Agree with @arbitrary99. Two things are going on. HYPS have become increasingly diverse and UChicago has been very successful in raising its profile and attracting top students. If we look at the Yale class profiles over the past few years, only 5-6% come from boarding schools, so we are talking about less than 100 matriculants from all boarding schools. Private day school percentages are at around 20%. At the same time, for the past 2 years, Pell Grant recipients are at 20% and Yale has flipped to majority minority.
The better number to gauge true preference are cross admit percentages. Those figures however are hard to get and verify, but I would guess UChicago has been gaining ground there as well, but I would be surprised that it would win that battle. I base that on the debrief we get each year from the Yale AO as to yield and who we lose the most students to - HYPSM.
UChicago had a huge advantage too as it doubled its incoming class size over the years to make it similar to HYpS. This meant it could continue and increased its need blind diversity as well as take more prep school kids, which traditionally it had not. They were able to build this on its fantastic foundation of a truly elite academic institution. Very few who have gone to a HYPS don’t think the UChicago undergrads are often even stronger, much like MIT in a different area.
I would guess Yale is probably the biggest cross admit competitor to UChicago right now. Down to its gothic architecture and urban setting, and well regarded business and law schools.
Our Dallas area school has increased U of Chicago applications per year from 9 to 14 over the last five years compared with the previous five. Harvard has increased from 17 to 21 and Wash U has stayed the same at 16 per year. I note that Chicago has done an excellent job with its local admissions recruiter who is very present on campus. The MIT/Yale/Harvard/Stanford enrollees tend to either be near the top of the class in academics with some music skill or are top 5% with strong scores and athletic skills. Chicago has attracted well rounded enrollees that are also diverse. I’d guess they are more likely to cross-apply to Rice than USC or Michigan.
Of all the prep school lists, I am most surprised by Princeton being low on lists, outside of L’Ville. NYU also does extremely well at Harvard-Westlake in LA.
@tristatecoog , I’m curious as to how that local admissions recruiter pitches UChicago to those Texas kids. You describe the Chicago enrollees as well-rounded and diverse, adjectives that surprised me. What is the Chicago brand, as seen from down there? What distinguishes it, if anything at all, in the minds of these kids from the other elite schools?
Another part of Texas here- We also have seen an increase in students applying to Chicago. I think it is perceived as perhaps a better shot at admission to an elite school than the top 5 Ivys, but still top academics and serious students. Chicago is pitched, as I said previously, as an elite academic school in a great city with easy transportation access. Diverse student body, top professional schools and exposure to top academic faculty.
In the forums I’ve seen her, it comes across as academic, self-assured and collegial. Very helpful, down-to-earth. Not preppy like Georgia. You know it’s more exclusive than UT-Austin.
I’ve known two recent enrollees that graduated with my daughter or the year before. One is a white male that was very respected in band and put the EOY slide show together. People called him super smart and he presented well and the presentation showed a lot of talent and work. I believe he’s a physics major. Other is a National Hispanic Scholar female. I know one of the parents who jokes about how expensive U of C is. The daughter was set on the school and parent says she passed up big $ at other schools.
Our school is very Greek oriented in college. Rice and Chicago seem comparable. Wash U has the b-school. The top three in the class went to MIT and Berkeley (all Asian female) with no sports. Previous year a top swimmer (Asian male) chose MIT. He’s smart, very personable and set a school record. The previous year a top swimmer went to Yale. He was a state champion and suppose he had great stats. Very gregarious.
This is so fascinating. I live in the Chicago burbs, our high school is one of the top schools in Illinois and even though UofC is a phenomenal school, maybe 1 person per year applies there. I have sophomores in college and only 1 their year did. I know 1 last year did and he’s in Econ which is what they’re tops for. No one is mentioning Northwestern in that list much which is surprising because it is somewhat elite as well and often times harder to get in (at least for Easterners) than some of the Ivies. Last year every kid that got into Northwestern from our school had a 4.0.
One attraction for UofC is they are test optional and have been for a few years, not just due to covid. They also as someone mentioned are a very quirky school. Their essays are about the weirdest things so you need to be unique if you want to go there. And, their slogan is “where fun goes to die”. My daughters APUSH teacher went there and would tell them that and right away they wrote it off. Their father went there for grad school so it’s too bad they wouldn’t give it a shot. It’s a beautiful campus but somewhat confining because you cannot go South of the Midway and it’s about 15 minutes from downtown where the fun all is. Northwestern is on the lakefront and more modern and a better location per se.
The Texas thing is funny but makes sense since in state it is dirt cheap to attend UT and depending on what program you’re in, you can’t get much better. One of my daughters is in the Business Honors program at McCombs and it is top ranked. I think McCombs itself is like 5th in the country, but take into account the Honors program and they are as good as Wharton, some say better. Who knows? I have another at an Ivy and there are definitely some more impressive things at UT Honors programs than the Ivy, but of course some just like the name of the Ivy.
Schools popularity come and go. Our school for some reason Vanderbilt and USC have become the IT schools. Some in LA would disagree that there is anything all that special about USC. So, everyone has an opinion but ultimately it is personal preference and what you do with that degree when you’re done.
I’m wondering if @srparent15 lives up on the North Shore. I recall many with similar views during the years I lived there. One update to the last time he/she was in Hyde Park: All of UChicago’s South Campus - including Logan, Harris, Law, three undergraduate dorms housing approximately 1/2 the residential space for the College, two dining halls, several cafes, and a hotel for guests to the university (read: parents) - would now be “south of the Midway.” And students even use the green line on 63rd.
BTW, thank you for giving me some hope about my 4th year D, whose career goal would be to teach APUSH at a top college prep someday in the Chicago area. While I do think some of her interests are “quirky” - she is really into 18th century American intellectual thought and the printing press of the early 19th century, for instance - I have no worries about at least some of her career ambitions. From what I have seen, particularly when it comes to curriculum and instruction careers, being an offbeat “quirky” instructor with lots of ideas, energy and critical knowledge of the subject matter can be a plus.
I know students use the “EL” at UofC, it’s the only way to get around, however, there is still a lot of crime outside the UofC boundaries, just like in areas of Evanston there is a substanial amount of crime that no one wants to talk about. Well, no one on campus does, lol. Clearly like anywhere here in Chicago, you don’t just get shot because you’re in Chicago and people know where to go and not to go. It’s no different than being at USC or a Wash U and staying within the confines of the campuses and not straying too far out.
The APUSH teacher was not the reason my kids weren’t interested. I think that sentence came out wrong. They loved her and that whole thing “where fun goes to die” was a joke. She was one of their favorite teachers and even wrote one of their LORs. Neither of them were going into fields that UofC is known for and one other thing UofC is well known for is grade deflation (although one is also at a school like that), but that’s really only relevant for grad school. Their father learned that in med school with his UofC undergrad friends, but also quickly learned they were some of the smarted in his class. My husband went there for law school and loved it. Both schools today are still some of the best.
If your daughter is quirky and wants to teach History then she definitely should go for it, because that is what these future kids need. Someone who loves what they do and can think out of the box which is probably what your daughter can do. Never being boring (exactly as you describe at the end of your paragraph :))! Yawn at the history teachers in my day. I wish my son had who my daughters did but based on when she teaches and how his schedule was going to shake out we knew he would not get her. He liked his teacher but I wasn’t super impressed.
My kids are all science/math kids so it was a breath of fresh air for them to take Apush and think out of the box but also be lucky enough to have good teachers. It truly does make a difference.
It is interesting how a significant number of local kids want to leave the area no matter what they have nearby. I read an interesting article on a kid from San Francisco admitted to Harvard, went on and on about Harvard, in the comments below someone had written that they had four kids from the same HS admitted to Stanford, meh, who cares, someone got into Harvard.
My oldest son lives in SF and a few years ago after flying back from visiting him I was talking to the woman on the plane next to me. She was saying how she was from Palo Alto area originally but now lived in Chicago. She said she left because she didn’t want to go to Stanford because “everyone” from her HS goes to Stanford! I was like what?! Our high school joke is that they haven’t figured out the secret to getting anyone into Stanford yet. Ironically since then we have gotten a bunch in. But you are so right. My son will apply to Northwestern if he doesn’t get into his ED school but he really doesn’t want to be this close. Meanwhile my daughter has friends at her school that only wanted to go to Northwestern and were either waitlisted or denied and can’t figure out why she had no interest. My kids think I would visit all the time. Not!
SR parent, there’s also the CTA bus. The 171/172 actually go around Hyde Park and several are expresses to the downtown. Before Covid, when visiting Hyde Park I’d just hop on the #55 from Midway and ride that. My travel expenses would amount to less than $10 for the entire weekend.
Grade deflation might still exist at the grad level (it certainly did in my day!) but on the undergraduate side it might be a thing of the past. On another social site - let’s call it Shred-It - they crowd-sourced the GPA cut-off for Deans List last summer (top 20% by GPA). Turned out to be 3.9! Now, that might be a bit high due to easy grading during the Covid Spring, but others have posted data on this and other forums showing top 25% being something like 3.8 and the median being a 3.6. Here is one (see link). The college doesn’t post this information so it can’t be confirmed, but there’s enough evidence to suggest to me that students at UChicago are much closer in GPA to other top-tier schools than a generation ago.
You are obviously correct that shootings tend to be concentrated in specific neighborhoods. However, Hyde Park isn’t crime-free and the subject of crime, the university’s Clery report, and related matters tend to come up on the forum every year. Usually posters try to put it into perspective for the benefit of newer parents.
Unfortunately for the College Admissions office, “where fun comes to die” is alive and well this time of year due to finals and papers. They have tried to shake that slogan but it’s probably a keeper, much to Dean Nondorf’s chagrin. “Dollar milk shakes on the quad” just doesn’t encapsulate the same underlying truths that “Fun comes to die” manages to do. That’s why it’s stuck.
Personally, I love the intense liberal arts experience that the College provides and I completely agree with the principles and philosophy that drive the university, particularly the focus on academic inquiry. My kids really love the place. However, that won’t be true for every top kid. We’ve known several who chose to apply elsewhere for a variety of reasons, all of them good.
Groton Number of Students Matriculating (2013)
6 - Dartmouth
4 - Harvard / Bowdoin
3 - Yale
2 - Princeton / Stanford / Columbia / Brown / Duke
1 - MIT / Penn / Berkeley / Northwestern / Georgetown / Pomona / NYU
0 - UChicago
Now…
Groton Number of Students Matriculating (2019)
5 - UChicago / Harvard
4 - Yale / Georgetown / NYU
3 - Rensselaer / Wesleyan
2 - Boston / Columbia / Georgia Tech / MIT / Northeastern / Northwestern / Princeton / Skidmore / Stanford / George Washington / Tsinghua / Tufts / UNC / Penn / Washington & Lee
Groton Number of Students Matriculating (2020)
5 - UChicago / Harvard
4 - Yale / Brown / Colgate
3 - Columbia / Princeton / Colgate / Boston College
2 - Penn / Stanford / Georgetown / Babson/ BU / Hailton / Scripps / Colorado-Boulder / Vermont
Great school. Interesting to note in looking at detailed matriculation data, kids that applied to, and were admitted to, Univ. of Chicago from 3 of your top 10 Prep schools had on average lower grades than at any of Chicago’s top 15 peers. Was able to look at recent grading data of applicants and admits to determine this. Chicago is clearly admitting more kids from the well-known prep schools, and also willing to take more middle of the pack kids than any of its peers. Smart strategy, but should point this out.
You do sound like a walking FERPA violation. But don’t worry. I wouldn’t dream of reporting you.
Anyway, what you gave was an anecdote. Not a statistic.
Studies have shown that UChicago students have higher test scores on average than the other schools.
And they all have high percentages of entering students in the top 10% of their classes.
No one claims the schools simply admit the student with the highest GPA. Students with lower GPAs than the valedictorian can and do get in, even when the valedictorian might not.
Plus, these schools practice holistic admissions. The students you mentioned, without any evidence, might have taken easier classes. Or the UChicago students may have won more awards or done something else noteworthy.
I do not doubt that there is plenty of individual variability.
College admissions is an art, not a science. Johns Hopkins did a study several years again in which they set up four mock admissions committees to review student applications. Each committee scored the same group of students entirely differently. So it is as an art not a science–very subjective.
As mentioned previously there is also a certain arbitrariness to admissions these days, which many have commented on. I know for a fact --based on their own videos–that plenty of students admitted to UChicago’s so called top peers didn’t get into UChicago or were waitlisted. I’ve seen every combination of people being admitted and not admitted that you can dream of.
