<p>My opinion is the correct one. If you agree with me, give yourself a little pat on the back. If not, please do not disgrace yourself by replying. Just walk away.</p>
<p>Actually I forgot what we were talking about.</p>
<p>I would love to know where IHateUofC would have preferred to go to college. In a weird way, he clearly IS typical of Chicago students – he was looking for a kind of experience he was not likely to find at most colleges, he clearly cares about learning, he has stronger opinions about the intellectual level of his college experience than one would expect from most college students. At the very least, he is an example of Chicago’s success at attracting unusually intellectual students. As he said, the marketing worked; his complaints are about the execution.</p>
<p>I read that Maroon editorial series; it seemed pretty mediocre, and its criticisms of the Core were awfully namby-pamby. If that were the extent of IHate’s issues, I doubt he would be taking the position he is.</p>
<p>His more serious complaints, though, are completely at odds with reality as I know it. No enthusiastic professors? In 42+ college courses? I don’t think I have met an unenthusiastic professor in my life, and I’ve met a bunch of professors. I have heard complaints from my kids about over-enthusiasm on the part of professors, but never about a complete lack of enthusiasm. I don’t think they are lying to me, by the way. They are quick to express unhappiness and dissatisfaction in every other context.</p>
<p>No life? My kids, and their friends, and at least half of the Chicago posters on CC, and newmassdad’s unbelievably accomplished daughter, and the kid who lives a block from me, were the only people at Chicago with extensive university-related ECs, paying jobs (in most cases), and active social lives? That seems unlikely.</p>
<p>Ok, so now we have heard from students who loved Chicago, and hated Chicago, from some whose kids loved Chicago and hated Chicago, from some who have heard that others loved and hated Chicago, and those who love or hate Chicago or have strong feelings about Chicago for other reasons. I think that covers everyone, doesn’t it? Can we all now agree to disagree and let this thread finally die.</p>
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<p>JHS, your position is based on the assumption that the “marketing” used by the admission officers at Chicago worked and is working well. Considering how the school exhibited (and still does) a considerable lag when compared to the schools Chicago does or would like to view as peers, such assumption is quite debatable. In addition, if you were to consider the stated unhappiness of IHUC --a mild term here-- you might add that the selection process does not seem to work for everyone. </p>
<p>Of course, to be be objective, one has to recognize the fact (evidenced by the school’s yield) that a large majority of students who were accepted to Chicago did NOT decide to attend the school. A fact that is futher corroborated by the fact that the school offers admission to more EA applicants than it has seats in its entire upcoming class. </p>
<p>And, as last note, you could add that the administration of Chicago finally came to the realization that its “Uncommon Application” would be a casualty of the need to revamp the selectivity of the school by attracting more of the students who previously found the school unappealing despite its academic reputation.</p>
<p>Xiggi, you seem to buy into the US News theory that attracting a larger number of unqualified applicants so that they can reject more people, in order to boost the perceived “selectivity” of a school is a good thing. It’s good for rankings and if the application fee is high enough, good for the college’s finances to have many more applicants for the same number of spots – but if it doesn’t change the overall quality of the incoming class, it makes no difference. </p>
<p>Allowing applicants to use the common application will enable more students who are lazy and who haven’t given much thought to Chicago to send out another application, under the misguided notion that Chicago is a safety for them, or simply because Chicago is a highly ranked college and they think they might be able to get in. It will benefit Chicago slightly by allowing them to take a look at students who otherwise might not have applied - again because those students were too lazy or not motivated enough to face the task of a filling out an application with a different set of essay prompts. But those students who would not otherwise apply are probably the least likely to attend, so they will do nothing to improve Chicago’s yield.</p>
<p>Chicago’s yield is largely influenced by their financial aid practices, which historically have not been competitive with most peer schools. It’s an expensive school and I know many students, including the offspring of Chicago alum and kids for whom Chicago was a top choice, who simply couldn’t afford to go in the end.</p>
<p>Since Chicago’s uncommon supplement has all those same quirky questions, I don’t really see that it makes that much difference. It’s still extra work to apply to Chicago. You are unlikely to be able to recycle your Chicago supplement essays anywhere else. I do think that the USNWR ranking and the fact that it’s easy to get half way through the application before realizing the supplement is looming makes for more applicants. I also think a lot of east coasters end up turning down Chicago for something closer to home.</p>
<p>Calmom, it does not matter a bit that I buy or not into the USNews theory! </p>
<p>What matters is that the University of Chicago seems to think that it was important to play the USNews game (by changing the way it reported its data) and to cast a wider net (by abandoning the “uncommon” attititude and adopting the Common Application.) </p>
<p>And, fwiw, I doubt --very seriously-- that Chicago sought to implement those changes to catch a few more lazy or uncompetitive students as opposed to narrowing the persisting gap with schools Chicago would like to consider its academic peers. </p>
<p>As far as the yield, it is what it is!</p>
<p>PS Chicago is need-blind, meets demonstrated need, and contrary to many peers has the ability to offer merit aid. <a href=“https://collegeadmissions.uchicago.edu/costs/[/url]”>https://collegeadmissions.uchicago.edu/costs/</a></p>
<p>Calmom is essentially correct, at least in an historical sense, about the FA situation at Chicago. A few years ago a survey of those accepted, but attending elsewhere found that FA was the #1 reason given for not attending U of C. Recently, there has been a much greater effort to provide more competitive FA, especially with the Odyssey scholarship eliminating loans for many, but it still could be better. I also tend think Xiggi is essentially correct that the Chicago prompts still intimidate even if the Common App is now used. I do think there is a boost from having half of it done, but I’m not sure that accounts for the 54% in EA the school saw this year. I think it has more to do with the work done by Ted O’Neill, and continued with even greater enthusiasm by Jim Nondorf, to get the word out about Chicago and its somewhat unique place in the American higher education milieu.</p>
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<p>Mathmom, the fifth essay option allows a candidate to “pose a question of your own”</p>
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<p>According the Common Application guidelines, incomplete applications and applications that do not include the additional requirements are NOT to be counted or reported. This is why schools that have adopted the Common Application have had to report lower application numbers to the agencies and organizations that track admissions statistics than were previously reported through press releases in January to April.</p>
<p>I’m not certain I get your point, xiggi.</p>
<p>It did not exactly take a radical change in philosophy to do what Chicago did: report its data on the same basis as everyone else (given that it was already “playing the game” by reporting its data, unlike some other “quirky” colleges), and allow students to use a convenient, on-line method for transmitting the standard elements of any application, including its former “Uncommon Application”. </p>
<p>The former action was certainly taken to improve its US News ranking, but it’s not like it restructured its admissions or academic program to tweak the numbers. All it did was to find out how other colleges were reporting similar data, and then make itself consistent. Was it supposed to continue to report data on an idiosyncratic basis, thus rendering it useless to consumers? As for the latter action, it is only on CC that everyone whips himself into a frenzy about that. It was a simple thing to do, a matter of basic politeness to its applicants; the real question is why it took Chicago so long to take such a basic step, akin to accepting credit cards to pay application fees. You seem to regard practically cost-free changes from something stupid and inefficient to something sensible as evidence of sinister intent.</p>
<p>The fifth essay option has been the same as far back as anyone remembers. Every year, a number of the specific prompts are taken from fifth-option essays the year before.</p>
<p>Xiggi, as far as I know, Chicago has ranked about even with Columbia on US News for the past several years. Both are tied for #8 in the 2010 rankings, immediately below 4 schools tied for #4. Since Harvard & Princeton are also tied for the #1 spot, that essentially means that Columbia & Chicago had the 4th highest possible score on the US News formula – numerically they are #8 & #9 based on the ranking system, but score wise there are only 3 levels above them.</p>
<p>So I hardly see that ranking can be a big issue for them. I might be wrong, but I think the Columbia/Chicago equivalence is about right, especially as both have strong cores. (I’ll bet they both have a lot of cross-applicants as well) I think a student applying to either could expect the same quality of education.</p>
<p>I’d note that the current Columbia financial aid policies would tend to continue to poach common admits who are financially needy from Chicago, though Chicago might have a slight advantage with some upper middle class, high end students as it does offer a limited amount of merit aid.</p>
<p>I think it’s a pretty rare student who feels comfortable taking that make up your own question option, though my older son did it for his common application essay since he wanted to recycle the essay he wrote for MIT. I’d definitely feel intimidated by writing a Chicago style prompt.</p>
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<p>JHS, the point was not that obscure. </p>
<p>Since you seem quite aware of the changes made in the reporting of the data, you should also have no real difficulty in tracking the changes in applications that correlate directly to a higher ranking. </p>
<p>May I ask you why you introduced the notion of “sinister intent?” Did my post contain any accusations of ill-advised behavior or reprehensible practices? Thus far, I believe that my sole criticism regarding the University of Chicago has been confined to their choice of prompts. And, if I may add, I mostly feel … sorry for them, as I maintain that it does not help them a bit! </p>
<p>Now, if you want to know, I do believe that every school should be forced to publish its Common Data Set in an easily accessible section of their website. In this regard, unless I am mistaken, this is something that Chicago has not considered really important. However, I reserve the same criticism to ALL the schools that continue to cling to the notion that parents and families are not served well by added … transparency.</p>
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<p>The ranking improved after the change in reporting. Historically, Chicago was lower than 8th.</p>
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<p>Well, if you would take a poll among the participants in this thread, you could place Calmom’s D and WildChild in that category. Were there other people who might add their two cents here? DonnaL? IHUC?</p>
<p>It seems to me that Chicago has been tied with Columbia for a long time. Is there any place convenient to check on rankings over the last 5 or 10 years?</p>
<p>Yes, there is. Let me look for an acceptable link.</p>
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<p>Chicago has been tied with Columbia for 4 years now for the 8th-9th spots, I believe. Before then, Chicago hung around the 10th-15th positions and Columbia tended to be ranked a few positions higher than Chicago, but Columbia also tended to be ranked from 10th to 15th. So they have remained close for quite a while.</p>
<p>The old link for the historical data is </p>
<p><a href=“http://chronicle.com/stats/usnews/[/url]”>http://chronicle.com/stats/usnews/</a></p>
<p>However, you may have to use the wayback machine to make it work. This one might still work:</p>
<p><a href=“http://web.archive.org/web/20070908142457/http://chronicle.com/stats/usnews/[/url]”>http://web.archive.org/web/20070908142457/http://chronicle.com/stats/usnews/</a></p>
<p>Some other links and sources:</p>
<p>From Fall 2006</p>
<p>[U</a> of C jumps to ninth in U.S. Newsrankings - The Chicago Maroon](<a href=“Get a Life 2-4-05 – Chicago Maroon”>Get a Life 2-4-05 – Chicago Maroon)</p>
<p>The University of Chicago moved up six spots to number nine in U.S. News & World Report’s annual “America’s Best Colleges” rankings, released in August. </p>
<p>After the College lost its number-nine ranking from 2002 and fell as low as 15th last year, top University administrators decided to evaluate how information was being calculated and reported to the magazine</p>
<p>From Fall 2007</p>
<p>[U</a> of C snags no. 9 spot amid U.S. Newscriticisms - The Chicago Maroon](<a href=“Alcohol bans felt at third of campuses nationwide – Chicago Maroon”>Alcohol bans felt at third of campuses nationwide – Chicago Maroon)</p>
<p>The University of Chicago ranked ninth among national colleges and universities in the annual rankings released by U.S. News and World Report last month, tying with New York’s Columbia University to round out the top 10 slots. Princeton, Harvard, and Yale once again led the increasingly controversial list that has drawn the ire of some college presidents and non-profit education organizations. **The University retained its position from last year, when it made a surprise six-spot jump from a 2005 tie with Brown University at 15. **</p>
<p>That gain came after University administrators made adjustments to their data submissions to the survey following a meeting with representatives from the magazine. The U of C officials realized they had been under- or misreporting certain financial resources, said Vice President and Dean of College Enrollment Michael Behnke. </p>
<p>The jump led some local media outlets to criticize the University for what they considered an engineered improvement in the rankings spurred by simply altering its appearance on paper. Those criticisms reflect the growing opposition to U.S. News’s ranking system, which in recent months has been barraged with claims that its motivations are more profit-driven than educational.</p>
<p>Due to the U.S. News’s and other rankings’ prominence in the media and among prospective applicants each year, universities, whether they agree with the ranking system or not, would prefer to be nearer the top than the bottom of the list, leading to what the non-profit Education Conservancy describes as unwarranted competition among institutions.</p>
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<p>If you take an analytic approach, the Common App questions are geared to eliciting essays about the applicant’s personal experiences, whereas the Chicago questions are geared to eliciting essays about the applicant’s ideas and though process. So any sort of topic that fits those two separate themes would probably work - the key is that the essay is written first, and then the question is invented to match the essay. </p>
<p>That being said, my daughter essentially gave Chicago a joke essay, and I don’t think that one could reasonably interpret Chicago’s other prompts as soliciting humor pieces. Then again, given the essay by Rohan that started this thread, it appears that Chicago is quite happy to see a lighthearted approach. (Though I think my d’s essay was way better than Rohan’s; then again, I’m her mom)</p>