Some Notes on Historical Admissions at UChicago & Ivies

Colleges & Universities University of Chicago
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<p>There have been many discussions on the UChicago Forum about various aspects of college admissions, such as historical admissions rates, differences in the types of students sought by the top school, and the affect of early admissions on yield rate, etc.</p>

<p>So I am posting these two links I thought you might find interesting: </p>

<p>1) One is a New York Times article from 2005 discussing a book, “The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton”</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/06/books/review/06brooks.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ei=5070&en=009f88615723fab0&ex=1159070400[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/06/books/review/06brooks.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ei=5070&en=009f88615723fab0&ex=1159070400&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>2) The other is a study by Harvard and Stanford professors from 2010 in the “American Economic Review” analyzing early admissions at the top schools.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.stanford.edu/~jdlevin/Papers/EarlyAdmissions.pdf[/url]”>www.stanford.edu/~jdlevin/Papers/EarlyAdmissions.pdf</a></p>

<p>Some highlights:</p>

<p>a) on selectivity
The AER study notes that “Prior to World War II, colleges admitted virtually all qualified applicants. When admission became more competitive in the 1950s, elite schools began to adopt various forms of early admissions.”</p>

<p>The New York Times gives the following admissions figures for Harvard for 1950:
That year 278 students from elite prep schools applied to Harvard and 245 were accepted. The acceptance rate from Exeter and Andover was 94 percent. </p>

<p>b) The New York Times discusses Harvard and Yale’s historical preference for gentlemen, extroverts, and leaders over bookish intellectuals or scholars:</p>

<p>"Just after World War II, Harvard’s provost, Paul Buck, argued in several essays that Harvard did not want to become dominated by the “sensitive, neurotic boy,” by those who are “intellectually over-stimulated.” Instead, he said, Harvard should be seeking out boys who are of the “healthy extrovert kind.” In 1950, Yale’s president, Alfred Whitney Griswold, reassured alumni that the Yale man of the future would not be a “beetle-browed, highly specialized intellectual, but a well-rounded man.”</p>

<p>b) on early admissions and yield rate</p>

<p>According to the AER Study (p. 2131) for the years of 1999-2000, at Harvard the yield rate for early admits was 85% vs. 43% for regular admits. At UChicago back then, the yield rate for early admits was 29% and regular admits was 17%.</p>

<p>Yield Rate Early Regular
Harvard 85 43
UChicago 29 17</p>

<p>Interesting to see that Harvard’s regular admit yield rate was so low (43%) and good to see the progress UChicago has made since then (and will continue to make).</p>

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<p>UChicago admitted 3254 student for the class of 2014 (an estimate from John W. Boyer paper, “Building for a long future”, page 2), the class size was 1000+, then the yield should be about 31%. If UChicago has the yield numbers 0.29 and 0.17, it will not make up to 0.31 anyhow. I don’t trust Stanford’s report based on surveyed students.</p>

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<p>The 29% and 17% figures are for the 1999-2000 admissions cycle. Chicago’s yield has risen tremendously since then.</p>

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<p>@umtymp @david05 yep, these figures are for 12 years ago–and it is indeed good to see the progress UChicago has made. I wonder whether Harvard has had much change since then; it was interesting to see that while you always hear Harvard has a 75% or 80% yield, it’s regular admit yield rate is quite a bit lower (losing most of its regular admits to other schools, at least at that time, according to that study). I think there is a general misunderstanding on this point because Crimson overestimated how low Harvard’s admit rate would be this year (5.5% instead of the actual 5.9%, and probably 6.0+ after waitlist admits)–mostly because even they didn’t realize how low Harvard’s regular admit yield rate is (or were confusing their overall yield with the regular admit yield).</p>

<p>[Regular</a> Admits May See 3% Acceptance Rate | News | The Harvard Crimson](<a href=“http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2012/3/27/three-percent-admission-2016/]Regular”>Regular Admits May See 3% Acceptance Rate | News | The Harvard Crimson)</p>

<p>The article states:</p>

<p>"Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid William R. Fitzsimmons ’67 said that those who were accepted in December under the early action program will be more likely to matriculate. “In the past, the yield for early admission students has been higher than the yield for people applying regular admissions—in fact, 15 to 20 points higher typically,” Fitzsimmons said.</p>

<p>Last year, 77 percent of students accepted—all regular decision, before the return of the early action program—decided to come to Cambridge. If early admits choose Crimson at the rate Fitzsimmons predicted, then as many as 92 to 97 percent of them might matriculate."</p>

<p>The Crimson assumed (incorrectly) that the overal yield rate (77%) was their regular admit yield rate and added 15 to 20 percentage points to it. In fact, this is incorrect. The overall yield rate means their early admit yield rate is a bit above 77% and their regular admit yield rate quite a bit below 77%.</p>

<p>(Again, that study says Harvard’s early admit yield rate is 85% and regular admit yield rate 43%.)</p>

<p>Also, if UChicago has a 40% overall yield rate these days, it’s early admit yield rate must be a bit higher and the regular admit yield rate lower, as is the case with all schools.</p>

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<p>Anyway, looking forward to hearing what UChicago’s yield rate is this year, which will give more insight into the continuing upward trend.</p>

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<p>For class of 2004 (very close to the years of 1999-2000), Chicago had a total of 7396 applicants including 1793 EA applicants, admitted about 3254 students, class size 1000+. If you do a simple calculation, UChicago’s yield should be around 30%, not that low (29% EA and 17% RA), because any combination of these two numbers will not make up to 30%, far away from 30%. My point is that the yield numbers for UChicago in the Stanford report based on surveyed students have a 30-40%% relative error.</p>

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<p>David05 - the numbers for the Class of 2004 don’t seem that far off, especially when you factor in use of waitlist.</p>

<p>In 2000, UChicago accepted 3254 students, and I believe another 100-150 off the waitlist. So, to get a class of about 1000 students, the schools accepted about 3400 students total, for a yield of about 29%. </p>

<p>I agree the report’s numbers are a bit off base, but from what I remember, UChicago’s yield before the ~2005 upward trend for the school was always in the roughly 28-33% range. Now it looks like the yield will be in the 40-43% range.</p>

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<p>Objectiveperson:</p>

<p>Because Harvard is the standard bearer.</p>

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<p>^ It can, definitely it can, and Harvard has full right to survive on it’s own merit – Indeed it’s a great school, and I really do like it. But what irritates others is that it’s label and reputation overshadow schools like UChicago, which are actually worthy of their own attention, but get less attention. I’m not disputing the greatness of Harvard – They fairly pick their applicants, but I AM judging that the # of international students only know Ivies, not schools like Duke and UChicago, which I could argue (and with sound logic) are in many ways better than Cornell. The Ivy name is a label that produces envy because nobody can get equal with them in name recognition even though they may actually beat the Ivy standard (save, perhaps, the literal Ivies like MIT, Caltech, and Stanford … but they don’t count. Everybody knows them.)</p>

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<p>Objectiveperson said:</p>

<p>“So what? Can’t an institution survive on its own merit?”</p>

<p>No. Otherwise, Harvard wouldn’t be the standard bearer.</p>

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<p>Overly formalistic or not, Harvard is the standard bearer and other schools often follow suit. Look at, say, formulation of faculty pay, comparative statistics on fundraising, etc. </p>

<p>I’m not making the statement to deride UChicago (or Yale or Duke or whatever), it’s just that, having seen university administrative bureaucracy at work, Harvard is generally seen as the standard bearer. That’s just how it works (right now, at least).</p>

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<p>Objectiveperson:</p>

<p>That’s an issue with each individual, then. People oftentimes have all sorts of difficulties dealing with all sorts of facts. The fact that Harvard has been in pole position for many decades is pretty well-established. It’s up to individuals, then, to deal with that reality. </p>

<p>Harvard rejects thousands of students every year. It’s not necessarily the fault of other institutions when such students can’t get over this.</p>