will inevitably require could go well or badly. If the intangibles admissions is looking for mostly have to do with the size of a family’s checkbook, directly (development admits) or indirectly (20 hours a week of Tibetian singing bowl practice), that’s something to keep an eye on. If they use this as an opportunity to give low-income students or those with atypical backgrounds a chance, it could be a change for the better.
My unscientific reading of the reactions on CC and reddit: non U of C parents and students are generally suspicious of nefarious motives behind the UChicago Empower Initiative. U of C students, alumni and parents mostly think that is a good thing if U of C starts to add more low SES and/or URM to The College and thereby stopping (if not reversing) the recent trend of increasing presence of high SES elite private schools and rich public schools students.
My own reaction: what about the rest of the university? Why are these initiatives not extended to Graduate Schools, Booth, Law School, Pritzker or SSA?
The U.S. Senate of the early 1800’s wasn’t really seen as a national legislature. Rather, each senator styled himself the representative of a sovereign and independent state within a larger union.*
So in one sense, the University is about 200 years behind its time. The separate divisions of the college are mostly autonomous, and might as well be their own countries.
There are practical obstacles too. The MCAT, GMAT, LSAT, GRE, etc. are all different tests that measure different things, and some of those might well have actual predictive value beyond what grades alone offer. Applying the same policy to the SAT and the MCAT is regulating apples and oranges.
As for the financial aid changes, those are difficult to implement in the same way across the college because the relationship of grad/professional schools with tuition can vary a lot. PhD candidates work as graders and TAs, and in return they get tuition waivers and financial aid. MA programs can vary by subject - in the humanities, financial support is pretty standard, while MA programs in public policy are pre-professional cash cows. Law schools are major revenue generators for most schools, and six-figure debts for law school aren’t unusual. So making tuition free for any law student with a family income below $125,000 would be a huge change, and cost the university millions; tuition waivers for students at Harris would eliminate the university’s main rationale for an MPP program; but tuition waivers for grad students in the humanities would be the status quo.
And all of these approaches differ somewhat from the way the College does financial aid.
The differences might be rational, or they might exist because “(field) has always done it this way,” but they exist.
TL;DR: for a variety of reasons - good, bad, or completely arbitrary - there is no one-size-fits-all financial aid policy for the various schools/divisions of UChicago.
*The argument became less compelling when some states took that to mean they could leave the Union and continue owning people.
It’ll be an interesting day when the med school or law school drops standardized testing as a requirement . . . business, on the other hand, admits using a wider variety of factors. At the time I was applying to B-School almost 30 years ago, Harvard wasn’t requiring the GMAT (not sure what they are doing now). A friend who interviewed there told me that they still asked what his score was. Old habits die hard.
The PhD programs are tuition-free and typically come with stipend money anyway. As they are screening for potential academic superstars, they are going to give the most money to the most promising regardless of income level or background; however, it’d be great if the university had some type of need-based funding to help with housing etc.
@DunBoyer #30
I have been reading up on Civil War in the last 18 months and so your analogy is fascinating.
I don’t expect professional schools offering a lot of financial aid to students. T14 law school graduates working at Baker & McKenzie, Sullivan & Cromwell, et al. make a starting salary of $160,000 per year. Booth grad combined compensation may exceed $200,000. Lawyers, MBA and doctors can make enough in future to pay back the tuition.
I fully agree MCAT, LSAT, GMAT, GRE, etc. are not functional equivalent to SAT/ACT. I am not saying they should become optional to grad or professional school admissions.
What I am asking is in a larger sense why is all this big headline emphasis on The College. U of C is more than just The College. Pardon me for offending all of you College alumnus, parents and current undergrads, but I always and still think the rest of U of C is far more important than The College. It is great to have this enlightened and generous approach to The College students. But what about the rest of the University? Don’t they deserve the equal treatment?
I am not expecting the exact same financial aid or test score optional approach to, say, Law School or humanities division PhD program. But the spirit of attracting previously undiscovered diamond in the rough should be extended to the rest of the University.
“I am not expecting the exact same financial aid or test score optional approach to, say, Law School or humanities division PhD program. But the spirit of attracting previously undiscovered diamond in the rough should be extended to the rest of the University.”
Hard to be a “diamond in the rough” if you want to join a PhD program - some prof. somewhere during your undergrad. years had to do some initial polishing up (and then write a great rec. letter . . . ). It’d be great to return to the days in which obscure brainiacs w/o formal college education were “discovered” seemingly out of nowhere and eventually became Nobel Laureates but it’s probably not necessary anymore - colleges do a pretty fine job of discovering these types and educating them first.
Now with some of the professional schools, there’s more potential. You still need to show why you have chosen that particular speciality and want to pursue it further. But they can be encouraging those with more offbeat backgrounds to apply to top schools. I have a friend who worked the free health clinic in a major metro area and the basic lack of proper staff or oversight gave her invaluable experience in diagnosing and treating disease before she was anywhere near formalized medical training. Not saying that’s a good model for our communities but it was a GREAT opportunity for her and her fellow colleagues. Many of them got into med school - she ended up at Stanford.
To my fellow alumni, current students and parents, and parents and friends of former students:
Why are you wasting your time defending ad hominem attack from posters who clearly have a grudge against U of C? In their mind whatever Nonodorf does these days must come with a nefarious motive (i.e., to move up the school rank).
In some ways I long for my days in the 1980’s where those only in the know would understand how great U of C was. If you had never heard of human capital, rational expectation, Lucas critique, EMH, Black-Scholes, et al., I really did not care whether you knew U of C.
Yeah, some of those comments are laughable, and some ignorance comes through too.
As if the administration is wringing their hands, trying to move up on a scale or something. Also laughable comparing UChicago to Ivies. Why would UChicago want to lower their standards, lol.
¯_(ツ)_/¯
The administration has research that suggests there’s a causal link between the College’s ranking and alumni donations, and the effect is far stronger at the margins (i.e. going from #6 to #3 is worth more than going from #10 to #7).
The causal mechanism at hand (high ranking in the news → alums feel good about going to a great school → alums give $$$) is pretty straightforward and makes a lot of sense intuitively. So chasing the rankings is a logical way to further any number of organizational priorities that cost $$$ to pursue. IMHO it makes sense to view changes to admissions through this lens. I don’t mean that as a value statement - positive or negative.
Can’t speak for others, but I take issue with some moves that seem driven by a focus on rankings and money in the short term, with little attention to the long-term effects on other determinants of the university’s success (e.g. the College’s distinctive culture, larger social mission, overall academic climate and rigor, etc.).
On the other hand, I have no objections to a bunch of things the College has done that serve a pressing need for students and also happen to raise our ranking.
@DunBoyer that’s really it isn’t it. I think there is a big difference between becoming a better school and rising in the rankings and gaming the system to raise in the rankings.
I look at the changes being made at UChicago as mostly trying to make UChicago better. Some of it has to do with grabbing the “share of voice,” which will lead to more money, more influence, etc. But, Empoower appears to be more about making UChicago better.
Second @BrianBoiler on #37
Recalling my MBA experience in 1980’s, I find the whole university far more upbeat and pleasant these days. Maybe a small part of the more inward looking intellectual rigor and snobbishness is gone. But I am willing to take that trade off for a much more positive and delightful university experience.
Notice I use the word university. It is just not The College. Compared to our cramped and outdated space in Walker Lab, Rosenwald and Stuart, the Charles Harper Center is modern, airy, elegant and professional as befitting our great business school. I would presume taking Econ. classes at Saieh Hall would be so much more enjoyable than the old classrooms in 1980’s Social Science Research Building.
I just dug up a copy of the GSB Announcement from mid 1980’s. At the end of the booklet is a foldout map of the U of C campus. Oh my, how much has changed in 30 years. And for the better.
^^ It’s landscaped better too. Less blacktop more walking malls, etc. G-parents can now traverse safely across the campus because they’ve removed the GSB autobahn and free illegal parking that used to exist 