@CUandUCmom said it perfectly. Someone in my extended family goes to UC and it is perfect for him. He is a very very intense academic student, loves being intellectually challenged rather than party and totally thrived there. He has told me about his diverse group of friends where wealth did not matter or even discussed until they decided to live off campus with different budgets. It’s an incredible place of learning for a certain type of student. He applied EA from a public school and accepted after being rejected from his first choice ED Ivy. In hindsight this was truly the best for school for him.
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Isn’t this exactly what the OP is doing? And isn’t a questioning and thoughtful person, like the OP, exactly the kind of student any university would be proud to have as part of their student body?
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Those quirky essays - my personal opinion is that it’s more like a “Creative Writing Contest” than trying to gauge a student. Also, the RSI statistics that I pointed out were real and kept happening year over year. “Best Fit” is subjective and kudos to U-Chicago to use it to their advantage.
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After watching one episode of Bad Vegan along with being immersed in the college application/acceptance process; I started to wonder if we are teaching kids to game the system. I took it too far and wondered if we are creating sociopaths. Then I realized this is not exclusive to college admissions and I am moving on……….
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Now, I’m definitely going to watch Bad Vegan!
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It has nothing to do with college admissions by the way. Just sociopaths in my (educated) opinion.
Edit, she went to UPenn, that is what got me thinking of how smart and “savvy” she had to be to get in.
Sorry VERY off topic.
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THIS! I am so proud of my daughter for realizing that the colleges she was vying to get in to are not a good fit after all.
As a psychiatric professional I think this is the most important stage of the process to encourage growth in our young adults. Growth happens when we are uncomfortable. Getting rejected is as uncomfortable as it gets. It is our responsibility as more seasoned, experienced adults to guide them, we can’t and should not try to protect them from disappointment. This is where growth happens.
We all get caught up in the competitive nature of the college admissions process. Now is a good time to step back and look at what is really a good fit and ignore acceptance rates, that should not be part of the decision when choosing a school.
It warms my heart to see this post and many of the posts from parents and students who “get it” in my (educated) opinion.
I have learned so much through CC and this process. I was not part of this process myself, nor were my two sons. We applied to one state school in Montana and got in. This is a different world that I was no way prepared for even though I have a doctorate degree!
By the way to any students reading this, my choice of college has only been a positive thing for my career. It has not come up in any professional opportunities as a negative factor. I have had clients trust me with their mental health because they had a connection to Montana.
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How do you actually KNOW this? And they are all playing the ranking game in my opinion. Why are HYPSM restricted EA? Why not just EA? UChicago has always been a very highly regarded prestigious academic institution (and yes, always highly ranked). If you aren’t in their admissions office and don’t really know their motives, is there really a need for all the bashing? If you don’t like the school, then definitely, don’t have your child apply. And move on.
I think the OP summarized differences from peers well. Several of these are correlated with a less SES diversity, which fits with the OP’s comment about 12.5% pell grants. In the most recent IPEDS year, Chicago was 13% Pell compared to HYPSM + Northwestern usually being ~20% and a national average of ~34%. I wouldn’t say that any of the Ivy+ type colleges have good SES diversity, but Chicago seems worse than most. This is the opposite trend that occurred a decade ago, when the Chetty study found that Chicago was roughly tied with MIT as the most SES diverse of Iyy+ colleges (see Economic diversity and student outcomes at University of Chicago - The New York Times ).
However, as the OP mentioned, Chicago does average a slightly larger percentage international students than most Ivy+ type colleges (Columbia was an exception). Chicago’s urban location may contribute. Some examples numbers from other selective colleges are below. The colleges with the largest international percentages are often located in/near major cities. While Chicago does average slightly more international students, in my opinion, the difference is not large enough to suggest a focus on getting more full pay international kids rather than a more natural effect of the urban location.
New York U – 22%
Boston U – 21%
Columbia – 18%
Emory / Georgetown – 16%
Chicago / Penn – 15%
Brown – 13%
Harvard / Princeton / Rice – 12%
Cornell / Stanford – 11%
Northwestern / Vanderbilt, Yale – 10%
WUSTL – 8%
Tulane – 6%
I do think that Nondorf-Zimmer-Boyer made some unique changes that contributed to Chicago’s astronomical decrease in acceptance rate and rise in USNWR rankings, going from 39% accepted in 2006 when Zimmer became president to single digit acceptance rates 7 years later.
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Yes, I agree the OP wrote a thoughtful post and is asking reasonable questions. I truly wasn’t trying to be argumentative. My point was slightly different. I was suggesting that instead of trying to second guess/understand what and why the school is doing what it is doing, look at the resulting student body, environment, etc. and decide if it is right for you. So, at the end of the day it is possible that the school leans toward boarding schools/private schools, towards international, towards QuestBridge, etc and tries to woo, with merit, those it wants. How does that impact you if you are a student there? Has this strategy created a place you want to be?
tldr: worry less about why UChicago is doing what it is doing and more about whether what it has done has created a place you can call home.
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You are an astute high school student!
There have been a plethora of articles over the years about how Chicago (like Northeastern, Tulane, and others) manipulated certain statistics like acceptance rate in order to rise in the rankings. They employ big data companies to manage their marketing efforts and try other techniques to game the (already corrupt) system.
Here is an article by an alum who points to some of Chicago’s efforts and what the school has lost in the process: The Great “Success” of the University of Chicago — BigJ Educational Consulting
These methods don’t detract from the fact that Chicago is a good school, but it sounds like a school’s value system matters to you in making your decision, so researching what you are perceiving seems like a good idea!
Good luck.
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I’ve seen all these articles on UChicago’s “meteoric” rise. I guess I feel that historically UChicago just wasn’t playing the “game” for so long by not being part of the Common App, offering unrestricted EA instead of having an ED option, etc. Then its ranking dropped from like top 5 to 15, which upset administrators. But 15 is still around the range of Brown and Cornell, so let’s keep this in perspective - still amazing. So, UChicago decided to join everyone else with the Common App, add marketing, hire a new admissions director, etc., obviously done to improve its ranking and increase applications. But all the colleges do this. It just decided to join in.
My point is that my D is so happy there. It has surprised us with how supported he feels. He has tons of friends, still plays tennis, studies really hard and is doing very well. We can’t be more pleased. We heard so much about grade deflation, but we haven’t seen it per se. It could be because he has great study habits so grade inflation-deflation is a moot point? He is premed by the way and feels very supported, and he hasn’t even been assigned a premed advisor yet.
The reason I bring this up is that his twin is at another (T14) school. She chose her school bc it’s supposed to be social and collaborative and warm. Yet, she’s having issues with all of the above.
So yes, we are sooooo……happy our D chose UChicago. The fit is definitely there.
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To me a lot of this looks like Chicago is trying to attract the strongest students that they can attract.
Perhaps what stands out the most to me is that they offer merit based scholarships. I see quite a few moderately high income relatively frugal parents who are not comfortable spending $80,000 per year for university, particularly if they have multiple children and/or if graduate school is likely. This also applies to some older parents and parents who own small businesses or rental property. This results in quite a few straight A or near straight A students, in some cases valedictorians, who just can’t afford to attend the top ranked universities and who end up at their in-state public universities (or less often in Canada).
If Chicago wants to attract these students, then good for Chicago.
One friend of a daughter attended Chicago. He was one of the academically very strongest students I have ever met. He got a great education there. Good for him and good for Chicago!
He did find it to be a lot of work. If you do attend Chicago, plan to work hard, make a strong effort to stay ahead in your class work, and expect to get a great education.
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I also noticed my youngest child’s very small
highly academic private high school sends A LOT of kids to the U of C. I realized the school must be a feeder school. It really jumped out at me.
People on CollegeConfidential almost never talk about their student’s school profile, but these are very important. The universities seem to really know the academically rigorous schools well.
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Well said! I have a child at UChicago. My child has also had the same experience as your son. As a parent, I couldn’t be happier with the school.
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Did anyone else also get a UChicago pop up advertisement when opening this thread?
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Yup, lol.
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Enough said.
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I was about to add that point about international students. We found it to be pretty close to peer schools with differences of a point or two (and that also varies slightly over time).
UChicago is definitely gaming the rankings game, but so do many other schools. ED2 forces some tough decisions in particular; S21 really struggled with that decision.
DD went to a public school and was admitted/attended UChicago, but then she was the only one admitted in the whole district. 
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