<p>Listen to unalove! She is right!</p>
<p>Let me add a couple of generic points and a couple of Chicago-specific points.</p>
<p>It’s especially hard to “chance” Chicago, in either direction. On the one hand, it accepts a pretty high proportion of its applicants. That’s because it has a really strong applicant pool, and lots of them wind up with lots of choices. But it does mean – and I’ve seen this a lot over the years – that Chicago can be forgiving of one or two “flaws” in a student’s record. It can be more rational than HYP, because it doesn’t HAVE to turn everyone down. However, there’s no question that essays and recommendations bear a lot of weight at Chicago – more than at many other schools – and pure grades and test scores, and ECs, too, somewhat less (but certainly not nothing, far from it). Those things can’t be judged in any “chances” thread. So you are really not going to learn a lot, here, even from the people who will try to answer you in good faith.</p>
<p>Here’s the generic thing: When you are looking at a profile, remember that it’s a profile of the enrolled class, not of the people who applied or the people who were accepted. No school that I know of gives out those stats. I don’t KNOW, but I strongly, strongly suspect two things:</p>
<p>(1) in the case of almost every school, the applicant pool is weaker, stat-wise, than the enrolled pool, and
(2) in the case of almost every school except HYPS, the accepted student pool is significantly stronger, stat-wise, than the enrolled pool.</p>
<p>The second point follows from the observation that kids with high test scores and high GPAs, on the whole, seem to wind up with a bunch of choices. So for any particular, school, they are the ones who are most likely to go elsewhere. The admittees with the lowest scores will often be thrilled to have been accepted at their “reach”, and will turn into enrolled students at a much higher rate. At a school like Chicago, the top 25% of its enrolled students may reflect the stats of half or more of the people who were accepted, and the bottom 25% of enrollees may reflect 10% or less of the acceptees.</p>
<p>Also, recognize that far fewer than 25% of all enrolled students – maybe hardly any – will be in the bottom 25% for ALL of the categories – math SAT, CR SAT, high school GPA.</p>