^^ very true. @Coldsummer123 I guess I can’t help it 
@MurphyBrown on one hand that means Chicago is sort of elitist in a way. On the other hand a lot of the prep school kids I meet had more training and seemed to be more openminded and inclusive. Frats still suck though
@MurphyBrown @Trickster2212 My kid was one of four from a “normal” California public school accepted in the Class of 2019. Maybe more than four were accepted and some declined but I know for sure that four chose UChicago. Not so sure UChicago is elitist. It is hard to gauge from anecdotal evidence.
Am I correct in saying, though, that the higher UChicago’s ranking, the more likely it loses its past position as a “niche, quirky” school?
Curious to hear what @HydeSnark and others think, but that seems to be the case. Every year Chicago is ranked sky-high is another opportunity for a less esoteric student body. Especially as the Admissions Office casts their net as far and wide as possible (now with ED1 and ED2 and early acceptances for jocks!).
Thus far (pre-orientation and O-week), my kid seems be meeting a very diverse group of students who are curious, friendly, talkative, and eager to understand and be understood by people who come from different places and have different views. Haven’t heard anything about what types of high schools they went to.
@Cue7 I feel that the school is trying to go very very mainstream. In an article on greek activity at UChicago, someone commented that the school was promoting the rise of fraternities/sororities on campus to counteract the “where fun goes to die” image. The percentage of students in greek like is also increasing.
I think the administration has decided that five decades of quirky and niche was more than enough and quite disastrous on the University’s finances (judging from Dean Boyers book). They are looking for five decades of “mainstream” and a different trajectory for the University’s financial outlook.
A sad loss for the “quirky” “socially awkward” but “intelligent” child.
Nondorf made a tongue in cheek comment during Orientation this week that “This may be the best class I have ever recruited, at least USNews thinks so!” to shouts and claps from the students. More of the incoming students seem to care about the place of the College in the ranking hierarchy
I think what’s getting lost is middle class kids rather than smart, quirky introverts. And that’s about tuition/FA policies as much as rankings.
I’m an o-aide, so I’ve spent the last week rushing around taking care of the first years, answering their questions, and helping them navigate the university and figure out what classes to take. They are all gigantic nerds about everything imaginable, just like my year was and the year before that and the year before that…
If the university is turning into a giant pit of finance bros who are just in it for the grades and prestige, I’m not seeing it. UChicago is still weird. It’ll take a lot to lose that.
The new policies can’t be keeping just the “quirky, introverted” crew - ED1 and ED2 (especially ED2) will capture those who probably wanted Stanford or Princeton or whatever, but want a (slightly) more reasonable admissions option.
Has anyone actually looked at the percentage of kids in this years who were educated in private schools and how that percentage has changed over time? I ask because IIRC the stats in this thread looked at the number of kids sent to Chicago from specific prep schools (and magnets?). If so, it could be a situation where the the private school kids UofC is attracting increasingly come from specific (more famous) schools. And part of that could be that those kids (at least from the traditional demographics – Hyde Snark’s earlier point was well-taken) can no longer count on admssion to the same Ivy their parent(s) attended.
Here’s some data for you, a newspaper survey of the Class of 2020:
https://www.chicagomaroon.com/article/2016/9/14/class-2020-survey/
About 40% of the class comes from non-parochial private high schools. Not sure how this compares to prior years.
Of interest, I imagine that the numbers coming from “name brand” private high schools (Andover, Exeter, etc.) and “name brand” public schools (New Trier, Stuy, etc.) are higher than they ever have been. At least the numbers I presented for Andover, Exeter, Horace Mann, etc. demonstrate that.
Some, like @HydeSnark, argue that Chicago is “as Chicago” as ever, and this may be the case NOW. All these policies and changes, though, point to even more upheaval in the future.
A #3 US News Ranking AND ED2? Surely that’ll have some impact.
I doubt they publish that data. One big change has been the distribution of students by region which is data they do publish. Here is 2019:
https://collegeadmissions.uchicago.edu/page/profile-class-2019
2016:
https://collegeadmissions.uchicago.edu/viewchicago/facts
2015:
http://uchicagoadmissions.■■■■■■■■■■/post/27909279517/profile-for-the-class-of-2015-get-to-know-them
A comparison
…2019…2016…2015
Midwest…25%…26%…32%
Mid Atlantic…19%…21%…21%
New England…9%…7%…6%
South…12%…11%…10%
Southwest…7%…9%…6%
West…15%…15%…16%
Outside US…13%…9%…9%
The number of Midwest kids has declined quite a bit with New England up 50 percent during the same time period.
Yes, I get that “name brand” private and public magnet schools are sending more kids per year to U of C. But does that mean that U of C is accepting fewer (non-magnet) public school kids or fewer kids from less well-known private (day) schools or are class sizes getting bigger or some combination of all of the above? Are more international students applying from well-known US secondary schools? Have name-brand private schools changed their own demographics enough that they are now a good source of quirky intellectual first gen or lower SES students? Lots of moving pieces here.
Geographical diversification gives U of C access to a larger, more diverse pool of quirkiness. (And it’s not as if the Midwest is a bastion of quirk). If the size of student body is increasing (in which case the same number of quirky Midwesterners could be admitted but constitute a smaller % of the class ).
going more mainstream is not necessarily all bad. compared to some schools chicago is much more of an academic focused school in terms of grad outcome. the group of top students interested in grad school, including professional schools, is a big enough group to sustain a distinct brand and culture while also mainstreaming the college. that is a possible angle they could go with this, as opposed to generic pursuit of prestige.
They have increased the class size by approximately 100 from last year.
I am going to cross-post for a minute, as @CollegeAngst started a thread on greek life that’s salient to this thread.
Here’s a recent news article on the changing greek culture at Chicago: http://greycity.chicagomaroon.com/article/a-snapshot-of-uchicago-greek-life/
20% of Chicago students are involved in greek life, and their thoughts on greek culture starkly contrast the other 80%. Given the dichotomy in survey responses between greek/non-greek respondents, the rise in frat life seems to indicate just where the “non-traditional” Chicago students are going. You know those finance bros or jock types that @HydeSnark mentions, snarkily, as not really existing at Chicago? It looks like they might have a bigger place at Chicago than ever before - and they can find homes in the greek culture.
Further, the rise in frats and these survey results could demonstrate a larger bifurcation on campus - it seems to be separating, in other words, the nerds from the “college normals.” My sense is that this bifurcation is more extreme than what you’d find at more “balanced” schools (like Duke or Penn, where even the non-greek students gel with greek life).
The Chicago admins, by the way, seem to be encouraging frat life to grow, and it’s entirely conceivable that, in the next ten years, 30% of Chicago students get involved in greek life - a number that, by the way, is larger than what you find at Penn, and would be comparable to the number at Duke.
It could be, down the road, that you have a stronger nerd v. greek culture - with those in greek life insulated from the majority of the student body, but forming a vocal, and growing minority.
Could USnews be grossly under reporting the percentage of students in fraternities at UChicago? According to them only 8% of UChicago students are in fraternities. The undergrad enrollment is around 5800 at UChicago and is about 52% male. If Usnews is right, then only around 240 men and 335 women participate in Greek life at UChicago, bringing the total to less than 10% of the student population.
The maroon article on the other hand seems to suggest that the number of men in fraternities is close to 550, resulting in a 18% participation rate with the overall Greek participation at around 20% which would make it around 1,160 students.
The only way for both to be right would be if the USnews numbers are based on older data, which means that Greek life has reached a pivot point and is growing at a very rapid rate?
USnews also reports that MIT tops the list of selective universities with 48% of its students in fraternities??!!! That sounds ridiculous? That’s even higher than Dartmouth at 46%!! So not sure if USnews just has bad numbers.
550 is possible. I believe there are 12 active fraternities now, and 45-46 members / fraternity is plausible.
Generalizations about prep schools can be misleading. My child (who is interested in Chicago) goes to an elite private prep school that sends kids to the U of C every year. I guarantee that the average kid at this school is far nerdier, quirkier and more socially aware than the average high school honor student.
The stereotype of prep school kids all being like Greg Marmalard from Animal House is incredibly outdated.
I didn’t say they don’t exist. Please stop tagging me in everything you say and putting words in my mouth, @Cue7, it’s a little annoying.
Those types do exist. They aren’t coming out of prep schools more than other schools and having kids from prep schools has very little to do with it. They are mostly in Greek life. They are a minority on campus. People here are still overwhelmingly nerdy. I don’t know why me insisting that my experience here has mostly had me meeting a bunch of philosophy geeks (not greeks) who want to sit around and talk about astrophysics is so hard to believe.
For the record, everyone I met here from a certain “elite” New England boarding school is really awkward and can’t talk to me and look at me at the same time. If that isn’t traditional UChicago, I don’t know what is.