“Not sure it is really a step down in prestige – it outranks Penn, Dartmouth, Brown, and Cornell these days.”
You’re right about rankings, @intparent, but I don’t think that perceived prestige has caught up yet, at least in the Northeast. Rankings and prestige don’t always mesh. Many folks still put a lot of weight on saying they “go to an Ivy”. We see plenty of applicants here on CC applying to all 8 Ivies just because they are Ivies, and UChicago is often still not on their lists.
I think a good essay reviewer who is familiar with what UC liked could steer an applicant in the choice of topic and when editing.
Re coaching. D goes to a private day school in a major east coast city. Aug 1st the GCs come back to school early and re-open for business. In the AM, the three GCs meet, are looking at the U of C essay topics and saying “WTF? Who’s going to want to write these? They’re crazy!” After lunch, D comes bounding in to talk to her GC. “Hey, did see the U of C topics? Finally – something that looks fun to write about! I’m doing apples and oranges and I think I want to talk about the meaning of juice.” GC cracks up, and tells her about the AM meeting.
School has GCs look at essays and also has a retired English teacher on call for help. English teacher’s advice was off-target for U of C (would have made essays more trite) – which D recognized immediately. GC’s advice was pretty much limited to saying this sentence is unclear and this phrase is awkward. And then saying – you’re done – that’s you I hear on the page and it’s great.
I tell this story in detail to make two points. One is that, yes, private school kids have access to more resources wrt college counseling than most public school kids do. Secondly, even at very good schools that routinely send a couple of kids a year to U of C, GCs aren’t likely to be people who have mastered U of C essay writing! They may know a U of C kid when they see one, and they may bring the school to the attention of kids/families who don’t know about it (not even sure about this), but there’s no secret sauce. And, honestly, U of C is still an oddball choice in this Ivy-obsessed environment, albeit one that is respected as a legit alternative … if you’re into that sort of thing (cf. MIT). It’s not a code the Administration is trying to crack.
@TrazCapDEV, there are many ways ‘coaching’ gets done other than overtly. Our HS still puts out erroneous information that one cannot take SAT2 until after one has taken SAT1, this even after I pointed it out to them. This info also comes out in the fall of the Senior year. Very helpful. Not. A GC was heard within the last few years saying “No one uses the Common App.” Yep.
I’m guessing this sort of stuff does not happen in your GC office.
Our total interaction with the HS re entire college admission process was having the GC write the letter of rec and upload the transcript. And this GC is by far the best one for college admission at the school of 2000 students.
@exacademic, we had the same interaction re essays except I was the one saying “what the…?” and DD was saying “that looks like fun!.” And it was sometime in October…
@HydePark - what do you mean by “Your dorm is a better predictor of stereotypical UChicago-ness than your high school.” What type of student do you consider having “sterotypical UChicago-ness” (how do you define this) and dorms do you consider typical vs atypical in this regard? Also, as background info, which dorm do you live in? Thanks …
@Greta65 I’m guessing that was directed at @HydeSnark ?
I’m not yet a student, so take this with a hefty dose of salt, but the dorms everyone talks about as fitting the quirky UChicago stereotype are Snell-Hitchcock and Burton-Judson (a.k.a. Snitchcock and BJ).
IMO one big advantage of preppy school students has over ordinary high school students is the connection between their high schools and the top colleges.
The GCs at preppy schools usually have done the admission business for a long time and may know some insiders in the AO at top colleges. A phone call to the AO on behalf of a student can have significant impact on the admission decision. I have heard mentioning of this practice many times. At an ordinary school a GC is assigned to many students who she/he does not even know well. It is not a common practice for an ordinary high school GC to call AO at top colleges - most of time she/he does not have a connection.
@Greta65 if you want to predict something about a given UChicago student, their dorm will tell you more than their high school. It was simply a comment on whether UChicago “feels” preppier. The answer is no, because none of the kids from prep schools seem any different from the people around them who didn’t.
There is no doubt that kids who are in private day schools or boarding schools have an advantage with the whole process, including the essay. I think it’s expected that if a family is going to pay that kind of money, there better be help.
Even a GC saying to a student- that sounds like you, says it all. My D’s GC in her public high school would more likely say- and who are you? than anything else. Plus, I think she seriously had some dementia going on.
I didn’t even know what a private day school was until I started reading CC. I thought it was something for kindergarteners or daycare. Not something in my world.
There are so many reasons why Prep school kids may be desirable to elite schools. For one thing, they are often very competitive to gain access to so that the students are, as a group, very strong. The curriculum is often very rigorous and they often have similar kinds of rituals and decorum. So kids from elite private high schools are already inculcated into a similar environment. And they usually come from wealthy families. In terms of U of Chicago-I think it is as “prestigious” as the Ivy League schools-known to be very intellectual rather than pre-professional-a good school for thinkers.
HydeSnark,
In response to my question of UChicago feeling more “prep-centric,” you said:
“@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.”
I’m not sure that statement holds water, though - because I’m not talking about Chicago way back in the day. Even in comparison to 2007 or even 2011, there are a LOT more prep-school kids at Chicago.
Let’s use Andover as an example:
In 2007 Andover sent 7 students to Chicago (in comparison to 21 to Harvard, 12 to Yale, etc.): http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/prep-school-admissions/371262-college-destinations-phillips-andover-class-of-07.html
In 2011, Andover sent 6 to Chicago (in comparison to 15 to Harvard, and 14 to Yale): https://www.andover.edu/Academics/CollegeCounseling/Documents/School_Profile_2011-2012.pdf
In 2015, however, Andover sent 14 to Chicago (in comparison to 13 to Harvard and 11 to Yale): https://www.andover.edu/Academics/CollegeCounseling/Documents/PhillipsAcademySchoolProfile2015-2016.pdf
Andover now doesn’t look that different than Andover in 2007 or 2011. The number of Andover students regularly going to Chicago, though, has increased considerably. This is true of virtually all other top prep schools (Exeter, Harvard Westlake, etc.)
Further, these schools don’t have that many of the “quirky” types that typically gravitated to Chicago. Horace Mann, for instance, sends about 12 a year to Chicago - and their class is fairly small and not known for being a haven for quirky-ness.
So, are the pockets of preppiness (and, presumably, weath) enlargening at Chicago? The numbers seem to indicate that they are. Because even in comparison to 2007, there are a lot more (maybe 30-40% more?) prep grads in Hyde Park.
As a historical footnote (and one from a work of satire at that), in The Official Preppy Handbook published in 1980, Chicago is mentioned as one of the most un-preppy schools . . . but it’s in good company as schools like MIT and Columbia are on the same list.
^ yay for preppy handbook reference @bluewater2015 ! I’ll never forget reading it when I was about, oh, 14 
In my experience that is evidently false, at least of the prep school grads I know who go here…
Out of the League
Columbia
Cornell
MIT
NYU
Oberlin
Sarah Lawrence
UC-Berkeley
CHICAGO
Michigan
Wisconsin
(Re #31, entire list.)
HydeSnark,
I said the prep schools don’t have many (NOT any) quirky types. Your argument, though, is that UChicago is now soaking up a lot of the few quirky types at these prep schools?
Put another way, when Chicago used to get six kids from Andover, they got the quirky Andover types. Now, Chicago is getting 100% more Andover grads (around 12-14 a year) and it just so happens that ALL those kids are quirky types too?
Similarly, then, are there no bands of noticeably preppy/wealthy students at Chicago? It just seems strange that bunches of “quirky” types (more than ever) from Andover or Groton or wherever are now gravitating to U of C - especially when these schools aren’t known for having that many classically Chicago style students. Heck, most of these schools purposely don’t look for Chicago type students - as they have their own quotas to fill for sports, legacies, etc.
YikYakkers’ obsession with Canada Goose sightings suggests that there’s a visible prep presence on campus.
That said, I can easily believe that, in the past, U of C typically got scholarship kids from these schools and now it’s getting more of the wealthy kids (but probably skewed toward the ones who are into academics) as well. With tuition and room and board as high as it is at U of C these days, that’s not surprising. And need-blind admissions from private schools are more likely to yield full pay students than need-blind admissions from public schools.
Some more data, since it’s so accessible:
Chicago is the third-most popular choice at the Cate School in CA (http://www.cate.org/53/)
Chicago is in the top six overall destinations at the Groton School in New England (http://www.groton.org/Page/Academics/College-Counseling/Matriculations)
More students have gone to Chicago from the Trinity School in NYC than Duke, Stanford, or Georgetown (http://www.trinityschoolnyc.org/Page/Our-Program/College-Counseling/Trinity-School-Matriculation)
Chicago is the third-most popular choice at Milton Academy in MA, behind only Brown and Harvard, and ahead of Yale, Princeton, Georgetown, Columbia, etc. (http://www.milton.edu/admission/college-matriculations/)
All the above numbers I can find don’t jive with HydeSnark’s comments about Chicago simply gaining more “Chicago-style” students from these elite high schools. The composition of these prep schools have been quite constant over the past 5-10 years. There aren’t that many more quirky, scholarship kids at these high schools now than there were in 2010 or even 2005. But there are a LOT more grads from these high schools at Chicago now.
This seems to imply that somewhere at Chicago, maybe out of the view of HydeSnark and others, there’s a growing base of wealthy, perhaps classically prep-educated students in Hyde Park. Chicago’s recruitment success at schools that were NOT traditionally feeders has been astounding.
About 13 years ago, when my oldest child was a freshman at a nationally prestigious private day school in our area, the school published a cumulative list of where its alumni had gone to college over the previous 10 years (i.e., 1994 - 2003). The University of Chicago was #3, after the local Ivy (which generally gets about 10% of the graduating class) and Harvard. When she went to the University of Chicago, there were 6 kids there, in her class or the classes ahead of her or behind her, who had been in her 24-student 4/5 classroom eight years earlier. Among her first-year dorm friends were kids from BB&N, Fieldston, Andover, and another local private school here.
In other words, it’s not new news that Chicago has a strong draw among private school kids of a certain type. The proportion may have shifted somewhat in recent years. But back when Chicago was more of a secret club, it was a secret club for intellectual kids from private schools and public schools that had lots of students from families with strong, Establishment academic values.
I suspect that Chicago was always accepting a lot of kids from academically oriented prep schools. The difference now is that somewhat more of those accepted are choosing to attend.
The Ivy’s made a point in the recent past to diversify the type of student they normally recruit taking more URM’s and first generation college students who would not typically attend a Groton or Milton. It could be that these prep schools are finding they can no longer place as many students in the Ivy’s, forcing more of the prep school grads to non-Ivy schools like UChicago.