word of caution for U Chicago applicants

ROTCherewego
Wed, 30 Sep 2009 22:36:28 +0000

I find this thread to be a wake up call. I, for one, am very thankful that the OP started this thread. My kid will apply to Chicago, but I will also look carefully into other schools with a realistic assessment on the odds. If somebody just warned me about necessary scores, GPA, the acceptance rate, etc, it would just have registered as one of the thousand items on the college application to do list - “yeah, safeties, sure check. matches, etc”.

I needed this blunt reminder based on an analysis on actual numbers. It’s so easy to get into the mind set of telling myself “my child is so smart and so special, surely they would see that in spite of scores and stats, etc”.

Nobody has put together such a clear statement about what’s really going on and why reckless optimism can do real damage when one loses a realistic perspective. It motivated me to reevaluate several options my kid has/should have.