Update: Among various Ivy, “T20”, and large-scholarship in-state options, I am going to UChicago next year. Of all the schools I visited, I ended up choosing UChicago because of the students and faculty I met, major options/flexibility, Core, scholarships, and overall intellectual energy. I really do think it’s the right school for me, regardless of any shenanigans that might go on in the admissions office. Thank you all for your input as it helped me consider more aspects of the school.
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That quest for information in your OP is a signal to me that you will fit right in. Congrats.
S21 just had a great first year and is very happy there.
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Best of luck to you The_Ghost. I hope you have a great experience.
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A couple comments. My DD is at an East Coast boarding school. More are going to Chicago for a few reasons but a big one is that the Ivies are taking FAR fewer students from Exeter, Andover, Deerfield etc., than in previous years. You now have almost no chance unless you are at the top top of your class. The joke is that if you want to go to any Ivy, avoid these boarding schools.
Chicago also offers merit scholarships, unlike the Ivies. This makes a difference.
As for Chicago’s admissions rate, back when I was at UC, the admissions rate was around 30% but the number applying was vastly smaller. Chicago didn’t market itself at the time: precisely the opposite, it said it only focused on a certain type of student. That changed and the university began a major marketing campaign. Application numbers soared. It also joined the Common Application, causing a further jump in application.
For old timers here, the former Dean of Admission, Ted O’Neill, has spoken out about these changes and said how unhappy he is with them. He has argued that universities shouldn’t solicit tens of thousands of applications just to reject all but a hand full. Alas, he is of an older generation of admissions officers.
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Very interesting. We are coming from something like the same high school profile you describe, and see some of the same patterns you do. One slight difference of view: the students making it into the very top schools don’t necessarily have to be top top academically. They have to be very good, true. But as important is that they have to pitch to what the top school AOs want now. The right story, with the right interests, with the right spin on those interests. ECs and essays are vital for that pitch in a way they probably have not been before.
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Polybius has nailed it. I work in and around admissions at top professional school and overlap on policy convos with undergrad admissions. The top students are now going to Chicago. Don’t think HYP are getting them the way they were — they’re not, in part because they’re not admitting them, and in part because the top students aren’t seeking them out in the same numbers as before.
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Posters often refer the schools that have policies they don’t like as ones who are gaming the system. To me, this suggests that the policy was devised with the system in mind. I’m going to guess that for Chicago, their admissions policies are serving the institution well by getting them the students they want with a high level of predictability. Competing for top students is a challenge for a schools because these are the kids who have choices at peer institutions. They seem to do this well with this set up.
In my community, Chicago is also a favorite for the tippy top AA kids who have lots of options. This one regularly makes the cut where others, not for lack of trying, just can’t get traction.
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About 7% of my DS22’s class is going to Chicago. None did ED1, several got in EA. However, they are going to Chicago because they struck out with Stanford, MIT, the Ivies, and Carnegie Melon. One of our friend’s DD got off the wait list before May 2. I wish them all well and hope they love it.
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Your figures are incorrect. UChicago has the highest percentage of international undergraduates among the Ivy+ schools. And UChicago’s rate has been increasingly steadily each years for more than a decade or two. This is a reflection of it’d worldwide popularity.
Columbia’s Class of 2025 is 13% international, according to Columbia’s admissions office, less than UChicago’s rate.
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You mean like Bill gate’s son lol?
nice try. Would be happy show you the YouTube videos of students rejected by UChicago but accepted by Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Penn, MIT, etc.
UChicago is simply growing by leaps and bounds in popularity while the others drop. Oh well…
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That NE bias is strong, some still have a hard time accepting Stanford as a top school.
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You are replying to a post from March, so I don’t recall all the details, but I can assure you the figures were from a reliable source. Note that the post said, “Chicago does average a slightly larger percentage international students than most Ivy+ type colleges (Columbia was an exception).” “Average” implies multiple years, not just the current class.
This time I’ll reduce random variation and influence from year-specific events by taking the median of the 4 most recent available years (class of 2021 to 24), and also note if there appears to be an upward/downward trend in those 4 most recent available years. I excluded the small portion of students who did not report race/international information. During this period, Chicago had a higher international student than most Ivy+ type colleges, but not as high as Columbia, CMU, NYU, and various others. The specific numbers for Chicago’s class of 2021-24% were 14%, 16%, 16%, and 14%.
I realize that the Class of 2025, which is not yet in IPEDS, differs from the previous year trend at several colleges, including Chicago. Being a single year, it is not clear whether this is a fluke year, temporary influence from COVID or (not) newly test optional, or whether future years will be similar.
Median % International Students: Class of 2021 to 2024
NYU – 25%
Boston U – 24%
Grinnell – 20% (upward trend)
CMU – 17%
Columbia – 16%
Emory – 16% (upward trend)
Chicago – 15%
Penn – 14% (upward trend)
…
Harvard – 13%
Princeton – 12%
Brown-- 12%
…
Notre Dame – 5%
Tulane – 5%
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Everything you said seemed logical until you said UChicago was a place for “not ivy-good students” UChicago is easily better than Cornell, Dartmouth and brown and on par with Columbia and UPenn. A more accurate statement would have been “good but not HYPSM-good students”
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Better? Have you had first hand experience at more than 1 to compare?
So by example do you think the student seeking an open curriculum is “better” at UC vs Brown, or the student seeking a bucolic NE lac feel is “better” at UC vs Dartmouth? For that matter do you believe a student seeking a rigid core, gothic campus and career focus on human psychology is “better” at MIT vs UC?
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This is why my son is applying to this school ED - your post solidifies this. He goes to plays on the weekend with other teenagers to talk about plays and made up his own foreign language. UChicago reads as a quirky intellectual type school.
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Good luck to your son! It is definitely a great place for the right kid!!
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Chicago is doing a lot of outreach to Texas schools. It makes a lot of sense, as it historically hasnt been on the radar for those kids but would be very appealing to them. Easy to get to from Texas too.
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how about Bay area?
Yes, the Bay Area seems like an outreach target as well, at least at high schools ike ours. My son’s best friend was not originally considering UChicago, but liked it more and more as he kept hearing about it, ended up applying ED, was accepted and will be attending. Great school, and their outreach strategy also worked well to attract this specific student.
I am from a bay area public, not that high ranked, but fairly rigorous, applied EA and was deferred to the ED2 pool. Will they have any preference for me or am I just another UChicago applicant who has a 10% chance like the rest of them