As a second year student in the College, I have to admit that the change scares me a little, too. That being said, we aren’t Harvard 2.0 just yet. In fact I doubt we’re even as pre-professional as Brown. And while our admissions office does appear to be actively building a more pre-professional group of students, let’s not forget that there is also a clear, general trend towards pre-professionalism amongst college students everywhere. The purpose of college is becoming more and more tied to one’s future career. If not the U of C, where else are you going to go?</p>
<p>I was attracted toward Brown because of it’s laid back, liberal “Hippe-Ivy” status and Amherst for largely the same reason. I mean, I have no problem working hard as someone earlier mentioned about American students. I do, however, want a “laid back” atmosphere.</p>
<p>“Brown is one of the lesser “Ivys” that students tend to apply to who have really no idea what they are really looking for.” Ugh, really? Just…please. Don’t. </p>
<p>Also, someone else said that the Careers office is getting their act together, and I agree. It is attracting more pre-professional students (which is becoming a large majority in the application pool, if it isn’t already; I’ve met a couple ‘I’m going to college to learn’ people through visits, but most of the people I’ve met have some sort of career aspiration or plan after they graduate- even the intellectuals), but it’s not becoming a pre-professional school, in my opinion. At least, not yet. Right now, they are finding a way to let the love of knowledge coexist peacefully with pre-professional options that were once weak or nonexistent. I think the student body itself is changing more than the actual school, and maybe that’s what’s “scaring” people.</p>
<p>I do think that UChicago’s problem with attracting pre-pro students is the grade deflation. It has been noted on other threads that UofC at one point was “Princetonized,” but if kids did their research, they’d realize this isn’t a problem. Top med schools (I won’t speak for other programs I know less about) recognize UofC’s grading system and respect a 3.5, the average premed’s GPA at UofC, the same as they’d respect a 3.7 at lets say, JHU. </p>
<p>Also, status isn’t everything. @Hevydevy, what do you mean by 'laid back, liberal “Hippie-Ivy” status? As in a more relaxed atmosphere than other Ivies? Maybe the social aspects are, but the academics are still challenging and up to par with its peers. What exactly are you looking for in a college?</p>
<p>“I’ve met a couple ‘I’m going to college to learn’ people through visits, but most of the people I’ve met have some sort of career aspiration or plan after they graduate- even the intellectuals” - I feel stupid for asking, but is that how we’re defining pre-professionals? Going in with a plan (which will probably change various times, as happens with lots of students in many college campuses) for after graduation? Well then, yes, that certainly feels like a large chunk of the school. It seems like we have officially joined the Dark Side. In all seriousness, if the attitude before was that pre-professionals are incapable of being intellectuals, then I for one am glad that things have changed.</p>
<p>I didn’t mean to separate the two, as in people who go to college to learn do not have a plan, and those who go to college to get a job are not there to learn. I was specifically thinking about a girl I met on a Tufts visit who was there just to get a degree as a backup in case her dream of starting a bakery didn’t work out; she was majoring in religious studies (which is fine, just noting it). I would not consider her as pre-professional. </p>
<p><a href=“Early Admissions Statistics 2013 - Interactive Feature - NYTimes.com”>Early Admissions Statistics 2013 - Interactive Feature - NYTimes.com;
Results are in. Apparently there were 10K EA applicants this year, 1380 EA acceptances, a 13% acceptance rate, an anticipated 1400-student class size, and 98% of the class filled. Does this sound right to anyone? Of course, not every accepted EA student will attend, but I’m surprised schools are counting on so many kids to decline. Is UChicago’s yield rate rising that insignificantly? Wouldn’t they have to assume that 55% of EA accepted students will not attend?</p>
<p>I really, really, really, really, really hope that applying EA is not that big of a decision. I applied RD solely because I felt my essays were not strong enough at the time. It is still my first choice, barring financial situations.</p>
<p>@tawarren: they dont mean that 98 percent of the class is filled. They mean that 1380 people have been offered a spot at UChicago, enough to fill 98% of the freshman class if the yield were 100% (which of course, it will not be).</p>
<p>It’s not unlikely that all that UChicago is just being super-cautious with early action acceptances, since they’re non-binding. Beyond that, since top-tier schools like Harvard and Princeton and Stanford and Yale have single-choice early action, which prohibits you from applying early action to any private universities, that means (I believe) that no one who applied early to Harvard, Yale, Princeton or Stanford applied early to UChicago. </p>
<p>Which isn’t to call UChicago’s application pool <em>subpar</em>. It is to say, however, that single-choice early action kept 20,000 applicants (who probably had some pretty good scores and grades) from applying to any other top-tier schools, including UChicago. My guess is that it had at least a little negative pull on the overall quality of the early applicant pool, which translated to the acceptance rate. </p>
<p>(Which might have been why, for example, there were lower early acceptance rates at Georgetown (12.8%) and UChicago (13.8%) than there were at Harvard (18.3%) and Yale (14.4%)).</p>
<p>Right, that’s what I’m saying. I’m surprised they accept that many students in order to expect 55% of them to decline, especially in a time of increasing popularity for UofC. But perhaps this is normal/on par with other schools.</p>
<p>@magentaturtle: It’s not everyone nor is it quite so severe. In fact, pre-professional plans are very prevalent at UChicago. The important distinction is not that pre-professionalism is shunned; rather, the purpose of the education is not specifically to prepare one for professional schools. The education will never teach to the MCAT or the LSAT or any other test. The educaiton will never restrict itself to the confines of a test. However, even though the education’s goal is not to explicitly prepare you for professional studies, it still does. Sure, A’s are not guaranteed and classes may cover topics that are beyond the scope needed for certain tests. But it’s definitely prevalent (and not as disliked as you think) at UChicago. </p>
<p>Like tawarren said, “they are finding a way to let the love of knowledge coexist peacefully with pre-professional options”</p>
<p>I’m premed myself and I haven’t once gotten any ill feelings from students or professors (one even got me in touch with a physician to meet up with!)</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Yes, Chicago sends plenty of people to “Wall St.” (which doesn’t really exist anymore, but translate it as “New York Metropolitan Area professional investors and traders”).</p></li>
<li><p>The city of Chicago itself has a financial sector that is as sophisticated (sometimes more so) than New York’s. Chicago was the historical center of commodities trading and (importantly) options trading, and the whole world of derivative financial instruments basically emerged from Chicago. Chicago has aggressive and sophisticated hedge funds and private equity investors. I wouldn’t say that it is a bigger financial center than New York, but it’s a pretty clear #2.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Yes, the more I hear about why-would-I-want-to-go-to-college-just-to-prepare-for-a-job attitudes, the more they annoy me. The economy has changed a lot in the last 5 years, and a lot of people don’t have the luxury of dropping up to $250,000 on an education without putting what-comes-next front and center. And for what it’s worth, I was very much not a pre-professional. </p>
<p>But it’s a little rude to judge your classmates for pre-professionalism, just as rude as it would be for them to judge you for wanting to have a “laid-back” college experience. One of the many things I loved about UChicago was that it’s almost utopian (compared to the rest of the world) in terms of acceptance and tolerance. And that extended far beyond just religion and ethnicity: it also extended to political views and career goals. Maybe it’s because you’re all “in this together”… against the core curriculum. Marx sucks.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, academically, the school is not “laid back,” unless you don’t particularly care about having a GPA that doesn’t start with a 3.</p>
<p>As someone who was a visiting prof at UofC some years ago, and whose son graduated from UofC in 2000, I agree with those who say there’s no contradiction or conflict between thinking about, and preparing for, a future profession and thinking about, well, everything! Many UofC student are truly polymaths. They are skilled in many ways of contending, conversant with many genres, goal oriented but also introspective and open to discovering new things about themselves and everything else. And like undergraduates pretty much everywhere, they have a good chance of changing their major (concentration) more than once before they graduate. This is all to the good, from my point of view as a professor and a parent of a UofC grad (and as someone who attended a LAC). </p>
<p>When my son graduated he tried the “finance” thing (borrrring), he wasn’t interested in law, he didn’t want a PhD (more borrrring, in his opinion – you can see that he learned from me!), he took a spin at a couple of other ways of making a living, and then turned to blogging and journalism. It’s the type of continuous self-discovery, learning, and doing that starts at UofC and extends to later life. </p>
<p>If you’ve been admitted to UofC, congratulations and enjoy the ride. You don’t have to make a definitive career choice at age 18 – or 22, for that matter. With good health and decent luck, you’ve got another 60 to 70 years to negotiate career and life options. And you can change your mind, and change course, at numerous points, even if you’ve got a particular career in mind at this time.</p>
<p>I think there was no benefit to apply early to UChicago since it’s unrestrictive. Admit rate would still be similar to RD app. Does anyone know the deferral rate for Chicago? I’ve seen tons of deferred applicants in CC forums but I hardly found those rejected. Is deferral rate of Chicago unusually high compared to its peer schools?</p>