@BldrDad -I wish I could say with certainty that schools like UChicago would accept me RD anyway, but I’m not really sure that’s the case. I’ve seen a number of the breakdowns of EA versus RD acceptance rates at HYP, showing that most of those schools’ EA acceptance rates are 4 or 5 times the RD rate. But ultimately, that’s still 4 or 5 times a rate of 3% or less, with over 35,000 applicants for the ~1,000 spots that are filled during RD. And the U of C, just like HYP, fills about half its freshman class during the EA round of applications, so I’d be accepting a significant decrease in my odds there.
The main cautionary tale I look at is that of a senior at my school who’s currently waiting on decisions from his RD unis. He passed on what our school’s guidance counselor estimated would be a 60-70% chance as an EA applicant to the U of C, applied SCEA to Princeton, and was deferred. Now he’s in limbo. I wouldn’t ordinarily generalize based on a sample size of one, and this is still far from a reliable analysis, but this student has a very similar profile to mine: (SAT, extracurriculars, and grades almost exactly the same-down to taking part in 4-5 of the same clubs and having SATs within 30 points of each other).
The only difference of note between the two of us is that I’m a legacy at UChicago, but I don’t feel that that would be enough to make acceptance there likely in the event of my applying RD.
And again, with UChicago’s site saying the following:
If my application is considered in the context of an international student’s, as this paragraph would seem to suggest, I feel that I’m anything but a sure bet, even as a US dual national, and that an EA application might be what makes the difference. In RD, it seems that international applicants to Ivy equivalents need to be really exceptional to have even a 35-40% chance, and while I’m a strong applicant, I wouldn’t call myself a great one even by US standards. This with the caveat that I don’t have a large body of experience to draw from.
If your GC told somebody that they had. A 60 To 70% chance at UChicago, they need to be drug tested…unless that applicant had a likely letter in hand, your GC is on crack. And please tell him or her that I said they are on crack.
@GA2012MOM -I’m at least 60 to 70% sure my GC isn’t on crack.
More seriously, 60% may be a bit high, but a reasonable chance certainly didn’t seem overly high for this student.
If I’m not mistaken, the EA admit rate at UChicago is 12-13%. A number of factors, I think, helped his chances enormously.
-My school is in a region where very few students apply to the US-about 80% of each HS class goes elsewhere at my school, and in most local schools the percentage is far higher. Even out of that 20%, there are only a handful of applicants who want to go to Chicago, because there’s a considerable bias towards colleges on the coasts in the local student pool-the consortium of schools my HS belongs to has had application totals to schools in the Midwest in the low double digits for the last few years…
-This same student has amazing stats-2300 SAT, but he’s earned 7s in every subject he’s taking, in every report during the last 1.5 years. And this is not as common as a 4.0 GPA. The most recent statistics on the IB program that I can find are for 2011, and show over 50,000 IB diploma candidates. Of these candidates, the number with a perfect score of 45 points was 125. This student is expected to do something that is achieved by only 1 in 400 candidates in a group that’s already extremely capable on the whole.
-To that, you can add strong extracurriculars (better than mine), dual citizenship, and speaking 4 languages fluently (and a 5th well enough).
I myself also think this student would’ve had a good chance, had he applied EA.
He is definitely a strong candidate, but I still think any GC that would predict a 60 or 70% chance at UChicago is irresponsible. The IB predicted score is just that, he wont have his HL scores till this summer.
@GA2012MOM Point taken. Although it should be noted that predicted scores are the only scores colleges see when making admissions decisions-by the time actual scores are released (in fact, by the time a student sits his exams) decisions have already been sent out.
The only way the final exam scores could come into play is if there’s a significant drop between predicted grades and exams (meaning something in the 5-10 point range at least) without any extenuating circumstances to explain it. In such a case, a university might rescind a student’s acceptance or place it on hold if they suspect that predicted grades were inflated by dishonest practices, or that the drop was due to pure laziness
My daughter was a full IB student and she wasn’t asked for predicted scores. Just as AP test scores are not mandatory, I don’t think IB scores are given that much weight either, especially since the only ones would be from Jr year. I think the GPA is a more important factor, although being an IB student is definitely a plus.
@GA2012MOM It’s a bit different at our school, I think, because the IB Diploma Programme is the standard curriculum-everyone takes it, except for some students taking the IBCC (who are made fun of, because many of us are a tad judgmental) and those taking only a few individual subjects (who are mercilessly razzed).
This means that unless a student reports IB scores for the entirety of his/her junior year (for EA), or junior year and fall of his/her senior year (for RD), that student will simply have no grades to report for those years.
Hey you guys. There’s no such thing as “NW.” It’s NU. It’s laughable how you all pontificate that you know what the OP’s chances are there where clearly you don’t even know the most basic fact about the school. Give it up already and admit that you are all just making stuff up.