Careless University of Chicago? To make rejects feel better!!!

Colleges & Universities University of Chicago
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<p>I was deferred Early Action from the U of C, and it has been my top choice since the beginning of this year. I put more effort into my U of C essays and application than all my other schools combined (including applications to Stanford, UPenn, Columbia, etc.) I was rejected. However, 3 things have made me realize that being rejected from U of C is NOT so bad.</p>

<li><p>A person who goes to my school, who was rejected from UCSD, is in CP math his senior year, has an indexed GPA of below 4.0 and an unweighted GPA of about 3.3, was accepted to U of C. He did not want to go there and was forced to apply by his mother. Reason being? His mother is one of the Dean of Admissions’s best friends (he did not specify which one; he willingly admitted this information). He immediately turned U of C down when he found out he was accepted (2 days before the actual acceptances were released). He wants to attend UC Irvine.</p></li>
<li><p>I sent a letter updating U of C on my activities since applying EA, and received this in response: “Thank you for letter and the update. I will add this to your file.” Can anyone else see the simple grammatical mistake my counselor made? And remember, this person is the one directly evaluating my application and a determining factor in my denial.</p></li>
<li><p>This is the big one that I feel is absolutely ridiculous. My rejection letter is dated December 15, 2008. I was deferred EA. Why the **** does my rejection letter, which I didn’t get until today, have the EA notification date on it? Two possible scenarios:
A. My real decision (rejection) was ready almost 3 and a half months ago, and I waited and stressed and spent a whole day writing a letter reasserting my interest in U of C and updating them on my activities for absolutely nothing.
B. The person managing the decision letters, a very important job (or so one would think), was too ****ing careless to even change the date on my rejection letter. Thanks.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>These 3 things have made me realize that I no longer want to attend a University that treats its applicants this way. I don’t care how many applicants they have, every applicant deserves to be treated individually, courteously, and carefully. Especially seeing as we put not only time and effort into our applications, but $60 as well, not to mention the fee for sending test scores and visits to the University, etc. Overall, I hope this makes people who have been rejected feel a little bit better - You will get in somewhere else, hopefully somewhere that cares more about its applicants than U of C. </p>

<p>To those who got in - Congrats! Hope this takes nothing away from your acceptance to an amazing school, despite its faults! </p>

<p>P.S. - Anyone else deferred EA have December 15, 2008 as their date on their rejection letter as well?</p>

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<p>Well, I can’t say that I agree that Chicago treats its applicants poorly.</p>

<p>But, I also noticed the date of the letter :slight_smile: As I said in another post, I would laugh about that under more cheerful circumstances.</p>

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<p>If you were good enough they would have accepted you. Stop crying.</p>

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<p>Whoah whoah whoah, I wouldn’t go that far! I definitely understand the need to rant, I do it all the time when things don’t work out. Chin up, you’ll love wherever you end up!</p>

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<p>Sorry - In case anyone wanted to know my stats:</p>

<p>GPA Unweighted: ~3.83
Weighted: ~4.25
Class Rank: Top 10%</p>

<p>AP Tests: Euro 5, Calc BC 4 (AB subscore 5), French Language 4, English Language 5, US History 5, Comp. Sci A 5, Physics C Mechanics 4</p>

<p>Course Load this year: AP Psychology, AP Physics B, AP Human Geography, AP US Government, AP English Literature</p>

<p>SAT I: Reading 780, Math 770=1550 total
SAT II: Math II 790, Bio M 730, French no Listening 670 (ew)</p>

<p>School: Competitive Public ~2500 kids
Rank 50 or so in state, 220 or so in nation, last year 4 kids to Yale, 1 Harvard, 2 Duke, 2 Stanford, etc etc - Most kids on the Honors/AP track go on to a UC or a competitive private school</p>

<p>Essays: I thought they were great, my English teacher thought they were great (she had 3 of her students go to Yale last year, she proofread all their essays), I chose the live the question essay and talked about the different lessons I’ve learned from both school and my experiences outside of school and how they’ve taught me perseverance and hard work and how I would like to continue “living the question” at Chicago.</p>

<p>Teacher Recommendations: I’m sure they were good, one from my US History teacher who, although I slept in his class, admitted freely that I was “brilliant.” The other was from my AP Calculus teacher who loves my best friend as a daughter and I’m sure she convinced him to write a very good recommendation for me.</p>

<p>Extracurriculars:
Future Business Leaders (10,11,12): VP this year
Junior Achievement Program (10,11,12): Board of Directors - We run our own company that won Best JA Company in Southern California with profits of over $5000 a year
Volunteering at Local hospital 100+ hours
Volunteered at an international school in China teaching English to Chinese students the summer before my junior year for over 300+ hours, wrote my Common App essay on the experience
Comedy Sportz (11,12): Secretary
Apex Soccer Club (11,12)
Chinese School Volunteer 100+ hours</p>

<p>Work Experience:
Administrative Assistant from August 08-Present, 15 hours/week
Shift Lead at frozen yogurt store January 08-present, 20 hours/week</p>

<p>Awards:
Scholar Athlete
National Merit Semifinalist (Now finalist, updated in my letter)
AP Scholar with Distinction</p>

<p>Notes: I thought I had a pretty good shot at acceptance, but obviously not. Maybe my GPA was a little low but I thought U of C valued competitive course loads over GPA (I took 6 APs my junior year including Comp. Sci. A, Calculus BC, and Physics C Mechanics). However, I was afraid Chicago wouldn’t like my essays, although my English teacher always gives me 9s (on the AP grading scale), I write in a very straightforward style that is not nearly as flowery or as pedantic as many of the U of C essays I’ve seen. That may have been not what Chicago was looking for.</p>

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<p>mono14 - I am not “crying,” I am simply pointing out careless errors Chicago made that really turned me off. Obviously I wouldn’t be complaining if I was accepted, however I started this thread to show people that U of C isn’t as perfect as everyone who wants to go there may think. Every college makes errors, but to not bother to change the date on a rejection letter is plain careless. And, if you read my first complaint, do you think that person is “good enough”? I would read before you post, mono14, as your post was inconsiderate, rude, and not helpful at all.</p>

<p>kmad-I have already been accepted into NYU Stern and that was my 2nd choice, I was even considering going there over Chicago because that is more my style. I know I will love it there, don’t worry ;)</p>

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<p>Good! I’m glad you’ve got a plan. (:</p>

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<p>I’m pointing out how stupid it was of you to denounce an institution as you did based on a few, honest mistakes. I’m not trying to help you at all.</p>

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<p>Guys…we need to stop taking as a personal insult to our character, worth, or abilities. UChicago, like every school, has institutional goals. Maybe your geographical region was already overrepresented? Maybe they wanted more students from different socioeconomic environment? Maybe they had to accept some developmental cases? Who knows. It’s not the end of the world and it does not make UChicago bad just because of some little mistakes. Good job on NYU Stern and good luck!</p>

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<p>mono14 - so accepting someone purely because their parent is friends with the admissions officer is an “honest mistake”? I don’t think so. I thought U of C was better than that. And I’m pointing out how stupid it was of you to post without reading first.</p>

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<p>I read your post throughly. If you’re blaming that person for your own rejection, you probably deserved to get rejected. Though I understand your frustration, it’s ridiculous how you think that the university somehow owes you something for your work in high school.</p>

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<p>trowasoldier58: I think having experienced college admission process for quite some time now, you should understand that “connection acceptance” like that example you mentioned, happens all the time. Life just isn’t fair.</p>

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<p>^ i second that…connection acceptances, as put above, are very commonplace all over the world…i myself got rejected and these are my stats. <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-chicago-2013/651850-chance-indian-please.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-chicago-2013/651850-chance-indian-please.html&lt;/a&gt; i felt i had a pretty good shot but didn’t happen…no point in pointing fingers, just move on,mate…</p>

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<p>By looking at your post, I guess you are Asian Male from CA, that is like minus 300 points from your total score:D. Don’t get me wrong, I am also Asian and my son has way much better stat than you except the ECs and got waitlisted. This is just life except it is hard for parent to explain why Asian is not doing well in applying those elite schools :D. I wish my son will listen to me and just take the full scholarship from those schools that ask him to apply!! :D</p>

<p>It is really not that big of deal if you believe in you. My son does not even check the status and when I told him the waitlist decision, his first reaction is “whatever” and went back to write his first novel :D</p>

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<p>i am an Asian male but from India and not CA. anyway, being ORM and applying for aid as an international does make a lot of difference…about the full scholarship schools, my dad tells me precisely the same thing but I am hard pressed to make him understand that there are amazing schools in India too so if i were to leave my family and shift to a new country altogether, it would have to be to a top school else not…i dunno how many people concur with this but this is the way i look at things…</p>

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<p>I sense bitterness here, which I completely understand. You have every right to be angry, bitter, or any other emotion, and I’m not being sarcastic about that.</p>

<p>What I DON’T think is necessary is the subtone many of us are reading in your post, namely your “Well, I didn’t get in, so Chicago must not be that good a school” attitude. It’s natural for people to want to rationalize what happens to them and to try to come out of the experience with pride intact, but the way in which you’re doing it is disparaging not only of a fine institution–and yes, it is a fine institution regardless of what happened to you–but also of students who have been accepted. I’m willing to bet that most people, even those who were ultimately waitlisted or rejected, who applied to Chicago feel that the admissions office has been perfectly pleasant with them and understand that even at a supposedly more holistic school like Chicago, admission DOES have strong elements of a crapshoot.</p>

<p>In short: your cards were not right. You have every right in the world to gripe–if I were in your shoes, I would probably be inconsolable right now–but no right to use your experience to belittle the school or to generalize and assume that YOUR personal experience with the admissions office is representative of everyone’s experience and that the admissions office is therefore lazy and does not care about its applicants. Chicago has a relatively small applicant pool compared to many of its peer institutions, and the attention I received from Chicago admissions is startlingly good compared to the inattention friends with apps in at Ivies, etc. have gotten and will continue to get from those schools simply because those app pools are ENORMOUS.</p>

<p>I hope your admissions process comes out with a happy ending–good luck at your other schools! And thank you for the congratulations…I don’t think you are purposefully trying to belittle us or the school, but it does seem that way a bit.</p>

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<p>I agree with Mono and Miles. </p>

<p>University of Chicago, or any other institution, can choose to accept or reject whoever they wish. It’s their school. Best of luck with your college choice. Clearly, Chicago wasn’t meant to be, but I do hope you are happy where you do end up.</p>

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<p>The one thing I didn’t like that Chicago did here was hang onto the rejection letter for a long time.</p>

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<p>Vandit, I have a bunch of friends from India, and they’re all brilliant, and went to Indian universities. It sounds as if the whole exam/getting into top Indian university process puts our process to shame! I agree, it would be a real honor to get into a top university in India.</p>

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<p>trow: the mistake with the date was general because even the ones that were admitted had the Dec 15 date (see the official acceptance discussion thread). I doubt they sat on the decisions for 3 months.</p>