UChicago plans to expand by 23% in its undergraduate enrollment
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
My cat uses the litter box to relieve herself. Value added from our comments: 0 |
Anonymous
| Future applicants should know that the University plans a further expansion from around 7,486 students to 9,218 and has simultaneously announced an intent to hold the number of research faculty constant. Perhaps we can drive the cost of educating students below 10 percent? Perhaps that is what the president and provost and dean mean when they say that we need to position ourselves as leaders in the field. |
Anonymous
Yale increased class size by 100 kids per year, starting a couple years ago. Aim was to do it for 4 years, 400 total. After those 4 years, undergrad will be 6600 kids. This isn't the first time they've added students. Last time was when they build two entirely new residential colleges. They increased by about 500 kids then. About 25 years ago, Yale enrolled 5500 kids. A couple years from now it will be 6600 I'm pretty sure UChicago enrollment size over the last 25 years doesn't resemble what Yale is doing ie building new infrastructure, hiring staff, adding 20%. Hasn't it tripled in size? |
Anonymous
UChicago has built new infrastructure: North in 2016 and Woodlawn in 2020, which are 2 residential commons with respective dining halls attached. Together, they can accommodate 2,100 students. UChicago has also increased its faculty size significantly: tenure-track faculty have grown by more than 20% over the past 10 years alone. This aggressive hiring is a partial contributor to their current debt and deficit. So to say UChicago isn't growing isn't only misinformed, it's actually the complete opposite of what has happened: they have grown so large so quickly that their debt and deficits have skyrocketed. This is why they have shifted to rely on ED and admit many elite private school kids, which many on this board seem to dislike. Here's why this is a smart move: 1. They know the elite private school graduates they deem a 'fit' with UChicago will come to campus prepared. There's little to no academic risk involved. 2. The elite private school graduates will bring their extensive networks with them to campus and will likely go on to have lucrative careers, boosting donation revenue. 3. Most families at elite private schools are full-pay, so UChicago can still have a need-blind admissions process but take reliable bets that the elite private school kids they admit will be full-pay. 4. Taking ~70% of their class through binding ED rounds means that they have a picture of their financials far earlier than other schools. This leaves little room for guesswork and more time to address gaps and ensure that their financial aid picture meets institutional goals. |
Anonymous
| They've tripled the size of their college and staff in the last 25 years? To match the tripled enrollment? I know the dorms. But the libraries, classrooms, cafes, locker rooms? Triplex the sections of organic chem and behavioral Econ? Tripled the languages and healthcare appointments? |
Anonymous
You're demanding a lot of information, so I had Gemini summarize it. Next time just do that first, but you can't seem to figure out how to reply to people on here, so I figure you're not good with tech. Scaling Academic and Student Life To prevent overcrowding and maintain its academic rigor, the university has undergone one of the most aggressive physical expansions in its history: Instructional Spaces: The university has added roughly 16 million square feet of building space across 217 acres. Major academic hubs like the Gordon Center for Integrative Science and the William Eckhardt Research Center were built to handle the surge in STEM demand, including expanded lab space for Organic Chemistry and new research initiatives. Libraries and Study Areas: The Joe and Rika Mansueto Library, completed in 2011, added high-capacity automated storage and a massive glass-domed reading room. Other facilities, like the John Crerar Library, have been fully renovated to include a cafe and the Center for Data and Computing to serve growing departments like Computer Science. Student Services and Health: Healthcare capacity has expanded via the Student Wellness Center, which moved into a larger, consolidated facility in 2021 to provide more exam rooms and counseling space for the larger student body. Athletics and Locker Rooms: Facilities like the Gerald Ratner Athletics Center (opened 2003) were specifically designed to provide modernized fitness, locker, and competition space that the older Henry Crown Field House could no longer sustain at higher enrollment levels. Course Capacity Management The university manages the "tripling" of demand for popular subjects like Economics and Behavioral Economics through a few key strategies: Section Scaling: Rather than just making lectures bigger, the university maintains a 5:1 student-to-faculty ratio by hiring more lecturers and teaching fellows. Curriculum Reform: In 1999, the university reduced the number of mandatory "Core" courses to give students more room in their schedules, which eased the "bottleneck" effect on the most popular introductory sections. |
Anonymous
|
We complain if our special snowflake is rejected from highly rejective colleges. Then we complain when a highly rejective college opens up more seats.
|
Anonymous
OP is Emory mom so this is nothing new. She does the same with WashU. A sad, miserable life. |
Anonymous
I didn't realize they already had been increasing undergrad #s so much pre-pandemic, and now another 1500-2000 students is another big jump. |
Anonymous
|
It would have made more sense to scale up the number of students over the past 4-5 years when there were record numbers of grads applying and competing against each other, seems weird to add 2000 more spots during the so-called "enrollment cliff" following the lower birth years of 2008-2011.
Weird time to have so many spaces. Oh well it will be a lot easier for students during next 1-3 years to get a spot into UChicago. |
Anonymous
Not weird for UChicago. Elite schools don’t have an enrollment cliff, more typical schools do. |
Anonymous
Remind us again why they have 3 ED rounds unlike any other elite school? |
Anonymous
NP. What's wrong with having 3 ED rounds? There is nothing wrong with BMW X5 SUVs having unique M-tuned engines and suspensions unlike any other fancy SUV. It's a design feature, and so is UChicago's 3 ED rounds. |
Anonymous
Yeah but PP is stupid and bases whether a school is elite on admission rounds rather than program options, professor quality, academic reputation, etc. |
Anonymous
The correct terms for UChicago are: ED0 is the summer before HS senior year ED00 is fall of HS junior year ED000 is fall of HS sophomore year ED000 is fall of HS freshman year |