<p>I found this letter to the editor amusing, in light of the application increase:</p>
<p><a href=“http://maroon.uchicago.edu/online_edition/viewpoints/2008/02/05/letter-to-the-editor-24/[/url]”>http://maroon.uchicago.edu/online_edition/viewpoints/2008/02/05/letter-to-the-editor-24/</a></p>
<p>**
People should come here because they want to be here, not because they’re hedging their bets in case they don’t get into Harvard, Yale, or even Rutgers.**</p>
<p>Well, that was kinda my point.</p>
<p>Yes, that was your point, and a good one. I just think it’s sometimes hard for students to see that they want to be at Chicago early in the application game-- in good part due to outside pressures. EA gives them time to find what they truly want,so I really think I agree with you. The difference shows up in the application process, I don’t care that anyone “hedges” their bet but I do hope that they attend because they actively want to be at U of C.</p>
<p>That’s partly why I love the uncommon app-- it makes hedging the bet more thoughtful because it requires more effort to find and execute. That exposes an applicant to more of the university’s culture and strengths.</p>
<p>I do understand the argument for the common app in tandem with the uncommon, but I don’t have to like it. I like Rachel’s point – U of C should not be compelled to follow the crowd.</p>
<p>I agreed with all of your post, but while I read it i wondered, do kids eventually come to love the U of C because of the environment and because of it what it represents, or because they HAVE to love it after getting rejected at HYP?</p>
<p>I’m sure there is some of each. I only know the former but I’m sure for some it’s the best of their second choices. </p>
<p>The thing that students forget when they are looking at schools is that the schools also look at them. The schools are pretty good at figuring out who could be happy and successful at their school. So what looks like a less than dazzling acceptance could work out very nicely.</p>
<p>During O-Week, I learned that something like 3/4 of the people in my house (~70 people) were rejected from an Ivy.</p>
<p>wow or ouch?</p>
<p>Ok some of you hardcore Chicago lovers may look down on me, but I will give you my (an admitted, but not yet enrolled, EA) perspective.</p>
<p>Back in October I applied to Chicago. At the time I was very excited about the college and it was my first choice. It felt like the best fit out of all my visits.
I got in. However, following my acceptance letter was a less-than-fulfilling financial aid offer. My household income is not as much as chicago apparently thought, since my dad makes a boatload more than my mom but won’t contribute his fair share (they are separated). Also, in recent times I have become worried about feeling homesick being so far away in Chicago. The distance actually won’t influence my decision, however I can tell you that money may.
For that reason, I sent in applications to Haverford, U of Rochester, and Haverford, in hopes of a) acceptance and b) MORE MONEY.</p>
<p>Hopefully, Chicago’s FA will change with the new FAFSA and Odyssey scholarship, and I will be able to afford this college with some scholarships.
That is my position. Hopefully you chicago lovers don’t look down on me for holding out on other colleges, but it is not simply because I want to go to HYP (afterall i only applied to one), but it is for $$. Had my FA been sufficient, I likely would’ve enrolled right away and tried to get a sweet dorm.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>You guys are constantly overvaluing the differences between Chicago and HYP. That’s natural for current students and current applicants, but you still owe it to yourselves to take a step back once in a while and realize that, on the spectrum of human experience, you would need an electron microscope to tell the difference between Harvard or Yale and Chicago, or between their respective students. Sure, there are differences, and they are relevant if you have to choose between them or engage in battle-rapping about them. (Or, yes, lick your wounds.) But those differences sit on top of a vast mass of similarity. </p></li>
<li><p>Because these places are all so similar, and all so great, too, it’s perfectly possible, even rational, to love more than one of them. You might like one aspect of College A best, and another of College B best, and how you order them in your mind will depend on some pretty subtle weightings. And then, when you choose one of them (even if that choice is effectively made for you by the other’s admissions committee), you are perfectly free to revel in what you love about your choice, and even to discover new things to love, and other things that are much better than you expected, etc. </p></li>
<li><p>You know infinitely more, good and bad, about the college you attend than the colleges you don’t attend. So once you are there, it’s basically impossible to make an objective comparison. Before you are there, it may be possible to be objective (from within your own subjective criteria), but you are dealing with inadequate information, both about the various colleges and about yourself, what you will care about in a few years. Furthermore, what you will care about in a few years is likely to be affected by what you are doing between now and then. So it’s completely normal for Chicago students to find that they value the best things Chicago has to offer, and for Yale students to value the best things Yale has to offer, and neither group is wrong at all. Even though, if all the individuals had switched places, their values would switch, too.</p></li>
<li><p>There are certainly lots of people at Chicago who might have chosen Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, whatever, if given the chance. That does not mean that they are disappointed to be at Chicago, or that they don’t deeply appreciate what Chicago has to offer. In every case, they clearly liked Chicago much more than thousands of other colleges to which they never even applied, even including some HYP-y ones; in most cases they probably liked it more than some of the other colleges to which they applied, too, even including some HYP-y ones. As long as they aren’t walking around with a chip on their shoulders – and I don’t think many of them are – or scheming about transfer applications, they aren’t being “unfaithful” in the least.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I have to agree with everything you said, JHS.</p>
<p>I would think that posters on this forum, if nothing else, would understand that there are more brazilliant kids applying to the holy trifecta (or quadfecta) than that holy trifecta could ever realistically admit. </p>
<p>If we as Chicago serve as runoff for HYP and friends, truth be told, I’m honored. I know and you know what kinds of amazing and intelligent people don’t get into those schools. If anybody questions the relative merits of the strength of Chicago’s undergraduate population, take any little silly data point you want for measuring intelligence-- SAT midranges, number of Truman scholars, number of Rhodes Scholars, WSJ feeder scores, PhD productivity, etc. etc. etc. etc. and I think no matter what, you’ll find that Chicago undergraduates compare quite favorably to or oftentimes exceed other top schools.</p>
<p>As far as the letter to the editor goes, I posted it because it amuses me, and also to give prospectives a flavor of the not-all-uncommon (punny) stance that Chicago should not compromise itself to garner more applicants. Students should flock to us, not us to them. I have mixed feelings on this one… read this article for more on why:</p>
<p><a href=“http://maroon.uchicago.edu/online_edition/news/2007/04/20/prospective-students-judge-evolving-admissions-process/[/url]”>http://maroon.uchicago.edu/online_edition/news/2007/04/20/prospective-students-judge-evolving-admissions-process/</a></p>
<p>OK, as an EA acceptee who will be headed elsewhere next fall, I feel the need to chip in here. Going into college applications, I had two loves: UChicago and MIT. I had never visited MIT (living in the Midwest, my parents would only pay for a visit if I were accepted), but I had been to UChicago a few times, always in freezing, blustery, gray weather, and had loved it. I loved the traditions, the architecture, the people… it was and is a fantastic school. On the other hand, I had wanted to attend MIT since middle school (for a million and one reasons that are too extensive to list here); if UChicago was a match school for me, one that I knew I had a good chance of getting into even EA, MIT was my extreme reach. I’d have been perfectly happy to go to either. At one point mid-November, I was actually so torn between the two that I really had no idea which I’d prefer in the case that I were accepted to both. Different aspects of each appealed to me, but I really was expecting the decision to be made for me by a rejection from one of the two sides.</p>
<p>I got into both early. I was ecstatic the day I got into UChicago, started dancing around my room, and completely stopped all homework I had started (including studying for a Calculus test) and went out Christmas shopping with my mom to celebrate. I had gotten into a school that I loved and I really couldn’t ask for more.</p>
<p>The day I got into MIT, however, exceeded my wildest dreams. To summarize (the entire story is on the MIT boards): I was at work when online decisions were scheduled to come out, one of the admissions guys called me at work to let me know I got in, I ran around the store, went on break, called my mom, and started crying. I didn’t think I could get much happier than I was when I got into UChicago, but I was absolutely wrong.</p>
<p>In my book, UChicago was only a narrow second to MIT but for reasons that are understandable if you’re me. It has nothing to do with prestige, but rather a matter of fit. I resent it when people play the victim and make people who have made choices similar to mine out to be terrible people. I don’t deny that many people will likely turn down Chicago simply based on prestige. However, I gave a lot of thought to this decision and I know that I’m making the right one. Truly, I would have been just as happy at Chicago as I will be at MIT. However, I know that MIT is even more so the place for me.</p>
<p>I just thought this perspective was definitely needed.</p>
<p>^^ That’s certainly a point of view I sympathize with. I have friends who were stuck in similar situations, and while they were thrilled with both schools, the more prestigious one had something closer to what they wanted.</p>
<p>MIT and Chicago overlap in a lot of ways, but are fundamentally different schools with different academic emphases, so one will be slightly “more right” than the other.</p>
<p>ehh. w.e., i love uchicago. thats all it comes down to.</p>
<p>@unalove</p>
<p>Exactly. Chicago appealed very much to my more linguistic side with its umpteen languages and to my more humanities side with the Core, but the fact that I want to major in biology and that I practically swoon over the labs in Cambridge puts MIT on top in the larger scene of things.</p>
<p>@beefs</p>
<p>And I hope you have a blast. It’s a fantastic place and you’re going to have an awesome four years. Best of luck.</p>
<p>ducktape,</p>
<p>congrat’s on your acceptance at MIT! Have you been able to visit yet? MIT and Chicago are the two schools that I feel people really should visit before attending.</p>
<p>I’m happy for you ducktape! It must feel wonderful to achieve everything you’ve worked for for the past four years. Have fun at MIT :)</p>
<p>I recently read where a Harvard official commented that 3 out of every 4 students admitted to both Harvard and Yale chose Harvard, and there were many cross admits. This suggests that those at Yale who also applied to Harvard are likely to be Harvard rejects. I guess the school must have quite a few disappointed and dejected students since they were rejected by an Ivy. I would wager that 70% of students at the Ivies were rejected by an Ivy. Chicago has characteristics not found at any Ivy and one can find characteristics at any Ivy (or similar) not found at Chicago. The question is, as often noted, which is best for what one wants to do?</p>
<p>Side note: A friend of S1 had always wanted MIT and was accepted to Stanford as well. He visited both in winter, he is at Stanford.</p>
<p>Good point idad-- all of the ivy students who I know were also rejected by an ivy unless it was an early sort of acceptance. </p>
<p>And to ducktape-- I’m so happy for you! I think your gut reaction to the MIT acceptance says it all.</p>
<p>I believe the only other person in my son’s high school class to apply to Chicago was rejected there (and at Harvard) and accepted at Brown, Dartmouth, and Penn. In case you thought that never happened.</p>
<p>A classmate of my D’s (who was a rickoid/RSI alum, BTW) was rejected by Chicago. Fortunately he got into his 2nd choice, Stanford, where he has done well.</p>
<p>Personally, I don’t see a problem with having a class of Ivy rejects. After all, most kids get rejected somewhere. So what? And as JHS eloquently said above, a naive love for an ivy, followed perhaps by a sense of loss at being rejected by same, does not mean they will not appreciate U. Chicago for what it offers.</p>