UChicago is Tops at Top Prep Schools

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Chicago ✅
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I don’t like the idea of defining “academic superstar” based on SAT/ACT score. The test has little meaning for highly selective colleges. The math section is primarily a measure of being able to race through simple multiple choice questions without making any careless errors, rather than anything relating to math students would see at either college or being an “academic superstar.” The EBRW also has little relevance to anything I’d associate with being an “academic superstar.” This relates to why such colleges tend to emphasize things like ECs, awards, LORs, and similar, which can provide more meaningful distinctions that small test score differences. I’d be far more impressed with an applicant who has an amazing academic achievement outside of the classroom than one who scores slightly higher on the SAT.

That said, I believe 2018-19 was the last year before test optional. A comparison of 2018-19 25/75 scores, as listed in federal reporting is below. For all practical purposes, the scores for Harvard and Chicago were the same. However, if you want to be really precise, Harvard had a slight edge in SAT, with slightly higher 75th percentile scores on both sections. Other less tech focused colleges with the same 33 to 35 ACT range include Columbia, Duke, Johns Hopkins, Northwestern, Rice, Vanderbilt, and Yale.

Harvard: 33 to 35 ACT, 720/780 EBRW, 740/800 Math
Chicago: 33 to 35 ACT, 720/770 EBRW, 750/780 Math

I think the more interesting breakdown is comparing scores of special subgroups, like athletes. A comparison of scores as self-reported in the previously referenced freshman surveys as below. Harvard had higher non-athlete scores, but lower athlete scores. Chicago scores had less gap between athletes and non-athletes. This fits with the athletics being a larger hook at a Div I school, like Harvard.

Harvard Non-Athlete – 2254
Chicago Non-Athlete – 2224
Chicago Recruited Athlete – 2149
Harvard Recruited Athlete – 2115

They didn’t ask about legacies in this survey, but in others years, Harvard legacies have averaged ~60 points higher SAT than non-legacies, as self-reported on the freshman survey.

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The general idea was higher % applied and higher % yield = more popular, with lesser weighting given to a lower admit rate. However, it was a completely arbitrary example, rather than a specific formula. If you’d like to rank them differently, feel free to do so.

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A fellow goes to bed and a Chicago thread brings in another gusher. The analogy of flies being attracted to whatever substance we are putting out here is amusing. However, I see another dynamic at work: During the time of covid some of us have been missing the peculiar energy, passion, and relentlessness of our old Chicago board discussions. A pent-up demand is expressing itself here. I take the present eruption as a hopeful sign of returning normality. For those who don’t like it, well, what was it Harry Truman said about kitchens and heat?

@Data10 , the figure I cited of 43 percent ALDC at Harvard is drawn from the data for white students in Table 10. Limiting the data to those figures sharpens the analysis because it takes the separate preferences and issues that arise for the other demographics out of the equation. I believe it reasonable to assume that well more than 50 percent of the white admits from the prep schools are ALDC.

The reason I prefer the stats in Table 7 to those in Table 2 is that the former shows the shape of the entire distribution of academically ranked kids over ten deciles, whereas the latter, though it captures a tiny subset of supernovas in its top ranking, at 1-2 percent of the total they come from a pretty distant galaxy and are not very helpful in the present discussion. The destinations of these rare birds, even if we could know them, would not help us very much to characterize the entirety of the entering cohorts to Chicago and other schools from any particular prep school. That is what we were talking about here. In particular I was battling the impressionistic assertion that Harvard et. al. netted only the tier-1 kids, leaving the tier-2s and 3s to lesser schools like Chicago. I was looking for some hard data, and I found it in the tables above, which don’t bear out these impressions at all.

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Segmented targeting is clearly a strategy for UChicago, but I still think ED/ED2 is the main culprit. No school is close to UChicago in terms of the percentage of students admitted via ED/ED2. WashU is perhaps the second highest. Take a look at what their student composition is like.

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Based on the overnight posts, it appears the answer to my question is “no.” Closing.

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