UChicago Freshman Retention Rate 99%

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Chicago ✅
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<p>Colleges</a> With the Highest Freshman Retention Rates - US News and World Report</p>

<p>U.S. News lists UChicago first-year retention rate as 98.5% because it's averaging over three years but the actual rate for the last two years has been 99%.</p>

<p>It's a huge jump for UChicago, which is now in a 3-way tie for #1 with Yale and Columbia.</p>

<p>About 20 years ago or so UChicago was ranked about 20th in freshman retention. About 72% as I recall.</p>

<p>Also, look for a continued jump in the graduation rate over the next 5 or 6 years as the newer, more selective classes graduate.</p>

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<p>So hard to believe since the school is soul crushingly hard. Maybe, said the cynic, the possibility for transferring is very low (hence high retention) because of the grade deflation, so kids are stuck there whether they are happy or not.</p>

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<p>Re transferring. With UChicago’s improving reputation, there’s fewer and fewer places to transfer to. Maybe 5 universities would be transfer destinations but those same 5 would have very low transfer acceptance rates just like UChicago.</p>

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<p>UChicago may have been “soul crushingly hard” several decades ago but it’s a different school now. Back when I was at UChicago in the 80s, there were about 740 kids in my entering class and only about 550 graduated four years later. The school back then was essentially a boot camp for grad school aspirants and the admin had little sympathy for the weak of heart. As one professor told us first quarter, the College was essentially a monastery where we would have our previous identities broken down and rebuilt in a manner better suited to the ways of an “educated person”. We had no reading period, which meant that we had final assignments due on the same day as our final exams. There were classes where only a single A was given out. My cohort were transferring out on a weekly/monthly basis.</p>

<p>It’s a different UChicago now and while the school is still tough, the admin has finally come to understand that a healthy University requires a healthy College; it’s vital to create an atmosphere where young people can both learn and have fun. Imagine that. I have several friends from my undergrad days teaching at UChicago now and no one wants a return to the needlessly brutal days of yore.</p>

<p>And I’m not sure if UChicago still has meaningful “grade deflation”. From what I gather, the avg. gpa at UChicago is in line with its peer schools.</p>

<p>Of course, it may have become harder to transfer out in the past few years but I say give credit where credit is due – this administration has rebuilt the College into a much happier, better balanced undergraduate experience. With close to 6,000 undergrads, the College is no longer an orphan lost amidst indifferent graduate divisions. You have reading periods now! The University recently opened the Logan Arts Center for students interested in performing arts. The admin has begun taking down the firewalls between the College and the grad professional schools. UChicago has suddenly become a “hot” school. Isn’t it possible that many more students are choosing to stay because they want to?</p>

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<p>Very well said, ILoveUofC!</p>

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<p>^^ 550/740 = 74% in four years isn’t too bad. It’s better than at many LAC’s.</p>

<p>“Re transferring. With UChicago’s improving reputation, there’s fewer and fewer places to transfer to.”</p>

<p>Funny, I met a kid who is taking a year off and wants to transfer to Middlebury College from U. of C.</p>

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<p>I used to play summer lax in NYC with a guy who had been the captain of the varsity lax team at Middlebury. Great guy, IB’er, smart as h*ll, looking like a young JFK. He would have hated UChicago, though. Far too earnest and not nearly appreciative enough of the smarmy back and forth that runs through the veins there. </p>

<p>The two school cultures really don’t overlap much so it doesn’t surprise me that a student who sees himself/herself happy at Middlebury would be unhappy at UChicago. I hope the transfer works out. It’s a shame the kid is losing a year off-school, though.</p>

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<p>Happier students, I guess, if you consider stress, crying over failed exams, and everyone feeling “dumb” all the time. Perhaps an improvement by your 80s experience, but unusually grueling, nonetheless. I think there are probably a handful of other schools in the country with a similar difficulty factor (i.e. MIT and Caltech, perhaps Columbia and Sweatmore). As for extoled reading period, it’s 2 days (a Thursday and Friday before final exams) --which begin today, in fact. But, midterms are full game up till then, so you get a barrage of tests and papers right up to the glorious 2 day reading period you speak of. Don’t get me wrong, I think some kids understand this is what they are signing up for (and perhaps even a few may relish in it), but as a parent looking in, I wish I could view the school as more balanced and less tortuous.</p>

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<p>Erlanger,</p>

<p>UChicago is unusually grueling compared to what? In terms of reading periods, here’s some data from peer schools, all of whom generally allow for tests/exams up until the end of the semester, I believe:</p>

<p>Duke: [Academic</a> Calendar 2013-2014 | Office of the University Registrar<a href=“3%20day%20reading%20period”>/url</a></p>

<p>Stanford: [url=&lt;a href=“http://studentaffairs.stanford.edu/registrar/academic-calendar]Academic”&gt;http://studentaffairs.stanford.edu/registrar/academic-calendar]Academic</a> Calendar | Student Affairs<a href=“2%20day%20reading%20period”>/url</a></p>

<p>Northwestern: [url=&lt;a href=“http://www.registrar.northwestern.edu/calendars/2013_14_acad_calendar.html]Northwestern”&gt;http://www.registrar.northwestern.edu/calendars/2013_14_acad_calendar.html]Northwestern</a> University 2013-14 Academic Calendar: Office of the Registrar - Northwestern University<a href=“2%20day%20reading%20period”>/url</a></p>

<p>UPenn: [url=&lt;a href=“http://www.upenn.edu/almanac/3yearcal.html]Academic”&gt;http://www.upenn.edu/almanac/3yearcal.html]Academic</a> Calendar Fall 2013 through Summer 2016<a href=“3%20day%20reading%20period”>/url</a></p>

<p>How do you know that UChicago is any more grueling than any of these other schools? Recent data also suggests that the avg. GPA has creeped up considerably at UChicago, </p>

<p>Also, at least in terms of mean GPA for hum-social science majors as recorded by law school applicants, UChicago’s current atmosphere is pretty similar to Dartmouth, Duke, Wash U, etc.:</p>

<p><a href=“https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Agfr5qu6TB3AdF9pZjZpbHJzdXM4VmxEWDNSbUNtZ1E#gid=0[/url]”>https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Agfr5qu6TB3AdF9pZjZpbHJzdXM4VmxEWDNSbUNtZ1E#gid=0](<a href=“http://registrar.duke.edu/academic-calendar-2013-2014]Academic”>http://registrar.duke.edu/academic-calendar-2013-2014)</a></p>

<p>So, outside of impressions with a lack of clear comparators, I think it’s hard to judge UChicago’s atmosphere as “unusually grueling.” Again, in comparison to what? Some kids have a tough time at UChicago, and some kids have a tough time at other top colleges too.</p>

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<p>I do think that UChicago’s academics are at least slightly more difficult than some of their peer schools (this is what I’ve heard from close friends/family who went there). I don’t know how much more difficult.</p>

<p>The UChicago alum I know all told me they loved the school and encouraged me to apply, while simultaneously telling me how difficult the academics were. I’m fairly certain that the majority of students who end up going to UChicago have at least an inkling of the reputed difficulty. I think there’s a bit of self-selection, in that a lot of the students who choose to go to UChicago are probably doing so because they actually want that kind of ‘scholarly’ atmosphere–therefore, the transfer rate wouldn’t be high even if UChicago academics were unusually difficult.</p>

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<p>Renoverchat,</p>

<p>It’s really hard to make such comparisons, or subjective statements. Even now, people talk often about how difficult Swarthmore is, but it turns out the median GPA there was about 3.5. </p>

<p>I do agree that schools have different cultures, and UChicago students may agonize over work more (as a higher percentage of their counterparts at, say, Stanford or Princeton are Division 1 athletes, involved in highly stressful clubs, etc.) This speaks more to the culture of a place than the actual difficulty.</p>

<p>Put another way, at places like Princeton or Stanford, students have stresses that are sometimes not at all related to academics. Many play on very competitive sports teams, are in very demanding extracurricular clubs, etc. At UChicago, academics or something academics-related (like quiz bowl) is pretty much the only game in town. The school doesn’t really have hallmark student clubs or anything else going on to the same degree. Same thing goes for Swarthmore. </p>

<p>So, in this atmosphere, academics becomes more front and center. At the end of the day, though, students at Dartmouth, Swarthmore, UChicago, Duke, etc. are probably winding up with comparable GPAs. UChicago students don’t have the same concerns (some would say “distractions”) that students elsewhere have, though, so they worry about academics more. </p>

<p>There is a lot of stress at all top colleges, but at some the stress is distributed between various activities (academics, clubs, etc.), and at others, more focused. UChicago and Swarthmore are probably places where the stress is more focused on academics because not much else is going on (at the same intensity as peer schools).</p>

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<p>That’s wildly overstated, both for Chicago and for Swarthmore. Cue7 isn’t wrong that academics is more at the center of people’s lives at Chicago and Swarthmore than, say, Harvard and Stanford. But it’s not a night-and-day difference by any measure, at least not these days. And the comment about “quiz bowl” is bizarre. I don’t even know if Chicago has something like a quiz bowl team – probably it does – but it doesn’t make much of a dent in campus life. Meanwhile, for example, University Theater and its offshoots, including Off-Off Campus, and various music performance groups, and the Maroon and its alternatives, and Doc Films, and programs tutoring kids in Woodlawn, not to mention varsity sports teams and some very serious club sports, collectively involve thousands of students, some hundreds of whom are spending as much time and energy on their main activities as any of their counterparts at Harvard. The difference is that Harvard has a greater percentage of people putting most of their energy into various extracurriculars (including perhaps more energy spent on the organizations’ internal politics than you could find anywhere else in the world), and it has more of them with longer traditions, better funding, and higher quality. (Except for athletics, I am not sure I would say the same about Stanford, and the difference there is perhaps that more people put more energy into goofing off.) </p>

<p>When my kids were at Chicago, non-academic activities were an enormous part of their lives, involving 30-40 hours/week (and often more) of real engagement. That was much more, by the way, than their friends at Harvard did (who happened to be much more grind-y sorts, not necessarily representative), but probably less than someone working on the Crimson or the Lampoon spends. And they were each able to have two significant activities (e.g., UT and a sport), whereas at Harvard I think you pretty much have to choose one if you want significant involvement.</p>

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<p>JHS,</p>

<p>Before getting into the other points, you really haven’t heard of the UChicago quiz bowl team? They declare themselves as the “winningest quiz bowl team in the world” and they very well may be right. You can read more about them here: [Chicago</a> Quiz Bowl](<a href=“http://bowl.uchicago.edu/]Chicago”>http://bowl.uchicago.edu/). </p>

<p>At least when I was at UChicago, quiz bowl was quite popular, and those on the team devoted serious, serious time to it. They won championships all over the place. </p>

<p>Anyway, after getting to know a range of places, I stick by what I said - at UChicago, the extracurriculars seem fairly muted, compared to the intensity of other places. I don’t mean to say it’s night and day, just that UChicago is on one end of the spectrum, and a place like Stanford is probably on the other end. This is an improvement from ~20 years back, which, as ILoveUofC said, is a time when UChicago wasn’t even on the spectrum.</p>

<p>This being said, if you look at the percentage of students really dedicated to “other” stuff, besides academics, you’d find a higher percentage of students at the ivies/stanford/etc. devoted to “other” stuff, than at UChicago, unless the school has changed significantly.</p>

<p>As examples of this, a smaller percentage of UChicago students participate in D3 athletics, and D3 athletics is nothing like D1 athletics, even at the ivy/patriot league level. At UChicago, being a student comes first, whereas if you go to Yale or Dartmouth or Stanford, there are people who think more about rowing or kicking a ball than they do about academics (although those at Y or D or S still devote a fair amount of time to academics, but the balance is just different for a D1 athlete than the majority of D3 athletes). </p>

<p>I can’t speak for the current state of Off Off Campus (which didn’t seem super active when I was there), but the Maroon also pales in comparison to other newspapers - it still, with a student body of 5500 - only publishes twice a week! Perhaps it keeps a small segment of students quite busy, but it’s not even a daily publication. </p>

<p>Perhaps JHS didn’t know as much about the extracurriculars I referenced, or maybe UChicago has changed a great deal more than I thought, but in the triumvirate of what takes up a college students time (academics, activities, sleep), UChicago veers more toward the academics, and less toward the activities, than many of its peers. </p>

<p>Again, JHS, maybe UChicago really does have a range of hallmark student clubs/activities. Outside of Doc, and maybe Off Off, if they’ve had a resurgence, I think academic-minded clubs like quiz bowl, Model UN, mock trial, etc. are the more time-intensive clubs on campus. Contrast that, say, to Yale, where the D1 sports teams suck a tremendous amount of time for the athletes, the Yale Daily News publishes, well, daily, the Whiffenpoofs are a marquee group on campus, etc. </p>

<p>To me, activities at UChicago still seem more muted. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but the university has made a concerted decision to have people who are students first and foremost, and something “else” after that. There are probably more students at Yale who are there primarily because they can row well or use a squash racket well than there are at UChicago. The more people you have who concentrate primarily on academics, though, and the more academically-intensive environment you might get (although grade inflation is present at around the same level across the board).</p>

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<p>Cue7, I invite you to take a look at the web pages and Facebook pages of the various organizations we are discussing. Quiz Bowl, Mock Trial, they exist, but they are not vibrant organizations. MUN I think does thrive. But there is a ton of energy in the various theater, dance, and music organizations, in both The Maroon and alternative publications (all of my kids’ friends with journalism careers were “alt” at Chicago), at WHPK, in the Neighborhood Schools program, in various mainstream and alternative investment clubs. (And I gather that the investment clubs are gradually acquiring the selectivity and cachet of finals clubs, which kind of makes me retch a little.) And what about Scav Hunt? You want intensity?</p>

<p>If I compare Chicago to the Stanford I knew 30 years ago, it IS night and day – there is much more energy in student activities at Chicago now than there was at Stanford then (except in sports). Honestly, I believe student organizations at Stanford are still not that strong, other than the for-profit ones trying to get venture capital funding. That remains a difference between Stanford and its Eastern rivals.</p>

<p>In sports, Chicago has fewer D3 varsity teams than the Ivies and Stanford have D1 varsity teams, so of course there are fewer students who are on those teams – but there are still a bunch of teams and students on them, and they work pretty hard, if not at the Olympian level it’s easy to find at Stanford. And there are some pretty serious clubs. One of my kids was in one that practiced five days a week, 2-3 hours per day, plus private lessons, with coaches and equipment that the kids financed. At any time, there were 30-40 people coming to practices regularly, although maybe only 20 at every practice. In season, they had intercollegiate competition two out of three weekends, with travel all over the Midwest and occasionally beyond. So, no, it wasn’t like a nationally ranked Stanford team, or even an Ivy varsity, but it was a big commitment of time and energy, and a big deal in the lives of the team members. I watched them stomp clubs from Dartmouth and West Point one weekend, and basically draw against Michigan State, and that was nothing to sneer at. The times I watched, 20 kids were in competition at one point or another, with other backups on hand.</p>

<p>Again, you are right that the classroom remains at the center of student life at Chicago, much more so than at its peer colleges. But you are way off base if you think that there isn’t a lot of involvement in vibrant non-academic activities, or that quasi-academic stuff like quiz bowl is representative of the student activity landscape.</p>

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<p>As a recent grad that spent 80+ hours/week on student organizations (RSOs) by my 4th year, UChicago’s extracurricular activities are seen far differently than at a school like Harvard or Stanford. I wasn’t the only one that prioritized RSOs over academics by my 4th year, but there were very few of us who did (though that number is growing quickly). [ Do note an exception for the week of scav where the number increased substantially for a few days. ]</p>

<p>Not only are academics the center, it’s the only thing that binds the student body together. Looking back at conversations my first year, I was asked repeatedly why I was involved with more than 2 RSOs. And when mentioning my choices of pulling an all-nighter to finish a project for an RSO, I often got puzzled looks whether talking to peers or administrators/advisors. From talking to friends that attended other universities mentioned above, I get the sense my choice would have at least seemed somewhat rational.</p>

<p>Looking forward, these opinions are going away (at least the part of not looking down upon the choice of being involved at more than a couple hours a week), but I believe it will still be quite some time before one’s peers / university staff won’t look down upon choosing to put being Editor-in-Chief of The Chicago Maroon, President of Student Government, or President of ModelUN over academics.</p>

<p>Maybe this change is a good thing and maybe it is not. But with the way things are going, the change is inevitable. That said, I loved my involvement in student life and put it at the top of the reasons why I loved my UChicago experience. Though, I do regret for the future, that people probably won’t be able to be as diverse in their involvement (e.g. pick one group and stay with it for four years vs. being heavily involved with 4 for me).</p>

<p>Edit: I remembered a concrete example. The summer after my 2nd year, I was talking to the Dean of Students for the College and mentioned that I was designing a website for an RSO. Her response was something along the lines of, “You mean you are still doing things over the summer?” I doubt I would have gotten that at Harvard, but I also doubt I would have gotten that if I were to say the same thing this summer (just two years later).</p>

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<p>I agree completely with -CS, whose description of clubs/non-academic activities reflects what I understand to be the case at UChicago.</p>

<p>JHS, I still disagree with you, and I’m puzzled by your remarks. Maybe this is a case of how much UChicago has changed, but I still find it really hard to believe that non-academic activities rival academics at UChicago in the same way they do at many of UChicago’s peers.</p>

<p>Please note, 20 years ago, I really do think there were different cultures - a difference in kind - and now it’s more just difference in degree (with all the schools being on the same spectrum). We appear to disagree on just how far apart UChicago and its peer schools are on the intensity of activities front. </p>

<p>From what I remember and have observed in talking to current UChicago students, clubs were something you did, something that perhaps could take up a good deal of time, but the stress and intensity of most clubs paled in comparison to the atmosphere at other schools. So at Stanford or even at Yale, performance in athletics really mattered, and participating students worried about this. UChicago athletes might spend a good deal of time on their sports, but the culture, atmosphere, and associated stresses are much, much different. I knew and still know many athletes at UChicago, and the culture resembles a good high school athletics program with more travel. Yale, on the other hand, has legit, elite D1 athletes in many sports, who devoted much of their prior lives to the sport. Moreover, only about 8% of the UChicago student body participate in sports, compared to ~15-20% at peer schools. This impacts culture.</p>

<p>Additionally, I picked quiz bowl and model un and mock trial not just because of how much time students invest in these activities, but, to me, because these activities resemble more of the higher pressure atmosphere at other schools. There was an article recently about UChicago and Model UN (<a href=“A New Student-Run Breed: Crisis Oriented and Fiercely Competitive - The New York Times”>A New Student-Run Breed: Crisis Oriented and Fiercely Competitive - The New York Times), quiz bowl is competitive, as is mock trial. (I actually see quiz bowl and Scav Hunt as somewhat related, and scav is very intense for a very short amount of time, and in many ways, is still quasi-academic - and UChicago takes quasi-academic activities quite seriously.)</p>

<p>Maybe the “alt” publications have increased in intensity, as have the a capella clubs and other RSOs. I still stand by what I said though - that UChicago is on a different spot on the spectrum than many of its peers - academics is more front and center, and its the primary draw for students. Again, I’m not saying it’s night and day, just that students agonize over academics more because that’s the primary driver for stress for more students.</p>

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<p>I agree with most of CS’s post. I’d also like to add that theres a small subset of entrepreneurial/business minded students who basically decide by 3rd year to do the bare minimum in academics to maintain a respectable gpa and focus more of their free time on their ventures and careers.</p>

<p>In my experience the attrition rate within RSOs is huge. Its basically a pyramid structure with the majority of members being 1st and 2nd year members and only maybe 1/5 of each incoming pool staying onto 3rd and 4th years. The upperclassmen involved are generally very dedicated though and its not uncommon for a club president to spent more time on their RSO than their classes.</p>