As the admissions season hits full swing, I did a little unscientific research and uncovered a startling fact - Chicago is now one of the very top recipients of students from private, prep schools. Some data:
http://www.hw.com/about/School-Profile/Matriculation - 40 students in the past five years have gone from the Harvard-Westlake school in LA to U of C. This is behind Stanford, USC, etc., but ahead of Yale and Princeton.
This caught me by surprise. Also, of note, Duke is nowhere near as popular as it used to be - 10-15 years ago, Duke and Chicago’s numbers would have been flipped.
For a long time, I think Chicago was a well-kept secret. The university - like most non-Ivy schools, one could argue - wasn’t a household name, and applicants were a self-selecting bunch, hence its high acceptance rate. Despite acceptance rates well above 30% until the late 2000s, the university had accolades that many universities would envy, and was well-known for its strength in Economics especially. Though it wasn’t a household name, you’d get more than a blank stare if you mentioned Chicago in a board meeting or a State Capitol.
Now, with a new philosophy guiding the admissions department, the U of C has stepped up its promotional efforts, and the man on the street is probably more likely to know about the university now than he was 10 years ago. More to the point, the average student will be aware of Chicago, when the school wasn’t really on most applicants’ radar 10 years ago. Even so, I suspect there’s a ways to go before the university’s profile will resemble that of places like HYPS. To an extent, Chicago is still a well-kept secret - which may explain why prep school applicants make up a larger percentage of the applicant pool, and/or admitted students.
To me, as an alum, its surprising because it suggests the changing composition in the class. When I was at Chicago, we had a fair number of students from these high schools (maybe a handful from each a year).
The numbers weren’t nearly what they are now, though. It’s probably the first time in history where Chicago was the top choice for Andover grads (as it was last year), or the top choice over the past five years at Horace Mann.
About than 60 percent of students at Chicago Lab have parents that are employees at the university, so the high number of kids that stay on campus is not unexpected. UChicago has had a very proactive administration in terms of moving the school aggressively in the direction they want, and the targeting of high end private schools is a very logical direction for the school to go.
I am not very clear why top private colleges are still paying special interests to prep schools nowadays. Before the top private colleges wanted well-prepared high school students and prep schools provided that need. But the admission game has changed a lot for the past 10 or 20 years. There are way many well-prepared high school students for those top private colleges to choose and turn down (LOL).
I can understand there is a good and historic relationship between top private colleges and prep schools whose counselors can give their students a boost over ordinary high school students.
But what do top private colleges gain these days? Do they have way many qualified applicants? Do they want to diversify their student body (instead enroll a dozen freshmen from a single prep school)? Money? Reputation?
@Cue7 No, not really. Prep schools aren’t what they used to be, a lot of people who came here via fancy prep schools were not from the traditional prep school backgrounds and were there on a scholarship. Your dorm is a better predictor of stereotypical UChicago-ness than your high school.
By concentration of representation for one private school, Forbes’ #1 ranked Trinity School, Chicago is second only to Kenyon among out-of-region colleges (minimum 5 TS matriculants, 2011-2015):
My school is a big feeder to UChicago (“traditional” prep school, blazers and ties, rich and predominantly white) with ~50% acceptance rate to UChi. Last year 10% of the graduating class matriculated there, and I’m sure some of them are less qualified than say, a valedictorian from a nearby public school. However, most of the students’ families are ridiculously rich and influential, so UChicago definitely looks out for that.
Call me a cynic… I suspect that as UC has risen in the rankings, it has become more desirable for prep students, their parents, and the prep schools who like to say how many students they are sending to top schools. I think the prep school GCs have found it now worth their while to coach prep students to “crack” the UC admissions process.
I have seen more students from my kids top tier boarding school going UChicago (and Duke!) than 7-8 years ago. I chalk it up to two things: 1. Like @intparent mentioned above, UChicago has risen in the rankings and, with that, has seen its desirability increase and 2. in the ever increasing admissions landscape, it is increasingly difficult for graduates of the prep schools to get into the Ivies so they are very actively pursuing the colleges and universities one step down in prestige.
@intparent It is a common misconception that prep school GCs “coach” students to get into elite schools. They normally don’t do that. It is more like schools like UChicago are actively “recruiting” prep school students. We didn’t learn any “secrets” to admissions. We are more well prepared, yes, but nothing ridiculous like others picture us to be.