Lowering admission rates just for the sake of looking more selective was not only anathema to Ted O’Neill, it was against Behnke’s stated goals and philosophy as well. Totally agree that this is not what UChicago - or any university - should promote. There is also the issue of diminishing marginal returns in the admissions office. Implementing Early Decision takes care of both issues. The group of prospective candidates is much smaller than the general pool – maybe as many as 15,000 in both ED rounds but likely fewer - and is self-selecting (which is something very important to both faculty and those of us worried about the place losing its niche identity). It seems to be a no-brainer solution to the problem of overwhelming application numbers.
However, application numbers might be “overwhelming” because prospective admits are learning about what UChicago can offer them for an intellectual liberal arts experience and they love what they’re hearing. That’s kind of what’s been happening even despite adding ED to the mix. In this case, it would be dumb to discourage those numbers as long as you have a good way to manage them. Higher volume, after all, leads to more selection at the top of the distribution and elsewhere. This, apparently, is what Behnke found (and, by the way, what he expected to find). This fact is borne out across the country at selective institutions. It’s further seen in stuff the National Merit competition (to name just one related example), as those states mandating the PSAT simply have a higher National Merit cut score. Compare CA or TX to UT, for example. Settling for lower volume could potentially result in restricting quality; after all, once upon a time lower application volume was associated with a preference for “certain types of applicants” at some elite schools in the US. There doesn’t seem to be much of a mystery on how to manage huge application numbers, since admissions offices at all the top schools do so year after year. It might come down to something as simple as hiring the right people and paying them appropriately.
According to the Boyer historical account, the challenge of improving alumnae relations (and, relatedly, bolstering the endowment) was two-fold. First you have to admit people who consider the College to be a first choice. That wasn’t happening under Ted O’Neill’s watch, as Behnke pointed out the the university top brass. (NB: it didn’t happen under Neill’s predecessor in Admissions either). Second, you have to make sure those choosing the College as first choice don’t regret that decision. Hence, the large investment in student support services, Career Advancement, and so forth. Revising the Core - a huge controversy at the time - most likely helped as well. As Boyer pointed out, the old 1980’s version wouldn’t have allowed for things like Study Abroad or the freedom to pursue other subjects of interest, and many Core subjects were already covering two semesters’ worth of material in two quarters anyway. That third quarter might have been overkill. Boyer reports that 95% of continuing students who were allowed to choose which version of the Core to pursue actually chose the revised, so the undergraduate community clearly believed that a change was beneficial. I believe that change was implemented in 1999 or so.