University of Chicago Class of 2014 Statistics

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Chicago ✅
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<p>The University of Chicago just released the final statistics for the incoming class of 2014. They are here: <a href="https://collegeadmissions.uchicago.edu/apply/classprofile.shtml%5B/url%5D"&gt;https://collegeadmissions.uchicago.edu/apply/classprofile.shtml&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Notable Statistics:</p>

<p>Acceptance Rate: 18.85%
Yield: 38.77%
Number Enrolled: 1414</p>

<p>ACT Mid-50%: 30-34
SAT Mid-50%: 1400-1530</p>

<p>Last Year's Statistics:</p>

<p>The acceptance rate, as we all know, went down by about 8.5% from last year's 27.3%. The yield rate went up by about 3 points to 38.8%. </p>

<p>Last year's ACT Mid-50% was 29-34, which was up from the previous year's 28-33. Last year's SAT Mid-50% was 1320-1530. Last year's number of students in the top 10% of their graduating class was 85%. This figure was not published this year.</p>

<p>Analysis:</p>

<p>The University's standardized test scores have drastically improved, with the bottom 25% having a 1600-scale SAT score of 80 points higher than last year's. Let us remember that last year, the University went from the correct model of calculating SAT scores to the wrong model: that is, the University now calculates 25 percentile SAT scores by adding the 25th percentile Math to the 25th percentile CR score. This means that based on my estimation and past results, Chicago's CR and M mid-50% scores are as follows:</p>

<p>SAT Critical Reading 700-770
SAT Math 700-760</p>

<p>Compare this to Harvard's:</p>

<p>SAT CR 690-780
SAT M 690-790</p>

<p>In other words, Chicago's incoming 25th-percentile of its class is on average stronger SAT-wise than Harvard's 25th-percentile. Chicago is trailing Harvard a bit with regard to 75th-percentile. </p>

<p>As for % in top 10% of class, I expect that this number rose to about 90-95%, which is why Chicago has chosen not to publish it. For otherwise, it would be scaring away a large number of applicants. Obviously, this page is supposed to entice applicants to apply, not discourage them. For otherwise, why would Chicago publish the untraditional lowest SAT/ACT scores that got accepted? Obviously, to give students a glimmer that even with a low score, they might be accepted as well.</p>

<p>In any case, these two facts will have extremely positive ramifications for Chicago's US News ranking. Next year, expect Chicago to rise to 7th, tied with MIT/Caltech, or even to 5th, tied with Stanford/Penn. This is certainly good news for the College, but that being said, it's undeniable that Chicago is becoming more of a statistics-based admissions school.</p>

<p>Another significant point to note is class size. 1414 is quite a large class size in comparison to past classes. We have to ask the question, was it intentional to admit this many students or not? It certainly was intentional, since Chicago went to its waitlist 70 times to boost this number to over 1400. So it is curious what will happen in future years. Will the university continue to expand its undergraduate student body or will it stay approximately the same size? Five years ago, 1200 students was a huge class. Now we're getting 1414 students, and have increased the student body by about 500 students over the past 10 years. It is interesting to see where the University is going with this...</p>

<p>Anyway, this is my analysis.</p>

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<p>Where did you find this?</p>

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<p>Inferred from data. Class of 2012, admitted under O’Neill, had mid-50% of 1340-1510 with acceptance rate of 27%, stats published by O’Neill. Class of 2013, admitted under O’Neill, had mid-50% of 1320-1530 with acceptance rate of 27%, stats published by Nondorf.</p>

<p>There is no reason why SAT 25th percentile would go down 20 points while SAT 75th percentile would go up 20 points. Unless, of course, you changed from the correct way of calculating to the incorrect way of calculating, and this new way of calculating based on adding up percentiles of M + CR produces the very effect of adding to the 75th percentile and lowering the 25th percentile.</p>

<p>In other words, Nondorf changed the way the data was presented to make it look like there was a wider range of scores coming into the university, which entices students to apply. And he did this via the above method, which works out mathematically exactly as you’d expect it to.</p>

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<p>Phuriku,</p>

<p>I am as much a cheerleader for U Chicago as anybody. That said, I differ in interpreting the SAT score change. The fact that the 75% marker did not change means to me that Chicago did not attract proportionately larger number of top end students when the application number jumped by 42%. </p>

<p>My sentiment is, the 75% marker tells us a lot about the changes in genuine attraction of the school among top end students, while 25% marker tells us more about the school’s admission policy - this is far more under control of the admission office. Even if the quality of the applicants did not change drastically, by simply deciding to be more focused on academic stats, rather than essays, personal stories and what not, any school can reasonably increase the bottom 25% marker. </p>

<p>My sentiment is, given this new admit stats, it could very well be the case that Chicago’s admission policy is starting to resemble that of other Ivies and what not, and the days of “I am a life of the mind zealot and I can get in Chicago if I write one of an essay even if my stats have some kinks and bumps” may be slowly coming to an end. </p>

<p>That said, the increase in yield is a solid achievement. Even more impressive would be, if there is some data that show that Chicago is improving in the cross admit games vis-a-vis its peers like Ivies etc. But, I don’t think they will ever publish that kind of data.</p>

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<p>another thing I might add is, the acceptance rate has a very minuscule impact on USNWR ranking. If I remember correctly, something like 1.5% of the total score. whatever improvement in the acceptance rate would be something like a fraction of one percent. I don’t remember what the weight for the yield was: something similar - not a huge weight.</p>

<p>I think what might bump Chicago’s ranking is highly successful Nodorf marketing targeted at the high school guidance counselors through school visits and what not. That, I recall, had a pretty meaningful impact. Yes, I do think that it’s a real possibility that Chicago ranking will go up next year, but not because of the acceptance rate and yield improvement but because of the aggressive marketing campaign.</p>

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<p>hyeonjlee: The implication was that the US News ranking would go up based on SAT scores (7.5% of the total ranking) and % of top 10% students (6% of the total ranking). Since Chicago has traditionally lagged significantly behind other schools in the latter aspect, and since Chicago saw a significant improvement for the bottom of its class this year, Chicago should be able to catch up with its peers in a significant way.</p>

<p>I do agree that Nondorf’s work with counselors could help Chicago’s ranking as well, especially with Chicago’s current abysmal counselor rating.</p>

<p>The fact that Chicago’s 75th percentile figure stagnated this year isn’t particularly worrisome to me. Chicago has always had a very strong top of the class, and that wasn’t something that needed significant attention. I’m sure it will continue to increase in the coming years.</p>

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<p>the middle 50% of composite CR+M distribution should NOT be simple arithmetic addition of the 25-75% marker for each subject. That would be assuming that there is a perfect correlation between CR and M scores. It’s not true. There are kids who scored at 75% for CR, but at 68% for M and vice versa. As such, the range of the actual composite scores will be NARROWER than the simple arithmetic combination of the 25-75% scores of each section. </p>

<p>I checked the latest ENROLLED student data (for the class of 2014) for Chicago.</p>

<p>It’s: CR: 690-780 M: 680-780. Note, if you simply combine 25% and 75% number, you would come up with a CR+M----- 1370-1560, while the actual reported range for real students is 1400-1530. This makes sens for the reason stated above. </p>

<p>By the way, Harvard is: CR: 690-780 M: 690-790. tad higher than Chicago’s, but only a little. </p>

<p>I remember last year, the distribution for Chicago was meanigfully lower than this. It was about in the same range as U Penn, Duke, Columbia etc. This year, Chicago’s stats are much stronger than those of these peers. SO, yes, it does appear that class of 2014 is coming in with better stats than students of previous years did.</p>

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<p>Where did you get that student data? If you got it off US News or College Board, it’s outdated by a year.</p>

<p>Note that there has been a discrepancy between US News and the University’s own reporting for the past two years. No one really knows what’s going on there.</p>

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<p>the data came from collegeboard. since you are telling me that this data is year old, I must say, “my bad”. But then, this begs another question. If this is the data for the class of 2013, and that data already showed a great deal of improvement over the stats of the class of 2012 while Chicago’s ranking did not improve, but actually went down by 1, what does this mean?</p>

<p>Not that ranking up or down by 1 is an issue. It’s just part of normal fluctuation, and nothing to really note. but it kinda tells you that some metrics must have gone down to offset the increase in the stats.</p>

<p>Meanwhile, how do they (USNWR) use the SAT scores and such? Do they use average composite of CR+M, or median??? I assume they use the stats of the ENROLLED students, NOT admitted.</p>

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<p>The way the University has been reporting its SATs to US News is different from the way the University has reported them on its own website. For instance, on its website last year, the University reported that the median SAT for the Class of 2013 was 1320-1530, whereas on US News, it was 1370-1560. This doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, even though US News explicitly uses the CR+M method, while Chicago doesn’t make clear what method it uses. Regardless, the way one reports the data will hardly ever increase both figures; it will only narrow or expand the range. Also, note that Chicago’s self-reported statistics for class of 2012 were ACT 28-33, and US News reported 28-32. So something is definitely odd on that front. Chicago must have found a loophole or something.</p>

<p>Increasing the way we report the data to 1400-1530 might also correspond to an increase in our US News selectivity. If we report to US News in another way, we could expect a corresponding increase, but that would put our SATs on par with Caltech and considerably above HYP. Not sure what will happen though.</p>

<p>By the way, College Board’s statistics are really bad. They usually lag a year or two behind, and it seems that they just copy US News’ numbers after they publish their rankings instead of taking data for themselves.</p>

<p>The year that the self-reported statistics and US News statistics started being considerably different was August 2009, when Chicago was tied with Columbia at 8. If our self-reported stats were submitted instead, we probably would’ve been tied at 9 with Duke.</p>

<p>Frankly, I have no idea what’s happening with regard to Chicago’s submission of statistics. Regardless, Chicago’s ranking should increase based on % of class in top % next year. Chicago’s ranking decreased last year due to a change in methodology that decreased PA ranking to accompany a counselor ranking which became a heavy disadvantage for Chicago, in addition to another change based on predicted graduation rate, on which point Chicago does not have a good reputation. If Chicago can connect with counselors better and boost its counselor rating to 3.7 or 3.8 while having a high percentage of students in top 10%, like 95% perhaps, then Chicago will easily move up the rankings. Most other universities have already maxed out in these aspects and really can’t make any increases. Chicago is unique in that there’s still a lot of room for improvement. A ranking of 4th is in reach within 3 years or so.</p>

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<p>yes, what you are saying here makes sense then. I think the key is to increase awareness and “brand power”. this is what has been kicked into the fifth year with Nondorf, and there is still a lot of headroom for Chicago in this domain, while Chicago’s peers are already maxed out as you said. As such, Chicago is on a good trajectory next few years. We will see what happens…</p>

<p>I am really curious about what the application number will look like this year. Should we start a betting pool? </p>

<p>I would say:</p>

<p>(1) the EA number will go up significantly: last years admission statistics clearly showed that there is a tremendous advantage of applying early, so kids in the know will do the smart king and early early. I would say, another 30+% increase.</p>

<p>(2) total application number will also go up, but not by as much as the EA application. I say, 20+%.; I would say, the total applications will about in the vicinity of 23500. </p>

<p>(3) acceptance rate: around 15% or below</p>

<p>(3) yield: 40+%. By the way, it’s the yield they should really start improve. Chicago’s yield is far below that of its peers.</p>

<p>What do you say?</p>

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<p>This is the first class that wasn’t admitted by Ted O’Neill. I really wonder how the profile of the class has changed (I’m not talking numbers here; those really don’t mean anything about how the students are going to react to/perform in U of C classes and the U of C academic/social environment). I’m absolutely certain there are students who were admitted who Ted wouldn’t have admitted, and I’m sure there are students he admitted who the new dean wouldn’t have… Change is definitely in the air at U of C. I hope it’s good change. I don’t want this school to change that much. It’s amazing the way it is.</p>

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<p>hyeonjlee: I agree with most of your figures, except I think the increase in applications will be a bit more. At RPI, Nondorf increased the applicant pool by 117% in three years. I’m going to assume that a similar increase will occur at Chicago. Considering that the O’Neill’s last year netted 13565 applications, after 3 years, Nondorf should be netting 13565*2.17 = ~29500 applications, which is a little bit less than what Harvard, Brown, and Stanford got this year, and which should be approximately the same as how many apps Northwestern will be getting in 2 years.</p>

<p>In order for this to happen and for the annual increase to go down slightly every year, I’d say that Chicago would probably have to have about a 30% total increase in apps next year, with a 15-20% total increase in apps the following year. This means that Chicago would get around 25k apps next year, which is a bit less than Columbia, Wash U, and Penn are getting.</p>

<p>This would mean that if Chicago expects its yield to go up and admits only 3500 next year, then the acceptance rate should hit 14%, and be set to hit about 11-12% the year after. This is the figure that I would bet on anyway. I like to be conservative, but the University’s got quite a bit of momentum now, and I’m not sure when it’s going to stop… but I’d say not for at least another 2 years.</p>

<p>Cosmos: I expect a pretty noticeable different in the student makeup this year. The university actually tried to recruit based on student interests last year, and consequently got a lot of students interested in business to apply. Similarly, if you look on the threads here at CC, you’ll see a lot of people who want to go to Chicago for business. So the atmosphere is certainly changing… and I think it’s changing for the best. I like that Chicago is a very academic university, but at the same time, I think it would be better to have more diversity in interests, especially at the professional level.</p>

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<p>Frankly, the XX% in the top 10% has less relevance these days as more and more high schools no longer provide class rankings. I read a lot of college materials last year in which the % of top 10% students represented only 35-40% of the student body. This was of particular interest since neither of my kids were top 10%, but attended programs that had national reputations (both were accepted EA). My top 25% kid was a Nondorf admit, but put together an O’Neill application. I doubt he was alone in that regard.</p>

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<p>Phuriku,</p>

<p>U Penn’s undergrad size is about 9500. Harvard: about 6700. Columbia about 5600. Stanford about 6600. Brown about 6600.</p>

<p>These are all very well positioned schools with better “brand position” than Chicago. They are all bigger than Chicago in terms of undergrad size (~5100 for Chicago). It’s highly unrealistic to expect that Chicago will get the number of applications that is only slightly smaller than those of these schools any time soon.</p>

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<p>What about Wash U, then? Wash U gets 25k/year applications. Are you telling me that despite the fact that Chicago has a better reputation than Wash U that it can’t pull in 4k more applications than it does? And that it can’t compete with Northwestern’s 27.6k, which will probably be 30k in 2 years?</p>

<p>Competing with Harvard, Penn, Columbia, Stanford, and Brown in terms of application numbers is hard. But Wash U and Northwestern do it. Why can’t Chicago? Especially as another institution in the Midwest whose reputation is greater than those of Wash U and NU.</p>

<p>In fact, Chicago can use its status as a Midwest university as an advantage here. While those colleges on the East and West coasts have to fight with each other over applicants, the Midwest doesn’t have this problem due to the lack of a huge private school presence. Therefore, as Wash U and NU have demonstrated, it’s rather easy to get a lot of applications as long as you are a dominant school in the Midwest. And Chicago certainly falls under this category, doesn’t it?</p>

<p>Also note that I said that the number of applicants in 2 years for Chicago would be slightly less than the number of applications that Brown and Harvard get today. (Actually, Stanford gets a little more than these two.) In two years of course, they will be getting more. It would probably be Harvard/Brown’s 35k to Chicago’s 29.5k, which I hardly find unrealistic, especially if Chicago continues to dominate in its marketing.</p>

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<p>you need to compare apples to apples. </p>

<p>Northwestern University: undergraduate size: ~8700. 70% larger student body than U Chicago. They have engineering school, school of education, and specialized music school, etc.</p>

<p>Washington University at St Louis: undergraduate size ~7000. 40% larger student body than Chicago. They have undergraduate business school, engineering school, design & visual arts school.</p>

<p>Columbia, harvard, yale, brown, dartmouth, princeton, stanford all have an undergraduate engineering college. U Penn has nursing, engineering, wharton business school, etc.</p>

<p>To come up with a reasonable comparison, you need to compare mostly liberal arts and science colleges of these universities and U Chicago. I bet the number of applications to just liberal arts and science college or students who intend to major in arts and sciences is quite smaller than the numbers your quoting (the total application numbers).</p>

<p>This is why I think you are overly optimistic when you say there is no reason why U Chicago cannot match or come close to the application numbers of these schools in a couple of years: the pool of students U Chicago is drawing its applicants from is smaller without additional academic disciplnes (engineering, business, nursing, music, visual arts, etc) that the other schools have.</p>

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<p>I don’t see what undergraduate size has to do with anything. I don’t think many students really consider the difference between 5100 and 7000 when they are applying to school. It may have repercussions when we speak of how well-known a school is, but it’s probably minimal. Otherwise, MIT would have problems holding its own against Harvard/Stanford, etc.</p>

<p>Just in the past year, Chicago surpassed Dartmouth’s number of applications. I think we could have reasonably applied your same argument last year to argue that Chicago should not have beaten Dartmouth in applications since it does not have as great of a brand name. If we want to argue apples to apples, then how about this: If NU and Wash U can rival Columbia and Penn, then Chicago should be able to rival Princeton and Yale. The former 4 colleges have similar university structures and similar student bodies, with NU/Wash U not having nearly as big names as Columbia/Penn. Since Chicago is closer in structure to Princeton/Yale without as big of a name (but with a same ratio of prestige to Princeton/Yale that NU/Wash U have to Columbia/Penn), Chicago should be able to rival them in applications.</p>

<p>Recall that Chicago has been criticized much on this board for reaching into segments of the population that other schools haven’t considered, down to so-called “B students.” I have seen Northwestern students lament the fact that upon visiting the Northeast, they see much more of Chicago than Northwestern, and say that NU needs to boost its ad campaign more. If Chicago has better marketing than NU and goes down into the lower reaches of student ability, I see no reason why it shouldn’t be able to compete against YP exactly as NU has competed against CP. Also, remember that many students still think Chicago is a backup school, with the US News published acceptance rate being the most well-known data among students. This figure is still 27%. This should also encourage students to apply who don’t consider themselves Ivy material.</p>

<p>In any case, my original numbers were just estimates, but I’ll stick with them. I’m willing to bet that Chicago will garner around 25k apps this year, regardless of the amount of skepticism I’ll have to confront.</p>

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<p>“This should also encourage students to apply who don’t consider themselves Ivy material.”</p>

<p>ewwwww . . . as if everyone with Big Stats would default to the Ivies</p>

<p>Brand Primary students will do so</p>

<p>Education Primary students will apply to the school that offers best fit; might be a HYPed school, might not</p>

<p>it’s like Abercrombie-wear; you can’t go wrong shopping by brand</p>

<p>but some people like making their own choices about the best style for themselves</p>

<p>OK, you all can go back to HYPed world now :-)</p>

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<p>This is an interesting thread, and many of the posters have raised pretty insightful points. </p>

<p>With regard to the assertion that number of applications should correlate either with the seize or prestige of the school (e.g. UPenn should get more applications than Brown because it’s bigger and has more colleges, or Yale should get more applications than Chicago because it is more prestigious) is, I think, pretty erroneous. As Nondorf has demonstrated, luring applicants to apply (i.e. recruitment) is sort of a specific skill that doesn’t necessarily relate to school size or prestige. Case in point, in 2008, Nondorf’s old employer, RPI, received 12,300 applications - nearly as many as MIT that year. </p>

<p>As that example shows, if schools want to, they can certainly drum up large numbers of applications. Wash U did that in the late 90s (for a while, they were getting nearly as many apps as Harvard), RPI has done that of late, and Chicago certainly can as well. The rising tide of apps will taper off at some point, but it’s probably safe to say that in the next few years, as Nondorf keeps recruiting hard and expanding the size of the admissions committee (it’s now much larger than it was just a few years back), Chicago will probably have an acceptance rate somewhere between 10-14% by 2013 or so. </p>

<p>With regard to the US News speculation, people seem to forget that US News, from year to year, can easily and arbitrarily change its rankings formula - usually with very little notice. Many people initially thought US News was just considering its nebulous “high school counselor” ranking for the future. Instead, US News went right ahead and inserted the bogus ranking into its overall formula for this year. Luckily, Chicago only fell one spot with the change.</p>

<p>Since US News changes its formula pretty arbitrarily, its hard to predict how U of C will do in the future. What if US News decides that alumni giving is really important, and emphasizes it more next year? Or, what if graduate rate becomes more important? </p>

<p>All of this stuff is hard to predict, so it’s critical for U of C to keep working methodically on improving the stats that are good to improve anyway. It’s good to have more alums give back, good to increase yield, etc. So, Phuriku, since we don’t know what formula US News will use next year, it’s hard to say what the U of C new ranking will be.</p>

<p>Also, I don’t know if I think U of C’s high school counselor ranking was “abysmal” as others have noted. HS Counselors gave U of C a 4.5 out of 5 score, which was low, but that number can improve over time. If Chicago gets the HS counselor score to around 4.7 or so, it should be fine.</p>

<p>My view on the rankings is that its critical for certain schools to stay in certain tiers. In the top ten, Penn and Chicago benefit the most from being in the top ten, because they gain association with schools with greater brand recognition. Penn & Chicago then appear within range of schools with better brands, such as Stanford or MIT. Consequently, while it’s hard to tell if Chicago can move up to #6 or #7, I think it’s really critical for Chicago to stay in the top ten. It’s helpful for Chicago to be grouped (however subliminally) with schools like Columbia and Stanford, and it won’t be helpful for Chicago to be outside the top ten and grouped with schools like Wash U and NU. Both Penn and Chicago have the most to lose if they drop out of the top ten, whereas schools with better brands and more mass market appeal, like Brown, can probably afford to be #16 or whatever. </p>

<p>All that being said, I just hope Chicago continues to make decisions to cement its place in the top ten and to improve institutional health as well. I believe its been in the top ten for liek 5-6 years in a row now. If Chicago continues to increase its selectivity, yield, and its standing with HS counselors, it should be fine. I do wonder, though, how can Chicago improve with HS counselors in just one year? I guess lots of calls and positive messages to massage counselors across the country?</p>