<p>Loving these arguments, but definitely am intimidated by the intellectual firepower on display here.</p>
<p>Go ahead and argue guys, but please try to remember that it’s all in good fun, and this is not a huge issue. The tone of some of the remarks show a bit too much emotional involvement.</p>
<p>^ I mostly agree with you, but I must point out that if you’ve spent so much time working on the Chicago prompts, then the disparity between the EA and RD statistics shouldn’t worry you too much. Good luck!</p>
<p>interesting and concise arguments. Perhaps I finally realize what makes me nervous is not the deadline, but the wisdom I’m up against. It’s funny that some think that only their topics are worth debates, while everything else is ridiculous…</p>
<p>Three general comments about intellectual conversations that came to mind as I read through this thread:</p>
<p>(1) the ‘importance’ (or ‘seriousness’) of a topic shouldn’t change the way you respond to it. in my humble opinion, an argument should always be pursued to the best of your logical abilities and furnished with the strongest facts and opinions available to you. </p>
<p>(2) don’t feel compelled to do a point-by-point rebuttal of everything in an argument levelled against you. opinions, for the most part, don’t exist as polar opposites of each other. seeking common ground is not a sign of weakness or concession. i’d use this as a starting point for discussing intellectual partisanship but in the interest of beverity, i’ll leave it alone and hope that you get the point.</p>
<p>(3) speculation can be disguised as logic far too easily and i might say that when reasoning speculatively - for instance, when arguing about the role of EA vs. RD - there is only a greater need for logic in order to convince your reader. that said, don’t try and pass off such speculation as the gospel truth. </p>
<p>Anyway, if anyone’s interested in the EA vs. ED vs. RD debate, a good idea is to research past statements directly from the admissions offices at the colleges of your choice and to consider looking into the book The Early Admissions Game. In 2009, my involvement with issues of college admissions deepened into an academic interest and in the process of research, I find that the question of early admissions is fascinating in several ways (my personal interest was in its socioeconomic aspects). While it’s not a truism that admissions prospects are the same (qualitatively speaking) in all pools, I personally subscribe to this view and it has often been repeated by admissions officers at renowned institutions that continue to offer the option of early admissions. While I will not coerce anyone to accept it, I must ask you not to dismiss it without overwhelming evidence to the contrary. If you’re a prospective applicant deciding if you should apply early, I’d advise you to remove chances of admission (statistical or otherwise) from your decision-making process.</p>
<p>Ok, very very short reply this time, because I’m sleepy. </p>
<p>If Chicago is your first choice and you applied RD, then you must have had reason to do that. However, all I’m saying is that chances are the reason you felt “you would put together a better application for RD” is probably the result of your actions, not the university’s. Continuing with the “fact” that your RD application is better than you hypothetical EA application, you ought to have a better chance in the RD round since you, logically, put together a better application. Since UChicago doesn’t necessarily look at your application versus someone else’s application, you will probably have a better chance of admittance, and there is nothing to really complain about. </p>
<p>Why I applied to so many schools. Well, I applied to 7 schools. 4 EA, 3RD. I was accepted to 3 of my EA schools and deferred from one. But you are right, applying EA does not mean it is my first choice, and applying RD does not mean it is NOT my first choice. I applied to 4 EA because my top two schools were both EA (convenient), and I decided why NOT apply to the other two schools. I would get a reply early, and at worst, get two reviews (b/c I knew I wouldn’t get denied). So I did, The reason I applied to RD schools is simple: money. I didn’t know if I’d be able to go to Chicago if I got in, so I decided to play the field. I’m still not settled on Chicago because of money. And honestly, I’d rather be in someone else’s position of not attending Chicago because I wasn’t admitted instead of not attending because I didn’t have the money.</p>
<p>I fail to see how this debate has become ‘emotionally-charged’ in any way shape or form. If I’m the one who seems to come across as ‘emotionally-charged’ then, I’m sorry, that’s just the way I debate (a bad way, yes, but whatever). I just make wry (I guess, can’t think of a better term) remarks and, if this were real life, you would be able to tell where I’m being sarcastic (usually at the beginning of my speeches or whatever).</p>
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<p>No I don’t do forensics if that’s what you mean. The closest thing that I do to that is Model UN (the two clubs are basically combined at my school). </p>
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<p>Nice of you to read the posts in this thread dawncoming. Oh, wait.</p>
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<p>What isn’t ‘that serious?’ Who is to say what is ‘serious?’ It’s this exact attitude, the attitude that some things are ‘off-limits’ for debate and that most debate is ‘meaningless,’ that has led to deplorable level of political discourse in the United States (and, for that matter, the rest of the world). </p>
<p>Now, a debate is a debate is a debate. Any debate, no matter how useless you may view it, is useful. A debate with any two apt debaters allows the two debaters to strengthen their logical reasoning capabilities, and, even though the end-result of the debate may not be conducive to any tangible benefits, the strengthening of the debaters’ logical reasoning capabilities allows them to better tackle more complicated and more relevant issues. As well, the way that they approach a certain issue can be carried over to another issue. Even though the nature of the two issues may vastly differ, they may be able to, perhaps, look at the issue from another point of view, one more conducive to an apt resolution to the issue (or explanation of the phenomena, whatever the case may be). I hope that from what I have said you can understand what I am attempting to say because I don’t feel as though I can wholly explain it online.</p>
<p>As well, any issue is of relevance. Any ‘issue’ that is being debated is one that, in one shape or another, arises from our interaction with the world. Before you dispute this, remember that everything that we surmise has some grounding (however vague) in our experiences with the world since we simply cannot make up something without that thing being somewhat grounded in reality because the foundations for our knowledge are constrained by our experiences. Now, with that given, anything that we conclude from a debate must have some connection to the world and hence the conclusion to any debate will help us view the world more clearly. Fine, you may dispute that (I wanna expand on it but I’m feeling a tad too lazy right now to do that), but let me continue and perhaps my next point will be more agreeable. Given that, in this thread, we are attempting to rationalize some aspects of the college admissions process and attempting to understand the nature of the office of admissions at the University of Chicago, this issue is wholly of relevance. For some reason, Hegel’s claims of the role of political philosophy keep coming to my mind when I think of this debate: “Political philosophy may try to calm our frustration and rage against our society and its history by showing us the way in which its institutions, when properly understood, from a philosophical point of view are rational, and developed over time as they did to their present, rational form. When political philosophy acts in this role, it must guard against the danger of being simply a defense of an unjust and unworthy status quo. This would it an ideology in Marx’s sense (that’s from one of Rawls’ books so blame him if you disagree that that was one of Hegel’s claims :)).” When one translates that to the situation we see here: the purpose of our debate is to attempt to rationalize the admissions process at the University of Chicago and to see how it came about (and functions) in a wholly rational manner. If we can adequately understand the actions done by the University and can understand the nature of the admissions officers at the University of Chicago then perhaps we can better rationalize the seemingly arbitrary nature of the admissions process. Perhaps, instead of being enraged when we get rejected, we can, by virtue of rationalizing the actions of the admissions officers, understand why it is that we didn’t get admitted (even if we don’t know the exact reasoning why we, specifically, didn’t get admitted) and simply move on with our lives instead of blaming affirmative action or some other idiotic reasoning for why we didn’t get admitted. Given that we are attempting to understand the nature of the admissions officers, we can then, hopefully, be able to somewhat accurately predict when the admissions decisions will be released (given other compiled data). I realize that I have been ambiguous in some of my claims here but, again, I hope that one can understand the general gist of what I’m trying to say and can fill in the details (and the connections between points) where necessary. Also, I have a feeling that some of the above was unintelligible so I apologize in advance for that.</p>
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<p>Physicists then must be unnecessary and ‘futile’, then, because everything that they observe is 100% out of their control and they have no legitimate reasoning to believe that they can predict will happen what is going to happen (aka the problem of induction). Economists also can only assume that certain changes in interest rate, price level, etc. will necessarily lead to their intended consequences in the real world because the actions of real people are wholly out of their control. That, however, doesn’t mean that their policy recommendations are useless if there is enough analysis and empirical data behind their recommendations. However, my comparisons may not be wholly apt ones as the situations are different than the one in question. Nonetheless, speculation isn’t meant to change the release time; it is meant to accomplish other ends that are desirable and useful to some (though not to others). Sorry if that doesn’t answer your point but there’s a good chance I misunderstood this “When something is useful, it accomplishes a task whose completion was intended.”</p>
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<p>No, this is not necessarily true. At the surface of it, I would only be disliking the actions of certain individuals in the university; not the university itself (as well, you seem to be assuming that people are defined by their actions, something that is debatable - but let’s not debate it here). As well, you’re assuming that the current set of admissions officers are the ones who would lead to the ideal admits and the ideal rejects, which isn’t testable and is not true by logical necessity. I don’t particularly feel like typing out a long response to that at the moment but, while there are some defects in it, very good point.</p>
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<p>Read some of the articles or w/e on the MIT admissions blog about the admissions process and you’ll get a picture of whether they ‘want’ those that they reject (to some extent).</p>
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<p>I don’t see how life can be intrinsically ‘unfair.’ Perhaps you only think that it is unfair because the only moments that you take notice of are those moments and actions that are unfair, but, since ‘fair’ moments are so common, you don’t even take note of them. There is an extremely large number of things that are done by humanity and I only hear a few (relative to the number of things done) that are deemed as being ‘unfair.’ As well, a strict interpretation of the statement that ‘life is unfair’ is disproved by the experiencing of a situation/action that demonstrates fairness in a life since if life is, by definition, unfair, then there ought to be no situations where it is fair (since you didn’t define what an ‘unfair’ action is, this would have to be relative to whatever definition you were assigning to an ‘unfair’ action which, after yet another debate we could have, may not be an apt definition of an ‘unfair’ action). Basically, I’m pretty sure what you meant to say is that at times the life of a human being can be seen as unfair relative to the point of view of that human being and that unfairness is something that is inevitable (though, so I would argue, any perceived unfairness perhaps may be skewed by one’s subjective preferences and, even if it is not, then unfairness may not be existing by logical necessity and is simply a contingency). Or, am I wrong about that? For some reason, it reminds me of when people say that it’s only human nature to go to war with each other. Then I ask them if they would go to war with another nation if they had the means necessary to adequately do so and, when they say no, I just say then either you’re not human or it’s not a part of human nature. Yea, not that in-depth reasoning but whatever lol.</p>
<p>Anyways, the statement that ‘life is fair, therefore you ought to stop complaining’ needs to take heed of Hume’s is-ought problem. While the problem, some could say, only holds true under Hume’s erroneous view of metaphysics, I fail to see how, in this case especially, because something is, it necessarily ought to be. So, we are perfectly justified in complaining about whatever it is that we observe about the UChicago admissions process/office.</p>
<p>It’s just light-hearted debate. There is very little emotion in what we are doing, especially anxiety or nervousness. It is essentially arguing for the sake of arguing, which is certainly not always a bad thing. Motion is quite correct in that arguing is a good way to build logical thinking abilities.</p>
<p>Anyhow, Motion, I’d like to read/argue against some of the responses you’ve made against what I said, but unfortunately I do not have the time tonight. Perhaps some other time.</p>
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<li><p>a debate is a debate is a debate and having been a debater for six years, i can respect your compulsion to carry an argument to its logical extremes. that said, please try and respond with brevity and clarity. at the moment, your arguments are prohibitively long-winded. engaging in a argument is not a license for intellectual masturbation (e.g. name-dropping Marx, Hegel and Rawls in the middle of a digression in post #89). </p></li>
<li><p>and seriously, please read what i mentioned earlier about point-by-point rebuttals. there’s no need for you to oppose every point for the sake of it! i couldn’t help laughing a little when i read your ‘rebuttal’ against “life is unfair”. you’re obviously well versed in dead white men but there’s no need to assume that a majority of HS students (even the ones on this forum) have read major works of philosophy or even if we have, that our belief systems are based upon them. this is especially true when neogop (or whoever it was) told you “life is unfair” in an attempt to placate you and you responded, in essence, with:</p></li>
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<p>No, what he/she meant to say was that life is unfair in the colloquial sense of it. The way normal people understand it.</p>
<p>It wasn’t ‘name-dropping.’ I only used Hegel’s view on the role of political philosophy and, since I’m not extremely well acquainted with Hegel’s works, I quoted a few sentences from Rawls’ Lectures on the History of Political Philosophy that happened to reference Marx and briefly described Hegel’s claims about the role of political philosophy. The purpose of that was made apparent, I think, but the purpose of that reference was to juxtapose it with the debate that was occurring in this thread. Also, I don’t think that my posts were that long relative to the subject-matter that they were meant to cover. Granted, they probably could have been shorter but I tend to attempt to not make the same mistake that I did with my extended UChicago essay in EA - better to be a little long-winded than truncated to the point where the original intent of the writing is lost.</p>
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<p>I did read what you wrote, and all I gotta say is that doing a point-by-point rebuttal is funner :).</p>
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<p>Was that supposed to be some sort of jab at Western culture or am I just inferring way too much here?</p>
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<p>I couldn’t help laughing when I wrote it :P.</p>
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<p>I never understood what it meant when people said it…what’s the actual statement that that’s supposed to be representing? That the world isn’t perfect?</p>
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<p>Just thought that I’d point out that if one believes something then that’s simply the equivalent of saying that there is no objective truth on the matter - something that I’m meh about at the moment (which, paradoxically enough, is something akin to a belief). For some reason, writing that last part in parenthesis reminds me of part of my UMich Honors essay (pretty simple, but I just noted the circularity involved in claiming that one knows what knowing something means - if you say that you know what it means to know something then you have presupposed what it means to know something in your definition of knowing something and therefore have begged the question - just something interesting to think about…I guess.).</p>
<p>Don’t mean to offend anyone, but I’m getting more relieved about the prospect of getting a rejection in maybe just a day or two…since it doesn’t feel like the most comfortable idea to be around some potential futures classmates of mine anyways…just some honest thoughts here.</p>
<p>UChicago hasn’t released all FA/scholarship info to EA applicants, right? Perhaps it’s a bit awful of me to think this, but isn’t there a good chance that a not-small portion of EA admits walk away when they learn Chicago won’t give as much as they’d like?</p>
<p>This being based on Chicago’s [perhaps not wholly deserved] rep for not being great with aid + current economic…malaise.</p>
I didn’t know it was something people was going to get emotional over.</p>