<p>^It’s a 54% increase from last year.</p>
<p>Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo</p>
<p>curses!!!</p>
<p>^ I second that sentiment, alfassa! Best of luck to everyone!</p>
<p>Right now I’m telling myself that if I don’t get in, I’ll work really hard to go to Chicago for grad school. (or maybe transfer) It’s hard to stay positive but it really works guys - and who knows? That 34% might have just thrown an app randomly at Chicago! :D</p>
<p>we dont necessarily know if its quality competition that has increased though, and we can pray that thats the cause in the increase. Maybe more people thought to apply to a school with a high ranking and a lenient acceptance rate, and maybe as a result of the increase in Chicago’s advertising of the school. I mean there are kids in my school who got all the stuff in the mail from chicago but stand nowhere close to the competition here on college confidential. But i mean iim sure regardless competition has increased, im just tryin to stay positive. And im banking on the hope that chicago stays true to its word of always searching for students who are genuinly interested in their school instead of numbers, which i fear with a new admission staff may not be the case…damn, everyone pray to whatever supreme being you believe innnnnn</p>
<p>Hopefully, the people here on cc are the cream of the crop and are going to be the ones getting acceptance letters. I used to think I was a good student till I found this blog. If all the early applicants are of this caliber, I am going to drop out of a life of academics and try my luck in unskilled labor.</p>
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<p>CCers have a pretty good track record, if you look on past admissions threads. I’d say something like 70% of applicants have been admitted from here.</p>
<p>That’s good new Phuriku. I should probably add “cc member” to my list of ec’s and awards. I’m going to keep posting until I achieve senior member status. Then I’ll be a shoo-in for Chicago.</p>
<p>I kind of agree with Titann; UChicago’s misleadingly high acceptance rate + high USNWR ranking + recent marketing blitz + recent common app switch = a lot of applicants. But not necessarily a much tougher pool, I would think. (Tougher? Yes. But probably not 54% or whatever the increase is.)</p>
<p>Still, one of the things I liked about UChicago (before this year, at least) was that it didn’t seem to be too into gaming the ranking system by boosting its selectivity. I know they’ve started sending out more mail - although I still don’t know if they’re doing the Harvard-style apply-even-though-we’ll-never-take-you thing - so I’m wondering if that philosophy is changing. Not necessarily a terrible thing, but not something I’d love.</p>
<p>@heinochus: I kind of see their reasoning. I’ll be honest (and I truly apologize for my ignorance to those of you who knew they wanted to Chicago since they were born), but I first heard about Chicago end of sophomore year. I fell in love with the school after I read more about it on my own. </p>
<p>If I hadn’t done that, would I even be applying today?? Scary thought. In some ways, the influx of mail is a good thing because it does target some good applicants who legitimately deserve to be there but for some reason haven’t heard of it. But yeah, it does bring in a boatload of random applicants too… </p>
<p>I don’t think they’ll ever do the Harvard philosophy… Although I agree with you about that lol, I feel like I’m paying $75+ to get a rejection letter. XD</p>
<p>^I actually accidentally went to the UChicago meeting at my school in junior year, and fell in love with the school. I don’t understand what you all have against Harvard or Yale, though. When I went to those places, I got the same intellectual vibe that I got from UChicago. Maybe I just had intellectual tour guides…who knows. All I know is that I’m setting myself up for disappointment, but hey, at least I can say I tried :P.</p>
<p>I have nothing against the schools, they are definitely amazing. Like, to be honest, if I was on Harvard’s adcom I wouldn’t accept myself lol - compared to some candidates, I’ve done nothing. I guess I meant that I was just randomly applying and hence wasting $75 on a childhood sentiment + whim. :P</p>
<p>im just really anxious…i think that, maybe its just me, but i think our biggest fear from getting rejected from chicago, is that here’s a school that promotes discussion for the sake of discussion and “the life of the mind”, a school not bothered by too many numbers, and focused on creativity and writing–something i appreciate about Chicago (while i also like yale and others, i think chicago does the best of demonstrating their interest for curiousity driven students), and i think that if we were to get rejected from a school that is a seeming match, philosophically, intellectually, and even in some cases with the test scores and what not, then we would be rejected from a school we most identify with. And if we get rejected from such an institution then how do we expect to get into a school where we are not as competitive such as harvard and yale. Idk i just think that i would be dissapointed knowing that the school which claims to take value of applicants genuine interest(and rejects those who treat it as a safety/random reach), didnt follow through.</p>
<p>i know this is not,in any way true as there are many worthy and interested applicants but i think thats how i feel.</p>
<p>With the increase in applications, we can’t be certain that the university has abandoned its quirky and intellectual traditions. While it won’t be any easier, I believe Nondorf was trying to increase the yield of Chicago, and accepting a ton of high-stats, un-interested kids is likely to decrease that yield that they so desire. Just food for thought, but at this point, it’s all speculations and crossed fingers.</p>
<p>Hi guys, I’m a guy from Western NY.
Applied EA. 1460 combined M+V, 4.02 weighted GPA.
Looking at Economics and French.</p>
<p>I just emailed my admin rep, and she added a supplement to my application for me… I don’t think they’ve read my app yet. So, we might not be getting a decision early this year, because if they were going to release early, I wouldn’t have been able to update my application this late…</p>
<p>sorry, guys. I don’t think the 13th is going to happen. It might even be as late as the weekend after the 15th judging by how easily she took my supplement. They must still have a LOT of reading to do.</p>
<p>Just to clarify, I’m not saying that Chicago’s expanded marketing is necessarily a bad thing. Rather, it’s the kids (of which I know a few) that have come across Chicago through that marketing and think that the 35% acceptance rate (or whatever it was last year) makes it a school that’s only moderately difficult to get into. I’m not altogether fond of the whole “must preserve the sanctity of the life of the mind” - other top-caliber schools aren’t dumb - I just think a lot of people think UChicago acceptance is easier than it is.</p>
<p>Katie, I’m pretty sure that is incorrect. They set the date for the 15th so that they will have ample time to release a decision. That means that the 15th is usually the absolutely latest date that decisions will be released as they don’t want people spamming the office asking when decisions will be released (yet, some do it regardless). I might be wrong on this next point, but, from the EA decision threads that I’ve perused through on this site, no school that has claimed to have EA decisions ready by the 15th has not had them released by the 15th. Usually, they are released before the 15th.</p>
<p>Also, they have no reading left to do Katie. They are no longer in the first stage of the process…they’re in committee now. I say this because QB decisions come December 1st (it says so on their site), and every application has to go through committee in order to be accepted. Also, Stanford claimed that they were finishing things up in committee a few days ago (they have the ~same number of applications and said decisions will be out December 15th), so I would assume that the same is true of UChicago. I would also assume that either your application was thrown out in the initial reading (and is now being reconsidered with the supplement) or has not yet been debated in committee. Who knows, though. Let’s just hope you’re wrong because I can’t wait that long :(.</p>
<p>Yeah, I’m hoping that, too!</p>
<p>I think they’ve done the “reading” aspect of things… they do that as apps get completed. They don’t have a committee for that. I actually sent the supp to the person who is reading my app. And she thought I was a very strong candidate when we talked, so I’m hoping I wasn’t immediately rejected in the initial reading. That’d be a bit mean of her to act all excited to me and then just reject me without taking my app to committee. :/</p>
<p>I think what happened is that my app is ready for committee, but I live in a state that gets less applicants, so I might not have been considered in the committee yet (and I have a last name at the end of the alphabet). My supp is a little paragraph blurb that’s meant to be a quick thing- not like a long thing to be read and summarized. So, I’m thinking that they are starting committees now, or have only been doing them for a couple days. </p>
<p>It’s comforting to know it will not be after the 15th. Actually, it’s beautiful</p>
<p>Any ideas on when we’d get letters in the mail? I’m thinking I might wait for that.</p>
<p>Can’t freaking wait!</p>
<p>But I kindof can, because I’m 99.999% sure I’ll be deferred. Which means I’ll have to wait until March. ARGH!</p>