<p>The real test about what is going to happen to UChicago concerning admissions will be what happens in the next year or two. If UChicago has (as I personally believe) a continued rise in applications for the next year or two, then UChicago will be virtually unstoppable in becoming one of the top few most selective schools in the country.</p>
<p>What some people don’t realize is that UChicago is very close to making a change from ‘catching up’ to instead moving into a much more competitive ‘taking over’ position. That chart from the Duke Chronicle gives a very clear picture of this. And even now there is increased ‘chatter’ at other schools (comments in Duke’s and Penn’s and Northwestern’s papers) about what is going on at UChicago.</p>
<p>If for any reason admissions do slow in the next year or two, then it will be a longer term process (based on increases in yield rate) that will drive admit rate lower. </p>
<p>But based on the experience other schools have had about how their applicant pool grew over time (Duke, Penn, Columbia, Northwestern), I expect UChicago still has at least two years left of decent application increases before things slow down. That increase in applications alone (even with no change in yield rate) would result in significantly tighter admissions.</p>
<p>Whether it takes 2 years or 5 years, you will see UChicago breeze past Cal Tech, Penn, Duke, MIT, Brown, and Dartmouth as its admit rate drops below 9%.</p>
<p>Yes, it’s all a game and I won’t even waste time going into my theories about human intelligence, etc. But I will say it’s nice to see UChicago winning at the game, no matter how silly it may be.</p>