It seems that @cue7 has an anti UChicago agenda. I agree with above posters. The info on Booth is very helpful and reinforces my observations. UChicaho is on a roll with law, business and the College. Keep it up and get the life sciences and medical school to the same level.
Actually, Marlowe1, it looks like coolcheesebagel was admitted ED2 after SCEAing at Yale. (Apologies if I got that wrong – it was a deduction based on prior posts). Versus, say, an EA applicant for whom the decision to EA at Chicago actually did involve sacrificing an SCEA app elsewhere. The current system doesn’t inherently identify and give priority to the kids for whom Chicago is a true first choice at the earliest possible stage of the process. I’m not sure that’s the axis I’d select along anyway (aren’t some life of the mind kids people who make deliberate decisions after weighing all the available options?), but my point is that it’s not a rationale that fits the system in place now.
The system seems labyrinthine and no doubt could be simplified, but to the extent that it now involves in the case of Chicago the ED1 option I don’t see how you can say that it doesn’t “identify and give priority to the kids for whom Chicago is a true first choice at the earliest stage of the process.” Any kid who applies ED1 is applying at the earliest stage of the process and is agreeing by that application that he/she is not applying anywhere else ED and will accept (must accept) an offer made by Chicago. Perhaps you are doubting that this gives the applicant any kind of edge, but surely it must, for the reasons I mentioned above. I know you don’t like the way that system forces an early choice, and others have said they don’t like the way it takes financial competition away from the student’s choice. The first of these reasons, as you know, I don’t consider to be a negative at all. The second is definitely a negative byproduct but one not sufficient to overwhelm the value from all points of view, as I see it anyhow, of a student’s declaring in binding form his/her preference at the earliest stage of the process. I am entirely unconcerned with some of the speculation as to admissions offices gaming this thing for high numbers (or low numbers). I look at it merely as being desirable or not in enrolling the most motivated students. Needless to say, students who come in at later stages and for whom Chicago was the not the first choice may also be highly desirable, have good careers at the University and drink the elixir of the place. Once through the door it doesn’t matter how you got there - your education begins Chicago-style!
I don’t have a dog in this race (actually, I do – my D got a “provisional acceptance” with a merit offer from UChicago RD), but I’m not a big fan of ED programs in general as they benefit the schools much more than the students.
I think that if UChicago wants to figure among HYPS in terms of prestige and ranking – as I believe it should – they should play by the same rules; SCEA/REA, like ED, can “identify and give priority to the kids for whom Chicago is a true first choice” while still allowing them to consider other offers and ensure affordability.
I second @kaukauna.
I think @cue7 is one of the most passionate UChicago alumni here. She or he usually has some points about what’s going on at Chicago and has data to backup. Anyway it is supposed to be the Chicago tradition to discuss/argue as long as it is civil. If the data is out of date it can be pointed out.
No doubt UChicago is a great university in the nation and in the world. It is on the right direction in my opinion. However I do not think everything is rosy. The endowment is still relative small when compared to the top dogs and the 10-year investment return lags behind most of its peers. The aforementioned relative weakness in biological science and medical school still exists. When I started paying attention to Chicago several years ago it had 8 Nobel laureates (6 in Econ and 2 in Physics). After passing away some of its great leaders currently the university has 5 Nobel laureates (all in Econ). The physical science division may be weaken a bit. Its last Turing award winner left the university more than half a century ago and the computer science department is still in the building stage. Of course it still has 3 Fields prize winners on faulty, which is good. I would like to see the university to grow more great leaders in the physical science and biological science and attract more academic talents here. Anyway we are talking about to compete with the top dogs here (someone has mentioned MIT has 11 Nobel laureates on faulty).
@LoveTheBard I do not see how SCEA will “identify and give priority to the kids for whom Chicago is a true first choice”. ED already does that.
If anything, I feel the SCEA is much more restrivtive to the average student than ED if it’s not their first choice.
A EA/ED to UChicago allows for plenty of other options in EA/ED as well.
Case in point, an Econ student - can roll the dice for Harvard or another SCEA or have EA/ED combos with UChicago, MIT, NU.
Statistically speaking, the EA/ED combo with UChicago will yield the best results. There are only so many spots in these classes and when you narrow down further by athletes, sex and regions, anyone using SCEA as a valid choice is only rolling dice IMHO.
@exacademic “The current system doesn’t inherently identify and give priority to the kids for whom Chicago is a true first choice at the earliest possible stage of the process.”
I have no idea what you are trying to prove? People who apply EA have Chicago as their “true first choice?” Your rationale is flawed because if Uchicago was a student’s true first choice, they would ED, not EA. EA for many years has been a fallback option of ED elsewhere. So many people from my school ED to either Columbia, Brown, Penn, Mit, and then EA to Chicago, “just in case they don’t get in.” This fails because it doesn’t allow them to truly explore UChicago and make the personal decision to commit ED. As I mentioned, UChicago has a taste and the people who ED know that they truly belong. A lot of my fellow classmates see Chicago as just another top school, but who can blame them, it takes exploration to know the distinction.
Let me tell you that the average strong applicant does not just easily choose a school to ED to. Once you ED somewhere, you sacrifice the knowing of where else you could be. You have to absolutely sure. As someone who did not visit any colleges with the exception of summer programs like yygs, I SCEA to Yale, knowing that I at the time was not willing to ED anywhere. It wasn’t until November, after I wrote my UChicago essay about the entanglements of reality and the mind did I really get to learn about the social philosophies that it stands for, which mirrored my own, such as free speech, conservative acceptance, and political discourse, did I start to fall head over heels for Uchicago. Making the decision to ED2 was after my interview in Jan, when I felt like I could belong there the most from learning Uchicago’s value of intellectualism. I think the dynamics of modern day, such as American politics, really enhanced my decision in a context that other months beforehand probably wouldn’t have. Without visiting, I was confidant enough. When I was applying to schools of similar tier such as Columbia/Penn, I had to really examine those intangible factors, as any ED considering applicant would have.
Options such as ED, EA, ED2, for the high school applicant demand more intense thought, exploration, and decision-making process. “Do you really want to attend this school over similar tier schools?”
Your argument is flawed when you say that “people who don’t in the beginning” have a first choice shouldn’t be able to be a priority, because that would depend on high schoolers early in the process being sure. Why can’t you learn along with the process? I’m so glad that I found Chicago, and I had to sacrifice my other choices/knowledge of other choices, choices I knew I could make, purely because by Jan, I knew that Chicago was the right school for me. EA students are not ready to fully commit, and for many, there are more seductive choices to wait on such as Columbia/Penn, but for the people willingly to commit, this is who the system should benefit and why their system works.
I’ve been following my alma mater on this board for years as a lurker. Cue7 may love the school in his own way, but he is an Eeyore. If the U of C cured cancer tomorrow, the first thing he would say would be a complaint that it will put a lot of doctors and nurses out of work.
I’m sure he is a nice fellow and sincere in his opinions, but I have learned to tune out his constantly, relentlessly and endlessly negative fears and complaints on everything UChicago.
@fbsdreams. Agreed. Mathematically, a student/applicant is better off applying to UChicago ED plus MIT (or other schools) EA than SCEA to HYS. SCEA is more restrictive on the application acceptance front-end but more lenient on the decision to matriculate back-end. So mathematically, if the whole point is to maximize the ability of someone to get accepted into a top school, an EA/ED combo is much better. (Conversely someone’s ability to matriculate into a top school may be better or worse but that is because it is driven by a lot more factors like financial aid, competing offers, personal wealth, and not just chance of admissions.)
One unstated reason that I can think of why some people may think that UChicago going ED is bad for applicants is that they, in the back of their mind, believe that UChicago should ONLY play the EA part of the ED/EA combo. Note that UChicago CAN play both the EA and ED part of the EA/ED application combo right now - and I think having both EA and ED options provided by UChicago is maximizing the applicant/(s) options and voice.
Another unstated reason is that some people think it is “good” to not give early applicants a chance to 100% fully disclose to UChicago that it is their top choice (ED) because it will reduce the chances of acceptance of those who apply early but either do not have UChicago as their top choice or fear that they will be constrained by their personal financial circumstances if they forgo the ability to compare offers. This, I understand since kid applicants arent to blame for the economic life that they were (generally) born into. I am only hoping that the university is fair when it comes to calculating financial support.
(And if you, dear Alumni/student/parent/fan/homie/benefactor/friend/bff, is concerned about that issue, UChicago is currently raising finds to address the issue - so donate! ha ha ha they need half a billion more dollars and I have a conjecture on why this is so and its not so positive for parts of the university that are traditionally lagging at fundraising.)
What I am unsure about is the undercurrent that some people have an inviolable right to compare and contrast multiple offers from multiple top schools. While it is good to those who need financial support to have multiple school options, multiple school acceptances for 1 person also could mean he shut out another person with a similar profile/achievement from getting accepted by those other schools which he turned down anyway. (This is the reason why really good high schools now treat EA, ED and SCEA as if they are all SCED (Single Choice Early Decision, did I coin that? I hope I did. I will trademark it so no school uses it. 
)) So good for the one applicant looking for leverage by getting multiple acceptances - but not good for the applicant pool where the applicant belongs (high school, region, etc).
@LoveTheBard The way to get to the top is to not just play the rules that the people at the top have set (I mean SCEA is a recent invention of the HYS crowd). Doing so assumes that the top players have set things up for the benefit of the whole playground, and not to for their own benefit. I think that that assumption is off.
To get to the top, one has to soon play within the playground but also try/suggest alternatives that may be advantageous for oneself or better for the all players as a whole. Following the leader can only do so much.
As my post indicated, I was responding to Marlowe1, who appeared to use the eager-beaver/early bird rationale as a justification for ED, invoking you as an example. I pointed out (a) I didn’t think that was necessarily the best basis for selection (b) the system as currently structured doesn’t actually work that way and © other top universities in the US find (and, until this year, U of C itself found) kids who really want to be there through EA.
I agree with you that kids learn through the admissions process and that the kid who decides by Nov 1 that s/he prefers U of C to all other schools (and is willing/able to commit) is not necessarily a stronger or more worthy candidate for admission than the kid who makes that decision by Jan 1 – who, in turn, is not necessarily a stronger or more worthy candidate (or better match) than the kid who makes that decision on April 1. Everyone makes a binding decision by the RD decision deadline, so everyone ultimately has to devote “intense thought” to their choice. To my mind, it’s better to let HS seniors do that thinking at a time when they can rationally compare actually available alternatives rather than at a time where many are panicky or depressed about their college prospects and are, essentially, placing bets and calculating odds on information that they could and should have available to them.
To put this another way, the real question may be what kind of intense thought should go into this decision? Is it the fbsdreams/FStratford math problem-style thinking about the best strategy for maximizing the odds of admission to a top school that the current SCEA/REA/EA/ED/ED2 landscape fosters? Or is it a less pressured, somewhat later analysis of where you are at the end of HS, where you want to be, and what the pros and cons of different ways of getting there (or of deciding where there is) might be?
I was another ED2 applicant and I can relate to @coolcheesebagel 's experience with choosing to ED to UChicago. I saw the ED2 thread as more as a “sacrifice” than EAing to Chicago since you are indicating to them clearly that UChicago is your true first choice. For this reason, ED applicants SHOULD be awarded over EA/RD applicants. It’s pretty obvious that many people who EA or RD are simply unwilling to “sacrafice” their chances at HYPS.
Or you could apply SCEA to HYPS and then go ED2 to UChicago. BTW, taking of slots is irrelevant, as all schools, even the HYPS do not matriculate 100% of their accepts. Even Harvard only gets about 80% of the admits, so a full 20% are admitted above the amount of slots they actually have, then they fine tune with the waitlist. No one is getting denied because someone got admitted to more than one school.
@ThankYouforHelp @Cue7 I quite agree. Cue7 is a creative pessimist. Bottom line is that UChicago is on a major upswing at both the college and law and business school levels. Cue7 seems intent on snatching defeat out of victory. Perhaps he has an axe to grind with Chicago.
Hey guys, as much as I disagree with @Cue7 on some issues, can we keep it civil and not personal? In the U of C intellectual tradition, we can attack and criticize ideas but not the speaker. Allowing dissenting opinion is part of the process of “Let knowledge increase; life is being perfected." .
@85bears46 Actually, as it applies to @Cue7, I rather prefer my Alma Mater’s VERITAS …,
Amen to the sentiments of 85bears. However, I would add that seeing the appearance of certain familiar names on this board and wondering what they will have to say on the topic in hand is part of the pleasure of the experience - at least for me, perhaps not so much so for the present and would-be students who are what this is all about (I have heard the adjective “over-invested” used once or twice by them). I hope Cue will pardon my impertinence in saying that I have built up a picture - doubtless incomplete and to some extent erroneous - of his character. He’s a knowledgeable guy and a passionate guy, though often ambivalent and sometimes inconsistent about the desired direction of his alma mater. This IS after all a U. of C. forum, where nuance and complexity are valued, and speculative thinking is permitted. Cue is our malcontent and our gadfly (another term first applied to Socrates), though where he’s goading us to the Lord only knows. I think I might once have conversed briefly with him on the steps of Ida Noyes Hall, or, if not, it was someone very like him. Chicago has lots of older alumni who have a somewhat tortured relationship with their school. I hope we are not embarrassing him too much in the present discussion. I for one promise never again to get personal if only Cue will return to us.
Let’s get back to our original scheduled program :).
As an U of C MBA who with concentration in finance and economics, I am even worried about our much vaunted Department of Economics. Both Fama and Hansen were awarded the Nobel Prize for work done 30 to 40 years ago. I have not been exactly following all the graduate research in economics but Robert Lucas (who is close to retirement) seems to be our last ground shaking and paradigm shifting scholar. We only have one John Bates Clark Medal award in this century. When I was there, Lucas, Sargent and Hansen were at their prime and they revolutionized the field of macroeconomics. I am not sure whether the Department of Economics is still doing that right now. So please let someone knowledgeable about economics research come in this forum and smack me in face and tell me I am nothing but a worrywart 
If U of C has to depend heavily on the college for its future, I would be truly alarmed.