More acceptances than rejections?

heinochus
Mon, 22 Mar 2010 20:15:18 +0000

For starters, CC’s results threads are a pretty poor microcosm for actual admissions. Why? CC users are often more qualified than the average applicant, or at least more knowledgeable about the admissions process. They aren’t likely to be people who applied to Chicago because they saw the brochure and nothing else; they cared enough about college apps to make an account on this site, for Pete’s sake. Therefore, it makes sense that their chances might be better.

However, that’s pretty negligible when compared to the fact that people really don’t want to post a rejection. People like to post about how they got accepted, are less willing to post their waitlisting (since they aren’t in, but there’s still hope), and are pretty reluctant to post a rejection, since in this case, it’s over. In fact, a rejected individual may just want to make a clean break with Chicago, not hash out why they got rejected. That’s understandable, and goes some way toward explaining why these boards aren’t a good representation of the actual admissions process, and why Chicago’s acceptance rate is probably not higher than its rejection.

Alternatively, one could argue that a higher percentage were waitlisted than rejected. I don’t think this will be so, but it would still end up meaning that many more people do not get into Chicago than do.