Did the Dean of Admissions cross boundaries or I'm too strict?

DonnaL · January 4, 2010, 5:34pm

As I willingly acknowledged, epiphany, my son was lucky. I have no personal or emotional investment in arguing the superiority or inferiority of Chicago’s prompts over any other kind of supplemental application. I’m very cynical about the value of any particular kind of application question in forming a particular kind of student body. If Chicago’s student body has characteristics different from those of its peer schools (other than test scores and GPA’s, which are very similar to those of other top schools), I suspect that that’s attributable far more to the school’s reputation having the effect of attracting particular kinds of kids as applicants, than it is to the questions asked on the application. My son was extremely interested in the U of C from the time he was 15 or so, long before he ever heard of these kinds of prompts. So even if there hadn’t been a prompt that appealed to him, that certainly wouldn’t have deterred him from applying; he would have just done his best to think of something to write.

Me? It might have deterred me! In fact, I wonder if they had prompts like this back in 1971, because I do distinctly remember that I started the Chicago application process but never finished it, but (other than not being crazy at the idea of being the same place as my sister) can’t remember the exact reasons I didn’t complete the process. For all I know, reading the prompts was a traumatic experience, and I’ve blocked it out! Perhaps I need therapy.

epiphany · January 4, 2010, 5:34pm

For heaven’s sakes, MOWC, I never said nor implied that my daughter (or I) “had cornered the market on academics.” I don’t know how you got from point A to point Z without digressing 24 other points along the way. My point was that she – as a template for what may be many other Chicago applicants – is every bit as intellectual as any Chicago applicant or student, and the fact that she hated the essay prompts that year does not discredit her or any other similar students. My second point was the corresponding one: that equally intellectual students apply, enroll, and succeed as high-performing intellectuals in many other reputable institutions, including Penn, including other privates and several publics. My third point was that it is very offensive to equate public perception with any particular student’s reason for applying to a college. There are a lot of people who apply to Harvard for prestige reasons, and that may be an understatement. There are others that apply because of locale, because of (academic)reputation in a field they’re interested in, etc. Doesn’t mean that all H applicants are phony prestige seekers. I can’t help it that Penn has a pre-professional reputation. It has other traits about it that really appealed to my D in her field. Since she was interested in the immediate academics, and not what would happen 4 years later, she applied to Penn – not in business, not in pre-med.

I’ll PM you.

mummom · January 4, 2010, 5:35pm

LOL. I don’t think I was obsessed on that one either. I checked those numbers too. Just want to make sure for my own mental health that I don’t spend every waking minute “obsessing” about Chicago!

Pizzagirl · January 4, 2010, 5:36pm

Thanks, epiphany – I need another cc forum to hang around the same way I need a hole dans la tete. (the iPhone prohibits me from inserting the ^ but I want you to know I am intellectual enough to know it belongs.)

So some 18 yo thinks the the Venn diagra
m of smart people and Chicago students is a perfect overlap. Oh well. Shell grow
up one day.

epiphany · January 4, 2010, 5:40pm

Thank you! Me, too. (Obviously)
:)

epiphany · January 4, 2010, 5:42pm

cute reply. (547)

Pizzagirl · January 4, 2010, 5:46pm

Yes, the prompts may discourage some students. So might the lack of a football team, or the weather, or any number of factors. This would be a “problem” only if Chicago was having a hard time scaring up enough students to apply, bur that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Who is this really a problem for? Chicago, or aspiring students?

epiphany · January 4, 2010, 5:46pm

Re Post 543:

It’s dangerous, though, to equate, or to project, differences between siblings with differences in the general college-age population. You see, both of my D’s – as different as they are from each other – embrace adversity. Actually their personal circumstances have left them not many options, so perhaps that’s not fair of me, but truly, I’m talking about academics now. (As are you.) Rejecting the essay prompts is not an indicator of rejecting the heavy work of the UofCh curriculum. But lots of parents make an inaccurate “equation” between the two. (As do many student applicants.)

calmom · January 4, 2010, 5:51pm

The point is… there are some individuals whose personality doesn’t require something appealing, who are naturally intrigued rather than put off by stuff that challenges them or doesn’t fit their interests. As a metaphor that is expressing itself in real life, my daughter has become quite a world traveler, and she will eat just about anything – duck feet or frog legs or reindeer meat, whatever seems to be part of the local cuisine. (As far as I know she hasn’t yet tried eating dog meat, but I wouldn’t put it past her. I’m pretty sure she’s sampled various types of insects.).

She is undeterrable. Her latest dream travel destinations are Antarctica and North Korea. There is no such thing as can’t or won’t in her vocabulary. And she’s a problem-solver. As it happened, she didn’t like the essay prompts from Chicago, but she immediately recognized that she had the option to write her own and latched right onto it.

I don’t think Chicago loses something when students who are put off by their application process back off. It’s not merely a matter of intellect or academic promise, its also a matter of school culture and who will fit in, and who won’t. The “fun comes to die” part isn’t quite true, but I think it does reflect a school that doesn’t see its mission as supplying the “fun” – so many students are going to be happier at campuses which give higher priority to the category of “student life”, as well as “academics”.

calmom · January 4, 2010, 6:07pm

Under what possible rationale would a student who is so put off by the choice of 4 questions on an application that they are unwilling to even offer up a “write whatever you want” #5 a good fit for that college?

There are 3 types of applicants:

1) Applicants who are so sure they want to attend Chicago that they will apply no matter what obstacle is thrust before them.

2) Applicants who are unsure, but are willing to do whatever is required to complete the application process.

3) Applicants who are unsure, and easily deterred by things they don’t like about the application process - perhaps because subconsciously they are looking for an excuse not to apply.

Chicago is losing #3 – but my point is that #3 is probably the group they want to lose. It would apply to any set of criteria for admission and any set of students. My d. didn’t apply to some schools because they required reporting of SAT 2 scores. Of course that decision rested in part on the perception that her scores weren’t good enough – but if she had wanted any particular school badly enough, then I assume that she would have lived with the requirements or else been motivated enough to prep and retake the exams in order to improve her scores.

JHS · January 4, 2010, 6:29pm

For what it’s worth, my kids have a number of friends in engineering at Penn, and they don’t feel stupid.

I have to assume that the Invisible Hand of the market hasn’t been screwing up when it placed some very upscale clothing shops on and around the Penn campus, and put nothing like that anywhere in Hyde Park. Or when it gave Hyde Park multiple large bookstores in addition to the official university bookstore that mainly sells hoodies to prospies, and somehow omitted that element from the Penn-area retail mix.

I want to be clear. I am NOT saying Penn is an anti-intellectual place for second-rate minds. The Penn students I know certainly are no dumber than the Chicago students, and many/most of them would do fine at Chicago. And vice versa. I suspect the admissions office of each wouldn’t mind getting a little more of the other’s core students into its mix.

epiphany · January 4, 2010, 6:39pm

Post 554:
Why do you assume that there would only be 3 “types” of applicants? And why is everything a type or a category?

The entire (at that time, “Uncommon”) application was long at the time, not to mention sifting through its esoteric essay prompts. She had time to consider. She had looked at all the programs – plus other pluses/minuses – of all the colleges on her list. At some point, she had to prioritize. Given what she had already been accepted to (Yale SCEA), she had to determine what other apps she had realistic time for and for which she still anticipated eagerly the programs/student bodies there. Given that Chicago’s student preambles were a turn-off to her, the place lost several notches in her desirability ranking – vs. Y and other reaches still in the running. She actually submitted zero Common Apps. She submitted only institutional-specific apps, by hand, not online. Penn’s was also not Common at the time, and included a challenging prompt itself, requring thought & creativity. They also demanded specific recommendations in certain areas, after she had already supposedly exhausted her rec options via her h.s. When you’re doing that many tailored apps, + interviews for all of them, + interview for Regents + 5 AP courses that year + her e.c.'s which took anywhere from 15-20 hrs/week, depending on the season, it’s easy for reasons to cluster together to provide a deterrent.

Had she not rec’d the SCEA acceptance, she might have gone ahead & applied to Chicago, but there’s no way of nothing that for sure.

So this is the illogical leap I object to in your item #3:

Why the connector “and”?

How about:

Applicants who are unsure, given equally fine intellectual college options elsewhere in their perception (whether that perception is accurate or flawed), that the amount of time spent applying to C. is worth the risk to time commitments for other applications & current senior responsibilities.

Why does a decision not to apply somewhere mean that the applicant should be labeled as “easily deterred”?

I’m very impressed with your D. I’ve enjoyed immensely hearing about her colorful – literally & figuratively – life & personality. Indeed, I’m sure she’s adventurous, but so are lots of other people who choose or chose not to apply to Chicago & answer those essay prompts. The UofCh applic. process is not a determiner of courage vs. cowardice, or energy vs. laziness.

DonnaL · January 4, 2010, 6:40pm

Anyplace without an assortment of nearby bookstores (especially interesting used bookstores) would be out for me, whether for school, for work, or as a place to live. I don’t think I could manage. New Haven had only one that I remember near the campus when I was there; it was on Broadway, above York Street. And I admit that one of my favorite things about visiting my son in Chicago is that there are several really cool bookstores near the campus.

Hey, these things are important. I’m very strongly thinking of moving to Washington Heights this spring – but there are no bookstores in the neighborhood as far as I know! (Except for a couple of Spanish-language ones, but, unfortunately, I don’t read Spanish.)

Pizzagirl · January 4, 2010, 7:08pm

Epiphany, you don’t need to defend your daughter’s decision not to jump through the hoops of Chicago’s application. It says absolutely nothing about her intellect, her stick-to-it-iveness, her problem-solving ability, her gravitas, or anything at all – other than she, personally, didn’t care for the prompts and the type of task required for that particular school, and the perceived benefits weren’t worth doing it, in light of other equally fine schools she was applying to. That’s all!

Some people like vanilla, some people like chocolate, some like mint chocolate chip, some like cookies & cream, some like butter pecan. Most schools tend to want some combination of all of the above. Chicago prides itself on wanting only the butter pecan lovers. That’s fine. It doesn’t make them better or worse than anyone else, it just makes them a set of students for whom a certain atmosphere really resonates. It’s not bad to want that atmosphere, and it’s not bad to say that that atmosphere turns you off.

I think the alleged “insult” is in some people’s imaginations, honestly.

Pizzagirl · January 4, 2010, 7:11pm

Because that’s what being easily deterred means. That you don’t want something badly enough to put what you perceive as too-much-effort-for-the-output into it. It’s not a negative on your daughter that she didn’t want Chicago badly enough to jump through the hoops of the essay prompts. If anything, it means she’s self-aware enough to know it’s not for her, and can reassign and prioritize her energy elsewhere. No sense in jumping through the hoops of the essay prompts while gritting one’s teeth and not finding it enjoyable. It’s ok not to desire Chicago with every fiber of one’s being. Honest.

epiphany · January 4, 2010, 7:12pm

I disagree, but I’m not going to repeat the contents of my recent post. When other posters set up dichotomies or exclusionary categories, it’s “necessary” (appropriate) to point out exceptions. As I said in the post, it’s only one such student exception.

But there’s not much point to the “pride” if your very application process ends of excluding lots of butter pecan lovers, sending them elsewhere.

EDIT: I just saw that I accidentally invented a new participle: “nothing”

Pizzagirl · January 4, 2010, 7:17pm

I was defining “butter pecan lovers” as “the kinds of people for whom answering quirky, out of the box essay prompts would leave them delighted and wanting more, instead of disgusted by the pretentiousness / posing of the prompts.” Chicago wants those kinds of people. You may not like it, but that’s what they want. They want a subcategory of intellectual that finds that type of thing fun. If that’s not your daughter, then what’s the big deal? It doesn’t say she’s not intellectual - it just says that she isn’t the kind of person who enjoys that particular exercise.

Pizzagirl · January 4, 2010, 7:19pm

Is there a shortage of butter pecan lovers in Chicago’s applicant pool and incoming class? If applications are going UP, that tells me that either Chicago’s reputation is attracting more butter pecan lovers, OR that some people are applying to Chicago (and potentially forcing themselves to fit) because it’s a top ranked school and they are chasing rankings.

epiphany · January 4, 2010, 7:20pm

561:
No. Those are your dichotomies, and perhaps Chicago’s. Those are artificial dichotomies. You can be a quirky-out-of-the-box essay lover while simultaneously being turned off by pretentious posing. In fact, I think that would describe my D well.

epiphany · January 4, 2010, 7:27pm

answer to post 562:

I don’t know about “shortage,” but that’s not the point of marketing. You want your full market share; you want to maximize your population so that you have the full options, and that competitors have fewer of those similar or overlap candidates. If you’re losing, unnecessarily – through your own poor targeting – a significant portion of the market share that you claim to seek, that’s a poor campaign and a lousy use of money.

So, applications are going “Up” at Chicago. It doesn’t mean those are butter pecan lovers; could be other-flavor lovers going there, and the butter-pecan lovers going elsewhere.

Did the Dean of Admissions cross boundaries or I'm too strict?

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