UChicago EA Admissions Rate? - Page 2

neogop · 11-01-2009, 06:10 PM

Very true, idad, I've never realized that all the marketing I got last year was all O'Neill. I liked his propaganda better than the stuff I get from Nondorf now, however.

True, Cue7. The admissions jump is probably due to the Common App, but that doesn't mean Nondorf isn't trying his best to bring in a few more hundred applicants in the last few months just to boost the numbers. Clearly the University is trying to close the gap on Columbia, Brown, Dartmouth, Georgetown, Duke, etc, and they have been even with O'Neill. I just happen to think that with the Common App AND Nondorf, they are going to be so much more successful. The only question is, will Nondorf sacrifice the "Life of the Mind" attitude in exchange for competitive students? Who knows. PLEASE I DO NOT WANT TO MAKE THIS INTO A DISCUSSION ABOUT THE INTELLECTUAL PATH OF THE UNIVERSITY. There are far too many of those on this board. Hopefully the answer to that question is "no," but you never know... it could happen. If I had to guess, I would think that the admissions rate (overall) is going to dip below 25% this year (probably around 23.5%). I see no reason to think that the EA admit rate will be any lower, in fact it might be a little higher (25%ish). The thing certainly helping EAers is, like swimminvegan said, all these Yale SCEA and Stanford EA people who are now looking into Chicago. People like them NEVER would have looked at Chicago 4-5 years ago, but now that the ranking is up, they're willing to throw in an RD application. Luckily, they can't apply EA... which hopefully will save the rest of us (AND ME!!!).

wej · 11-01-2009, 06:12 PM

It will be an intense month then.

And 15-20% overall, right?

I look forward to seeing the admissions statistics for EA applicants.

neogop · 11-01-2009, 06:13 PM

No, more like 20-25%.
And it's EA, not ED.
And they won't release the statistics until about August of 2010 (because they'll want to release their overall admit rate and their yield rate).

wej · 11-01-2009, 06:14 PM

I meant EA. I applied, after all. :-)

Like I said, intense. Though that may be a good thing.

tomorrow · 11-01-2009, 09:15 PM

Oh ouch. So the pattern seems to be 30% -> 27% -> 23% -> 17%....
Hahaha sucks for the current freshman/those not yet in HS.

neogop · 11-01-2009, 09:53 PM

^^ Also sucks if you want to go to Harvard or Yale right now. :P

PBush · 11-01-2009, 09:57 PM

@ tomorrow: But the trend should start reversing b/c we're at the end of the boom.

JHS · 11-01-2009, 10:32 PM

Last year, they accepted about 1,200 out of about 3,800 EA applications. So . . . a little more than 30%. EA applications dropped by about 300 from 2012 to 2013, but RD applications increased by over 1,000.

Jim Nondorf didn't just replace Ted O'Neil, he also replaced Michael Behnke as Dean of College Enrollment ("il DOCE"). That means that the overall approach to EA and RD acceptances may be up in the air. But if they follow past patterns, they will accept 1,200 EA and 2,200-2,400 RD. That's what it takes to fill the class. The percentage admitted will be that number divided by however many applications come in. Of course, it sounds simplistic to say that, but that's how things work. They know what yield to expect from EA acceptances, and they aim to fill a certain percentage of the class from the EA pool. They don't go in to the deliberations thinking "we are going to accept 25%" or "we are going to accept 33%". They go in thinking "we are going to accept 1,200 kids, and we'll stop when we do".

neogop · 11-01-2009, 11:14 PM

Of course, of course, JHS. But, without a doubt, application numbers are going to go up this year because of the Common App and heavier marketing. Mostly Common App.

CountingDown · 11-01-2009, 11:27 PM

Sure, there's been lots of chatter about more people applying, but I want to see the actual numbers. I suspect a lot of students who were thinking about Chicago had second thoughts in the past two weeks as they were trying to get those supplemental essays finished!

ab2013 · 11-02-2009, 12:16 AM

Marketing has definitely become more intense. My sister (she's a junior) is being constantly bombarded with Chicago mail (probably e-mail too but I don't know about that). And everyone is starting to get the idea that Chicago is a very good school. I wouldn't be surprised either if admit rate drops even more (it's supposed to, given Chicago's caliber), but I would credit that with O'Neill, not Nondorf, because changes like these happen over several years of work, not overnight.

Remember just a 10 years ago the admit rate in 1999 at Chicago was 60%. It's now 25%-ish.

Talking about this makes me want to choose Chicago all over again...

zakuropanda · 11-02-2009, 08:22 AM

@countingdown: I'm sure people who said they were going to apply balked at the supplemental essays because Chicago had the most writing out of all the schools I'm applying to. (Which I'm fine with

)

CountingDown · 11-02-2009, 12:00 PM

Yes, and all those IB students look at the Chicago essays and think, "OH NOES! NOT FOUR MORE YEARS OF THIS!" and quietly delete their files.... OTOH, the more S2 wrote, the more excited he got about Chicago.

Have seen a few folks on CC who couldn't get the Chicago stuff done and decided to wait for RD.

Cue7 · 11-02-2009, 01:05 PM

Neogpop - going off what JHS said, the basic take on "big numbers"admissions is this: we need to accept X number of students, so if we can get a ton of applicants, our overall accept rate will be driven down, and this gives off the perception of selectivity.

From what I've heard so far, EA applications at Chicago are up significantly this year, and should probably be up by 25-30% overall for EA. I think last year around 3500 kids applied EA at Chicago, and the EA accept rate was around 33%. This year, say around 4500 kids or so apply, and I'd assume the EA accept rate will be around 27%.

qwt2 · 11-02-2009, 09:47 PM

yayy...that makes me feel so much better..... NOT