<p>Okay</p>
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<p>Unless it is based on creative use of mathematics (as in JHS post above), those numbers are not very credible. In so many words, a RD rate of 4 percent is a farfetched as the 4 percent EA rate mentioned upthread. The total rate “might” be below 9 percent for the total pool but not the EA rate. </p>
<p>Plug reasonable numbers in your Excel and see how it … works. </p>
<p>We know the EA rate was considerably higher than 9%. They announced 1,350 acceptances (I think), and something a bit over 11,000 applications, and even my “creative” math can’t make that less than 12%. (Nor would I want to.) </p>
<p>But xiggi is being deceptive – unintentionally so, I think – when he says a 4% RD rate is “farfetched.” In fact, a 4% RD rate is probably the right number, rounded to a whole digit. The thing that makes it farfetched is the silly convention that you should measure the RD acceptance rate by using the number of RD applications as the denominator. The only reason for that is that it’s the only way you can get a firm number, since no one discloses how many EA applications get deferred into the RD pool. But all that means is that the numbers people conventionally throw around for RD acceptance rates are guaranteed to be too high. The real acceptance rate in RD is the number of acceptances divided by the number of applications considered, and that second number is RD applications plus deferred EA applications.</p>
<p>In the case of Chicago, the difference really matters. First, because 40% of all applications this year were EA applications. (Colleges with ED rarely get as much as 10% of their applications ED, and those with SCEA get more than 10% but less than 15%.) Second, because every indication I have ever seen is that more than half of EA applications at Chicago get deferred to RD (at least ever since they stopped accepting half of them). In other words, something like a fifth to a quarter of the actual RD pool was deferred EA applications, which means that an RD acceptance rate calculated without them is overstated by 25-33%. The conventional way of describing RD admission rates is distortive for every college with an early admission program that permits deferrals, but the distortion is a lot less significant for schools that receive fewer early applications and that defer fewer of them to RD.</p>
<p>As I said before, a reasonable estimate of the number of applications actually considered RD is 22,000-23,000, and a reasonable estimate of the number of acceptances given out (so far, pre-waitlist) is 900-1,000. To me, that looks like 4% is a pretty good description of the average chance of admission for someone in the RD pool, at least before taking waitlist acceptances into account. (I think they are going to have meaningful waitlist acceptances this year, maybe enough to move the rounded admission percentage up a digit.)</p>
<p>10% ea and 4% rd according to an adcom i talked to</p>
<p>Okay</p>
<p>@firstchoice woops i meant the other way around 4% rd and 10% ea my bad</p>
<p>So you are saying 1160 ED and 1180 RD ?
Total 2340 students have accepted ? 11,900 early applications and 29,500 regular applications.</p>
<p>assuming 11143 ea and (27499-11143) rd applicants, we’d get ~1700 admits
but that’s highly unlikely, so i think the RD numbers include the deferred EAers and that the rates are like 4.6ish and 10.6ish respectively </p>
<p>sooo i’m guessing like 2000-2100, with expected yield at like ~60+% and then a bunch of waitlist admits and a considerably smaller class size this year to alleviate housing problems </p>
<p>if they actually pulled off a ~7.3% acceptance rate, then pretty much everyone will flip their collective ■■■■, which makes for great PR. (could also mean higher yield) they have enough WL so that they dont care if their yield is only ~60%</p>
<p>but then again 8.3% is cool too</p>
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<p>Say what? The only party that is deceptive here is the office of admissions of Chicago that refuses to disclose any meaningful information and allows for all this non-sense to continue to be floated around. I have already written before in how statistics are reported. Early admissions and total admissions rates are the norm. </p>
<p>Fwiw, JHS, I think that you will find a good number of schools that disclose the number of deferred students. And guess what, those are the schools that do not feel the need to play silly games of misdirection. </p>
<p>What do you have here? A resident adcom who cannot disclose the most basic information on admission rates MONTHS after the EA releases, and you call me deceptive. Nice!</p>
<p>Here is a PR from Yale in last December</p>
<p>Yale University accepted only 649 students for an admit rate of 14.4 percent last year. For the Class of 2018, 1,225 applicants were rejected and :::: 2,735 applicants were deferred ::::: for reconsideration in the spring, making for rates of 25.8 percent and 57.6 percent respectively. These numbers are also roughly in line with last year when 56 percent of early action applicants were waitlisted and 29 percent were denied admission in the early round.</p>
<p>How hard is that?</p>
<p>UofC accepted about 1,300 students in the early round (about 11.5 percent). Word on the street is that the yield on the early pool has been higher than expected, something which led to a particularly competitive RD pool. To yield 1,350 new entrants, the school would have had to admit about 1,000 from the RD pool (assuming a 60-percent yield). So, four percent or so on the pool that remained after the early round (1,000 admits among up to about 26,000 applicants) seems reasonable. The RD percentage isn’t a completely invalid metric (consultants like Application Boot Camp and Ivy Coach break out EA/ED/RD explicitly), because a low RD rate may provide a market signal that results in a better EA pool in the future. The overall Chicago number might range from about 8.0 (2,200 admits/61% yield) to 8.7 (2,400 admits/56% yield). Given that the Classes of 2016 and 2017 were bigger than expected, an admit total toward the low end or middle of the range seems appropriate–2,300 admits would produce an overall 8.4% rate. Separately, perhaps the fixation with what the UofC does, or does not, do is a sign that one is holding on a bit too tightly. For instance, neither Yale, nor HPS for that matter, are transparent regarding the extent to which the bar is lowered to admit Division I athletic talent–the Academic Index concept is a bit of a fudge, because a “recruited” fencing prospect with a 2,350 SAT can “hide” poor numbers for another athlete, while still maintaining the recruited athlete pool within a standard deviation of the entire class. As a Division III school (see also Caltech and MIT), it may well be that Chicago’s student body is more talented overall. Nevertheless Chicago is a fabulous school (as are HYPS, among many others), and if one was accepted, then one should strongly consider attending, irrespective of finer distinctions regarding admissions rates.</p>
<p>I think JHS explains the 10% / 4% paradox well. You tend to forget to include the EA applicants who get deferred in the RD calculation. But it’s very valid to do so because the reality of it is that the deferred EA applicants get considered anew just like the RD applicants.</p>
<p>Really any way you look at it, it’s crazy competitive at UChicago along with all the other great colleges and universities. </p>
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<p>Indeed they do but the question is HOW they do it! For one very good reason, I happen to know that the presentation of the data does NOT include the deferrals from the EA pool. Again, the comparable data tend to show the overal admit rate and numbers and the early admissions similar data. From there, the COMPARABLE RD rate is estimated without counting the deferrals because as … JHS said the information might not be available. See <a href=“http://www.hernandezcollegeconsulting.com/ivy-league-admission-statistics-2017/”>http://www.hernandezcollegeconsulting.com/ivy-league-admission-statistics-2017/</a> – there are NO deferred applications counted. None! </p>
<p>Inasmuch as JHS mentioned erroneously that nobody releases the deferred numbers, it remains that this information is not universally released. Hence, the lack of reporting of a metric that should try to define the exact admission rate of the entire pool considered in the March or April round. </p>
<p>Fwiw, the consensus on how to report data is one of convenience and historical relevance. Some schools are reporting data that masks the valid comparisons. Schools such as Cal (Berkeley) and Middlebury play games with the data by including all applications but only reporting the Fall admits and not backing out the Winter/Spring admits, and this creating a different metric than the one reported by schools that have only Fall admissions. </p>
<p>The bottom line, however, remains the same. One could hope for Chicago to discover the need to be transparent and understand that the information about their admit rates is viewed as suspect as long as they play hide and seek with the MOST basic data. In simple terms, they have NO valid reasons to refuse to post their Common Data Set, and the comical excuses advanced by the adcoms as far as protecting “the applicants” are asinine.</p>
<p>While one understands that some details can be held for later disclosure, there is no harm in releasing basic information on the number of applicants and the admission patterns as … it happens. Like it or not, the delays and lack of disclosure points to a organization that shows no respect for its audience or is deliberate in its attempt to hide the real numbers. </p>
<p>In the case of Chicago, there USED to be reasons to NOT broadcast the abysmal (for its caliber of school) statistics, but that has not been the case for many years, as Chicago has reinvented itself in terms of marketing and recruiting. Once a laggard, the school is now one of the most selective schools in the country, trailing just a handful of its competitors. There should be plenty of reasons to be proud of the data, and few to cling to its bad habits of the past. And bad habits they are! </p>
<p>Actually, last week I attended the Admitted Students Reception in my country. As you might guess, the Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid, James Nondorf, was also at the reception.He told us some statistics: the acceptance rate of the whole admissions (RD and EA) is 8.3 percent and the acceptance rate of RD is 4 percent. </p>
<p>Now I don’t feel so bad getting Waitlisted if it was 4%… </p>
<p>Alicejohnson, UChicago could have a 4% RD rate if many EA accepts decided to matriculate at UChicago. </p>
<p>Remember, UChicago accepted 1350 in the EA round. If a significant number decided to matriculate (say, 65-70%), that leaves very, very few spaces for the RD round. </p>
<p>For example, if we have ~900 EA admits enrolling, that leaves only about 350 spaces for regular admits. With a 40% yield on regular decision admits (and that could be conservative), that means the school only needs to send out about 850 offers to fill the final 350 spots. </p>
<p>850 admits out of the remaining ~20,000 applicants (those that apply regular and those deferred to the regular pool) leads to about a 4% RD accept rate. </p>
<p>^ Cue7’s analysis agreed with mine.</p>
<p>Well, there is another simple way to look at the numbers too. Assuming the overall acceptance rate is 8.3%, it implies the total admit number is 2,282. If the EA admit total is 1,350, it would mean 932 admit from the RD. With an approximate 4% admit rate in the RD, it implies a little over 23,000 applicants were considered including EA deferred apparently.</p>
<p>@alicejohnson
<a href=“http://www.dukechronicle.com/articles/2014/03/27/duke-accepts-2697-applicants-class-2018”>http://www.dukechronicle.com/articles/2014/03/27/duke-accepts-2697-applicants-class-2018</a>
I think Duke does it too. </p>
<p>Not sure if they do or don’t alicejohnson, but either way it doesn’t change the rd accept rate much:</p>
<p>Counting ea deferrals, you have about a 4% accept rate (800 accepts/20100 rd + ea deferral apps)</p>
<p>Not counting ea deferrals, you have about a 4.9% accept rate (800 accepts/16100 just rd apps)</p>
<p>Either way it doesn’t change the final count much. A good argument could be made to blend ea deferrals into rd apps, or to not do so. </p>