<p>Cue7, you are confirming some of my points, I think. I completely agree that Zimmer is a continuation of Sonnenschein - Randel (and really Gray, too). I didn’t know that Behnke was Sonnenschein’s guy, but that makes sense. I still don’t know why Zimmer wanted Behnke to leave, if in fact he did, since they seem(ed) to be on essentially the same page. I suppose O’Neill may have been a secret dissenter, but he has been part and parcel of what has been a very successful effort to expand the college’s attractiveness over the past decade +. The genii isn’t going to go back in the bottle – I think Chicago would hit the 15,000 application mark by 2012 on autopilot, if there isn’t a second Great Depression.</p>
<p>I don’t understand why anyone, including Zimmer, would see simply increasing applications as a good thing. The USNWR theory is silly: notwithstanding its high admission rate, Chicago is rated about as high as it possibly could be under the magazine’s algorithm. Perhaps if it were as selective as Dartmouth it would go up a slot, but there is effectively a Berlin Wall of factors that would keep it from getting any higher there (starting principally with endowment). And, as newmassdad points out, it’s not at all clear to me that Zimmer spends a great deal of time thinking about the college, much less how to fine tune admissions.</p>
<p>The genius of Chicago’s marketing effort, for me, is that it has doubled applications over the past 5 years while continuing to appeal to students who like the special character of the university. It is by far and away the best college marketing I have seen, because it doesn’t pander, and it does represent pretty faithfully (with just a little puffery) what the university is all about. I don’t know who to thank for that – Behnke, O’Neill, the publicity VP? – but it’s pretty admirable. I can’t see anyone getting fired over it.</p>