UChicago Yield Jumps to 47%

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Chicago ✅
21

<p>Oh, finally, it’s awful that UChicago is putting more students in New Grad Residence Hall. Here’s a link to view New Grad:</p>

<p>[New</a> Graduate Residence Hall 1307 E. 60th Street](<a href=“http://rs.uchicago.edu/graduate_housing/new_grad_residence_hall.shtml]New”>http://rs.uchicago.edu/graduate_housing/new_grad_residence_hall.shtml)</p>

<p>It’s an ugly building with little sense of community, and I don’t think it’s at all useful to lump some undergrads in a building for graduate/professional school students. This works to the detriment of both the undergrads and grad students. </p>

<p>To think, UChicago could have avoided these problems with some proper, conservative planning, but no… </p>

<p>Here’s to getting 1800 students next year!</p>

22

<p>Cue7, you and I agree completely on this. I was only pointing out that the situation wasn’t completely dire.</p>

<p>And . . .

</p>

<p>Umm . . . The Logan Arts Center? My kids have both been in it and described it as “palatial” and “really first class”. They are green with envy of current students. And the (considerable) space that theater and art was taking up around campus, especially the Reynolds Club, but also things like the UT set shop, is now available for other uses. The LAC is really a significant expansion of student space.</p>

<p>And I think there is actually a lot of new scholarly space being created. Mansueto, which is super-cool on its own, also makes the Reg more usable, and may have consolidated some satellite libraries around campus. And I believe they are building new offices for the Economics Department and the Becker/Friedman Institute, as well as a new building for the Physical Sciences Division and the Molecular Engineering Institute. I don’t think they are demolishing a lot of existing buildings to do this stuff.</p>

23

<p>Afaik, Harvard and Princeton spent more money because they also build addition classroom spaces.</p>

<p>UChicago’s College benefitted from the free space that resulted from the creation of new buildings dedicated to graduate schools - incuding the 300 million business school. There are other new graduate school buildings that created FREE space for the undergrads although not as over the top as Booth’s two amazing buildings in Hyde Park and downtown.</p>

<p>If you conservatively estimate that this adds $300 million to the expansion, then UChicagospent just as much.</p>

24

<p>^ Yale and Princeton spent/are spending $500 million apiece, give or take $100 million, on new dorm space alone. They have put up plenty of glitzy new academic buildings, too. And Yale spent an additional $1 billion over the past 12 years to renovate its existing residential colleges.</p>

25

<p>JHS:</p>

<p>Yes that’s true, Logan is really emerging as a new student space. Hopefully it lives up to its billing. Overall though, yep, we’re on the same page. The plan for this growth hasn’t been ideal by any means - and shoving students into I-House and the grad dorms are awful ideas. There will be hundreds of students who had sub-par experiences because of this. Not to mention, Pierce should have been demolished 10 years ago, and a few other houses/buildings could use some renovations.</p>

<p>FStratford:</p>

<p>Also, building new spaces for grad schools can’t fully count toward investment in the College. Yes, UChicago has built a new gym, a new b-school, etc., but the grad schools still see a lot of value in that.</p>

<p>In terms of total expenditures to faciltate college growth, it’s not even close between UChicago and Yale/Princeton. The new Yale dorms ALONE cost around $500M. </p>

<p>These other schools are showing a great level of care toward their undergraduate communities. The attention to UChicago’s college hasn’t been the same, and the growth has been more erratic and less carefully planned. </p>

<p>Frankly, at the end of the day, I just don’t think UChicago cares about its college in the same way as Yale or Princeton. Maybe years from now it will, but right now, it’s not close.</p>

26

<p>I don’t think UChicago cares less. Its just that Harvard and Yale have gazillions in endowment that UChicago College can not match. A couple of years ago during the economic crisis, it was revealed that the budget for free liquid soap in Harvard alone is exorbitant. They cut it and saved something like 20 million in a year (?) They can do that because they were swimming in endowment money. UChicago does not have as many rich alums who want to give back - that’s the problem. They loved their school experience but respond only with words not money. Maybe its because most of them are poor academics… maybe that’s why the school is now encouraging alums who want to be rich and not just brainy. I think the donation rate for alums of UChicago College is in the single digits. If every alum would donate $100 each year, oh yeah, the College can build as many dorms as you want.</p>

<p>In comparison, Booth has the 3rd largest endowment of all BSchools in the world and the Law School and med school are up there too. So they have more money to spend on their students, at par with the rest of the elites.</p>

27

<p>I’m one of the 15 who got off the waitlist, and I wouldn’t say I was a special circumstance. I’m not a left handed oboist or athlete, actually a pretty typical suburban white male. Just a very persuasive one, I wasn’t taking no for an answer and I guess I wore them down! I suppose I’m also very lucky. I’ve honestly been wondering the exact same thing as to why they took us off the waitlist when they’ll probably see a record breaking applicant pool next year in terms of talent and credentials. But I’m not complaining!</p>

28

<p>Realsunshine - congratulations on making it to UC in a very tough year!</p>

<p>So you are going to college this year and not in 2013?</p>

29

<p>Does anyone have the link to whatever article describes exactly how many people were taken off the waitlist?</p>

30

<p>Glad to see the official number, and I agree with the gist of what JHS and Cue7 are saying. I said this would happen ever since I saw the 13% number. Anyone who knows anything about math would’ve looked at that number and said, “Wow, they’re really aiming to overadmit this year, aren’t they?” So it’s either a terribly stupid mistake that I can’t imagine Nondorf making, or this was partly intentional. And even if it was intentional, it was an incredibly dumb move to make.</p>

<p>Think about it. If the university can manage to house the extra students, then it could have admitted a normal class while moving the 200-some Pierce residents into the extra housing while it worked on building a new dorm. As I’ve pointed out elsewhere, the revenue made from tuition from the extra class members is negligible. Pierce problem solved. But apparently the University has some pretty bad management that was unable to come up with this solution.</p>

<p>But I guess there’s no use in crying over spilled milk, so here’s how admissions will stack up for the next few years. The admissions committee will have to be extremely careful about not overadmitting these next few years, because with i-House now full, there is literally no place to put extra students anymore. This means the University will have to admit based on a 50%-55% expected yield rate. And since they can’t house over 1400 first-years, that’s going to push the number of admitted students down to about 2800. With another 5-10% application growth next year, this implies a ~10% acceptance rate next year, which is only going to decrease in the years to come.</p>

<p>A word about the increased yield: I was expecting a 3-4% increase, but a 7% increase in a year? Amazing. No elite school will come close to this increase this year. I demonstrated this in another thread, only to be rudely dismissed by cheerleaders from the University-that-shall-not-be-named, but according to Parchment.com, UChicago is now winning a very large amount of cross-admit battles with its true peers. (True cross-admit figures with Penn, Columbia, and Dartmouth are likely deflated due to forced matriculation via ED.)</p>

<p>UChicago wins:
20-29% of cross-admits with Yale and Harvard
30-39% of cross-admits with Penn
40-49% of cross-admits with MIT, Stanford, Princeton, Columbia
50-59% of cross-admits with Caltech, Dartmouth</p>

<p>Impressive, eh? Chicago still has a ways to go, but its accomplishments are mind-boggling, putting it in the same admissions league as Penn, Columbia, and Brown. Chicago is actually getting quite close to Princeton’s level of admissions as well, and may be at that level in a year or two.</p>

31

<p>Here’s the mention in the Trib; 4th paragraph from the end (sorry for my earlier post that 1) didn’t have the link and 2) said it was the Sun Times): <a href=“http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-wait-list-20120423,0,5864844.story?page=2[/url]”>http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-wait-list-20120423,0,5864844.story?page=2&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

32

<p>Oh, and one more thing:</p>

<p>Since Nondorf was expecting a 41-42% yield, and he had access to sample EA data at that time, I’m guessing that the increase in yield primarily occurred in RD rather than through EA. This effectively implies that RD had a higher yield than EA did this year, which probably means that Chicago’s losing too many students to other schools through ED cross-admits. This also seems to be the case looking at the Parchment.com cross-admit data; Chicago performs better against Stanford and MIT than it does against Columbia, Penn, and Brown.</p>

<p>Does this mean it’s time to move Chicago to an SCEA system like HYPS? Or perhaps just a REA system like Georgetown that simply disallows applicants to apply ED elsewhere? Personally, I think there are merits to having an REA system like Georgetown. Georgetown has quite a high yield (48% as of last year) relative to its prestige, and Chicago might be able to further boost its yield by disallowing students from applying ED to another school. Then again, it would also lose applications and the surrounding hype of bringing in the most EA applications of any elite school.</p>

<p>Perhaps if Chicago gets to a certain level of prestige, it would stop having these kinds of problems. People wouldn’t apply to Chicago EA against Penn/Brown ED if Chicago is seen as the more prestigious school. (This is hypothetical; Chicago is a long way away from that situation.) This is why MIT is able to sustain a 70% yield while having unrestricted EA. Just a thought.</p>

33

<p>Phuriku - where are you getting these numbers?</p>

<p>20-29% of cross-admits with Yale and Harvard
30-39% of cross-admits with Penn
40-49% of cross-admits with MIT, Stanford, Princeton, Columbia
50-59% of cross-admits with Caltech, Dartmouth</p>

<p>I also hear Princeton went upto 64%, 7% more than last year for their yield. So everyone moved up. Northwestern, despite admitting a much larger number of people, also reached 45%.</p>

34

<p>Texaspg - go to parchment.com - that’s where Phuriku got these numbers. Also, texaspg, the real surprise with UChicago’s numbers is that, unlike Northwestern or UPenn or Princeton, UChicago has unrestricted EA, which one would think would ultimately not boost yield in the same was as ED or SCEA. Despite this, UChicago still wound up with a 47% yield, which is pretty surprising and pretty impressive. </p>

<p>Also, Phuriku, a couple points: perhaps I’m parsing a bit too finely here, but in terms of bands of selectivity, I thought Columbia/Brown were a level up from Penn and Duke? Put another way, I thought that, right now, UChicago is about as selective as Penn and Duke, but not quite there with Brown and Columbia? Do you see this as the case, or do you lump Penn Columbia and Brown together? (I don’t do this, I had thought Columbia and Brown were more selective and a level up from Penn - albeit just a slight level.)</p>

<p>Also, FStratford, you say Harvard and Yale spend more on the college because they have more money to spend. That may be the case, but how the heck do you explain UChicago’s admissions committee being irresponsible and loose with their admissions decisions this year? After being overenrolled LAST year, the admissions team should have been VERY conservative this year. Look, administration can control how many students will arrive on campus each year. By over-admitting and not being clear on the goals for each class (i.e. we want 1500 students this year or, our plan is to expand by 10% in 5 years), the administration does none of this.</p>

<p>I’m not saying UChicago needs opulent dorms or amazing theater space for its students. I’m just saying the administration should have the plan outlined and available, so folks can see where the school is headed. Yale has CAREFULLY outlined its plans for growth for years. At UChicago, this was the scenario: “Oh surprise! High yield this year, so I guess our college is getting bigger! Time to stick some people into New Grad Dorm!”</p>

<p>It’s just such bad planning. </p>

<p>This should’ve been the statline at UChicago this year: 3000 admits (42% or 1260 expected to enroll, and then take ~40-50 kids off the waitlist, to balance overenrollment from last year and have a class of ~1300) out of 25277 applicants. That’s an acceptance rate of 11.8%. Then, as the actual yield would be 47% rather than 42%, fine, 1410 students show up. So be it, but at least it’s not 1500+ students flocking to Hyde Park next year. The admissions committee could just readjust for a couple years after that.</p>

<p>Instead, by admitting a whopping 3344 students, even with a predicted yield of 42% (which is a completely reasonable projection given last year’s class), that’s STILL a class of 1400+, which just a slight increase from last year. Then with an actual yield of 47%, that’s ~1530 students on campus - about 200 MORE than needed, given last year’s overenrollment. </p>

<p>Ugh, such bad planning.</p>

35

<p>parchment.com is using data points from self reporting users. It is not a valid source.</p>

<p>Does UC put out any numbers? Stanford has published numbers in the past which were part of their senate minutes and analyzed to death (for the lack of a better word!) on CC whenever a discussion about cross admits shows up.</p>

<p>I would not blame admissions for admitting too many. Yields went up across the board which is very uncommon and some how Princeton and Harvard changing their policies seem to need the blaming. The change in their policy seems to have somehow impacted all top schools, by ensuring fewer cross admits, and also more focused students.</p>

36

<p>Yeah texaspg, the problems with parchment.com have been analyzed to death as well. Right now, though, it seems to be all that’s out there, so people rely on it. The last study on this topic was done like 8 years ago, so it isn’t really relevant now. (Back in those days, UChicago was more similar to Tufts or BC in its selectivity rather than Columbia or Brown.)</p>

37

<p>7% of 3350 students is 234 kids. So if the admissions people were conservative, they would have expected 2-3% rise or only about 100 of these kids.</p>

<p>Essentially they were conservative with this yield and not expecting these numbers. This happens to the best of them. If the goal is to have a class of 1500 going forward, they will admit 3000 next year and draw from the waitlist to control the class size. Otherwise, the admits will drop to 2800 next year if the goal is to stay at 1400. </p>

<p>If they offered their first class of engineering next year, the yield will hit 52%.</p>

38

<p>Here’s why we SHOULD blame admissions for the numbers:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Quite a few admissions offices predicted that there would be a huge rise in yield. Harvard was one of them. Harvard was predicting literally a 95% yield for SCEA admits (most of whom wouldn’t apply anywhere else RD), and the other elites had similar predictions. Given also that the # of EA admits rose across the elite spectrum, it’s easy to see that HPYS were going to be admitting very few students during RD. Conclusion: Very few cross-admits between Chicago and HYPS this year, which is automatically going to help Chicago’s yield a few points.</p></li>
<li><p>Remember how Chicago went from 2nd page of USNWR Rankings to a tie for 5th? Yeah, lots of wealthy communities (i.e., the people who are getting admitted to Chicago) take those rankings very seriously, and esp. Asians and Internationals, who compose about 30% of the school’s population. Yield automatically rises a point or two.</p></li>
<li><p>Increased marketing and increased name brand in general. Chicago’s quickly becoming a name brand, and Nondorf is quickly spreading the word among college counselors. Yield automatically rises a point or two.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>Really, an informed observer should’ve been expecting the yield to rise 5-7 points. Harvard did their homework and understood what was happening, and admitted a correspondingly appropriate number of students. Chicago apparently decided to skip their homework.</p>

39

<p>Texaspg:</p>

<p>How the heck were they conservative with their numbers? They accepted 3344 students, which, if the yield was 42% - a very reasonable projection - is 1400+ students - too many! So why did they start out by admitting 3344? The goal for this year’s class should have been 1300-1350, since last year’s class was so big. So why the heck were there 3344 admits sent out? Even with last year’s yield, to get a class of 1300-1350, you only need to admit ~3250 students. So why did UChicago admit 100 more than that right off the bat?</p>

40

<p>Phuriku:</p>

<p>I totally agree. It looks bad when the most cerebral school in the room (UChicago) decides to skip their homework. I have no idea what the admissions committee did this year and, as an alum, I’m annoyed that hundreds of students will be shoved into ill-suited dormitories that will take away from their experience in the College.</p>