<p>@xiggi: Not sure if you regard yourself as a misunderstood genius, who’s that much smarter than everyone else in the CC community, or if you just hate Chicago. Maybe it’s both. Regarding your first critique, it appears that your point is that analyzing EA v. RD admissions demonstrates that Chicago isn’t that selective, especially by comparison to MIT. For the Class of 2018, the EA admits/RD admits/desired class size for MIT were 612/807/1050. For Chicago, they were 1275 (est.)/1030 (est.)/1420. While you find an “obvious difference,” I’m not sure that it exists, or if it does, how one finds significant meaning in it. For one thing, Chicago’s target class size is 40 percent larger than MIT’s, so the raw numbers, without proportion, are not valid. Also, MIT admitted about 43 percent of its total in the early round, compared to 55 percent for Chicago. Indeed, the ratio of EA to RD admits may fairly be read to indicate that Chicago is becoming more, rather than less, popular–i.e. the school admitted students in the EA round that it expected to lose as cross-admits elsewhere, got surprised by how many EA admissions accepted, and then had to chop down the number of admissions in the RD round. That, of course, is speculation. But it’s at least a conclusion supported by some facts, rather than a claim too see a golden cipher in certain data that is invisible to the unwashed masses. The resort to history also seems unpersuasive as a determinative factor–there was a time that Stanford was a good, but not great university, and a safety school for college, with admissions rates nearly double those of HYP. Through leadership and vision, universities improve (the story of Frederick Terman as the Stanford Provost is instructive here). Chicago’s situation is a bit different, because the university from its founding has always been held in the highest regard, while the College has not. Chicago’s current leadership has a vision for how to change perceptions of the College, and we’ll have to wait and see regarding the results of their efforts. But, regardless, I think it’s appropriate to say that MIT and Chicago are both great schools, with a fantastic histories, and they each can be a wonderful choice for a certain type of talented student. Some would thrive more at one than the other, given their particular interests, but most would be well-served at either place. In the end, it’s all so much “sound and fury, signifying nothing” (and probably a good reason for me to step away from a debate that casts reason vs. vitriol). Chicago (albeit certainly not a fit for every talented applicant) is one of the planet’s genuinely elite schools. Recommend learning to embrace that fact.</p>
<p>Regarding your second critique, it seems that we are in agreement, no? Of course, my substandard perceptive powers may be causing me to miss something that’s “not that subtle.” SCEA has a preference premium over non-restrictive EA, as it is practiced by MIT and Chicago (which, in spite of fulminations to the contrary, have statistically similar practices). I would only amplify that with regard to non-restrictive EA, there is a cost beyond the “time and cost of the application.” Specifically, a Caltech/MIT/Chicago non-restrictive EA applicant faces the “opportunity cost” of not being able to apply to an SCEA school. Given that (1) the average EA admits at the non-restrictive EA schools have superior metrics (and thus may be SCEA-school material), and that (2) the SCEA early premium is significant, the cost of forgoing an SCEA application can be significant.</p>