One can pick up a little of this and a little of that, but as the sum of human knowledge increases exponentially, it becomes impossible for a single dwarf to climb all of the giants’ shoulders.
Are you saying that the same applicant would not improve their chances by applying ED vs EA, and the reason ED admission rates are higher than EA is that ED applicants are stronger?
I though we already beaten this horse to death in another thread:) and agreed that at the very minimum EA applicant faces some level of additional hurdle in convincing UofC that there is nowhere else they would rather be.
I gotta say, I am sure UChicago is a very fine school indeed (and I am not being facetious here), but I do wish they were a lot clearer in their communication with potential applicants.
Here is how MIT does it, for example:
https://mitadmissions.org/apply/firstyear/early-vs-regular
"What’s the difference?
Only the dates of the deadlines!
It is fine to apply during either cycle. We do not have a preference, and there is no strategic benefit to applying in one vs the other. We have two cycles for two reasons: 1) it helps us spread our work out over a longer period, devoting more time to each application, and 2) it provides applicants with more options so they can choose which works best for them."
If applying EDI vs EDII vs EA vs RD to UofC has no relative strategic benefit, why doesn’t UofC similarly explain what the differences are between their FOUR admission cycles and disclose their admission rates in each?
No doubt that highly focused training helped you personally and professionally. However, in this country one can opt for a path that involves more than one field of study. Either option - for a C/S major - will likely result in a good job. They each have different goals at the end of the degree program and that explains their difference.
And on this point… Wouldn’t this be the evidence that they are willing to be more stats-conscious with the bound high-stats ED applicants than they were with unbound ones that they were previously likely to lose to HYPSM?
…All of this tea leaf reading is fun, but the simple bottom line remains that of the top schools UofC views as their peers their selection process is the only one relying on binding applications, the only one with four rounds, and the only one that does not publish the per-round admission data.
Couldn’t that uniqueness be responsible, at least in part, for the proverbial syndrome?
You are misconstruing me, Vulcan: My point wasn’t that practical outcomes shouldn’t come into the picture in the course of an education, and it certainly wasn’t that specialization must be avoided. As with many things it is a question of balance and judgement in the facts of the case. Even more importantly, it is a matter that goes far beyond choice of a college or the requirements of a major: one’s personality and temperament. For you specializing “early and fervently” is an article of faith or perhaps a psychological necessity, and you can see no alternative to it short of a doomed attempt to become a polymath. For me that attitude has about it an air of needless desperation and extremity and in any event does not fit all cases.
Perhaps my gestation period for getting ready to do anything is simply longer than yours. There may well be a difference among the personality types drawn to the different professions and disciplines. I am merely making the modest point that keeping the doors of receptivity and possibility open during one’s college years may have the paradoxical effect of preparing one to better live in the world. I think of Keats’s description of something he dubbed “negative capability” - inhabiting a state of uncertainty without an “irritable reaching for a solution”. C’est moi!
As someone else once said about a particular fated denouement (and I say about emergence from college), “it will come when it will come.”
I don’t know why Chicago doesn’t disclose more admissions data. Virtually all of its peers disclose number of ED accepts, number of ED applications, percent of class with legacy status, percent first gen, etc. Etc.
For admissions and outcomes data, Chicago is woefully opaque.
A double major is likely to be more than “a little of this and that” although liberal arts programs do welcome “dabblers” as well. Regarding Philosophy specifically, one will choose a 10-13 course major, depending on which track you opt to pursue. Computer Science is another 14-17. The Core tends to be about 15 (fewer depending on where you place for Math) and FL up to another three. That leaves as few as three electives to “dabble” in, unless you wish to shoot past what’s needed for the degree. Many do just that.
On the topic of “philosophy,” I’m sensing a philosophical preference that’s potentially in conflict with what UChicago offers. That doesn’t mean someone with that different philosophy couldn’t do well at UChicago, but he/she might feel it’s not the best fit.
People can have similar backgrounds and come out of the experience with differing views. We’re a bit older than The Vulcan, apparently, but my husband also came her on one of the coveted H1B visas (although his was over 30 years ago), also as a result of his highly specialized background and education in a technical field. While his education has been a large part of his path to success, he didn’t want the same degree of specialization for our sons; he felt there were gaps in his knowledge in other areas due to the specialization and believes that a more rounded education is hugely beneficial especially to people who may be leaders in business.
We have both encouraged our son to enjoy and explore a wide range of interests beyond his natural strengths - math and programming - and have been pleased with his experience at UChicago.
Back to the discussion of UCDS.
There are some common themes that appear amongst the UCDS crowd.
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Even though they assert UChicago is a horrible, terrible, no good, very bad place that they/their child absolutely would never have attended even if they hadn’t been denied/deferred/whatever, they still can’t stay away from it. They post on the UChicago forum, they watch for news of it, they appear to obsess over it by their level of vitriol and inability to move on.
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They appear to be personally offended that this college didn’t want or wasn’t the right place for their student, but beyond that, seem to need others to know how “bad” the place is. There were many colleges that weren’t a fit for our son; the way we handled that was to simply not apply or to turn down the acceptance, not stalk and badmouth them.
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They have no shame or ability to understand that it’s one thing to insult a college, another to insult the students that attend or like that college. Derailing a thread of EA/ED results and asking admitted students if they are a minority, implying that accepted students were accepted only because of a quota, their race, their wealth or some other factor is plain rude. That goes beyond insulting a college and moves to insulting students. It’s understandable to be disappointed a college didn’t accept you, but to move into attacking not just the college but the admitted students is not acceptable.
Frankly, I believe we give the UCDS group too much air time by discussing their “points” which tend to be just personal opinions without any data or merit other than the outrage born out of rejection. As if the attacks are anything other than sour grapes. Let’s start calling it what it is. If people have legit questions or comments, this is the place. But when people want to tear down a college or worse, attack students, because their feelings are hurt, it’s time to start calling them on that.
I’m NOT saying that - because admit rates aren’t the same thing as “chances.” Many applicants will have a zero chance of getting admitted in either pool, for instance, while a few others would have a nearly 100% chance. What I AM saying is that the pool of ED applicants is so strong - for UChicago and other top elites - that they can be very choosy over whom to admit. For UChicago specifically, they had a huge number of top-grade candidates jump at the chance to signal their preference with ED1, based on what I heard (from little birdies in Hyde Park). Basically, the adcom was able to pick and choose understanding that the feeling was mutual and they ended up choosing a good number of ED1’s that year. In general, they select approximately 50% ED and 50% non-binding so my best guess is that the number of ED1’s admitted will totally depend on what they are seeing in the ED2 pool. If the latter is particularly strong, then they will choose fewer ED1’s. And vice versa.
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Personality and temperament may have something to do with it, but so could cultural differences. Where we are from, decisions about future “major” are made before applying to college at the age of 17. I am not at all unsympathetic to the idea of keeping the doors open while contemplating the great works of literature, but there is of course, yes, the balance to be found in not keeping them open for so long as to catch a head cold;)
In some disciplines, particularly in humanities, one’s shelf life is a lot longer and one’s most significant contributions often come in later years. In others, notably in hard sciences, to which our family gravitates, you are in your prime in your early 20ies.
Einstein had his famous Annus Mirabilis at the ripe age of 25.
I am, of course, no Einstein by any stretch, but I was 23 when I signed the job offer to cross the ocean and come to the land of the brave where upper class kids can afford such luxuries as waiting for their true calling well into what in many parts of the world is considered adulthood.
@Cue7 at #16
Yale does a great job with detailed outcomes reporting! I wish UChicago did as well but maybe they’ll get there someday. Yale’s top-notch career office has a few years on UChicago’s, remember. I was going off my memory but pretty sure I have it correctly. You can compare and correct if you notice something off.
“(Interestingly, per the Yale 4-year out reports, almost 17% of the Yale Class of 2014 went on to attain PhDs. While we may point to Chicago being very academic, Yale’s number is extremely high - certainly similar to, or maybe greater than, the current Chicago numbers. Chicago doesn’t publish this data, so we have no way of knowing.)”
- And now for a correction of my own. Cue, you misread that PhD stat. It's not nearly 17% of the class, it's nearly 17% of those who have gone on get a graduate degree (see page 2 of the 4-year outcomes report). You'll note that the chart totals to 100% and consists of Medical, Law, Phd, MA, MS, M.Eng, and "other". So, as an example, if 200 members of the Class of 2014 went on to do grad work by four years out, the chart indicates that approximately 67 of them are in a PhD program. ** ADDENDUM: and, btw, that would be approximately 2% of the class in toto, assuming a class size of around 1,600.** They might have hard numbers elsewhere in the report - not sure. It would be great to understand how Chicago compares there but I haven't looked recently. We've posted about PhD feeders in the past and UChicago did respectably given the data available at the time, although it totally varies by field. The technical institutes, for example, totally dominate the Math and Science PhD feeder ranks.
@surelyhuman already answered this question quite intelligently:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/22508699/#Comment_22508699
Which peer school (other than Harvard LOL) has disclosed percent of class with legacy status??? BTW, UChicago’s is going to be pretty small. First gen, Pell and demographic info was disclosed by UChicago last year. And I’m still waiting for Stanford, Columbia and NU to announce their early results for Class of 2024.
Why don’t you ask your questions on this new thread?
Penn and Cornell often disclose percentage of legacies, among other groups. They tend to be much more transparent than U Chicago.
Stanford does not release any stats until they publish each year’s CDS…which means it’s nearly a year after SCEA results that any non-insider sees the numbers.
. . . and where the quality of higher education simply dominates other parts of the world. As evidenced by the fact that Vulcan isn’t sending his DS back to the “old country” to get a degree.
Drive-by slurs are not a good mode of argument, Vulcan. That’s a pretty basic proposition in rhetoric which ought to be covered in a good college education. So what are sarcastic references to “land of the brave” and upperclass kids affording luxuries and awaiting a dubious “true calling”, doing in this discussion? If you think this is all about class warfare, say so. You can be proud of your very focussed son without denigrating other types. If diversity of that sort is possible in this country, isn’t that a good thing? Do we all have to be cut from cloth measured out by you?
For the record I, possibly the most extreme defender on this board of the ivory-tower educational model, was the son of a US Postal mail carrier and worked steadily during summers and part-time during all my undergrad years. Beware stereotypes!
I haven’t been able to find any stats forPenn. No doubt bad google skills. Can you please post a link?
They don’t report early results in Section C of CDS and, in fact, stopped reporting early on their website for Class of '21. Anything they report to fed. gov’t is obviously knowable but aren’t those just overall admit rates? Same for UChicago.
@marlowe1, my apologies if I come across as too defensive in answering your “air of needless desperation and extremity” and “cut from UChicago cloth” comments.
As an American by choice I am acutely aware of the many privileges many of us are enjoying here, and my sarcasm is meant in part to be self-deprecating.
I, too, am, in fact, a staunch defender of the ivory-tower education (with an caveat that it in itself is a privilege available to few), even if a more specialized one. At the same time I am also an opponent of the opacity endemic to American college admissions system (which I hold to be separate from American college education itself; one can criticize one while respecting the other).
At any rate, I will take a break from this board, as entertaining as it is, and as enjoyable as our exchanges have been to me, as I think we have largely flushed out all our agreements and disagreements, and it is time to lower the temperature.
@JBStillFlying, thank you four your comments as well.
Eric Furda posts a lot of good info on his blog, here is class of 2023 info:
https://www.page217.org/university-of-pennsylvania-class-of-2023-regular-decision-program/
Generally, he will also answer any question people may ask him. He is very accessible.
That coupled with Penn’s website, and student newspaper, one can often get the info they are seeking.
Stanford made the pronouncement in 2018 that they will no longer divulge EA vs RD admission numbers. https://news.stanford.edu/2018/08/30/stanford-will-no-longer-announce-undergraduate-application-numbers/
But just because Stanford has become more opaque it doesn’t mean UC should remain opaque with their admissions info.
I just pulled up Cornell’s annual reports, and saw 2023 is finally posted. Interestingly it does not have % legacy and % recruited athletes, as they have traditionally divulged in all previous class profiles. http://irp.dpb.cornell.edu/university-factbook/undergraduate-admissions