The announced percentage of TO applicants and admittees last year was 15 percent. Whether this was a “game-changer” in the Admissions world is of less interest to me than whether it achieved or was part of the Chicago Initiative that achieved the objective of identifying and admitting more Chicago-type kids from unconventional categories - first-gen, URM, rural, veterans, children of police and firefighters. Someone will know the statistics on this, but I believe that significant increases in all those categories were achieved.
Rather than virtue-signalling this may be the thing itself. It also addresses a criticism that we had been previously hearing - that Chicago was lagging its peers in recruiting kids from this demographic and, contrary to its history, had turned or was turning into a school exclusively of the rich and privileged. That stung, coming as it did from HYP boosters.
I myself have concerns that the newly enriched numbers from these non-traditional demographics will be able to sustain the level and pace of work that will be required of them at this school. That bears watching. I am betting on those kids, however.