Thank you!!
Huge congratulations! We are waiting on Bing. Do you know when Fordham releases EA decisions?
My personal feeling is Chicago is not really an exception, and this is more symptom than root cause.
I think the root cause is actually captured by this study. Older data at this point, but Chicago was one of the colleges where its normal academic/peer ranking was much higher than its revealed preference ranking (see Table 3 on Page 26):
And I think to this day, many kids still see Chicago as less desirable than its normal academic peers.
OK, so among many other things, Chicago these days is using things like its low acceptance rate and high yield rate to try to persuade these kids that they should really think more highly of Chicago, a type of peer pressure argument. But to the point above, they are not doing that because some third party like the US News is endorsing that view. They are doing that because they are trying to get more of these kids to pick Chicago, and throwing every possible argument against the wall to see what sticks.
Or at least that is how I see it.
That is sure what Chicago WANTS kids to believe, that their high yield rate shows they are now one of the most desirable few colleges, so shouldnât you desire it too? Please?
I am not so sure that most kids are buying what Chicago is selling. It would be interesting to see a new revealed preference study that controlled for these efforts to manipulate ED and waitlists and so on. I am actually not so sure things would really have changed much at all from that study I linked, meaning I suspect there are still a lot of kids who see Chicago as less desirable than its normal relative academic ranking would suggest.
Last two years it was the 15th, but it will be by the 20th the latest. Fingers crossed for all of us!
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I think students just donât value UChicago as highly primarily because of location.
Both microâthereputation of the neighborhood is pretty unpleasantâand macroâIâve lived in the Chicago suburbs & the Boston suburbs and while I hear plenty of people lump them together as âcold weather locationsâ I would choose the Boston area weather over Chicago area weather any day, year round.
UChicago can manage their yield all they want, but there is little they can do about the factors that are actually bringing their desirability down.
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Fingers and toes!
30 years ago, UChicago undergrad had a 30-35% acceptance rate. Truly a place where fun went to die.
Fast forward - applications through the roof. Mega donations way up. True, it may rarely be a first choice over HYPMS (although we know for some it is/was), but neither are Cornell or Penn or Northwestern, but all of these institutions are also thriving, reputationally and otherwise. ED has caused all sorts of academic kids to apply strategically to their non-top choices, thatâs just the ED world weâre in now.
UChicago also has one of the best Common Apps out there - truly quirky, creative, insight provoking essay prompts. Personally, I think its admissions strategy has been brilliant, and we know of other elite institutions who are a little envious of what UChicago has done.
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School counselor sent out the monthly email newsletter to senior parents. I thought the advice & suggestions in it are good, so wanted to share here in case itâs helpful to others:
Suggestion 1: Donât assume December will be like last year.
- in 2020, many colleges over-enrolled.
- this resulted in colleges under-enrolling for 2021 and 2022 so numbers would even out.
- admissions offices had to deny students which in a normal year, they would have admitted.
- every year is different and hard to predict.
Suggestion 2: Bad news doesnât mean the college disliked the student or their application.
- counselor basically said that every year, she talks to admissions departments who rave about the application of a student who they couldnât admit.
- admissions offices have to make sure the collegeâs priorities are met and sometimes, this means denying a student who they really like.
- students often will 1st assume that this means they did something wrong in their application, and will spend a lot of time reworking/redoing essays and other parts of the app for other collegesâ applications not yet submitted. If the student felt that their app is a good representation of who they are, then rework is not needed.
- âIt often comes down to who has room, so while the decision feels extremely personal, it often was based on numbers.â
Suggestion 3: Not all students are viable candidates.
- Counselor mentioned in this section that during her 2nd year as a counselor, the senior class at the school she worked in at the time (elite boarding school, I donât remember where it was located) had 30 students apply to Stanford. 5 got accepted. With a <3% admit rate at Stanford, the HSâs counseling dept felt pretty good about their schoolâs numbers.
- Over the next several days, the HSâs counseling dept got a lot of questions and calls from students and parents, all asking what went wrong.
- Of that HSâs 30 Stanford applications, of the students not accepted, a handful of them were definitely qualified.
- The rest of the students were advised by the HS counselors to NOT apply because they thought that acceptance to Stanford was not likely.
- Students should be honest with themselves. Were you REALLY a good candidate for this school or was it a âletâs try it and seeâ situation?
Suggestion 4: There arenât quotas or limitations on admission for each high school.
- Students will often assume that a college âHASâ to take at least 1 student from high school X if a number of them apply to a particular college.
- A college is not obligated to admit ANY students from your HS.
- Students and parents will also often assume that if a group of students apply to College A from HS X and if none of them get in, that this means that College A doesnât like High School X. The college will always serve their own needs first and try to build the strongest class possible.
Suggestion 5: Your student never knows what is in another studentâs application.
- EVEN IF THEY THINK THEY DO.
- There are many pieces to an application, and students donât see the whole application of another student.
- Individuality is stressed in each step of the college process, so it leads that the final admission decision will be unique to that student as well.
Suggestion 6: Open admissions decisions in a safe place.
- Basically, donât open the decisions while youâre at school.
- do it at home or when youâre with someone youâre close to, so if you get bad news, you donât feel pressured to put on a good face in front of your peers at school.
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I think this is an excellent summation. Thanks for sharing.
You always share helpful info from your schoolâs CC, I appreciate it. Iâve been meaning to thank you for recommending the YCBK podcast (maybe last spring or summer?). Iâve listened to it this fall quite a bit and found it very helpful and would not have found it on my own (wasnât even aware that there were college admission podcasts!). Good luck to your daughter!
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Thatâs when DH went. He hates what the school has become. It use to be self- selecting eggheads. We see Swarthmore as being what UofC was back when DH went.
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I guess that not all schools are like UChicago.
When My D22 got off the WL from Amherst, they gave her a week to decide.
She didnât reply back for two weeks and thought that was that.
However, they came back and gave her another week to think about, even asking what they can do to help her to accept the offer.
When my D22 finally replied that she wanât taking the offer, she recived two separate emails from admission wishing her the best at other school.
Just for their class act, I kind of wished that she choose the Amherst at the time.
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Just curious - what has it become? People here seem to be debating whether UC Admissions is gaming acceptance rates or yield, but do you have issues with the University as a whole?
(What I remember 30 years ago was a widespread perception on Wall St. that some UChicago grads lacked some of the social skills that others seemed to have - donât think this is the case anymore.)
The student body seems more about getting an education to make money as opposed to an education for education sake. And believe me most of DHâs cohort who went to get an education for education sake has done very well for themselves. Also to add the Ivies at that time had double digit acceptance rates. Back then you didnât have the sheer number of international students applying and you had to apply one school at a time on paper. Today, itâs too easy to shoot out a dozen or two applications. Also to add the College was much smaller 30 years ago.
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Yes, it is very obvious that northern interior locations are not the best for competing nationally for students.
That said, I think Chicago is also victim of a double-edged branding sword. Long ago, they adopted a strategy of being known as a very rigorous, academically serious institution. It applies to their college, but really to their whole universityâlike, their law school, say, has a similar sort of branding. And in terms of academic/peer reputation, attracting good faculty, and so on, it has worked great, including now on a global level.
But . . . only so many prospective college students are super into that branding. A few are, and a few students will think the college, or law school, or whatever, are the best possible place in the world for them.
But, a lot of other people will be more like, âYeah, that doesnât sound like that much fun, maybe I can find a school which is as good, or at least close to as good, and a little more my vibe.â
Anyway, thatâs my two cents on Chicagoâs branding issue. And I personally see a lot of what they are doing as basically trying to get kids in the latter camp to commit to them anyway, out of fear they will not in fact otherwise get into a school which is as good.
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Thank you for sharing these counselor suggestions @sbinaz !
I really enjoy reading your posts and sharing your parenting experiences and your witty responses 
.
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Well, thatâs sort of my point. My point was Chicago is doing this stuff because it helps them get the classes they want.
But my personal feeling is things like a quirky application are fine, and the high pressure contacts are not so fine. Both may be very effective, both may be seen as brilliant even, but I donât personally think everything that is effective is necessarily the right thing to do.
Edit: By the way, I donât want to make it sound like I am just into bashing Chicago, I actually like it quite a bit personally. I just donât like these particular tactics.
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Iâm wondering how many are waiting on ED TODAY? How is everyone feeling today? And MOST importantly how are your kids?! My D24 went down HARD yesterday with Covid so itâs like the universe took the intense focus/anticipation away⊠it sucks, but is somehow kinda great at the same time. Wishing the best for EVERYONE!!! Keep us updated!
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Oh no. I hope she feels better soon. Yeah, these next two days are going to be rough. I have several friends whose kidsâ ED decisions come out today or tomorrow. Good luck to everyone.
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S24 has a great attitude on paper, but last night he admitted he was finally starting to really feel the nerves. It is going to be a long wait until 5:00 for him, but I told him it was totally naturally to feel it at this point, and he should give himself a break on his feelings in this window.
As usual, I am a bit nervous for him, because I never want him to feel bad. But otherwise I truly believe these are all just colleges, so whether or not he gets into his school today is not to me actually a big deal in the long run.
PS So sorry about the COVID, hopefully it is a quick recovery!
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