word of caution for U Chicago applicants

JHS
Wed, 30 Sep 2009 15:52:22 +0000

It bears remembering that University of Chicago admissions practice is not some time-honored classic that has been studied and understood for years. It’s a fast-moving target, and it’s probably changing as we watch.

Between the college class of 2007 (or thereabouts) and the class of 2013, the number of applications doubled, the size of the class increased by 25%, and the acceptance rate went from about 45% to 28%. When my daughter, who just graduated, applied, the EA acceptance rate was just under 50%, and that was the lowest it had been in decades at the time. In the meantime, there was a change in administration at the university and now a change in the key admissions leader.

When Chicago was accepting 40% of a smaller, less impressive applicant pool, there was a lot of room to take some chances. It was clear back then that SATs were far from the be-all and end-all of Chicago admissions, and that an interesting applicant with 1350 SATs would be accepted over a boring applicant with 1550 SATs. As of last year, I think the boring applicants were still out of the running, no matter how high their numbers. But if you are choosing among a set of really interesting, terrific applicants, and you can’t take all of them, and some of them have much higher grades and scores, and your institutional directive is to go toe-to-toe with the Big Boys . . . well, your admissions profile may look a little different than it did even a few years before. The kids who got the bulk of the attention and discussion five years ago may not even be on the table, and instead you are looking hard at the distinctions among candidates who would have been automatic, barely discussed acceptances then.

I’m not sure anyone, least of all Jim Nondorf, really has a precise idea of what University of Chicago admissions for the class of 2014 will be.