<p>I was waitlisted for the University of Chicago, which was a slight disappointment. I wasn't terribly enthusiastic about U of C, though; I was mostly interested in applying because its admissions looked a bit easier than Northwestern's. At least, that's what I thought.</p>
<p>Is this an accurate judgment? How comparable are U of C and Northwestern for admissions, and does performance in one indicate outcome at the other?</p>
<p>(Side note: I do a ton of journalism, so I'm hoping that extracurricular pays off for Northwestern's Medill School and makes up for my slightly low math grades, which probably sent me to the bottom of the pack at U of C.)</p>
<p>Since I go to a top high school in Chicago most of the seniors from last year had dofferent results. Some got into Chicago and not NU and vice versa. Statistics show a higher acceptance rate for NU but that doesn’t mean much. Just depends on you!</p>
<p>I believe that schools of this caliber are based on fit. I was accepted to wustl and rejected by uchicago, and I think thats a fair representation of my “fit factor”. So if you pass a certain academic threshold, which I would presume you have based on your results, schools that think you would fit with the culture and in the class they are sculpting will accept you and those who do not feel you would click may not.</p>
<p>Both are great schools and both are hard to get into. An acceptance or rejection at one does not indicate much about the other. Chicago is a quirky school, and its AdCom has traditionally looked for quirky personalities coming through in the essays.</p>
<p>UChicago is more selective than Northwestern, looking at my school’s website. Everyone over a 3.8 unweighted got in at NU but some people were waitlisted at Chicago.</p>
<p>This is exactly what happened to me debut, and I am desperate to go to Northwestern too, but now I’m so unsure. If someone on here wants to chance me personally, I’d appreciate it.</p>
<p>I’m in the same boat as you debutnovel. I was slightly interested in UChicago, but I love Northwestern! I got waitlisted yesterday, too. Good luck to you!</p>
<p>Not to be rude, but having taken AP Statistics, I can say that the p-value of the null hypothesis, Proportion of Students Admitted at Northwestern < Proportion of Students Admitted at UChicago, is high enough to question its veracity.</p>
<p>In other words, the sample sizes aren’t large enough for those to provide any statistical know-how. Northwestern’s newspaper reported last year a 23% acceptance rate; UChicago’s reported an 18%.</p>
<p>This is slightly off topic, but IMHO the problem with looking at Acceptance Rate as a metric of how good a school is is that it can be so heavily driven by how widely a school is marketed, brand recognition, how difficult it is to submit a Common Ap (ie how many extra essays and questions are required specific to the school), and how large the school is.</p>
<p>For example, NU has predicted that their acceptance rate this year will fall below 20% due to a large increase in the number of applications.</p>
<p>Some schools (NOT NU) market heavily to kids and make it a FREE no-brainer to submit a Common Ap, hence artificially inflating the numbers of kids who apply. This makes their Acceptance Rate lower, but does it make them better schools?</p>
<p>I agree with MomCares, and would like to add that some prestigious schools will have higher acceptance rates because only the best apply to them.</p>
<p>For example, a student with above average, but not greatly above average stats will be more likely to apply to NU or U Chicago, but probably not to any Ivy’s. Considering there are more kids with better than average stats than there are kids with exceptionally better than average stats, it is safe to say those great but not fantastic schools will reject more students, and in some cases, have lower acceptance rates.</p>
<p>Not to mention there are great schools with lax admission standards. (Carnegie Mellon comes to mind, as do many state schools)</p>
<p>Does anyone know on average how many people from the waiting list for UC actually get in? I know they say on their website that it varies from year to year but how many waitlisted candidates got in last year?
And if anyone got into both UC and NW or one or the other, could you please tell me what you think it was that got you in? </p>
<p>Sorry for all the questions, it’s just that after all the waiting I finally get the answer…and then I’m told I’ll have to wait an additional month and a half, really frustrating</p>
<p>I have a large pool of empirical evidence that implies the exact opposite of this. In D’s large public school, there are not 2 people who have ever heard of NU or U Chicago, yet virtually EVERY college-bound senior added at least one Ivy application as a Reach. Everyone has heard of Yale and Harvard, so they get MANY applications from kids who just want to say they applied.</p>
<p>As in most forms of marketing, brand recognition trumps all.</p>
<p>Well I suppose I over generalized from my own experience.
From the semi-magnet school I’m from the top 10% apply to Ivies, and the rest are discouraged.</p>
<p>Even if only the top 1% at most schools apply for one of the 8 Ivies, that amounts to a HUGE applicant pool versus that for schools with far lower name recognition, like NU.</p>
<p>I know the rep who gave the Yale presentation D attended implied that the vast majority of their applicants fall into the “Hail Mary Pass” (or should I say “Yale Mary Pass”) category, and I’ve heard the same from Stanford.</p>
<p>I’m guessing NU doesn’t get so many of those snowball’s-chance-in-h*ll applications.</p>
<p>There is a school near where I live where teachers will not give recommendations unless they know you have a shot at the school. (The school generally sends a few to MIT each year)</p>
<p>While I disagree with this practice, I can understand it if the teacher has a pile of recs to write.</p>
<p>Im not sure how one can assert such a “matter-of-fact” statement based on your examination of a single scattergram on your particular HS naviance (our naviance compare indicates the opposite and is a relatively large sample with 100’s applying to both)? As a pattern, I have noticed a clear tone in many of your posts that indicate you seem to have a fairly low opinion of NU. While normally this would not be particularly interestintg (or i would assume you were from U Chicago), I recall your name posting in the ED results thread for 2015 at NU for which you indicated you were accepted (and supposedly attending). Why did you apply to NU early decision if NU is so obviously not your first choice?</p>
<p>Even though our HS Naviance indicates that NU is more selective, the broader measures indicate more parity. With a midpoint SAT score (of the 25% - 75% range) within 1.5 % or 30 points (2188 UC vs 2158 NU) and a projected 2011 admission rate within a couple points 17% UC vs 19% NU (indicated as <20% by NU), I think it would be difficult to make a convincing argument that either of these schools is a significantly more challenging admission than the other.</p>
