I was also wondering if the Penn announcement is a reaction to UChicago’s changes to its program?
Penn Received over 5,600 ED apps this year. Lets assume 50% had some hook, were athletes etc and probably are sure that Penn is their first choice. The other 50%, maybe around 2,800 apps were from unhooked students. We know that Chicago, Penn and Columbia share a number of applicants, so lets say maybe 50% or higher put in an EA app to UChicago? That would be around 1,400 apps or higher?
With UChicago switching to ED, the question is what percentage of these students would now apply to Chicago ED and not Penn thereby reducing Penn’s applicant pool. And how would Penn react to that? They could play defense and try and recruit more applicants or they could play offense and try to discourage applicants from applying to UChicago.
Yeah, I know, that sounds childish, but in this world where Universities try to match each other’s moves, maybe this is a possibility. Again pure speculation on my part.