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<p>I would think that they always pay attention to that, but I agree, this year they may be xtra careful</p>
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<p>Let me guess, you attended such a program 
Well, I have bad news for you. IMO, attending a summer program at U Chicago does nothing to show commitment to the school. It could demonstrate commitment to scholarship or parental ambition, depending on the circumstances, and will certainly be a positive factor in the admission decision, but no more so than in prior years. However, the same can be said about attending ANY summer program, even if it is in a community college in North Dakota. I think that all that attending Chicago’s specific program shows them is geographical proximity to Chicago and/or abundant financial resources. They know the former from other data in your application, and the latter supposedly is not taken into account for admission decisions. Commitment to the school is shown through other aspects of your application, specifically a thoughtful answer to the question “How does the University of Chicago, as you know it now, satisfy your desire for a particular kind of learning, community, and future”.</p>
<p>On the general topic of how will the surge of EA applications affect the process, I think that it will be pretty straightforward. The typical admit rate for Chicago is around 38%. Every self-respecting school tries to control the percentage of admits to an approximately fixed level. To first order, I expect that the EA admit rate at Chicago this year will be around 30% = 38%/1.4 plus a few percentage points as a conservative attempt to account for an EA yield depressed by about 5-10%. Note that last year Chicago admitted an unusually large class, so the admit rate this year would have dropped anyway. I expect that the AO will want to err on the side of safety and defer more people than usual to RD. This is certainly not good news for academically solid but not over-achieving applicants such as my D (ACT=33, GPA=3.9, top 10%, solid ECs). Hopefully her great answer to the “Why Chicago” question will help her achieve some distinction in the mind of the person who reads her application. We shall see, I am probably more nervous about this than her.</p>