HOW UCHICAGO’S CLASS OF 2025 NAVIGATED AN UNPRECEDENTED APPLICATION CYCLE

MICHAEL McCLURE

news reporter

Like the thousands who come each year to see the University of Chicago’s Gothic architecture, famed libraries, and arboreal landscapes, Natalie Larsen remembers being enraptured by her campus visit last March.

“I had the most amazing visit. I got to meet with students, and I went on the tour, and I just absolutely loved everything about it.” she said. “Visiting was definitely a huge factor in feeling like it was a community where I wanted to be.”

Larsen never had the opportunity to visit another college campus. Just a couple of days later, schools around the country closed as COVID-19 relentlessly marched across the globe. Meanwhile, at UChicago, classrooms emptied as students adapted to the virtual model. Those with hopes of becoming the College’s newest members were left on the outside looking in.

For members of the Class of 2025, the process of applying to UChicago has looked radically different due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In the eight months between the onset of the pandemic and the submission of their early applications, these students became guinea pigs for an admissions season like no other.

Summer opportunities, like pre-college programs, camps, and internships, were especially affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. While these offerings would normally provide fodder for an application essay, a few lines on a résumé, or simply good memories, they looked much different last summer—and in some cases, nonexistent.

Both of Larsen’s summer activities, an Arabic-language immersion program and an offshore-drilling internship, were cancelled. “That was my whole summer that I didn’t have anymore,” she said. “But I did some virtual things. I started learning Arabic on my own, and I picked up other hobbies.”

“This year... a very small percentage of people know where they’re going at this point.”

Another challenge for applicants has been the increased competitiveness of college admissions this year. Many of the country’s top universities have reported an applicant pool that grew by more than 20 percent compared to last year.

At St. John’s School, the private K-12 school in Houston where Larsen attends, a lower rate of early acceptances proved demoralizing to seniors.

“There’s been a lot of stress,” she said. “When we sa w the statistics and stuff, it was kind of crazy. Because usually at our school, the majority of our kids go early to places, but this year…a very small percentage of people know where they’re going at this point.”

The spike in competitiveness is also being driven by the number of students who graduated high school in 2020 but who decided to take a gap year because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Some of those students opted to apply to college this year, concurrently with this year’s seniors, which increased the size of the Class of 2025 applicant pool.

Those who applied and received admission to UChicago, however, found themselves drawn to the school by the same combination of quirk and rigor as previous generations of Maroons.

UChicago professors hosted a variety of model classes over Zoom, giving applicants a sense of the classes and academic opportunities awaiting them. In previous years, these classes would be geared towards admitted students, but opening them up to prospective students meant that they enticed people to apply in the first place. “[UChicago] already was first on my list…but then I attended the virtual classes, and I was like, I really want to go there. Those were super, super interesting,” Early Decision I applicant Emmett Reid said.

This article can be read in its entirety on chicagomaroon.com.