<p>To put things in context, Chicago was ranked lower by US News (whose ranking focuses solely on undergraduate education) until its administrators apparently decided to meet with the editors of the publication and implement the ‘suggestions’ they received. Fair enough? Also, I find your assertion that Princeton had a 58% yield before it implemented an SCEA program quite irrelevant to the issue at hand. What is Chicago’s yield without its EA program? What’s Penn’s yield without ED? How can you compare Chicago’s overall yield (inclusive of EA) to Princeton’s RD yield? Shouldn’t there be a level playing field?
Also, just to play devil’s advocate, what do you mean by ‘correcting flawed data’? Does instituting a comprehensive (and admittedly commendable) marketing campaign constitute ‘correcting flawed data’? What about waiving the application fee for an entire city?
I’m not saying any of this is wrong or immoral. In fact, I commend Chicago’s administration for doing a brilliant job of pandering to its target audience. It just doesn’t seem like the school shot up in the rankings by correcting for minor anomalies. A concerted effort went into making Chicago a hot school. In fact, according to a thread on the UofC forum, the school almost bankrupted itself in the process. I actually admire what Chicago has managed to do in a short span of time. What I can’t stand however is listening to the sanctimonious imbeciles on the U of C forum go on about how ED policies are the scourge of their existence whilst simultaneously turning a blind eye towards their school’s own extensive and unprecedented effort to artificially improve its own yield and consequent ranking.</p>