@giantoctopus Give it your best shot. My unconnected, unhooked, upper middle class, non-legacy, white D from a good midwestern public HS got in EA. Perfect GPA, ACT and APs, but not stellar leadership, no off the charts ECs but a couple national competitions and what I believe were excellent, genuine, witty essays (her AO said her uncommon essay made him laugh out loud). She is now finishing up her first year and loves it. She even got a merit scholarship and a little bit of FA from UChicago. She would not have switched to ED2 if deferred – we were not willing to be full pay and weren’t sure she’d get any merit or need-based aid even tho UChicago was her first choice.
Good luck!! And try not to spend too much time on CC – it can warp your perceptions and stress you out! ?
This is exactly my point though. They wanted her and knew that some financial aid was needed so it would make sense that they needed to give her the EA. Not the case for a full pay student.
It was not clear to us that our D would receive any FA (on the cusp for income as far as we could tell, with above average assets) but sounds like you are in a different financial situation. UChicago is supposedly need-blind, so that shouldn’t make a difference, theoretically. This past cycle, they let deferred EAs switch to ED2, so what is there to lose in that situation, if you are willing to be full pay? Maybe I’m not understanding your question.
@Amerald - this thread has had no activity since end of May. At the risk of highjacking the answer, I’ll give you my son’s perspective from last year which is that it allowed Admissions the opportunity to meet HIM (and not just his writing and his achievements) and that it gave him a chance to highlight something that wasn’t highlighted already on the application. He already had a music supplement so didn’t “need” to do the video, but he thought it would give him one more opportunity to show them what he’s all about. And then, last year the College Confidential “Dean” made an excellent point, which is that UChicago has basically made it very easy by placing minimal specifications on it. It’s short, you don’t need some highly polished production, it’s pretty much something anyone with a smart phone or video stick can do. Given such an easy project, why wouldn’t an applicant opt to send one in? Those are just two perspectives outside of the Admissions office. Hope that helps.
MODERATOR’S NOTE:
The responses from @UChicago have been sporadic since Grace first left, and now appear to have stopped altogether. So I’m closing this thread.If another AO wants to pick it back up again, s/he can PM me and I will reopen.