<p>My parents always told me that getting into a college was dependent on a number of things. At the top of the list were:</p>
<ol>
<li>How many hours of sleep did the reader get the previous night?</li>
<li>Did the reader get in an argument with his/her significant other?</li>
<li>Was there traffic the morning of reading the application?</li>
<li>Did the reader get rained upon while coming in to work that morning?</li>
<li>Did the reader read the application before or after the usual cup of coffee?</li>
<li>Is the weather bad today?</li>
</ol>
<p>While I’m sure it’s an exaggeration, you do get the point :)</p>
<p>And you’l never know if they had just gotten through a pile of top-notch applicants before they came to yours, making you look all the more mediocre. … even though it shouldn’t be like that… D:<</p>
<p>Yeah college admissions is soooooooooo subjective. If only the world was perfect and the people who were really meant for the school should get accepted… then again I probably would have been straight up rejected.</p>
<p>It would be interesting to see statistics on how many cross- applicants and cross- admits to the top schools there are. I’m guessing that a good 25% or more applied to chicago and one of HYPMS. I know that the 5 five people in my class who applied chicago also applied to every one of the other top schools</p>
<p>Regarding the subjectivity of college admissions, it would certainly be interesting to see how similar the admitted pool would be if the admissions process was repeated.</p>
<p>And just to add to this, I’m a current student at the UofC and there are several people just in my house alone who were accepted to Princeton, Columbia, Stanford, etc. and chose to come to Chicago, for reasons ranging from location (getting away from home) to our Economics program.</p>
<p>Studies have shown (I forgot where this is from, but someone told me it was from a book) that if a college took all the applicants who had a certain cutoff GPA, standardized test scores, and extracurricular activities, placed all these applicants into a hat, and pull out randomly 3000 people to be accepted, the randomly-drawn class would be just as strong as the incoming class chosen by the admissions officers.</p>
<p>Honestly guys, a lot of it is hoping that the person reading your application is having a good day. It’s so much luck involved. Compared to you all, I totally did not deserve to get in. I actually feel kind of bad for getting in. :(</p>
<p>Just a speculation, but like many colleges, Chicago might yield protect against those kids with awesome stats AND financial need. It’s no secret that Chicago’s need-based finaid is not competitive with most of the Ivies, or even other great schools like (no-loan) Vandy or (loan capped) Emory. Thus, I would guess that Chicago would lose a lot of cross-admits of those students bcos of the cost of attendance. But just guessin’…</p>
<p>^ I was realllllyyyy hoping that Chicago waitlisted like WUSTL does, but at the time I still thought chicago admitted close to 30%. Apparently their admission rate might be down to 10-15%, so I think that they do accept the best and brightest students. They have the power to attract the top…and I’m not one of them:(</p>
<p>@seadog: Stanford is DEFINITELY not overrated. I agree it has a strong name value, but Stanford is one of the colleges where students absolutely LOVE.</p>
<p>Update: waitlisted at Uchicago, rejected Stanford, and rejected SCEA Yale… so I guess that gives you somewhat of an idea about chances at the other reach schools. I’m starting to love CAL much more now, so the blow of so many rejections won’t feel as bad.</p>
:P</p>