Our experience was that our student, who was accepted RD at UChicago, was also accepted, waitlisted, and rejected from other top 10 schools. Fit and other elements (out of your control) are all factors. There are also a lot of options outside of the top 10 schools, especially in honors colleges and small liberal arts colleges, that are excellent choices. This experience has taught me that many schools do an excellent job choosing for fit.
Wait… Why couldn’t you get in with these… can you give a more brief explanation?
It is an interesting phenomena, the whole admissions process, one of my DD good friends was rejected from every top 10 school except that she was admitted to Harvard RD.
Fit is increasingly important, and the lower applicant numbers of many of these top schools this year suggests that perhaps high schoolers have caught on to that fact.
This puzzles me. Having attended / lectures at several top 10 schools I can’t see a different student type on average between them. Sure, maybe some schools have more orientation towards sports or sciences, etc. but fundamentally the students are smart and motivated. In my experience schools want depth not breadth and passion And diversity so there is no homogeneous student type at any school.
Please explain what factors of fit are important to any top 10 school that aren’t important to the others and how schools would recognize that from the application.
I do agree that the student wanting to attend and feeling the right vibe is important but even that is relatively superficial based on a day’s scripted visit. I chose my HYPS undergrad having never even visited!
- They are all smart and motivated. And they were so even back in the days when UChicago admitted 70% of the applicant pool, saw 10% of the class not return the following year, and watch as many as a third not make it to graduation. Being smart or motivated isn't quite the same thing as being a good fit.
Recently I watched the UChicago Night Owls session on “What Are Universities For/Why Do they Matter?” and I’d highly recommend watching all three hours of it! Dan Diermeier, former UC provost and soon-to-be Chancellor at Vandy provided a very thoughtful take on the subject. During the conversation, he made it very clear that not everyone is the right fit for a UChicago education. Here’s a quote directly from the recorded session, during which time he was, not surprisingly, asked why the College didn’t just auction spots off to the highest bidder:
“Not everyone would benefit. This is a demanding place. You have to bring quite a bit to be flourishing at the University of Chicago; not everybody can flourish here. And we want it that way, that’s the way it’s set up. It’s a place for a particular type of student and, as Agnes (Philosophy Professor Agnes Callard who runs the Night Owl sessions and who had served on the Admissions Committee one year) could testify, it’s hard to identify them. And yes, it’s true that there are many more that could benefit from this university than we have space for, but we try very, very, hard to pick the type of students who would benefit (the most) from the University of Chicago. They’re intellectually curious, they’re engaged, they have a lively mind . . .these are all words that we use, but we try that very hard. And every university should do that. They should have a clear sense of their own purpose and then they should try to pick the students that would benefit the most from that, that would basically have the best chance of flourishing in that environment and then have an impact once they leave. That’s what we want.”
Prof. Deirmaier’s statement indicates that UC - and most likely other schools as well - have specific criteria that they look for in an applicant. This criteria will have overlaps among the schools, but some of it will also be unique to the individual school, conforming to that particular “clear sense of their own purpose” that Prof. Diermeier mentioned.
We hear and read a lot about “yield protection” these days, and it’s hard to understand why that would be a crucial statistic to the institution if they didn’t feel that they were matriculating a better-matched class as a result.
IMO, you don’t need homogeneity among the student body to choose those who best match the “clear sense of” the institution’s own purpose. For example, research universities - particularly the “great universities” such as UChicago - will have a wide assortment of top specialties to attract a diversity of academic interests and talent.
@JBStillFlying : That is simply a dynamic, essential post. ^^
Maybe you could share it outside of this forum in its entirety, starting with your second paragraph, as a thread starter. It is the type of statement I try to help my kids to find and digest.
I will certainly be sharing it. Thanks.
^ Not a bad idea, @Waiting2exhale - Diermeier’s short statement was pretty powerful. He was speaking within the context of his belief that universities do more than just provide a high priced or “very valuable” credential. This is one of the things they do, but not all that they do. He believes that what goes on in the classroom matters at UChicago and that the educational experience is “transformative.” Students leave as different people from who they were coming in. And because it’s transformative, the College needs to go through a very careful selection process to determine who can most benefit - or flourish. Ability to pay is not an appropriate criterion for selection because the education isn’t a high-priced commodity that is best auctioned off to the highest bidders in order to be put to the “highest and best use.” Rather, it’s a development of the individual that combines the attributes he/she brings in with the various resources provided (described as norms, practices, structures and faculty).
It was a great discussion, and this was only a snippet of what was covered.
The only issue is that there is absolutely nothing about Diermaier’s statement that is unique to the University of Chicago. Any official at any remotely similar university or college could (and would) say exactly the same thing, verbatim. And while the statement tantalizingly suggests that similar institutions may have different criteria for identifying those who might benefit most from being educated there, it doesn’t begin to demonstrate what those differences might be. I suspect they barely exist now. Once upon a time, I think Chicago really was looking for a certain type of student, in a way most of its peers weren’t. My impression today is that the type of student Chicago is looking for is no different from the universities with which it competes, except for being very likely to come to Chicago if admitted. (Generally, as demonstrated by an ED application.)
What’s more, Chicago and everywhere else are looking for diverse student bodies. Harvard absolutely wants a good chunk of Chicago types there to keep the faculty happy (it’s no fun to teach empty classrooms or students who don’t care to be taught), and Chicago is desperate to admit Harvard-type leaders who will improve the quality of life there and get elected President some day (as long as they will come to Chicago and not wreck the yield figures).
Yield management absolutely runs contrary to the ideal of selecting the students who will benefit most from the education an institution provides. The Chicago super-ED-heavy strategy is not so different in effect from the Dutch auction procedure you would use if you were actually having people bid for slots. The vast majority of each class is chosen (at a rate that is no longer disclosed) from among people who have committed to attend at or below a fixed maximum price the University has every reason to believe is market-clearing. Unless willingness to commit at that price is an essential element of being the sort of person who can most benefit from a Chicago education – marlowe1 thinks it is, but I don’t know who else is really going to argue that – the system makes Diermaier a hypocrite.
^ There are going to be overlapping criteria, as mentioned earlier. But not sure how else one can interpret the statement: “And every university should do that. They should have a clear sense of their own purpose and then they should try to pick the students that would benefit the most from that, that would basically have the best chance of flourishing in that environment and then have an impact once they leave.” - except perhaps to conclude that all universities must have the same “own purpose.” Diermeier says elsewhere in the discussion that they don’t. UChicago will be similar to some universities more than others, and Diermeier suggested that he disagreed with some other schools’ specific purpose; that they might not be entirely consistent with his view of what a university should be about. But he does not discount that the various purposes are distinct, even unique, even if he doesn’t agree entirely with many of them.
Tuition/fees/room/board are well below a “market-clearing” price! The entire point of the question was why as a non-profit the university felt comfortable leaving money on the table (which it does).
ED was bound to come up in this current (cc) discussion. Diermeier didn’t mention ED but he did talk about need-blind. If the university admits based on “who will most flourish” rather than ability to pay, then it must admit irrespective of parent’s income, which is why it (and others) have need-blind admissions (and I’d add ‘meets full demonstrated need’ to that). According to Deirmeier, the entire point of need-blind admissions is in order to use the selection method that creates the best match with the university’s goals. In this context, ED is more about “right fit” than “full pay.” It’s an admissions strategy for better aligning interest and self-selection with admission and matriculation. This context also aligns with the school’s own messaging at the time that ED was offered and it aligns with our own experience with ED and financial aid, as well as that of other families who have posted that UChicago is more generous with need-based financial aid than many other schools.
It’s possible that you are using “who will most benefit” in an economic sense as opposed to more of a “human development” sense? Diermeier meanst the latter. “Irrespective of parent’s income” is not the same thing as “low income.” There are plenty of admits who are full pay; not the majority, based on the stats, but plenty nonetheless simply because preparation for elite education is highly correlated with parent’s income. However, the College has pretty aggressively expanded its outreach and messaging to segments of the applicant pool who will end up attending free of charge (or practically so). Why would those applicants NOT apply ED if UChicago was truly their first choice?
Edit to add: Diermeir is the first generation in his family to graduate from high school, apparently, and “need-blind” and “irrespective of parent’s income” seemed to be strong issues with him. I wish someone had brought up the issue of ED to get his views!
I thought Diermeier was sounding more than a little bit like @MohnGedachtnis when Mohn was saying a while back in another thread that a Chicago education “stands for something different from other hyperselective universities”, which he went on to characterize as including “intellectual rigor, constant debate regardless of subject matter silos based on shared intellectual experience and shared understanding of how academic debate should be conducted, and a commitment to classroom learning as the most important element in a college education.” I applaud and accept those remarks, but I don’t know how to reconcile them with his present statement that differences between Chicago and other schools “barely exist now” and that “the type of student Chicago is looking for is no different from the universities with which it completes.”
We are all prone to overstatement, but this really violates the law of the excluded middle. A thing cannot both be and not be. Chicago cannot both be different and be no different. Even in the post above Mohn allows that Harvard would like more Chicago types (but I thought he was saying that that type does not exist) because “it’s no fun to teach empty classrooms or students who don’t care to be taught.” It’s not a small indicia of the character of an educational institution that its students are known for making classroom study the main event (Chicago) as against other pursuits (Harvard). There is more to the Chicago type than showing up for class, but that’s a pretty good litmus test of type.
Mohn, you also make a pretty sharp distinction between Brown students and Chicago students on the Brown forum. I won’t again quote your words back to you except to say you were highly convincing to me in expounding that difference even if the Brownites weren’t buying it. In your benign Dr. Jekyll persona you sounded a heck of a lot like former Provost Diermeir.
- Diermeier touched on this a bit and I'm glad that Mohn has mentioned Harvard because, if his characterization is true, it highlights a KEY distinction between these two schools. UChicago wouldn't distinguish between "UChicago Types" and "other types" in the admissions process. They would say that 100% of their admitted are "UChicago Types" and that is precisely why they were admitted. Are they "different" from "UChicago Types" of yesteryear? In other words, would Ted O'Neill have passed up these kids for the types admitted back in the 90's? Don't bet on it. He'd have been thrilled and so would the faculty.
@marlowe1 I was not saying that Chicago as an institution doesn’t stand for something somewhat different than its competitors. It does. I like what it stands for. I have said in the past, and will probably say again, that the commonalities among elite universities are much more important than their differences – they are all pretty much doing the same thing. But the differences can feel meaningful, especially if you are choosing one university or the other, and in any event Chicago has an especially distinctive culture that I like.
What I said – and clearly, having just re-read it – was that I don’t think the universities are really looking for different students now. The universities have their own somewhat different characters, but they want the same broad spectrum of students. Those students will thrive anywhere, and adopt themselves to their institution’s culture.
That doesn’t mean the student bodies at the different universities are identical. The students sort themselves out enough to make a difference. Harvard (oppressively) gets many more people who want to be President and think going to Harvard helps with that – e.g., Pete Buttigieg – than Chicago does. Stanford gets more guys who want to run a tech startup from their dorms. But I am certain that both Harvard and Stanford wouldn’t mind getting somewhat fewer of their “natural” types. And everyone knows that it can be a successful application strategy to apply to an institution where you don’t match the stereotype. In any event, the bulk of the students at any of these universities would be perfectly happy and thrive intellectually at most of the ones they don’t attend.
My son thinks students seeking top schools today are pretty “standardized” in terms of their preparation and level of engagement with other activities. They might have diverse interests and goals, but they are all similarly “stand-out’ish” on the high-achievement/hard-work XY-graph. Perhaps this has been the case for decades. Over the years, UC has increasingly been attracting those applicants, and now their matriculants might, indeed, be less distinguishable upon casual acquaintance - or even genuine acquaintance - from other top schools than they used to be. In terms of that “stand-out’ish-ness.” What the applicant is actually looking for in a school might be the Z-axis that hasn’t always been considered in this conversation, and IMO it’s important.
Maybe @MohnGedachtnis just knows a different subset of kids than I do. This is anecdotal but I know for a fact that my kids’ cousins (of which there are many, and among whom there are a decent number of high-performers who shot and and landed at top schools) would NOT be very happy at UChi. They are/were very happy at their respective schools. They didn’t apply to Chicago for very specific reasons which, in a nutshell, have to do with the academic culture of the place coming in conflict with the specific goals that they have/had for their college experience. And I’m talking about an elite set of kids here. And we’ve known several others who didn’t like UChicago’s heavy liberal arts emphasis. Others still who were turned off by the thought of living in Chicago (or on its south side). Again - all top kids who got into top schools elsewhere. So these distinctions - even those that are at the meta level or perhaps even considered to be “trivial” by “wiser grownups” - do matter. Now, presumably every kid who applies ED is attracted to what UChicago offers even if they don’t think it’s particularly distinct (many of them do, from what I’ve observed, but not all). And - who knows? Those two Ivy-plus athletes (one of whom chose an honors major that accommodates the 30+ hours of athletic training, the other of whom majored in a STEM subject that simply isn’t offered at UChi) may have been “perfectly happy” at UChicago after all. But I suspect that they knew their own minds on this subject and that’s why they ended up and thrived elsewhere. They were certainly quite informed due, in part, to having parents who were educated at UChi or other great institutions themselves.
Those examples are by no means “the bulk” of applicants or admits, but then who exactly is “the bulk?” While applicants might overlap in terms of being “accomplished,” and families may well overlap in terms of interests and goals and even where the parents are directing their kids (that has to be considered as a driver for at least some families), aren’t each of these kids distinct from their peers? Surely at least some admissions departments actually admit as if that’s the case.
In perhaps a contrasting comment, this time about “stereotypes” - most of the parents and even som students who have commented on that subject claim that they DO match “the stereotype!” IMO, the “UChicago Type” is not just something that exists on CC. And Admissions certainly appeals to that “stereotype” a bit in their talks (from what I’ve observed). But “the stereotype” isn’t described using majors or professional interests or long term goals. They seem more interested in the internals, and these are characteristics that are likely revealed in the application, even if not always obvious to the applicant. Perhaps all top schools are similarly interested in the internals, and perhaps each is looking for a particular underlying set of characteristics that might not be as obviously apparent as all those impressive credentials that the adcom has to sift through every year are. As Diermeier mentioned, it can be hard to identify those applicants.
Like the ever-present Mohn, I did not attend Chicago; my spouse and I both went to Yale (a few years after Mohn, I infer–incidentally, Mohn experienced a Yale that was an intellectuals’ paradise; my spouse and I did not). My kid is going to Chicago because we all discerned that Chicago was different from Yale, Princeton, Harvard. If we are wrong–if there are no important differences between Chicago and the Ivies–then why on earth should one go to Chicago? If the kids and the experience to be had are all meaningfully the same, then one is not choosing between a more intellectual and learning-for-learning’s sake environment, on the one hand, and Ivy name recognition, social cachet, and potential advantages among certain employers and professional schools, on the other. The logic of Mohn’s position is that one who chooses Chicago isn’t getting anything that is different (or better); one who chooses Chicago is at best getting the Ivy experience without the Ivy prestige. (From all the debate about whether Chicago students are disadvantaged in the YLS/Goldman/McKinsey contests, one clear fact emerges: It sure doesn’t hurt to attend Yale or Harvard as an undergraduate). Even if prestige and admission to YLS isn’t important to a student or his/her family, why would a kid forgo those things to attend Chicago? Again, I think that there are meaningful differences–and that the prestige bestowed by the Ivies makes them academically and intellectually less serious undergraduate institutions. But if I’m wrong, then why would a kid throw away “prestige” and cachet, even if he or she values those qualities only marginally, for no meaningful advantage?
I wrote: “Even if prestige and admission to YLS isn’t important to a student or his/her family, why would a kid forgo those things to attend Chicago?” I should correct that to read: “Even if a student and his/her family were neutral about prestige and admission to YLS, why would a kid forgo those things to attend Chicago?”
I think it’s a mistake to paint all the Ivies with one brush, as there are significant differences amongst them. Princeton, Columbia and Cornell have reputations of being hard, with the first two likely to have a workload similar to Chicago. Some students, like my daughter at UChicago, do best in demanding environments. She has met the challenges and in doing so found out what she is capable of.
On the other hand, Yale and Harvard can be as easy a student wants to make it. My nephew said of his Yale experience, “it’s hard to get an A, but harder to get a C”. And part of the reason my type-A son chose Harvard was because he wanted to choose which areas he will work extremely hard in, and which areas he wanted to take easy.
Fit matters.
That’s true, and I agree with you completely re the importance of fit, but by “Ivies” I meant only HYP (but probably should have included Columbia). Princeton made a valiant effort to stanch grade inflation, but has explicitly reversed course. And although it was for a time more difficult to get an “A” at Princeton, Princeton was plagued by/reveled in its reputation as the country club of the Big Three–less intellectually and academically serious, more socially oriented (even in the modern era, the gap between the number of Jewish students at Princeton compared to Harvard and Yale was very wide).
For what it’s worth, a recent, peer-reviewed sociological study reveals that Harvard and Stanford undergraduates–correctly or not–still hold to the stereotypical view of Princeton: “the feature of Princeton’s that students mentioned most often, and most negatively, was its reputation for being a 'country club…Harvard and Stanford students emphasized that Princeton could not be as excellent as their schools because it emphasized existing social orders…most students used Princeton as a negative example compared with their own campus’s greater diversity, which is a valuable feature of elite cosmopolitanism.” (Amy J. Binder and Andrea R. Abel, “Symbolically Maintained Inequality: How Harvard and Stanford Students Construct Boundaries Among Elite Universities,” Sociology of Education, Vol. 19, Issue 1, 2019, p. 13, https://doi.org/10.1177/0038040718821073).
Even if Princeton were not truly a current proponent of the existing social orders or was working hard to overcome a “country club” rep - These images get seared into the collective memory and take a LOONG time to get erased. This is in part why “Where Fun Goes to Die” isn’t quite dead itself. And may not be for a while yet.
That’s a very interesting query, @Mom2Melcs : Why indeed would a talented kid capable of getting into HYPS pass them up for Chicago? Your answer is the only logical one, and it’s a stirring one and a call to arms. I would put it this way (as spoken by a hypothetical kid who has made that choice): “An HYPS degree conveys cachet, prestige, bragging rights, call it what you will, I acknowledge these things with eyes open, but I hereby renounce and give them up for the more purely academic and intellectual experience that Chicago offers.” These words gladden the heart, even if they are not the only words that could be spoken and even if Chicago is no longer without its own creature comforts.
The kid making that choice certainly believes that Chicago offers something different from HYPS. Other kids will make other choices, and, yes, some kids will end up at Chicago and be happy there after being rebuffed by a preferred school. These kids are also okay in my book, and there’s hope for them too. Just let them not be the dominant majority.
Interestingly, the kids at Harvard and Stanford in the study you cite also think that Chicago offers something different from their schools and other top schools. They preferred what their own schools offered - greater prestige, greater social life, etc - and they feel Chicago doesn’t have enough of all that, but they were in no doubt about what it does have - that purer focus on studies and even a somewhat “scary” intellectualism. That’s the brand. It is not a large leap of logic to assume that the brand attracts a type and that the type reinforces the brand. We see evidence of this constantly on cc.