<p>Yes, any time an individual with associations with a school speaks on these forums or meets you in person, he or she is acting as a direct representative of the institution. Although it is not logically sound to view one person or a related group as spokespeople for the multiple thousand individuals who have had connections with the university, the way in which that one person (or persons) speaks or acts can ultimately form a individual’s lifelong perception of the college. Is this proper? Not really, but a basic understanding of human psychology demonstrates why this happens. I have seen this exact phenomenon occur on the Princeton forum, when a scornful post by a current student completely shattered a parent’s entire perception of the school. I too have been slightly turned off to Yale by the comments of current students who freely attempted to engage in public humiliation of my character simply because I validly debated a political argument while their logic and objective evidence was trifling in relation.</p>
<p>So although I do not truly represent the University of Chicago since I have merely identified myself as an EA acceptee, I feel an obligation to defend any unfounded attacks against the school and to share my enthusiasm for the university because of the wonderful opportunity that it has offered me.</p>
<p>This is off-topic, but from my observations, I think you are an incredible writer and thinker. The ability to stay objective is in itself considerably impressive for a high-schooler (or anyone, actually), but your logical abilities are astounding for your age (not to sound patronizing). I do hope that Chicago grants you a suitable financial package, because I think you’d be an excellent addition to the student body.</p>
<p>… I’m late to the party here, but a few thoughts on our little sub-forum community here:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Our parent/student ratio is surprisingly high. Something tells me that parents are less inclined to ■■■■■ for fun, though I have been proven wrong on that one. However, it’s fair to say that when parents ■■■■■, they ■■■■■ differently from high school students.</p></li>
<li><p>Even if we get 8 billion applications-- including the entire human race and from every canine, feline, and goldfish-- Chicago is still Chicago. I am just happy that more people appreciate the school and know about it.</p></li>
<li><p>The personalities on this subforum are pretty reflective of my overall academic/social experience here. I would just point out that I came to CC out of boredom and stayed out of indignation about misrepresentations and misinfortmation. I think many come to CC out of boredom and stay there for the same reason.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Phuriku: I sincerely thank you for your kind words.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I believe that I come here simply because of the many remarkable individuals that post on this website with ambitions similar to my own. I first created an account on CC since so many of the college inquiries that I Googled were directly answered on this website.</p>
<p>Here’s what I’ve been able to gather from various posts in this thread. </p>
<p>1) Nondorf’s main purpose is to increase yield.
2) Chicago will admit the same number of applicants
3) Chicago’s will not increase the size of it’s class
4) Chicago has hired 100 more professors. </p>
<p>These can’t all be correct (do the math). </p>
<p>Which one is wrong? </p>
<p>Is Chicago heading for severe overcrowding of the Class of 2014?</p>
<p>I asked this in a previous thread, but no discussion ensued. Any forecasts?</p>
<p>ClassicRockerDad - I think the key is that Chicago is not heavily aiming to increase yield THIS YEAR. Nondorf’s long term strategy is to increase yield, but for this year, I think the admissions strategy would be to lower the acceptance rate (and it certainly seems as if the acceptance rate will plummet this year). This year, if the yield was around 37% or so - as is usually the case - I think Nondorf and crew will be happy. </p>
<p>Long term, I think Nondorf’s goal would be to push yield to around the 42-45% region with a EA admissions strategy. Very few colleges (maybe 5-6 only) have yields of higher than 50%, so if, 5 years from now, Chicago has, say, a 43% yield rate, that’d be considerable growth for the U of C. This year, sticking with the norm on yield is fine.</p>
<p>Yield this year will be tough to forecast, and overenrollment is a crisis situation, especially at a place like UofC that does not have a hotel nearby to put extras into.</p>
<p>So I predict they will forecast a higher yield, just to be safe, and use the waitlist if yield tracks historic norms. </p>
<p>Where you don’t want to be is expecting a traditional yield in the 37%, only to see it spike up even a few points. Think of it this way. If your target class size is 1000, at 37% yield you’d admit 2702. If your yield went up by just 3 points to 40, you’d have an extra 81 students! Where would you put them? Better to aim higher and take 80 kids from the waitlist if you need to.</p>
<p>The problem with that is, as ClassicRockerDad points out, Chicago has already effectively announced that it will accept about the same number of students this year as last. And it has already significantly increased the proportion of students it accepted EA – from about 1,200 the past 5-6 years (maybe longer), to 1,650 this year. Since it stands to reason that EA yield is higher than RD yield, it looks like (a) they think yield is going to go down, (b) they are prepared to expand the size of the class, or (c) they are lying about how many applications they plan to accept RD.</p>
<p>None of the possibilities is illogical: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>Yield could easily go down because of the economic situation. The shift to more EA acceptances might mask the fact that yield had gone down – effectively, if yield stays the same overall this year, that will be a significant decrease vs. last year because of the higher EA numbers. </p></li>
<li><p>Chicago probably has beds in which it could stuff more first-years – by forcing triples, reducing transfer numbers, and not hitting its targets for upperclassmen staying in the new South Campus dorm.</p></li>
<li><p>If yield really were to stay constant, they would admit about 3,450 applicants (1,800 RD), not 3,700 (2,050 RD).</p></li>
</ul>
<p>“Chicago has already effectively announced that it will accept about the same number of students this year as last”</p>
<p>JHS, I think you may be reading the word “accepted” too literally here. Chicago would probably like to enroll the same number next year as it did this year, but to accomplish that it would have to admit a far smaller proportion of applicants than it did last year – even if the yield stays the same. But, as newmassdad says, given the risk of a higher than expected yield the admissions office will likely err on the conservative side on admits and rely on the waitlist to fill any remaining open slots when the dust settles at the end of April.</p>
<p>^ What perspective? The fact that the graduate biz school is also highly ranked has about as much relevance to undergrad education as the fact that the Med school is not so highly ranked has to med school education.</p>
<p>There’s a separate forum section for MBAs. You should post this there.</p>
<p>^^What I think nmd was asking was what is the point of your earlier post, i.e., what’s it’s relevance to undergrad applications? What is the “perspective” that you are trying to point out? </p>
<p>Yeah, we all know that UoC has a highly-ranked B-school (and Law school, and many other grad programs). Is your point that the B-school grads do well financially? Does it matter if undergrads can’t routinely take classes in the B-school (or Law school)?</p>
<p>btw: perhaps you may have noticed that many of the to B-schools do not offer an undergrad biz program…</p>
<p>^^ I respectfully offer this perspective: I believe that the quality of the graduate institutions ( in this case, U of C’s B school ) strongly reflects on the undergraduate. It means more research for the institution, which means the Uinversity as a whole is well-published and at the forefront of research.Additionally , undergrads can get more involved earlier in research (not necessarily courses)at the graduate level. It also reflects on the overall atmosphere at the UG.</p>
<p>This has been the mantra at Johns Hopkins for the longest time.</p>
<p>So yes, Uofcapplicant has a valid point, IMHO.</p>
<p>What you say is true for graduate programs in the sciences. It may be true for Med Schools, but see below. It is most emphatically not true for Business or Law, because these academic divisions are run separately and don’t have any corresponding undergrad educational components. That is to say a law school prof will almost never teach an undergrad course (unless the prof has a rare joint appointment). Ditto for biz school. Places like Penn’s Wharton are the exceptions, and not a common one. For example, Harvard, like Chicago, does not have an undergrad biz major. “Run separately” means they do their own budgeting, hiring and such.</p>
<p>Even med schools don’t usually contribute to the undergrad part of a university because the med schools are distant from the undergrad campus. UofC is a rare exception in this regard. </p>
<p>I would challenge you to identify any undergrads at UofC that have been involved in Biz or law school research projects (other than as a research subject!). Heck, how many undergrads have ever been in the buildings for the biz or law school? So much for “overall atmosphere”.</p>
<p>I was able to do research at JHU med as an undergrad, with the chairman of biochem who was close to getting the Nobel ( but , alas…)… I feel that’s because there is a research mentality there. Many other premed UGs were taking advantage of that “atmosphere” at the time, even though the med school was 20 min away by shuttle. I think it’s all in the student’s attitudes, if they really want it , it’s there ( can’t speak for U of C , of course )…This is still ongoing, Carol Greieder ( recent Nobel ) has a few UGs working with her. JHU didnt have a B school at the time, and no law school still, so I can’t speak for this branch, but I still feel that it’s not unwarranted to think there is a runoff effect between UG and grad schools of the same institution…</p>