<p>“Selectivity, as we’ve defined it, is a matter of acceptance rate, stats of admitted students and whatever else that matters, like yield and quality of the applicant pool. You should already know this.”</p>
<p>I do know this, which is why I posted to voice my disagreement; such a definition is made of a variably weighted factors and therefore is not broadly and clearly defined enough to warrant detailed comparison.</p>
<p>kukucachoo is correct.</p>
<p>I know someone who got into both schools and chose Northwestern. I’m not sure if that helps, but there you go.</p>
<p>We’re not discussing yield.</p>
<p>i get what you’re saying… that selectivity is subjective and that you can argue that one school is more selective than another based on different criteria and the weight of each criterion. however, when you argued that UChicago is more selective, you did not say what criteria you used to reach that conclusion. you used anecdotal evidence from your HS, but that’s pretty much useless.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I would like to hear your take on how HYP could be considered anything other than most selective based on ANY criteria.</p>
<p>“when you argued that UChicago is more selective”</p>
<p>I qualified my claim as being confined to personal experience. This, coupled with my acknowledgement of the validity of others’ anecdotal evidence to the contrary, was intended to illustrate my more broad point of comparing selectivities.</p>
<p>“I would like to hear your take on how HYP could be considered anything other than most selective based on ANY criteria.”</p>
<p>I can think of one telling example told to me by a parent’s friend. A girl who scored a 27 on the ACT but who had overcome exceptional obstacles in order to succeed in high school was rejected as an in-state applicant to the University of Illinois but was accepted to Yale. </p>
<p>I won’t claim that Yale is less selective than U of I for most, but in this girl’s case, it was.</p>
<p>both of you. please. stop. if anything this is getting annoying as you guys keep this thread alive with irrelevant arguments. if you have nothing else to say about the OP’s original question, then feel free to NOT post. Make a new thread about the whole idea of selectivity and argue it there. thanks</p>
<p>
ok, this has gotten ridiculous lol. you very well know we’re talking about the OVERALL picture here.</p>
<p>Percent applicants accepted, from the collegeboard website:</p>
<p>UChicago: 28
Northwestern: 26</p>
<p>Make of that what you will.</p>
<p>Yield tells more. Just curious, for how many attending was NW or UofC first choice? (I think they are both very hard schools to get in but they cater to different people).</p>
<p>kukucachoo, I don’t see how our arguments could be any more on-topic; we are discussing what I consider an inherent problem in the question.</p>
<p>“ok, this has gotten ridiculous lol. you very well know we’re talking about the OVERALL picture here.”</p>
<p>My point is that there is no “overall”. There is “majority”, which is a more precise and very different concept.</p>
<p>You’re confusing the concept of “mean” with majority. The mean of any set of data is not the majority (mode)- it is mathematical point that represents the ideal center value of the set (rather than the true center, the median).</p>
<p>For instance, the majority of all students at school Q (we’ll say 99 out of 100) could have an IQ of 100. However, one student might have an IQ of 100,000 (just an example of extremes here). Thus, the average IQ of students at School Q would be 1099, rather than the mode of 100. </p>
<p>This is all extremes, but I think it illustrates why you’re wrong, at least in your phrasings. You’re effectively taking the deconstructionist approach and saying selectivity is a meaningless construct perpetuated by the liberal east coast elite.</p>
<p>All the other people here are answering in the normal fashion, answering an inquiry into statistical patterns with, GASP!, the statistical data.</p>
<p>While it is certainly true that at various schools, or for various students with different talents and interests, it may be more of less difficult to gain admission to either school, selectivity, as defined by a statistical accounting of chance of admission represented by a ratio of # applied to # admitted, can be said directly to be in the favor of NU.</p>
<p>Does this have any bearing on a single data point however? No, not at all. I did not have a 27.5% chance of being admitted to Northwestern. I had a 100% chance of being admitted, or a 0% chance. For a single data point (student), who has only one iteration through the admissions cycle, you either will or will not be admitted, and it is NOT a game of chance- it is based on factors, and thus you will be admitted or not before your decision is made based on your application. </p>
<p>Sorry for what seems to be a tirade and perhaps condescending essay, but so few posters on CC seem to grasp the basics of statistics OR the implications those basics have (or don’t have) for their life.</p>
<p>I have a very good understanding of mean and majority and did not confuse the two. I question yours if you consider majority and mode to be the same, which is false.</p>
<p>“I had a 100% chance of being admitted, or a 0% chance.”</p>
<p>That is absurd. </p>
<p>It is unfortunate that you took my nuanced response as one of deconstructionism.</p>
<p>Majority and mode are not the same, though looking back I did imply that. The majority is always the mode, but a mode is not necessarily a majority, so I apologize for not being clearer. </p>
<ol>
<li>Nuanced nothing.</li>
<li>[Schrödinger’s</a> cat - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schrodinger’s_cat]Schrödinger’s”>Schrödinger's cat - Wikipedia)</li>
</ol>
<p>It’s not absurd at all. I cannot be 26.5% accepted. I either will or will not be. For a specific data point, the percent chance of admission can only predict the likelihood of a future outcome from an abstract stance. It has no direct bearing on the outcome, and certainly no bearing on a specific instance. Which you seem to be arguing towards, but not articulating well.</p>
<p>All of which I’m sure you knew and understood. I’m done here.</p>
<p>UChicago is harder to get into than Northwestern.</p>
<p>What we KNOW</p>
<ol>
<li> Many students are accepted by NU and rejected by Chicago</li>
<li> Many students are accepted by Chicago and rejected by NU.</li>
<li> The student profiles are similar at both schools.</li>
<li> The schools appear to be looking for different things. Though there’s tremendous overlap.</li>
</ol>
<p>So – which is easier to get into? If your profile is that NU is looking for – NU is easier!!! </p>
<p>If you’ profile is what Chicago is looking for, Chicago is easier!!!</p>
<p>Otherwise, the schools are just too close in selectivity to make any kind of meaningful statement.</p>
<p>With its recent surge in applications, UChicago has become statistically more difficult to get into. I believe that in 2010-2011, NU accepted around 23%-25% and UChicago accepted about 16%.</p>
<p>NU’s acceptance was 23% last year and 18% this year.</p>