<p>Chicago sends me soooo many letters and even entire books about the school. I've talked to some of my friends and they say the same thing. Literally every week, there are new materials from them. It's kinda annoying because they really make you want to apply, but will most likely end up rejecting you anyway.</p>
<p>So has anyone else encountered this with Chicago?</p>
<p>So, what exactly is wrong with this?</p>
<p>Colleges are competing for the best students, in the same way companies competes for customers – as it turns out, both Apple and UChicago are great at marketing and have thus excelled so far. </p>
<p>Would you rather receive little to nothing from HYP, Penn, Duke, ect. and still receive a rejection? And how do you know that you wouldn’t have applied for UChi regardless of what they send you?</p>
<p>When Chicago was my daughter’s number one choice four years ago, it seemed as though each mailing spoke to her. It seemed like the perfect school and she was accepted. However, another school thought SHE was so good, to offered a nice scholarship.</p>
<p>Oh yeah, heaps of quirky posts, postcards, letters from every department imaginable, booklets, brochures, books, posters, and a t-shirt.</p>
<p>And 33 emails, including a “top 10 reasons to apply EA” postmarked November 5th.</p>
<p>It works, too; shot UChicago up to my #1 choice because they made me feel important.</p>
<p>Haha yeah^</p>
<p>And this is how they inflate their rankings… Getting anyone and everyone to apply.</p>
<p>UChicago apps will be extremely high this year.</p>
<p>^^ Acceptance rate constitutes 1.5% of the US News rankings methodology, it really doesn’t make as much of a difference as people upset at the rankings like to pretend.</p>
<p>^ Yup, this is the classic “big numbers” admissions game. All the schools play, but UChicago needs to push extra hard because, at least right now, it’s a newcomer to the game, and doesn’t have the same visibility as other schools. </p>
<p>This article covers admissions inflation well:</p>
<p>[Application</a> Inflation - Admissions & Student Aid - The Chronicle of Higher Education](<a href=“Application Inflation”>Application Inflation)</p>
<p>Also, UChicago Admissions Dean James Nondorf certainly knows the deal when it comes to this - he created a surge in apps at Yale when he was there, and this is his stance on admissions:</p>
<p>"At an admissions conference in Rhode Island this May, Mr. Nondorf described the pressure on deans. “Don’t kid yourselves, the presidents and trustees want you to have more applications,” he said. “If you don’t think that’s the case, I don’t know what schools you’re working at, but it’s true.”</p>
<p>So, UChicago is just doing what it can to maximize it’s chances. For now, that’s heavy marketing, at other schools, like Yale, it was use of a “likely” letter. Schools can vary on this front, but the end result is pretty much everyone plays the big numbers game.</p>
<p>From the article:
[Application</a> Inflation - Admissions & Student Aid - The Chronicle of Higher Education](<a href=“Application Inflation”>Application Inflation)
"…Shaun Stewart, a high-school senior whose test scores aren’t as high as the freshman averages at many colleges that have sent him brochures: “They want you so they can reject you.” "</p>
<p>Colleges want to boost the application numbers and lower the admit rates. Every college is playing the game, including those with admit rate lower than 10%. Think about the facts, if you apply for Harvard, you may end up in the group of 94%; if you apply for Stanford, you may end up in the group of 93%…</p>
<p>There’s an interview with Dean of Admissions John Boyer in this month’s University of Chicago Magazine where he alludes to the problem facing the College. When the decision was made near the end of Hugo Sonnenschein’s term to revitalize and grow the undergraduate division to compete with its larger peers, the administration faced a key challenge; how to rapidly expand the student body without diluting the quality. This was not a small undertaking. UChicago in the mid-90s had about 3,500 undergrads while Columbia, Yale, Princeton, etc. avg’d close to 5,500 (Harvard actually had approx. 6,000). </p>
<p>The College at UChicago had always been a bit of a niche national brand despite its top academic reputation. Initially, there was push back from various faculty worried about diminishing the quality of the incoming students as they expanded (and fears over Chicago de-emphasizing the graduate divisions).</p>
<p>The new head of admissions, Jim Nondorf, had a mixed hand to play. On the upside, he had a world class research university with enormous strengths across the board. On the other hand, as far as the College was concerned, there were problems. There was no famous athletic conference to help advertise the UChicago brand. There was no “Ivy League” halo effect, no Big Ten membership, nothing but an unusually quirky and fairly unique academic reputation.</p>
<p>Given these constraints, I actually see the direct mailings, combined with UChicago’s increased high school outreach program, to be the most sensible approach to this problem. It’s cost effective, it has a clear target audience, it casts a wider net for “desirable” students and it reinforces the self-image that UChicago sees as its core strength. </p>
<p>So yes, driving up admissions numbers helps with objective rankings (albeit a modest 1.5%, as has been pointed out). But more importantly, the direct mailings greatly expand the talent pool of applicants and helps UChicago solve the conundrum of how to rapidly expand the College while maintaining the high quality of its students.</p>
<p>I admit, the mailings have been excessive, but darn aren’t they good? At least Chicago makes it VERY interesting and appealing to a certain type of student.</p>
<p>As someone who is applying ED to Duke, I can say with some certainty that Chicago is far better at marketing itself than its peers are. I kinda wish Duke bombarded me with the amount of mail that I get from Chicago. Initially, I was slightly annoyed by the incessant correspondence, but it did do the trick (I’m going to be applying to Chicago).</p>
<p><em>correction</em> </p>
<p>I referred to Dean Boyer in my above post as the Dean of Admissions. He is actually the Dean of the College. My apologies to Mssrs. Boyer and Nondorf.</p>
<p>Goodness, and I thought I was the only one receiving dozens of pamphlets, letters, emails, and other material from UChicago. </p>
<p>I understand all colleges want to maximize their number of applications, but the incessant stream of mailings are quite annoying to be honest. I do appreciate their efforts at reaching out to more potential applicants, but seems like they took advertising to a new notch this year. </p>
<p>But then again, I do wish my top college sent me more than just a single letter, telling me to apply.</p>
<p>UChicago sends a ton of mail but NYU is more frequent with thicker books. There really is no denying this.</p>
<p>And I think that advertising like this is really stupid. That money could be used for financial aid.</p>
<p>From a strategic standpoint, this is more of an investment than anything else. UoC wants to get into a position where it doesn’t have to do as heavy advertising as it does now and still get a high number of apps, which means imbedding itself into the minds of today’s HS students. But it wants to do this as quickly as possible. Look at other schools such as Penn, MIT, ect…they’re so popular that students will apply even though those schools don’t do much heavy advertising.</p>
<p>The mailings work this way: </p>
<p>If they annoy you, you don’t apply. </p>
<p>If they impress you, you will apply and the chances are high that you will accept when offered admission, since you already know so much about thequirks ot the school but it did not turn you off and you still applied!</p>
<p>both scenarios are good for the school.</p>