University of Chicago

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Pretty impressive how UChicago managed to shoot through the rankings in the last 20 years. It used to be a no name school except for Economics. I doubt anything has changed except for the public perception.

That’s just silly.

Why is it silly? Some schools including Chicago are really good at branding and gaming the rankings. Doesn’t mean Chicago is not a good school. Although it is most likely overhyped

That article from a few years back is still true. The school aggressively markets to ystudents they would never accept. 1260 SAT & 990 PSAT for example. By aggressive I mean multiple mailings, emails and in case of the 1260, a phone call along to encourage the application. DC goes to a predominantly white very average school with local college educated parents. No hooks among most of them but Chicago has been here marketing hard. Some families fell for it and applied. All rejected last year and I expect the same for this year. It's disingenuous and yes, they game their selectivity in a dishonest way.

I got an SAT score of 1260, got accepted to UofC and attended for undergrad. That was in the 90s, so maybe SAT scores skewed lower in those days. But 1260 SAT score is not unheard of!

UChicago had above 50% acceptance rate in the 90s. In 2005 the acceptance rate was 40%.

This is what I meant. It was always a good school but nothing exceptional. It was always known for its graduate Economics program. What changed to make it so much more selective? Is it just branding or were there structural changes? Obviously they attract a higher level of student now due to its ranking.

Just that more kids are applying to college nowadays, plus the common app. Chicago used to have an "uncommon" app like Georgetown, which probably accounted for the lower number of applicants.

Not “probably”; definitely. The uncommon app + their quirky essay questions were meant to screen out kids who didn’t understand what the school was all about.