<p>^Personally, I would go with Pitt over Penn State (if you end up having to decide between the two). Pitt is exponentially better than Penn State in almost everything (however, Penn State is better in football and has a greater number of binge-drinkers on campus ;)). That’s all I’ll say about that right here because I don’t want to go in-depth about the subject on the UoC forum.</p>
<p>only problem is that Pitt is literally in my backyard. It detracts a bit from the notion of a college experience. Great school…but it’s proximately to my house is the only thing that is holding me back. Granted, my parents continue to reiterate that they don’t want to see me on a regular basis…but going to a school so close to home seems to detract a bit from the experience. </p>
<p>What are your thoughts?</p>
<p>I posted on the Pitt and Penn State threads. I’m not a sports person and not much of a partier. I have nothing against sports or partying…but they just aren’t my thing. </p>
<p>So…that being the back drop…what’s a student to do?</p>
<p>Nizzle - come on, add at least one layer of complexity to your posts. Are you saying Chicago is a safety school for HYP candidates or for Cornell kids? It annoys me when people just lump ALL of the ivies together. There’s a big difference between getting into Harvard or Yale or Cornell and Penn. I think these are all great schools, but if you check cross-admit battles and selectivity of the school, Chicago compares quite favorably to C or P, and gets trounced by H or Y. </p>
<p>Also, I’m unclear on this - why do you view prestige on the “lower” levels as so immutable? When I went to Chicago in the mid-90s, you were absolutely right - we were a big backup school for the top ivies. Know what the other big back up schools were for top ivies? Cornell, Penn, and Columbia. All three schools still had a pretty high acceptance rate, and were viewed sorta negatively. Wouldn’t you agree that most people now don’t consider Columbia or Penn “a big backup school”? </p>
<p>It’s a little frustrating to see students not place much foresight into their college admissions process. The college you choose to go to will stick with you for the rest of your life. While it’s useless to predict where a school will stand decades for now, it’s not impossible to see that there are certain schools with rising trajectories (Chicago and Penn both come to mind), and others that at best, have been a little stagnant (rural schools and LACs have suffered, particularly). </p>
<p>Why is it this never is taken into account? When I applied to Chicago, I think Wash U, Northwestern, etc. were all seen as CONSIDERABLY favorable options to being at a school in supposed “decline.” Today, say what you will about Chicago, but it’s not a step behind in selectivity and outreach to NU or Wash U any more. </p>
<p>Finally, I’m a bit confused - in my day, NU was also a “top ivy” reject school. I don’t know why you create distinctions between Chicago and NU now by stating your desire to go to NU. These are all great schools, but I dunno if I’d argue that NU is in better standing than Chicago by any identifiable measure (academic rankings, wealth, selectivity, etc etc.).</p>
<p>so…I was accepted to Yale EA and MIT, yet waitlisted at Chicago…
I feel like my application was very strong and I showed genuine interest in my WhyChicago essay. However, I mentioned in my interview that I was already accepted to Yale, and that’s probably the reason why I was waitlisted. Oh well, like I care. haha :)</p>
<p>It seems like Chicago is waitlisting many highly qualified candidates because it knows that they most likely view Chicago as a safety.</p>
<p>So if you were waitlisted, don’t be discouraged at all!</p>
<p>That logic is just silly. If you’ll look throughout the admissions thread, you’ll see many people who got in with scores of 2350-2400. If Chicago were really trying to play the yield game, it would just automatically reject all of these since the chances are high that these applicants would get into at least one of HYPSM. Don’t you think that if you were a really great applicant, they would admit you and give you a merit scholarship in the hope of luring you to matriculate?</p>
<p>Remember, Chicago has had no problem in getting the best students in the past years even with a higher admit rate. For example, Chicago is in the top 5 nationally for Rhodes Scholars and is first nationally for Fulbright scholars, and creates more PhDs percentage-wise among its undergraduate students than Harvard, Princeton, and Yale.</p>
<p>If you really think they’re scared of admitting the best students for yield, you’re apparently terribly uninformed of the university’s mission. The university cares much more about getting the best students than it does about the general admission rate.</p>
<p>People are constantly making excuses for why they did not get into Chicago. They apparently cannot accept the conclusion that Chicago is just a selective university who is looking for a certain student. Chicago had a 10.8% admit rate for RD, and anybody who thinks that they were clearly better than 9 in 10 Chicago applicants is full of it. I know that a lot of people saw Chicago as their safety for HYP (thanks to CC, uninformed admission counselors, a high EA acceptance rate, etc.), but if you really thought that you could use as your safety a school with a 10% RD admit rate ranked in the top 10 schools in the United States, known for its academically-oriented student body and applicant pool, then you probably weren’t qualified for admission at Chicago anyway.</p>
<p>Sorry for the rant. I know that a lot of students are looking for comfort about their admissions decisions, and that emotions are rampant especially among a teenage applicant pool. However, the conclusions that have been presented here have ranged from logically unsound to plain silly. There was a 10% admit rate, for Christ’s sake. Just accept that Chicago’s admissions process has become extremely selective and simultaneously rather arbitrary. This is the only way to approach the results we have seen in the past 30 hours.</p>
<p>@crazygirltrac:
In my case, I’m not “highly qualified” at all–2010 SAT, barely any extra-curricular (chess club–that’s it–and I mentioned in CommonApp that it’s a very informal club where anyone can just come in and play), no major honors (outstanding student for Math Analysis and BC Calculus and some honor societies). I doubt they view me as a candidate who thinks of UChicago as safety. </p>
<p>So, even though I don’t have much chance at all for Stanford since the beginning, I feel even more discouraged now that I’m waitlisted in UChicago.</p>
<p>It’s not that I don’t like UChicago. I’m just not too fond of the cold weather–though I could live with it if I get accepted and the financial is reasonable.</p>
<p>Without Stanford and UChicago, I’ll most likely go to UVA, which I got a likely letter from, to study math, a subject the school is not exactly known for.</p>
<p>@phuriku
way to be rude…</p>
<p>I was only giving my own opinion and giving some encouragement to people who are still hoping to get into top schools.</p>
<p>Oh by the way, Chicago gives like…20 full merit scholarships? Unless I was in the top 20 of all the applicants, I don’t see why they would try to lure me with a merit scholarship (that they have no guarantee that I would take).</p>
<p>And if I am not “qualified for admission at Chicago anyway”, apparently I am qualified enough for Yale and MIT, and that’s way more than good enough for me.</p>
<p>@tiachopvutru
I wasn’t saying that everyone in the waitlist is highly qualified, just possibly some.
A lot of times, there is little correlation btw being waitlisted and your chance of acceptance at other schools. Good luck with Stanford!</p>
<p>^^ I actually agree with phuriku, though I will say, Chicago is trying to play the yield game, but definitely not so callously. They are looking for fit. It would be absolutely ridiculous for a school that prides itself on academics to reject academic superstars to increase their yield. They’d lose out on some of the nation’s best and brightest. </p>
<p>@crazygirltrac: Getting into Yale and MIT means that you’re qualified for Chicago, but not necessarily that it would be a good fit. And Chicago also gives 5k and 10k merit scholarships. I don’t know what percentage of applicants they cover now, but before they introduced the 5k awards, it covered roughly 10% of the class (not the applicants but the matriculated class) so it would cover strong students that got into Yale and MIT.</p>
<p>@crazygirltrac:</p>
<p>I was using a ‘general’ you, not referring to you in particular. If you got into MIT and Yale, you’re probably qualified for Chicago. I was just using your post as a springboard for the overall mentality present on this board. And yes, I realize my post was a bit rude and that your post was mainly for the purpose of encouragement. I apologize; I just felt that I should clear up a few misconceptions rampant here.</p>
<p>to OP, i’m sorry that you got waitlisted, but think of it this way: Chicago is a VERY selective university, but every year it loses quite a few of its admittees to ivies or other colleges, so i’m sure that uchicago admits many students off the waitlist. Last year, one of my friends was waitlisted at UChicago, even though he was very qualified. a short time afterwards he got off the waitlist and was admitted!</p>
<p>All I have to say on this matter: count your blessings, be happy. For the most part, you’ll be fine no matter where you go to college. Do you all understand how fortunate you are? If not, you should probably reconsider your plans in the near future so you can do some serious reflection…good luck to all of you.</p>
<p>@crazygirltrac- Way to be defensive. ;)</p>
<p>Just because you were in it a two highly-selective schools doesn’t mean all of them were going to take you, and phuriku is right–you’re just attempting to rationalize your rejection.</p>
<p>waitlisted at WUSTL. Outright rejection by U of C. Little hopes left for penn. </p>
<p>schs i applied to seem to hv record number of applicants this year.</p>
<p>Looks like I shld hv been born earlier LOL.</p>
<p>phuriku wat do u mean by “Chicago’s admissions process has become extremely selective and simultaneously rather arbitrary”</p>
<p>i wld hardly consider chicago’s selection arbitrary since they emphasize so much on the essays.</p>
<p>I agree with Phuriki. I’m one of the guys that falls in the category of people that have some stronger credentials, and has a decent shot at getting into Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc. However, I didn’t treat Chicago as a safety- it was a school that I figured I’d have a good shot at getting into, but by no means was it a safety. College admissions (IMO) are such a crapshoot that the only safeties you can make are your state schools, and sometimes even not those. I’m very happy that Chicago accepted me, and also decided to throw 10k my way. I hadn’t really been considering Chicago as one of my top choices, but you can bet that those $10,000 are making me give some very strong consideration to Chicago.</p>
<p>And although I am a relatively stronger applicant, I thoroughly expect to get rejected and waitlisted by the vast majority of my schools. I’m qualified… but not THAT qualified.</p>
<p>@crazygirltrac</p>
<p>I’ll be honest, hearing your plight really makes me feel better. I guess UChicago is just completely unpredictable in their decisions; I would expect someone qualified enough to get accepted by both Yale and MIT to be a shoe-in at UChicago. I guess there’s hope yet.</p>
<p>I was wait-listed at Chicago. And frankly I’m happy. Chicago wasn’t my top choice, it fits me in my intellectual ethos, but it’s just too cold. I had a wonderful interview and although my “favorite things” essay was weak, my application was strong overall. Simply put, it’s a number game now, UofC has become highly selective, and being very qualified isn’t enough to be accepted. I choose to apply there because of how strong it is in hard/pure sciences and philosophy - not because it’s a “prestigious safety” and BS like that. </p>
<p>I actually see my wait-listing as a reason enough to keep on hoping for HYP and Columbia. With a 12% admissions rate. I can easily fall in the 13th percent. or below it. It may simply depend at what time of day my application was read, and which applications they read directly before reading mine xD.</p>
<p>And the crapshoot at the other selective schools is predictable?</p>
<p>@jj43 a couple pages back— me, too! I accepted Chicago after hear that I’m not an Emory Scholar (family pressure to go there). I totally rejected HPM, Cornell, William and Mary, Duke, and Emory before they could reject me! It’s awesome, right!!! I totally justified it in my head that I needed to confirm early so I could submit my housing app, and I knew Chicago was the best fit for me anyways (even before I decided to apply, so not really a defense mechanism-- ask my counselor if you don’t believe me) so I confirmed. On a deeper level, I know there was some “reject you before you reject me” mentality. :)</p>
<p>We’ve got the system beat! ;)</p>