<p>My $0.02, having just gone through the insanity that was the c/o 2013 admissions cycle and ending up as UChic '13:</p>
<p>The ESSAYS are the most important part of your app. As long as you have decently passable (and I use this term quite loosely) GPA/standardized test scores/ECs, and relatively decent recs that talk about you being a good student in the classroom with a passion for learning (this is actually pretty important, they want to sustain the whole UChic “Life of the Mind” thing, though if you’re genuinely interested in UChic you probably have these recs anyway), you have as much a chance as most of the rest of the applicant pool for getting in.</p>
<p>What separates the admits from the rest is essays, at least in my experience. Take me, for example. I ED’d to Columbia and EA’d here. And I’ll admit that I definitely played the whole admissions game, but lost; I applied to 13 schools, 5 of which were Ivies, and got rejected from all 5 of those lol (it was probably my horrendous senior year GPA). However, at the same time, I know of someone who was accepted at Princeton and Stanford, but was flat-out rejected at UChic. I know of people who were accepted at Harvard, Yale, MIT (there, now I’ve covered the top 5, and there are more but these are all that matter/would get your attention), but flat-out rejected by UChic.</p>
<p>Why did I get in but these people (who were clearly far superior applicants to me) didn’t? The only explanation is essays. Like me, they all played the college admissions game as well, but unlike me, they probably thought of the UChic essays as just another college essay to trudge through. I, on the other hand, loved the UChic essays (all of them, and I especially loved the optional as well as the short answers) and spent a lot of time on them, and think that my UChic essays were the best out of the dozens I must’ve written.</p>
<p>Also, to those debating between UChic EA and Some Other U SCEA: In my personal experience, UChic tends to either accept or reject right in December, with very few deferrals. Top 5/Ivies/etc tend to accept a few and defer the rest, rejecting very few.</p>
<p>Good luck to c/o 2014!</p>