<p>So much for saying he didn't agree with my criticism! </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Oh dear, my critism was it was unfair to assume EA=RD and therefore it was an unfair comparison. </p>
<p>You said I missed the point but you were the one that missed it. You said I need to re-read his post but looks like you are the one that needs to re-read it.</p>
<p>By the way, before you criticize others for having "faulty reasoning", please make sure you understand the arguements first.</p>
<p>OK Sam and esquared, at the risk of going over your heads, here is the problem:</p>
<p>Sam decided to rebut JHS's analysis by claiming, without any substantiation, two things: 1. that some fraction of the EA applicants to U Chicago don't have a choice because they don't apply anywherer else and (2) of those that have a choice, "fewer people have Chicago as their first choice whereas at least a quarter of NU student body makes it their first choice."</p>
<p>Now these are interesting arguments: (1) depends on unknown information, although SL feels free to speculate and (2) depends on imputing behavioral intent regarding the UofC applicants, that, since they had a choice and chose to apply elsewhere, UofC was not their first choice. We don't know this. We also don't know what percentage of the EA applicants applied elsewhere to a ED school. Only the latter would be consistent with SL's arguments. </p>
<p>But wait, there's more! Argument (2) confuses "first choice" (as in applying somewhere ED) with yield. This is a particularly troublesome issue because many ED applicants are not applying to the school that is their "first choice" but rather trying to maximize their odds of being admitted to an acceptable school. If you don't believe this, just read any of the many articles published in recent years about how to pick one's ED choice and the role of odds maximization in such a process.</p>
<p>I can't speak for JHS, but many readers would interpret a comment like "reasonable criticism" to mean pointing out issues that could ideally be included in an analysis if only the data were available. Much research is done in this fashion, with critics pointing out what might be done in an ideal world. But the process of research is beyond the scope of this discussion, so I'll stop here.</p>
<p>Sam Lee is such a wonderful troll-- I just think he's in the argument to once and for all prove that Northwestern rules and Chicago drools.</p>
<p>Given all that Chicago does to discourage applicants, I'm surprised we have the numbers that we do. Chicago doesn't play nice; it doesn't market itself as an everything to everyone school. It sends students weird postcards and will still keep its uncommon questions even after the highly-contested changeover is bound to happen. The tour guides I know don't do anything to cloak the geeky and academic vibes pouring out from the school, and people who have gone to info sessions say the admissions officers talk about the nerdy nature of the school. It seems like we do everything we can to screen out people who wouldn't want to go here, and even with those screening attempts we still have a heap of 10,000 applications and only about 1,100 spots.</p>
<p>This year, the university overenrolled significantly, and first-years are apparently living in what has traditionally been upperclassmen housing. So whatever Sam Lee might think, more and more students are salivating over Chicago.</p>
<p>I think we're to the point of over-analysis of our data. JHS's main point was that having an open EA option rather than ED affects admissions rate. His analysis may not (does not) completely capture reality, but it serves its purpose.</p>
<p>At this point, I'm interested in the issue of how many EA applicants "call it a day." JHS thinks the number is low, unalove thinks it might be higher. My own D stopped action or canceled other applications after being admitted to Chicago EA. But she made the decision in December. I'm not sure she would have applied ED.</p>
<p>I think that while most EA applicants at Chicago have Chicago as their first choice, they apply elsewhere to keep their options open and to compare financial offers. Chicago loses a lot of its strongest students this way, who are undoubtedly given offers they can't refuse by other schools that may offer more prestige, better aid, or both. I've seen a fair share of kids come in with Chicago as their number 1 and wind up at schools like Swarthmore, Princeton, MIT, and Harvard. Schools with ED admits don't have to worry about losing them to other schools. Northwestern's ED admits are exclusive to Northwestern and are not going to shop around at other schools. 90 percent of the time, I think it's in the student's best interest to shop around, though.</p>
<p>The kids who do choose Chicago over other offers, I feel, are more prepared to come and as a result are happier with their decision. It was only when I got to know some of my friends better that I learned they had specific reasons for choosing Chicago over schools like Columbia, Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, and Brown. Even though they were offered the ivy league option, they still found their way back to Chicago.</p>
<p>My decision to apply EA and call it a day was based on a few factors. First, my parents agreed to pay the pricetag for college, however high it was. Secondly, I didn't like any other school that I considered anywhere nearly as much as I liked Chicago (earlier on this thread, I indicated that there were schools I now know about that I might have applied to RD had I known about them). Thirdly, I was probably too aware of my high-profile status in my high-profile high school, so I wanted to go to Chicago to make a point that it's not all about the Ivy League (at my school, Chicago is considered "obscure." How sad).</p>
<p>I've never really asked my other friends why they called it a day after EA admittance, like I did. I feel like most of them just felt that Chicago was home and applying elsewhere was pointless. I was not in the slightest curious to see if I would be admitted by other schools-- I knew I would turn them down for Chicago and I didn't want to wait four months for that decision, nor did I want to nab a spot from somebody who really wanted one.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Sam decided to rebut JHS's analysis by claiming, without any substantiation, two things: 1. that some fraction of the EA applicants to U Chicago don't have a choice because they don't apply anywherer else and (2) of those that have a choice, "fewer people have Chicago as their first choice whereas at least a quarter of NU student body makes it their first choice."
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Wow..newsmassdad, please reread my original post because you totally misunderstood it to begin with and now just put words into my mouth! JHS got it and you didn't. No wonder your reaction was so different from his.</p>
<p>unalove,</p>
<p>My criticism, if valid, did NOT "prove that Northwestern rules and Chicago drools". I don't think you should listen to newsmassdad. My criticism was that there's a flaw in looking at the numbers the way JHS first suggested and that's why the conclusion that Chicago was more popular <em>based on that analysis</em> was questionable. JHS addressed this in his later post and conceded we couldn't make conclusion about popularity based on those numbers. Chicago may very well be more popular, just not based on that analysis. I hope this is clear.</p>
<p>Okay. I am sorry if it were a little too subtle. I talked about two mutually exclusive cases and they were: 1. some fraction of the EAs don't have a choice because they make Chicago their "Mr. Right Now", as JHS put it. So their yield is therefore likely higher than RDs and therefore it wasn't a fair comparison when EA's yield is included and be compared to another school's RD yield. 2. all EAs do have a choice of different schools to select from (case 1 doesn't hold), that would just mean fewer people (as compared to case 1) make Chicago their Mr. Right Now. So that weakens, not strengthen, the argument that Chicago is more popular. Note that the two cases are mutually exclusive but both weakens the conclusion.</p>
<p>Note that my #2 is NOT a subset of #1. This is way different from what you thought.</p>
<p>Here are the weaknesses in your two arguments: </p>
<ol>
<li><p>I would say that ALL EAs have a choice. They may not exercise it for various reasons, but they DO have it. So I don't see how an EA NOT exercising one's choice affects yield. But if one accepts your assumption here, then I would agree with you.</p></li>
<li><p>This case would only hold if an ED applicant were, in fact, applying to one's first choice. A lot of evidence indicates that is often not the case. again, if one agreed with your assumption, then you would be correct.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>So in both cases, we differ because you are drawing your conclusions from assumptions, where I prefer to draw my conclusions solely from the data (albeit with some manipulations, and, as we learned after the debate began, with different assumptions, mainly that two different year pools were equateable.)</p>