The University of Chicago has been shaking up their admissions policies as of late, and it seems they have a new path to admission. This summer, UChicago added what we’ve been calling an ED0 option (more on that later), and recently, we became aware of UChicago offering students who applied ED and ED2 a provisional transfer option. If this sounds familiar to you, you’re probably aware of the Cornell Transfer Option. So what does this mean for you, the applicant, and what do these changes mean for UChicago as a whole?

When we first heard this news, our instinct told us to check the Common Data Set. Maybe UChicago is having retention issues, issues with their yield rate, or less students are applying than in previous years. But that’s not what we learned – at all.

UChicago has the highest yield rate out of the Ivy+ category (Ivies plus Stanford, UChicago, MIT, and Duke), and one of the highest retention rates. So what gives? Why are they offering a guaranteed transfer option if they’re not having issues with these data points?

Cornell offers the Cornell Transfer Option for a few reasons. For the optimists among us, we do think some of it comes from a sincere desire to increase accessibility. The CTO is offered to students applying to CLAS – the school that contains the agriculture programs – and they probably are aware of the fact that a lot of deserving students who are interested in agriculture might be from more disadvantaged, rural schools. This gives them the chance to improve their grades, build skills, and come to their campus ready to succeed. For the pragmatists, it’s also probably an attempt to increase the number of applicants, and therefore, decrease their acceptance rate – making them look more exclusive. As you can see, Cornell has the highest number of applicants out of the Ivy+ crowd.

UChicago does not have the lowest amount of applicants, by far – that’s taken by Dartmouth and MIT with 28k. But UChicago is 3rd least. MIT and UChicago are definitely, how should we say this, acquired tastes. Students who are drawn to these schools are drawn to them, and they are looking for particular students who fit their mold. But, UChicago probably wants to be even more selective – they want admissions numbers that rival Harvard and Stanford, so this could be an attempt at increasing the number of applications, like Cornell. But, there is no information about this type of admissions decision on their website. The only thing we found about it was a few Reddit posts. So that’s probably not it.

Their high yield rate and retention rate also shows that kids who get into UChicago are excited about it and want to stay there. So it’s not like a lot of kids are leaving UChicago, therefore leaving space for transfer students to come in droves.

Changes at UChicago

UChicago recently announced an expedited Early Decision plan, offered only to students who have taken any kind of UChicago program over the summer or school year. If you are interested in attending UChicago, we recommend you enroll in one of these – stat. This change seems like an attempt to court more applicants, but it also seems like an attempt to bring in more kids who are really excited about, and have already shown significant interest in, UChicago.

This transfer option might reveal more about changes within the culture at UChicago. A ton of applicants and enrolled students at UChicago are interested in Econ – this isn’t entirely uncalled for, it is the birthplace of modern economics – but that could also mean the school isn’t attracting as academically diverse of an applicant pool as they want. From our experience and the small amount of info we found on this, the kids being offered the transfer option are not Econ hopefuls. We could be wrong, but this may be an attempt to increase some intellectual curiosity and break up the monopoly Econ seems to have on their students.

Is That It?

Look, let’s be honest with each other. At the end of the day, we think that this is mostly a financial decision on UChicago’s part. Just like Cornell, there may be some altruistic reasons for offering this, but they’re probably doing it to increase some stat or number for them. @UChicago, please reach out to us and let us know!

The students who are being offered this decision are, most likely, not seeking financial aid. They know these ED and ED2 students are really excited about UChicago and they probably think offering them this transfer option is a surefire way to get them to eventually apply and enroll. And since UChicago comes out to around 90k a year, that’s not chump change.

We’re not trying to be pessimistic or cynical about this, at all. We think this is a little odd of UChicago, but it also means they’ve added another avenue to admissions. They already offer this ED0 option, standard ED, ED II, EA, and regular decision. UChicago wants UChicago kids to apply. This is just another way for you to get into a school you’re excited about.

If you were offered this provisional transfer offer from UChicago, reach out to us! We want to hear more about your profile and we want to help you strategize your freshman year so you can make sure you lock down that transfer.