<p>Regardless, two very different elite schools that serve very different purposes. I used to joke that between NU (practical), UChicago (theoretical), and UIUC+UIC (state), Illinois had more intellectual firepower and educational variety than any other Midwestern state. :P</p>
<p>Sure, but that is hardly saying something. With the lone exception of WUSTL (and maybe Notre Dame), there is no school even CLOSE to NU OR Uchicago for 700 miles.</p>
<p>The midwest simply does not have top schools. Michigan and Wisconsin are good public schools, but top 20 schools are almost exclusively on the east coast. NU, UChicago, Stanford, Cal Tech, Rice, and Duke (kind of east coast) are the only ones off the eastern seaboard/I-95 corridor.</p>
<p>Call it east coast bias, call it historical precedent, but don’t call it untrue.</p>
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<p>Chicago claimed that it wanted to catch up with Columbia in terms of number of applications. Columbia and NU have about the same number of applications each year, and we’ve seen that if Nondorf wants to increase the number of applications, he can do so at will. More than likely, Chicago will catch up within 2 years. Should be interesting to see, though. I would rather Chicago focus on quality of applicant pool, but prestige is more often associated with acceptance rate than student quality, as we have seen in the past.</p>
<p>Also, note that Chicago’s undergrad classes are expanding. This year, the expected number of matriculants is over 1400! In my year (class of 2011), there were 1300, and the upperclassmen were amazed at how big our class was. Chicago is trying to boost its visibility by expanding the number of entering students. (And on another interesting point, if Chicago’s class size were to remain the same as it has been historically (significantly less than 1000), this last year’s acceptance rate would be about 10%, and next year’s would likely be in Harvard territory.)</p>
<p>Good post, CA.</p>