Chicago's new Provisional Acceptance program

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is a poster (or posters) on there who now call anyone who posts about Chicago admissions practices as a "Chicago hater."

None of us hate Chicago. The simply do a lot of things with admissions that are not done by other top20 schools:

-ED0
-practice of regularly taking middle-of-the-pack kids who apply ED from some private high schools
-new guaranteed transfer program (which has been done for years by Cornell)

ED0 was not middle of the pack kids. Where do you get this information?

You didn't read my post correctly. I did not say that ED0 is always middle-of-the-pack kids.
What I said is that one of Chicago's admissions idiosyncrasies (of the 3 I listed) is to regularly take middle-of-the-pack kids from SOME top private high schools if the kids apply ED1 or ED2. There are a few of these schools DMV (Sidwell, STA, NCS, Potomac) where this is the case. This is not to say that every kid who goes to Chicago from these school is middle-of-the-pack as some are very top kids who choose Chicago. But they will also very regularly take kids who are surprisingly not near the top of the class if they apply early. None of the other top20 colleges do this and it's well known within these highschool communities.

Please, don't let yourself off the hook because you threw in the word SOME. Your snark is evident.

[Anonymous]

Penn already took at least 7 from HW, are you telling me they are all in the top 10%?? Please, give me a break here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Duke has ED and RD.
Princeton has single-choice early action and RD.

Chicago has SSEN or ED0, ED1, EA, ED2, RD and now provisional acceptance. Is it all just a game to them?

Yes, it's game theory, don't hate the players, hate the game (admissions process). For the home of Economics, this is what they do, I admire it, super smart to match university/student. This is an intellectual approach of matching, from one of the most intellectual places. For those that don't know, game theory is the mathematical study of strategic interactions between rational decision-makers. This is what every college should be doing. They are just outsmarting you lol

You don't know what game theory is, do you?

The problem is that Chicago is not transparent, esp. re EA (which has an acceptance rate near 0% and is merely a mechanism to get more applications/ try to get those students to switch to ED 2.

It's the lack of transparency that people (ok, me) resent.

PP isn't entirely wrong. UChicago is just playing the hand it was dealt with; they would lose kids to top Ivys if competing for them without these tactics. They have to use gamesmanship to get as many full pay, smart kids through the door as possible, which they appear to be doing successfully. And none of this detracts from the fact that the school is truly a great research university. If anything, their strategy will likely pay dividend with a robust alumni base in the future. Also, having a school where the admissions outcome for a bright, high stat kid is more predictable than some isn't a bad thing. With so much criticism lobbed at UChicago, perhaps its worth scrutinizing others as well.

I fully agree with you. Always surprised how the same people who dump on UChicago have no issues with Princeton and Brown accepting athletes with 1200 SAT scores (yes, you can see that on Scoir!).

There is a vast difference between accepting a few athletic recruits with low test scores and U Chicago accepting so many students ED that they have the highest yield in the USA. Do you really think that U Chicago attracts more fervent admirers than HYPS or is U Chicago just taking advantage of nervous students who want to get in “somewhere good” and are willing to give up their choices for a large admissions preference from Chicago

Well that’s cute that you believe it’s just a few athletes with low test scores. Many of the top schools fill more than 3/4 of the class with their priority candidates - VIPs, athletes, legacies, etc. As for taking advantage of kids? Stop with the victim mentality. These are mostly well off kids with high stats and with the ability to decide how to play the game. You can’t whine just because one school thinks the applicants shouldn’t hold all the cards. What Chicago clearly wants is a match - they want you to want them and vice versa. Medical residency programs for example also do a variation of this. And lastly, Chicago is not just “somewhere good” - it’s somewhere great. All the belly aching about one school using a different strategy for admissions is ridiculous. Move on. Or go complain about Yale admissions with its love for field hockey and lacrosse recruits or Duke with it legacy ones. Spread the whine elsewhere.

THIS. There is someone obsessed with UChicago on this forum, maybe their child was rejected? I have no idea why someone would be so invested in being negative about one school.

Why would you think it’s only one person? Do you feel like you have some magic ability to see who is posting? I never posted about U Chicago before but I posted about this. I think their ED focus is disturbing and I have family who went there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The Price of Admission is a 2005 investigative book by Pulitzer winner Daniel Golden, revealing how wealth, connections, and privilege secure spots at elite universities like Harvard, Brown, Notre Dame, and Duke (as detailed in the Project MUSE snippet). It's not a textbook but a critical look at admissions favoring legacies, donors, and the well-connected, exposing the myth of pure meritocracy in America's top schools, including unfair practices against Asian Americans.

20 years ago is way outdated….

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Price of Admission is a 2005 investigative book by Pulitzer winner Daniel Golden, revealing how wealth, connections, and privilege secure spots at elite universities like Harvard, Brown, Notre Dame, and Duke (as detailed in the Project MUSE snippet). It's not a textbook but a critical look at admissions favoring legacies, donors, and the well-connected, exposing the myth of pure meritocracy in America's top schools, including unfair practices against Asian Americans.

20 years ago is way outdated….

It's sweetly naive that you think things are different now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Price of Admission is a 2005 investigative book by Pulitzer winner Daniel Golden, revealing how wealth, connections, and privilege secure spots at elite universities like Harvard, Brown, Notre Dame, and Duke (as detailed in the Project MUSE snippet). It's not a textbook but a critical look at admissions favoring legacies, donors, and the well-connected, exposing the myth of pure meritocracy in America's top schools, including unfair practices against Asian Americans.

20 years ago is way outdated….

It's sweetly naive that you think things are different now.

Anyone who thinks admissions have not changed drastically in the last 5 years - let alone 20 - is a naïf.

[Anonymous]

Chicago openly games admissions. What exactly are people arguing about here? That Duke and Penn employ similar tactics?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Chicago openly games admissions. What exactly are people arguing about here? That Duke and Penn employ similar tactics?

Maybe what comes next? ED0, ED1, ED2, ED3 (waitlist), the ole EA to ED2 bait and switch, and now provisional acceptances. No school offers all of these.

How about junior year pre-reads like are given for athletes, but for academic admits? ED admits in spring of junior year? What other ideas are percolating in the lovely south side of Chicago? Surely other ideas are being tossed around…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Price of Admission is a 2005 investigative book by Pulitzer winner Daniel Golden, revealing how wealth, connections, and privilege secure spots at elite universities like Harvard, Brown, Notre Dame, and Duke (as detailed in the Project MUSE snippet). It's not a textbook but a critical look at admissions favoring legacies, donors, and the well-connected, exposing the myth of pure meritocracy in America's top schools, including unfair practices against Asian Americans.

20 years ago is way outdated….

Nothing's changed here, has it except DEI??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Chicago openly games admissions. What exactly are people arguing about here? That Duke and Penn employ similar tactics?

Yes, duh

[Anonymous]

Cornell has been doing this forever. My brother got in off the waitlist in the early 2000s for a spring start, fall semester at Rutgers. This is not new.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Chicago openly games admissions. What exactly are people arguing about here? That Duke and Penn employ similar tactics?

Maybe what comes next? ED0, ED1, ED2, ED3 (waitlist), the ole EA to ED2 bait and switch, and now provisional acceptances. No school offers all of these.

How about junior year pre-reads like are given for athletes, but for academic admits? ED admits in spring of junior year? What other ideas are percolating in the lovely south side of Chicago? Surely other ideas are being tossed around…

What advice would you give to Chicago AOs? Maybe a ED0 transfer for freshman? February program? Chicago London first year?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Price of Admission is a 2005 investigative book by Pulitzer winner Daniel Golden, revealing how wealth, connections, and privilege secure spots at elite universities like Harvard, Brown, Notre Dame, and Duke (as detailed in the Project MUSE snippet). It's not a textbook but a critical look at admissions favoring legacies, donors, and the well-connected, exposing the myth of pure meritocracy in America's top schools, including unfair practices against Asian Americans.

20 years ago is way outdated….

Nothing's changed here, has it except DEI??

Just one example: think non-major donor legacy is even a hook anymore at top schools?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Chicago openly games admissions. What exactly are people arguing about here? That Duke and Penn employ similar tactics?

Maybe what comes next? ED0, ED1, ED2, ED3 (waitlist), the ole EA to ED2 bait and switch, and now provisional acceptances. No school offers all of these.

How about junior year pre-reads like are given for athletes, but for academic admits? ED admits in spring of junior year? What other ideas are percolating in the lovely south side of Chicago? Surely other ideas are being tossed around…

Chicago Hater anger is so intense! I wonder what would happen if they stopped all forms of ED. Would they simply not fill the seats?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Chicago openly games admissions. What exactly are people arguing about here? That Duke and Penn employ similar tactics?

Maybe what comes next? ED0, ED1, ED2, ED3 (waitlist), the ole EA to ED2 bait and switch, and now provisional acceptances. No school offers all of these.

How about junior year pre-reads like are given for athletes, but for academic admits? ED admits in spring of junior year? What other ideas are percolating in the lovely south side of Chicago? Surely other ideas are being tossed around…

Chicago Hater anger is so intense! I wonder what would happen if they stopped all forms of ED. Would they simply not fill the seats?

Yes, and this is much, much worse than Vandy's NYC campus, or Columbia's General Studies, or Middlebury's spring start, uh huh. Agree, this is Cornell's bread and butter, they finagle every type of "start" you can imagine, except abroad. Are you telling me Jennifer Garner's daughter cracked a 1550 on the SAT to earn her seat at Yale, like the fake North Dakotian they let in? Let's get real.