<p>Hyeonjlee,</p>
<p>I guess what’s strange in what you say is this - Chicago has been ranked solidly in the top 10 for the past six years or so. While this year Chicago enjoyed the bump up to equal standing with Stanford, MIT, etc., for many years, it’s been on equal footing with Duke, Columbia, etc. - schools that are not exactly slouches!</p>
<p>So this is what I don’t understand - if students from your nearby top public high school ignored Chicago when it was #8 and tied with Columbia, why would a sudden new tide of students consider Chicago now? </p>
<p>In other words, if students applied to all of the rest of the top 10 schools BUT Chicago, why would a move up in the rankings a few spots change this trend? It seems as if students and parents in your area are hyper-aware of the rankings and interested in having the kids attend a top college. So, when Chicago was #8 or #7 or whatever it was, why was there still no interest? </p>
<p>I guess it just seems strange to me that, in your community, everyone seems aware of the rankings and places importance on them. Chicago, though, has done well in the rankings for many, many years now, but the constituent parties continued to ignore the school. Why did this occur? It seems as if people in your community are relatively wealthy, are very aware of all the colleges out there, etc., and students were perfectly willing to apply to Northwestern, even though Chicago has been ranked higher for years and years.</p>
<p>I’m curious to know why you think think this trend has unfolded in this way. I guess what you say about tv shows may be correct, but Chicago received publicity during the Obama campaign, and there are several schools that I’m assuming are reasonably popular with your top hs crowd (places like Williams, Penn, and Amherst) that don’t get lots of recognition on tv shows and the like.</p>