<p>Uchicago won’t be switching to ED anytime soon; Nondorf knows that it’s not the best option for the University. Basically, there are very few positives for such a move and very many negatives. Some of the negatives:
- Fewer applicants. Obviously not the best idea when the University is trying to increase its name recognition.
- Admission rate would at best stay the same, but likely be negatively affected years after the decision to move to ED. This would be in part due to declining applications and the resulting decrease in name recognition.
- ED is for schools that can’t compete with their peers. Northwestern has admitted increasingly many ED students (in the hundreds) in the past 3-4 years to decrease its admit rate by artificially increasing yield. As a result, Northwestern’s class statistics (SATs et al.) have substantially decreased and they’re likely sitting on one of their worst classes in the last 10 years.</p>
<p>UChicago doesn’t need ED, and it seems that the author’s reasoning is: “we’re butthurt that people choose other schools over Chicago, so instead of actually thinking out what would be best for the university, let’s make an emotional judgment to artificially decrease the students who would pick any other university over us.” </p>
<p>Fortunately, Nondorf knows what he’s doing and won’t implement a policy. You want to increase yield? Provide better financial aid, and that’s exactly what we’re trying to do. The reason yield has been slow to move upwards is because we’re admitting more qualified classes. If the authors would have taken the time to look at the data, Chicago’s SATs and HS top-10% figure have increased rapidly over the past 2 years. Obviously, the better students you admit, the fewer of them you’ll win over, so it’s very impressive that yield has steadily risen while class statistics rise as opposed to the case of say, Northwestern, where the class statistics have significantly fallen as a sacrifice for a higher yield.</p>