If more from prep schools are being admitted and enrolling, is that coming at the expense of large public high schools that don’t report matriculation statistics?
These prep schools aggregate and anonymize all their college data, so there is no FERPA issue.
UChicago SAT/ACT test scores were comparable to top 15 peers, but the last few years the grade averages of both applicants and admits (Preps to UChicago) of three prep schools listed above were lower on average than for peer universities.
I think it’s a smart strategy by UChicago.
Lots of drum beating and cheerleading in the Chicago forum. It reeks of insecurity.
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All it means is that UChicago is targeting these students and accepts more of them than it used to.
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Maybe they just couldn’t get into the other schools. It’s a quality safety.
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It’s like old times and is a hopeful sign that covid is lifting when the Chicago haters congregate again on our board. All is right with the world.
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Ultima, your anecdote notwithstanding, the fact is it’s widely known for a few years that the only school that has higher scores than UChicago is Caltech.
The rest of the other schools have been consistently below UChicago for that metric.
For the rolled up measure to be true, this implies that there are more high schools where Chicago gets the high scorers than Other schools, except Caltech. So your anecdote about 3 high schools may just be the exception and not the rule.
Actually, it’s pretty typical for a particular school’s forum to have some drum-beating and cheerleading. The ever-present drum-beat from the peanut gallery is another story. IMO, the act of taking the time to show up on another school’s forum to point out how insecure everyone is itself demonstrates not a little bit of insecurity. And it’s pretty clear that UChicago is living rent-free in more than a few heads.
I’m a University of Chicago fan, and so is one of my kid’s who is very hopeful to be admitted. Not kid’s first choice, or second choice, or even 6th choice. Kid also knows, as do other classmates, that UChicago has been admitting elite prep kids through regular decision at much higher rates than most of its peers, even kids who are not at the top of the class grade-wise (but very high test scores). I wish UChicago’s peers would do this as well 
Illinois Math and Science Matriculations (Class of 2020)
- UIUC
Accepted 158, Attended 64 - UIC
Accepted 82, Attended 14 - Case Western Reserve
Accepted 39, Attended 9 - Northwestern
Accepted 9, Attended 6 - UChicago
Accepted 5, Attended 4 - St. Louis University
Accepted 36, Attended 4 - WashU
Accepted 14, Attended 4 - MIT
Accepted 3, Attended 3 - IIT
Accepted 26, Attended 3 - Caltech
Accepted 5, Attended 3
Further down…
Stanford
Accepted 2, Attended 2
Columbia
Accepted 2, Attended 2
Yale
Accepted 1, Attended 3
Harvard
Accepted 1, Attended 2
Dartmouth
Accepted 1, Attended 1
https://www.imsa.edu/discover-imsa/profile-mission-beliefs/college-matriculation/
The claim that UChicago is accepting student with lower GPAs is demonstrably false:
98% of UChicago students are in the top 10% of their class:
96% of Stanford students are in the top 10% of their class:
95% of Harvard students are in the top 10% of their class:
It is simply not possible statistically for UChicago to be taking vast numbers of “middle-of-the-pack” students. Of course, there is some variation. But UChicago students have higher GPA’s overall than Harvard or Stanford students.
CC won’t allow me to post the links to the stats because they are on a competing site.
May have been true 15 years ago but not today.
Deerfield Academy Matriculations (Class of 2018)
- Brown 11
- UVA 9
- Cornell 8
- Columbia / Middlebury / Georgetown 6
- Princeton / Duke / Trinity 5
- UChicago / Harvard / Penn / Williams / Boston U 4
- Yale / Hamilton / Boston College 3
- Stanford / Vanderbilt 2
- Berkeley 1
It works the other way too. Sometimes students with multiple HYPSM acceptances don’t get accepted to UChicago.
But stepping back a bit, I really hope that admissions is continuing to choose students that fit at UChicago. By that I mean are looking for a rigorous program and are committed to open expression.
I have one child at UChicago and another at Harvard. Interestingly, both had the other college roughly at #6 on their priority list, and my D was extremely fortunate she didn’t have to “settle” for Harvard and got into her top choice. She’s someone who would coast if allowed to, and it’s pretty clear that you can graduate from Harvard with honors as long as you have a pulse. She would have learned nothing there.
And don’t get me started about the differences in open expression between these two schools.
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We’ve seen that at Beverly Hills High School, Harvard is a nice decent second choice school. Of the 7 students accepted to Harvard, 3 attended. If you don’t get your first choice, Harvard is a perfectly fine second choice safety. But most students do seem to get their preferred choice since Harvard’s yield rate (42%) is so low in BH 90210 compared with UChicago’s 80% yield.
True in all respects. Not sure where that claim came from. Maybe someone still isn’t happy about so much ED.
This topic shows a normalized analysis with respect to Groton graduates and college matriculation:
Note that the CC redesign has affected some of the formatting aspects of the topic, and that some links may no longer be supported. In summary, colleges appeared as follows in the more recent version:
- Scripps
- Hamilton
- Bowdoin
- UChicago
- Georgetown
- Harvard
- Dartmouth
- Brown
- Williams
- Middlebury
- Trinity
- Princeton
- Yale
- Tufts
- Columbia
- Northwestern
- MIT
- St. Andrews
- Boston College
- Duke
- Stanford
- NYU
- UNC–CH
- U.Va.
- Cornell
Holy cow it’s like a echo chamber in here.
Stanford and Harvard are D1 schools. And they both play the most popular sport in the country.
Stanford has won the last bajillion Director’s Cups, because they excel with academics and D1 sports.
The weather sucks (that’s meteorology-speak) in a Chicago.
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These low admit numbers even from IMSA to UChicago, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, MIT and Caltech looks similar to the low admits at Beverly Hills (which proves that BH is not a “bad” school). Interesting that MIT gets the highest yield at IMSA in this one year data point. It makes sense though since this is a Math and Science highschool.
I think the claim being made, that could be true, is that UChicago is more open to accepting unhooked students from old private boarding schools, relative to its peers
On no you didn’t! Harvard is a quality safety! 
Stanford, the school, does. Not sure how many of their students (as opposed to the school) excel at both academics and D1 sports.
All you need to know is that there’s a heck of lot more Stanford students who excel at D1 (or any Division) sports than at Chicago.
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And majority of those Stanford D1 sports superstars are not academic stars