<p>My son wants to go to U Chicago. On paper, he won’t get in. Mediocre grades and SATs–except for writing where he’s off the charts. (It was research done at Chicago that demonstrated the distinction between disjunctive and conjunctive reasoning. He’s creative and disjunctive.)</p>
<p>He does have these things going for him:</p>
<p>He’s a legacy. I received my PhD from Chicago.</p>
<p>He’s an award winning writer. (As a published book author and writer for national publications myself, I can attest to his ability.) I have no doubt he will write one of the better essays–if they value it as much as they say.</p>
<p>He’s an award winning musician.</p>
<p>He gets 4s and 5s on AP exams.</p>
<p>He will get very good recommendations.</p>
<p>Is this the kind of quirky student that has a shot?</p>
<p>It’s rare and unlikely, but not impossible. It will take extra effort. Here are a couple of examples from S1’s year:</p>
<p>Accepted Students</p>
<p>RD Roster: eibrahim- 1030 SAT. no rank. economics/history. 2.9 GPA…watch out for these stats guy, ur competing against the best.</p>
<p>Decision: Deferred, Waitlisted, Accepted!</p>
<p>Stats:
• SAT: 1560 (800V/760M)
• SAT IIs: Writing, 800; Literature, 740; Biology M, 720.
• GPA: 2.7u/3.2w
• Rank: Unranked
• Other stats: 34 ACT composite.</p>
<p>Subjective:
• Essays: The best pieces of writing I’ve ever produced.
• Teacher Recs: Incredible. One teacher told me, “I’ve never compared anyone to Jesus before, but I came damned close in this letter.” Another is locally renowned for her letters. Another said she wrote “a damned good letter,” which must be great, coming from her. The head of school wrote one too, and she loves me.
• Counselor Rec: Fair, I guess. He doesn’t know much about me.
• Hook (if any): Conversations with a few Chicago alums.</p>
<p>Location/Person:
• State or Country: Connecticut, USA.
• School Type: Public
• Ethnicity: White
• Gender: Male
• Major strength/weakness: My essays and recommendations / grades, respectively.
• Why you think you were accepted/rejected/defered: I pushed really hard for this. (More below.)</p>
<p>Other Factors:
I did pretty much everything I could to get in here. After I got the waitlist letter, I e-mailed Jenny Connell at least once a week updating her on what I’d been doing; I mailed essays and certificates and such once in a while; I had teachers send additional letters and got letters from new teachers; I asked everyone I could about finding a Chicago alum who would talk to me. (I ended up speaking with three different Chicago grads who contacted Ted O’Neill for me.) I showed the University that I wanted to be there before anywhere else, and it worked; I couldn’t have been more excited when Ms. Connell called.</p>