UChicago Reports Nation's Highest Yield Rate 87.8% for Class of 2027

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One of the things that drives high yield and that hurts U Chicago in the rankings is that they have a program called Odyssey Scholars, which is one of their crowning achievements . It is funded by U Chicago and pays 100% of financial need. They really don’t use Pell Grants, so all the Ivies which emphasize Pell Grants got 7.5% increase in the USNews score, even if the kids are only getting $1000 Chicago got close to zero for the Pell grant score because they pay financial aid privately for the $300K it costs to go to U Chicago. I’d take that any day if I needed financial aid regardless of admission round.

So because Pell is heavily weighted in this year’s US News ranking, Chicago fell. They were # 1 in small class sizes and #1 in % of teachers with advanced degrees.

This makes no sense. Any institional aid would be bumped by pell grant if eligible.

[Anonymous]

Yep. UChicago’s financial aid policy even states state and federal aid such as Pell grants are applied first before any institutional aid.

[Anonymous]

I wish it would go back to having like a 40% accept rate and get out of the rankings game. It used to be a school that you only applied to if it appealed to you. So it was a set selecting group of kids who applied. Now it’s at the silly 5% or whatever acceptance rate. Doesn’t mean the classes have gotten smarter - just that the marketing has gotten more intense. In some ways, the focus on ED goes back to this tradition of only apply if you are serious about it. The downside, of course, is for kids who cannot commit based on financial need. I agree ED heavy admits means that yield means nothing in this context.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UVA uses ED

Almost all colleges and universities do with a few exceptions.

Not true. UVA is a public. It is not common for public schools to offer ED. I think UVA, W&M, a couple SUNY schools and University of Vermont are the only public schools with ED? Maybe there are other Virginia schools? Correct me if I am wrong.

You are wrong. Also we are discussing Chicago which manages yield by having both ED1 and ED2 so the reference to UVA is irrelevant. Here’s a list of schools with ED. https://blog.prepscholar.com/early-decision-schools-and-colleges-complete-list

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UVA uses ED

Almost all colleges and universities do with a few exceptions.

Not true. UVA is a public. It is not common for public schools to offer ED. I think UVA, W&M, a couple SUNY schools and University of Vermont are the only public schools with ED? Maybe there are other Virginia schools? Correct me if I am wrong.

Virginia Tech offered ED up until this year, sadly. It's my DC's first choice and he was hoping to apply ED.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UVA uses ED

Almost all colleges and universities do with a few exceptions.

+1. What separates Chicago in its practices is that it is indeed trying to drive itself up the USNWR ratings by adopting both ED1 and ED2, and take 80% of the new class from those two groups. That practice results in enormous yield results, which is passed on to USNWR and to alumni and to media outlets as you see here. Few other schools do that. UVA had ED (just 1, not ED 2) and fills only 21 to 22 percent of its class with those ED1 candidates. UVA then has regular EA and RD. It's considered a more fair approach.

W&M has both ED 1 and ED 2.

[Anonymous]

NCS is a huge feeder school for Chicago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:By manipulating their yield numbers Uchicago reveals that it is an insecure school at best. To play in main league it needs to get rid of atleast one ED and stop playing cheap tricks.

Or maybe they don’t and they still continue to fill seats with bright students who want to be there?
Play in the main league?…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NCS is a huge feeder school for Chicago.

Haha that makes it sounds like most students are from NCS. Not possible! There may be three of four girls who go there every year but I assure you that there are thousands of students who are not female and come from all over the world too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So? Most of their students come via ED. Yield means nothing except wealthy students.

Have to agree. The others listed are far more impressive as they could easily go ED and have opted not to.

[Anonymous]

People complain that UChicago has a big yield rate only because it relies on ED, but when you look at the crazy high stats of the enrolled students, you can see that it’s a gamble. UChicago is betting that it can attract enough high stats kids to ED there, forego other options, and fill up the freshman class. Seems like the gamble pays off for UChicago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:People complain that UChicago has a big yield rate only because it relies on ED, but when you look at the crazy high stats of the enrolled students, you can see that it’s a gamble. UChicago is betting that it can attract enough high stats kids to ED there, forego other options, and fill up the freshman class. Seems like the gamble pays off for UChicago.

There are many schools that can do this but rightly choose not to, and instead let kids see multiple options before choosing. If Columbia, Duke, or Penn started doing ED2 the demand for those schools would be insane and they could fill up their entire classes with 1530+ SAT kids through 2 rounds of ED.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People complain that UChicago has a big yield rate only because it relies on ED, but when you look at the crazy high stats of the enrolled students, you can see that it’s a gamble. UChicago is betting that it can attract enough high stats kids to ED there, forego other options, and fill up the freshman class. Seems like the gamble pays off for UChicago.

There are many schools that can do this but rightly choose not to, and instead let kids see multiple options before choosing. If Columbia, Duke, or Penn started doing ED2 the demand for those schools would be insane and they could fill up their entire classes with 1530+ SAT kids through 2 rounds of ED.

True but I guess my point was a little different. The fact that a school has a high yield due to ED reliance doesn’t mean that their yield rate is falsely high. It just means that the school thinks it can lock down top-stat students. In the case of Chicago, I suspect they think an applicant will self select the school because of fit.

That’s my two cents as a private college counselor anyway. Not an insider at all.

[Anonymous]

U Chicago is prostituting itself for rankings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Schools that do two ED rounds are CMU, Johns Hopkins, Vanderbilt, WashU - Chicago belongs to this group. USNews elevated it for years but it is in no way a first choice for top students. It is good choice for private school kids who want to be at a good private but do not have the grades to get into any ivies or Duke etc.

uChicago kids have better stats than all of the Ivies. Only schools with better are CalTech and MIT

The 75% percentile SAT would be the typical stats. The usual top 5 still show higher stats.
https://opuscollegeprep.com/blog/average-sat-scores-at-50-top-us-universities/