Chicago's Uncommon Application, 2007-2008

Even more on the wait list

2007-04-17T11:13:00.000-06:00

Now that the April 15 deadline to respond to the waiting list has passed, here are a few more tidbits.

Visiting campus

Our decision to accept students off of the waiting list will not be contingent on whether or not they have visited campus. If you will be on campus anyway, you are welcome to come in for a tour and information session, and ask to speak to your counselor or the counselor on duty. If your admissions counselor is unavailable, there is always a counselor on duty.

Housing and financial aid

If you are admitted from the waiting list, you will be treated the same as any student who was admitted outright. Housing is guaranteed for all four years, and you will receive the same sort of financial aid package you would have received in the first place.

Contact us

If you have not yet emailed your admission counselor expressing interest, you should do so as soon as you can. We won't always be able to respond, but we are forwarding your emails to your file. If you are concerned that your counselor has not responded to you, send your emails to questions@phoenix.uchicago.edu

More information about the wait list

2007-03-30T14:50:00.000-06:00

Answers to questions that came up on the last post:

How many wait list offers can I respond to?

One, or all... just make sure you put down a deposit at a college that has accepted you. If you are admitted to a waiting list after May 1 (which is when most colleges make their waiting list decisions), you will have to forfeit that deposit.

If waitlisted students follow your advice in this post, and accept another college's offer of admission and send in a deposit, how will we waitlisted students be able to accept a Uchicago offer of acceptance if it is given? Will we be obligated to pay the other college's tuition?

No, you will not. You only have to forfeit the deposit. But make sure to tell them you are withdrawing! A phone call will let you know how to do that... most colleges will require something in writing (including us).

And... Okay, why was I wait listed? (Or denied... or even admitted)

It is our policy to not discuss reasons for decisions with students or families. Decisions are made over the course of several months, by a committee of individuals, about thousands of applicants.

What should I send in now?

Send an email or letter to your admission counselor expressing interest. Keep sending these throughout the month of April... we want to hear from you so that we know you are still interested. If you have more grades, send them in.

How will this affect our consideration for financial aid?

It won't -- students who are admitted from the waiting list will get the same kinds of financial aid packages as students who were admitted outright.

How important are our 2nd semester grades going to be?

We will most probably make all admission decisions before the end of your second semester. But keep working, because we require a final transcript from all admitted students.

Here come decisions

2007-03-29T16:03:00.000-06:00

We mailed all regular notification decisions to first-year applicants this afternoon. We emailed decisions around 5 p.m. CST (i.e. a few moments ago). The subject is "Notification from the University of Chicago" in case you didn't want to get your decision via email – you'll know what it looks like and can ignore it. We waited until the afternoon so that your counselors would not object to us bothering you during school. We’ve been working very hard for the last week (if not months) to get these thousands of letters out; you may have noticed because the blogging has been mostly left up to you. I figured that any further posting this week would only fuel your anxiety when you realized it was not the post you hoped for.

Well, this is the post you’ve been hoping for, dreading, etc. This is the most anxious time of the year for you and for us – we’re anxious because we’ve gotten to know you through your applications and we’ve watched you talk on the blog, and we know that not everyone gets admitted. We're anxious because we want the students we've admitted to come, and for every one of you to have wonderful options for next year. You’re anxious for obvious and similar reasons – you worked hard on your application, you worked hard in high school, and you’ve gotten to know and like each other and us. But I have also noticed that you have all been relatively level-headed about the news that is to come. You are savvy – your intelligent questions show that. You know what’s going on here.

The decision isn’t the end, though. For everyone, it will be the beginning of more questions – “where should I go” being the biggest one. Here are some answers to some questions that we expect will come up today.

You sent the email… so why isn’t it in my inbox right now?

Our emails will probably take a few hours to clear some mail servers. We did hit “send,” but you may not get the email until the evening.

I don’t think I got the email… what should I do?

If you did not get the email, you will have to wait for your decision in the mail. There is no need to call or email the office. We will not give you your decision by phone, and we will not re-send the decision email.

Did you email scholarship or financial aid decisions?

We did not email scholarship or financial aid decisions. Scholarship decisions were put in the mail with admission decisions this morning. Financial aid letters will come in the next weeks, depending on when your financial aid application became complete. We will not give out scholarship decisions over the phone or by email.

Only scholarship winners will be notified.

For international students who applied for financial aid and were admitted, your financial aid letter will be in your admit packet.

I was wait listed… what do I do now?

You should reply to an offer of admission at another school and put down a deposit there in the coming month. If you wish to remain on our waiting list, you should send back the form in the enclosed envelope. Also, contact your admission counselor – their contact information is given in the wait list letter. We have no way of knowing right now how many students we will be able to take off of the waiting list. Statistics for past years are given in the letter.

Is there an appeals process for admission or merit scholarship decisions?

No, there is no appeals process for admission decisions. There is no appeals process and no waiting or back-up list for merit scholarships.

Decisions are out… is this blog going away?

Yes, unfortunately, like all wonderful things it will slowly fade. Last year we noticed that there wasn’t as much traffic in the weeks after decisions. We expect that it will have outlived its use by April 15, when we will disable comments.

That’s all I can think of now – if more questions come up in the next few days, we will address them here. Good luck, everyone.

Childish Fun with the Camera

2007-03-23T09:13:00.000-06:00

What's going on on our campus this week? The world's largest Jenga game, that's what.

I make the first move, removing a block from the top because I am a coward!

Libby responds by taking a block from the middle. She likes to live dangerously!

I challenge Libby to place a car on top of the tower:

I see her car and raise her a bus!

At this point the tower collapsed. No construction workers, cranes, cars, buses or theological seminaries were harmed in the making of this post. Between my two fingers you can see the front door of the Seminary Co-op, which Libby and I will visit later today and post about a bit later.

StatueWatch 2007

2007-03-22T13:18:00.000-06:00

This was taken today at 11:20 a.m.

Just think, by the time all of America's admitted students have replied to their offers of admission at quality institutions around the country, that shadow will be a nice hammer and sickle.

And here is the campus: empty because it's spring break, but getting greener every day.

Botany Pond update

2007-03-14T13:46:00.000-06:00

After the question about where the fish go when the pond is frozen, I emailed Lorna Straus -- Professor Emeritus of Organismal Biology and Anatomy in the Biological Sciences Collegiate Division, former Dean of Students in the College, and University Marshal -- to ask her where the fish and turtles go. Here is her response, and she's asking a colleague to write a little history of Botany Pond for us after he's done grading papers.

But in answer to what may be the most urgent question: No [the pond does not need to be restocked every spring]. The turtles dig themselves into the ground and survive quietly and well until it warms up. They will be emerging in a couple of weeks. The goldfish survive in the water under the ice. The ice is gone, after yesterday, the fish are swimming around today.

Yes, folks, it was 70 degrees yesterday, and humid, enough to melt all that ice Austin was standing on. Today we had a high of 63, but it is cloudy and temperature is falling. It should be in the 40s or 50s for the rest of the week.

This was taken in May a few years ago... no lily pads yet.

Signs of Spring!

2007-03-09T10:57:00.000-06:00

Exciting news! Warm weather has (kind of) arrived. While we are still dealing with a lot of melting snow and many of your applications, we decided to take a brief break and walk around the campus to demonstrate that it is indeed true that Chicago has two seasons: winter and construction season, which in other places is called 'spring' and sometimes 'summer'.

Here we observe living things emerging from a pile of dead plant matter, as if by magic. As we all know from reading Aristotle, this is not magic. It is spontaneous generation in action.

This is botany pond, which we pointed out to you in a previous post. Now, with the snow melted, we discover that there is indeed a pond here, or at least a large block of ice (see next picture).

I bravely took my life into my own hands and ventured out over the depths of the pond to test the thickness of the ice! Since the pond is only about two feet deep, I suspect it simply froze all the way through during the winter. Applicants - please don't try this at home or here next winter, though I do have a funny story about taking a tour group through botany pond once and Jon has a funny story about testing the thickness of the ice when he shouldn't have.

More spontaneous generation in front of the Administration Building.

Here Jon points to an interesting piece of history: a stone from a building which was part of the old University of Chicago, which no one knows about and of which only one piece survives.

And here Jon points to his favorite bit of stone on the campus. Would you call this a capital or simply a molding? We can't decide. Anyway the 'decorative element of an unspecified type' is carved into the shape of a few ears of corn.

Carolus Linnaeus (= Carl von Linne). A famous former professor and loyal college alumnus, he is considered the father of engineering and is the namesake of our world famous engineering school. Actually that's not true, but he did come up with the binomial classification system for living things.

His statue was signed by the King of Sweden himself. (This is true!)

Jon and I walk down a path along the Midway Plaisance towards Rockefeller Chapel.

Yet one more thing you should not try either at home or while you are here. Jon, Libby and I decide to play ring-and-run (also called 'ding-dong-ditch' in some parts of the country) at President Robert Zimmer's house.

On the way back, we stopped at our famous Communist statue, which is in front of Pick Hall. As you should have heard on your campus tour (if you were able to visit) and as you can begin to see in the two pictures above, the statue casts a shadow in the form of a hammer and sickle for most of spring quarter, notably on May Day at noon. You should also note that May Day was started to commemorate the Haymarket Riotwhich took place in Chicago in the late 19th century. Incidentally if any of you are looking for a book on that subject, the early history of the labor movement in the US, or the history Chicago in the late 19th century, I would highly recommend James Green's Death in the Haymarket, which is an excellent history of the riot, the trial which followed it, and the broader history of Chicago in that era. Note that our link leads to the website for The Seminary Co-op, the official bookstore of the University of Chicago, and of the forces of goodness. Also note that the book is scheduled to come out in paperback in a few days. We hope to feature the Co-op in a future post, as it is the world's greatest bookstore.

What else we know

2007-03-09T09:40:00.000-06:00

There's not much that's new to report. It's getting warmer and sunnier (in the 50's this week) and the students are nearing exam week and spring break. This winter, I took a course at the public policy school on public policy and higher education. If you want to talk about the economics of financial aid, we can talk about the economics of financial aid. The final exam is next Friday.

To clear up something from the last post: scholarship decisions and admissions decisions will be sent on the same day. Scholarship winners who were admitted early action will get just the award. Scholarship winners who are being admitted regular notification will get their admit packet and the award. Something that people have requested over the years is that students who did not win scholarships get letters informing them that they did not win, so that they do not wait for an award in the mail. This is not something we're going to do this year. Scholarship winners will be notified that they have won, but scholarship non-winners will not be notified that they have not won.

Does that make sense?

Since it's getting warmer, the admissions staff has been venturing out a little more. Last weekend, some of us went to see Australian dance ensemble Chunky Move at the Museum of Contemporary Art. If you're planning a visit to campus, definitely go see the MCA's Rudolf Stingel exhibit or a performance. I'm also excited about seeing The Sparrow, a new play by the House Theater, which is extending its run at Steppenwolf. You may not have heard of this play, but it has taken Chicago by storm. If you want to see it, reserve tickets now for your trip... it'll be sold out very soon! Kate and Jon are going to see The Strangerer at Theater Oobleck--Camus' The Stranger meets the 2004 Presidential Debates.

What we know

2007-02-28T15:31:00.000-06:00

1. Decisions will come out before April 1.

2. They will be both mailed and emailed. This is new information to me, so it must be new to you! Before, we were just going to mail, but since we want you to have your decisions sooner rather than later, we will email as well.

We don't have a website that can accommodate posting decisions online.

That's all we know! You're welcome to your questions and wild speculations, but we can't provide any more information.

Something we can all do before decisions come out is read War and Peace. We have just enough time. I have a little head start -- I'm on page 800 on the Penguin edition, which is the one we use in the War and Peace class here, so it's the one I'm recommending. Maybe if we're all reading War and Peace, we won't keep refreshing the credentials page, which only updates once a day.

Midyears and incomplete applications

2007-02-26T10:22:00.000-06:00

Besides participating in Olympic events, here's what we've been doing in the office.

We have many (many, many) paper midyears that we have scanned, but still have to link. The assistant directors have been deployed to do a lot of that this afternoon, so if you have sent a paper midyear, or you think your school did, those should be appearing in the next few days. After we are sure we have linked every single paper midyear, we will send another email to tardy midyear grade reporters.

If you have not yet reported your midyear grades for some reason, please log in and do so! Everyone needs to fill out this form, even if you have graduated, are in Timbuktu, etc. It takes five minutes!

Here is a tour of the midyear report.

If you reported provisional midyear grades and now have a corrected midyear grade report (that is different from the provisional grades you reported), you were not supposed to do that! But it's okay -- email me at questions@phoenix.uchicago.edu and ask for your midyear report to be unlocked so that you can submit it again. Be sure to provide your full name.

And now, credentials... many people got an email last week telling them to check their credentials online and see what was missing. We sent this to all students who do not have one of the required elements: most often an application fee, but also test scores, at least one teacher recommendation, transcript, counselor recommendation, an essay, etc.

Of course, this has caused a little surge in the amount of mail, email, and faxes we get. We are hard at work scanning and linking the documents we've received. Many of you who have faxed something in may notice that it takes a few days for it to show up on the website. Human eyes check each piece that comes in to make sure it goes to the right file, and that it's the right thing. Patience and non-panic are both virtues that are utterly necessary in the college admissions process.

Winter Wonderland

2007-02-16T09:43:00.000-06:00

Last week, a large cargo plane carrying billions of styrofoam peanuts blew up over Chicago, and this was the result. It resembles snow, but the truth is that the average temperature in Chicago during January and February is nearly 70 degrees F...

That little sign on the right says "Thin Ice -- Do not stand on it" or something, but we can plainly see that that is a bridge over absolutely nothing. No ice here!

Students from our award-winning Engineering School began to construct the large buildings we use for housing during winter quarter exam period so that students who live in the Shoreland and Broadview don't have to leave the quads between exams.

Obviously we lagged a bit with this post... it's funnier because it actually is around 50 degrees in Chicago right now, and all the snow has melted. Ah, memories.

College Admissions Marathon

2007-02-07T12:20:00.000-06:00

Dear Friends,

This morning our computer systems were being upgraded, so we decided to compete in another heroic athletic competition which we would document in photographs and bring to you via this blog. Today, due to an abundance of warm weather and an imminent invasion by the Persians under Darius I, we decided that a marathon would be uniquely appropriate. For various reasons, several of our usual competitors could not participate (due to injuries, meetings, and other obligations) so the marathon today involved only Libby and Austin. Nevertheless, it was filled with peril and adventure, which we will recount for you below. This week we decided to visit most (though not all) of the most important campus coffee shops and three of the main libraries. As always, all participants were gold medalists, because there are no losers in the College Admissions Game (and this includes the College Admissions Marathon).

We started, as usual, in Rosenwald Hall. Leaving our offices for the first time in a few days (we have been very busy reading), we note that it is cold and has snowed recently. We immediately regret not bringing our skis, because on this day a real biathlon would have been possible. There was nothing to be done, however, so we laced up our sandals (remember - this is a Greek marathon) and got under way.

Our first stop was Swift Hall, which is the home of the Divinity School. The Divinity School Coffee Shop is located in the basement.

Having noticed a series of (very strange) requests for views of the insides of bathrooms from our loyal blog readers, we paused briefly at this sign. Libby was in favor of taking pictures of the bathroom, I was in favor of continuing on to the coffee shop, so Pheidippides cast the deciding vote, which was with me, so we headed left to the coffee shop. Libby wants to reassure all of our readers that our bathrooms are very nice, though we are very unlikely to feature them in any future blog post:

Inside the Divinity School Coffee Shop, we found reasonably priced mochas, lattes, coffees and hot chocolates. We might normally have been amazed, but we visit the Div School (as it is known around here) almost every day before (or during) work. I had a medium hot chocolate. Anyone who has ever run on a track or cross-country team will tell you that there is nothing like hot chocolate to keep you going during a marathon:

Libby had some coffee.

The Divinity School Coffee Shop is known as "the place where God drinks coffee," probably because they sell these shirts. We don't know if they mean that this is the place where God does drink his coffee, or where God would drink his coffee, if he went to the Divinity School (or the University of Chicago). Anyway, these are great shirts. You get discounts on coffee at the Div School if you wear your shirt:

Emerging from the subterranean warren which is the Div School Coffee Shop, we headed for Cobb Hall. If you are admitted and decide to enroll, you will become intimately familiar with Cobb Hall, because it is one of our main classroom buildings. Cobb Hall is named for Silas B. Cobb, who invented the cobweb. You can clearly see several elements of the building which reflect the design of cobwebs. We promise:

Here I am in the basement of Cobb, admiring a sign on the entrance to Cobb Coffee Shop:

What does the sign say? We have taken a picture of it, which we reproduce below. Now we know what it says, though we still don't know what it means. You might be asking yourself what a 'neo-synthetic culture space' is supposed to be. If you are, you are asking the same question which we asked ourselves upon entering the shop. Fortunately, we quickly discovered the truth:

This is a neo-synthetic culture space in all its glory! Behold! Neo-synthetic culture! Wherever you see scenes like this one, you are seeing a neo-synthetic culture space. Note that Cobb Coffee Shop was not crowded, because we visited at about 9:30 in the morning:

The baristas at Cobb frequently play movies at lunch on this TV set, and records on the turntable which is below and to the right. Last week they were playing The Empire Strikes Back, today it was Clerks.

If you are a regular at Cobb Coffee Shop, you can hang your mug on the wall. We know there are more regulars at Cobb than this would indicate, but there are a limited number of hooks for mugs. Therefore, new regulars are appointed only when old regulars die, retire or graduate (in a process very much like the process of appointing new Supreme Court Justices) or when a current regular is challenged to gladiatorial combat by a hopeful (potential) 'regular'. What we are really saying is that we have no idea how one would get to hang one's mug on one of these hooks. What we do know is that those who are so lucky get bottomless cups of coffee for only one dollar per day:

Leaving Cobb Coffee Shop, we turned left and headed to the Classics Quad to find the Classics Coffee Shop, which is in the Classics Building:

And here we are, on the second floor of the building:

The Classics Coffee Shop is a well-known hangout for classicists, philosophy professors, and other Greeks and Romans. The three busts over the counter are of famous former University of Chicago professors - Voltaire, Hegel and Ted Cohen. (Please note that two of these men died before the University of Chicago was founded and never worked here, but one of them still teaches here and, we might add, is very popular - we leave it to you to decide who is who.) Of the three coffee shops we have visited so far, the Classics Cafe has the best ambience and is best suited to studying, philosophizing, and thinking:

Here is the other half of the Classics Coffee Shop:

We left Classics and headed to Harper Memorial Library. We will note that we did not need to go outside at all during this leg of our journey. Some of you have asked whether there is a system of tunnels under our campus. The answer is no, but it is possible to cover a lot of ground inside. We will also note that we could have walked from Cobb to Classics without setting foot outside, but we enjoy the snow and the cold. Harper Library is one of the most beautiful spaces on campus:

If you have been following along on a map, you will notice that we have gone a total of three and a half blocks by this point in our marathon. We have a long way to go. Upon leaving Harper, we headed for the Social Sciences Quad, and towards the Reynolds Club:

Arriving at the Reynolds Club, we warmed our tired hands and feet at this fireplace:

From there, we attempted to take some pictures of the Second Floor Coffee Shop. The name of this establishment changes regularly. We think that it is called "Hallowed Grounds" this year. Last year it was "Uncle Joes." When we arrived, we found that it was not going to open for another 10 minutes. We decided that since our goal was to break the world record time of 2:04:55, we could not spare ten minutes. We continued to the C-Shop, which is on the first floor of the Reynolds Club:

After the C-Shop, which is most notable for $1-Shake Wednesdays (yes, a whole milkshake for $1, or n whole milkshakes for $n) we stopped briefly at Hutchinson Commons, which is a beautiful space (and a cafeteria too):

,

Upon leaving the Reynolds Club, Pheidippides dropped out of the race from exhaustion, and Libby and I continued on through the snow alone, sorely regretting our decision to leave our skis at home. Our next stop was the Regenstein, the main library on our campus. This view is from the other side. The sculpture in the center commemorates the spot where Enrico Fermi and his colleagues initiated the first (artificial) self-sustaining nuclear reaction on December 2, 1942:

Inside the Reg, we stopped on the third floor to take this picture of the study spaces on the second and third floors:

To give you some idea of the size of the Reg, Libby stood at one end of this section of the stacks and took pictures while I walked to the other. This is the first picture in a series of three:

Second:

Third. You might not be able to see me, but I am there. We meant to count the number of shelves I passed, but unfortunately forgot:

From the third floor, we headed to the A Level (which is the first level underground) to Ex Libris, which is the Reg's Coffee Shop. It is pictured here. Remember, it's pretty early in the morning, so the shop is not as crowded as it otherwise would be:

One of the employees of the shop has a cat, which is pictured here. When the cat turned thirteen-and-one-day old, its owner held a bar mitzvah. The staff at Ex Libris assured us that there was a Torah reading. The cat's name, for those of you who are curious, is Mr. Gingersnaps:

We also came upon this drawing on a blackboard in Ex Libris. The two combatants pictured here are 'Aristotron' and 'Platobot'. Platobot is shooting forms at Aristotron. Aristotron is responding with a blast from his praxis cannon. (Please note - the Admissions Office is not necessarily endorsing the assignment of Aristotron to the Decepticons and Platobot to the Autobots.)

From the Reg, we headed north to the Smart Museum, wherein we found the Smart Museum Cafe. The smart kids around here all know that most standard coffee shop fare is a bit cheaper at the Smart Museum Cafe, because it is off the beaten path for most students. Lines tend to be shorter too, as they were when we visited:

What's that? That's a T-1000. Just another wonderful thing invented at the University of Chicago, this time in our famous School of Engineering. (As you probably know, we do not have an engineering school. What you may not know is that this bit of metal is real art from the Smart Museum.)

On the final leg of our journey, we headed to Crerar, which is our science library:

In the entry way there is an exhibit about the 'Super Croc' (= Sarchosuchus Imperator), the most complete specimen of which was discovered recently by the University's own Paul Sereno:

On the second floor of Crerar, I stayed put while Libby walked to the end of the bookstacks. This is the first in a series of three photographs:

Second:

Third:

Finally, Libby stopped to sit in the chair where I read most of my applications, which is on the second floor of Crerar, near the Journal of Microscopy and the Journal of Biological Chemistry:

At this point, exhausted but triumphant, we headed down the last mile from Crerar to Rosenwald, past the cheering throngs, and returned to our offices to begin reading more applications. We also want to let you know that there are several other libraries (the D'Angelo Law Library, the Eckhart Math Library, etc) and several coffee shops (the Second Floor Coffee Shop, the Stuart Coffee Shop, the New Graduate School of Business Coffee Shop, etc.) which we were not able to visit, but they are there. You will have to see them for yourselves should you visit the campus in April.

Thank you, as usual, for reading our blog.

Sincerely,

Austin and Libby

PS. Next week the assistants who were on the disabled list this week (Jon, Jeff, Isabel, Kate, and more!) promise that they will be healthy and ready to go with us. If there are things you would like us to photograph, please make suggestions here!

Magical Mystery Biathlon

2007-02-01T14:54:00.000-06:00

Dear Friends,

Libby and I read your comments on our proposal last week with great interest. We recognized quickly that most people seemed to want to see dorms (which is what we would want to see, if we were in your shoes), so concluded we had two options. We could either spend many weeks taking pictures of one dorm per week, or do all the dorms close to campus in a single lunch break and move on to other things! We knew which one of those two options excited us, so we set off this afternoon on the College Admissions Winter Biathlon of 2007, aiming to see four dormitories and all three dining halls in one hour.

The biathlon seemed to be a uniquely appropriate event, because it involves skiing and shooting (in this case shooting pictures, not rifles). The participants were Jeff Hreben (representing Norway), Libby Pearson (representing Andorra), Jon Quinn (representing The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland) and me (representing the Motherland - the Russian Federation). All participants won gold medals. There are no losers in the College Admissions Game, so there certainly would not be any losers in the College Admissions Biathlon.

We set out from the main quad towards Burton Judson. It was at this point that we abandoned our skis for lack of snow to ski on. All participants agreed to this, so no one was penalized or disqualified. We continued with only our wits and our cameras:

As we approached Burton Judson, I called Caroline, the student who had agreed to show us her room. She lives in Dodd-Mead House on the first floor of Burton Judson:

Here is a view of Burton Judson from where Jon and I were standing. Notice - not enough snow for a real biathlon on skis:

Here are Jon and Austin approaching the entrance to Burton Judson. The portcullis is raised except when the building is under siege by the Ostrogoths, who tend to appear yearly during the Spring Quarter:

Caroline and her roommate live in a 'walk-through' double. Most rooms in Burton Judson are singles. Caroline and her roommate have singles too, but Caroline must walk through her roommate's room to get in and out. This is her roommate's room:

And this is half of Caroline's room. She didn't want us to take a picture of her desk on the other side of the room because it was messy. We interrupted Caroline while she was doing her physics homework:

We left Caroline's room and headed for the Burton Judson dining hall, which is in the rear corner of the building. As you can see, Burton Judson was built in the Gothic style. What you cannot see in this picture is that the architects took this so seriously that they included battlements with spaces for archers and cauldrons to be used to pour hot oil on invading enemies (like the Ostrogoths, for example).

Before reaching the dining hall, we passed the entrance to Chamberlin House. Libby lived in Chamberlin as a first year student, many, many years ago (ok, maybe five and a half years ago) and as you can see, she really enjoyed the experience:

This is the interior of the Burton Judson dining hall, which resembles the dining hall from the Harry Potter movies (as does Burton Judson as a whole, and most of our campus). In fact, the same technology which is used to suspend the candles above the floor in the Hogwarts dining hall (i.e., magic) is employed at the Burton Judson dining hall to suspend the chandeliers. Magic was developed here in the early 20th century. We are not lying.

After stopping in Burton Judson, we decided to add an unscheduled stop to our course - the NEW dorm. If you are admitted, make the right choice and decide to enroll, and then live in the Shoreland during your first year, you will be moved to this new dorm when it is ready during your second year. The dorm has been nicknamed the Panopticon, because of the resemblance it bears to Jeremy Bentham's design for a prison. We think the new dorm is going to be quite amazing and any comparisons to a prison are without merit! In fact, Jon, Jeffrey, Austin, Libby, Isabel and Kate have all considered applying to be Resident Heads in the new dorm when it opens:

Right now the new dorm is not ready to accept any students:

We left the new dorm and headed up Ellis Avenue. This is a view of Harper from the south side of the Midway. The tower at the right of the photograph is Rockefeller Chapel:

We went through the Classics Quad, on to the Main Quad, and into the Snell-Hitchcock quad (for those of you following along on a map), to see the Snell-Hitchcock dormitory, which is pictured here:

We entered the building and stopped in Ayn Sauer's room. If any of you visited during the summer, you may have had Ayn as a tour guide, or seen her on a student panel. She has a really excellent room, which she shares with a friend of hers. She wants us to tell all of you that you will not be able to live there next year, because she is staying in her room forever! This is half of it. The other half is as cool as this half:

Here is the other half of Ayn's room. Again, it is every bit as cool as the first half. On the left, you can see Ayn. We think she would want you to know that she is not named after Ayn Rand:

We stopped on the way out to take pictures of Snell-Hitchcock's Green Room, which is often used for tea parties, masquerade balls, and frivolous frippery:

We next stopped in the Bartlett Dining Hall to try to find a student who would let us in to Max Palevsky East. Here is the stairway up to the dining area, which is on the second floor:

Once inside, I tried to convince a student from May House to take us in and show us around. Unfortunately, I had little success. This might be because I spent three years living in Alper House (which is on the third and fourth floors of Max East) and often made fun of May House and Hoover House, with which my house shared the building. In my humble and completely biased opinion, Alper House is the best house in the housing system:

Since we could not enter the building, I decided to show my feelings for it to all of you by hugging it. It's a wonderful dorm. I really enjoyed living there:

On our way from Max Palevsky to Pierce, we passed this sign in the window of the Hoover House, which I think every student at the University (and most of our applicants) could endorse with enthusiasm:

This is a picture from Pierce Hall from University Avenue near Henry Crown:

Before checking out a room, we decided to stop at the Pierce dining hall for lunch. I had some pizza, ravioli, a salad, and some ice cream which is not pictured here. We took a picture of Jon's lunch because everything he was eating was pink, which matched his tie, but unfortunately for you (and fortunately for him) it did not come out very well:

This is the first floor of the house lounge in Tufts House, from the second floor of the lounge. Tufts House is located on the second and third floors of Pierce:

Tufts House has about 10 video game consoles lying around. Here I am playing a Nintendo Wii. The last video game system I played was a Sega Genesis, which I am now realizing was released in the year most applicants this year were born. Here I am noticing that the cars in this game are steered by tilting the controller from side to side. I am really, really amazed. I was not able to try the Playstation 3, so I can't compare the two:

This is one half of a Pierce double:

Jeff and Jon both lived in Pierce during their first years, and here they are demonstrating how much they love the building:

On our way back to Rosenwald, we ran in to Ryland, who I admitted two years ago and who lives in Max Palevsky East. He agreed to show us his room, which he shares with the student I am pictured talking to earlier. Ryland said "everything cool in this room belongs to me, everything which is not cool belongs to [my roommate]!":

After leaving Max Palevsky we returned to our offices in Rosenwald, which is pictured here. If you visit in April, look for this building. We hope there will be more leaves on the trees and less snow on the ground by then:

Please tell us how you enjoyed this, what else we should include and what you would like us to photograph in the future. Thanks for reading!

Sincerely,

Austin, Jeff, Jon and Libby

Women's Basketball Makes #1 in ESPN Poll

2007-01-29T14:11:00.000-06:00

Jon (our athletics liaison and rep for the mid-Atlantic states) has wanted me to put this up for a while, so we're finally announcing that our women's basketball team is #1 in the USA Today/ESPN Division III Coach's Poll and #4 in the D3Hoops.com poll. Unfortunately they lost to Brandeis this weekend, so I don't know what's going to happen to their ranking. We all know how fickle rankings can be. But this is particularly amazing, given that we were ranked fifth in our conference at the beginning of the season. Read this fun blurb from the Sun-Times.

Interactive Photographic Magical Mystery Campus Tour

2007-01-26T11:58:00.000-06:00

Dear applicants and other loyal readers,

Libby and I have noticed that people seem to enjoy posts on this blog which involve photographs, so we were jointly inspired. We invite our readers to propose subjects for our blog posts next week, which Libby and I will then go out and photograph.

If, for example, you have never been to campus and you want to see what the Regenstein library really looks like (and you are unsatisfied with the offerings on the virtual tour website), or if you have never seen the Seminary Co-op (the world's greatest bookstore), or want to know what the campus looks like in January (hint - cold!), or what Bartlett dining hall looks like at noon, or most other reasonable suggestions, you can let us know and we will do our best to take pictures to show you. To provide with a source for your suggestions, here is a link to a very good map of the campus.

So, let us know what you want us to show you and we'll try to get to it next week.

-Austin and Libby

The journey continues... through the scanner

2007-01-25T08:57:00.000-06:00

As of this morning, 3164 midyear reports have been submitted online! Great job, guys!

As a reward, we'll post the next installment of the Journey of an Admissions Credential. This one is entitled Part II: Revenge of the Scanner.

Remember all those documents and patch codes from the first installment? We bring them to the scanner and get them stacked up neatly. There are four scanners in the office running full-time, and we all take turns operating them. This batch looks ready to go!

Austin places them carefully into the scanning tray.

Whoops, a staple. We'll have to re-scan this one.

Though we are supposed to be watching your documents closely to make sure they scan correctly, Austin edifies himself with some light reading.

We also make use of the putting machine we got a few years ago.

Click here for a short video of credentials scanning. Fascinating.

The above two pictures are jokes. They may not be very funny jokes, but they are jokes nonetheless. We take our jobs very seriously.

We pushed back the date for opening the credentials site because, as you can see, we want to get as many credentials entered before we open it and subject ourselves to floods of phone calls and emails about missing documents.

If you're driving from Chicago to California, you aren't "lost" if you're in Utah. You're just not there yet. Similarly, if you see on the credentials website that there are some documents that haven't arrived yet, they aren't "missing" yet. Austin just hasn't scanned them.

Exciting News for Applicants and their Younger Siblings

2007-01-24T13:50:00.000-06:00

Those of you who are not yet regular readers of the Chicago Tribune might have missed this article yesterday about Chicago's bid to hold the Olympic Games in 2016. While that may quite a long way off (hence the "and their Younger Siblings" part of the title of this post), we still think it's quite exciting. (A password may be required to view the page, but registration is free.)

You should definitely click on the "photo gallery" section of the Tribune article. We hope you will be especially excited about the proposed temporary stadium and even more excited about its location - Washington Park! If you don't recognize the area from the picture, here's another view from Google Maps. It's all of six blocks from the Admissions Office.

Right now we are competing against Los Angeles for the support of the US Olympic Committee. Philadelphia and Houston have already dropped out. Assuming we are selected (and we think we should be!), our competition internationally may include Doha, Cape Town, Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires. We suspect we already have the coolest logo of the many cities submitting bids:

Answers to questions from the last post

2007-01-22T08:20:00.000-06:00

Can we send in additional letters or anything of that sort if we were deferred? ... or... Since the midyear report is filled out online, how should I go about submitting supplemental material?

Yes, please do. Just send them to the regular address (using the regular forms, which are still available on our website), have recommendation letters emailed to recommendations@phoenix.uchicago.edu (make sure the recommender includes a subject line and a file that is actually readable... and not a virus!) or faxed to 773-702-8599 (domestic fax) or 773-702-4704 (international fax).

If you have a few comments or awards to note, just put them in the appropriate section on the midyear report.

I took two classes last semester via dual enrollment from two different colleges. Will I be able to report those grades on the form, or will I need to send a copy of the transcripts?

The beauty of our midyear report is that you can report grades from multiple schools at once. Just type in the name of the institution and the grade.

Honestly, how big of a difference does the midyear report make for people who were deferred?

It makes a pretty big difference. One of the only differences between the way we read your application EA and the way we read your application RN--besides the existence of 7,000 more applications--is this midyear report. Nothing about the midyear report (or anything in the universe, even really big atoms) can guarantee that you are admitted RN, but it contains information that is very valuable to us.

How bad do our final grades have to be for us to get rescinded? Like how easy or hard is it to get rescinded?

It's pretty hard for your offer to get rescinded, but if you were planning on doing anything foolish with your life, please wait until after July 1 to do it.

Are the Bears the best team in football?

I believe so.

Clearing up confusion about the midyear report

2007-01-19T10:48:00.000-06:00

The midyear report is almost here. But what makes Chicago's midyear report different from other schools'? And why am I getting so many questions about it when it's not even available until January 22?

We do our midyear report online, and you the student fill it out. What we want you to do is to get your report card and your counselor's name, phone number, and email address, and log into the online application. Then, we ask you to put in your midyear grades, tell us if you have been convicted of a felony in the last two months, and put in any comments you want to, as well as your counselor's information.

Why do we do things this way? To save ourselves processing time and give you one more chance to communicate with us before we make our final decisions.

We will send everyone an email on January 23 with your username and other information about the midyear report. If you don't have a username yet or don't know yours, wait for that email.

Here are a few more notes about the midyear report:

1. When we say it will be available January 22, we actually mean January 23.

Yes, our skewed sense of time is at it again. We extended your deadline, so we'd be happy if you'd let us extend ours. We need another day to make sure that the midyear report is working for everyone, so it will open at 12:01 a.m. (not sure what time zone) on January 23.

2. If your school is already sending a paper midyear report, you do not have to log in and fill it out.

You can, of course, to take advantage of the opportunity to communicate with your application reader directly. If you know that your school sends midyear reports automatically to all the colleges to which you apply, then you can rest assured that we will count those as your midyear report.

3. The midyear report will remain open until March 1, though you should fill it out as soon as possible.

Many students have marking periods that end February 6, later, sooner, or never. We're flexible. It is to your advantage to submit the midyear report as soon as you possibly can, and it is an application requirement, but if February 1 passes and you have not done it yet, do not worry. We will accept them any time.

4. The midyear report is required for everyone.

Whether you are 40 years old and have five children, are from Singapore and have already graduated as of December, or you are on the senior prom committee, you must log in and fill out the midyear report. The first thing we will ask you is 1) if you have graduated already, and 2) if you for some reason have no midyear grades. If you click affirmative for either of these things, we will just send you to the end of the form and make sure you are not a felon. There are parts of the midyear report that apply to every applicant.

5. The midyear report takes five minutes.

Trust me, I fill it out every year.

Scientists Create World's Largest Novelty Atom

2007-01-16T12:11:00.000-06:00

The Onion reports on our laboratories' latest efforts. Your tuition dollars will be well-spent.

If you're visiting on January 15...

2007-01-09T09:08:00.000-06:00

January 15 is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. There are many campus events scheduled, but classes will not be in session, and the admissions office will not be open. But come and visit anyway! If you want to see what's going on, click here.

The journey of an application credential

2007-01-04T13:59:00.000-06:00

What's happening with your application right now?

Look what today's mail has brought us -- 14 bins!

First, we open the envelope. What could be in here?

Then, we take out the staples that are inevitably in whatever we find, right over the "please do not staple" note at the corner of every page.

We use an Image Now Patch Code between each document, which tells our scanners that a new document is about to be scanned.

We put documents in different stacks depending on what they are -- applications, transcripts, recommendations, supplementals, or if they're a lot of things together.

Of course, this is more difficult when you have envelopes for hands, as Austin Bean does here.

To be continued...

Applications from around the world

2007-01-03T08:54:00.000-06:00

... even if the applicants aren't necessarily.

This year I noticed a return to Pago Pago. I learned that Alaska has its own time zone -- Alaska Standard Time. People from the East Coast moved to California. People from California moved to Alaska, Baker Island, and Pago Pago. The last people clocked in at 6:21 a.m. CST, just after the sun rose.

I've just submitted my application to UChicago, and... I'll say it was submitted under Pacific time.
- Arshabh

Aida reporting here, live from Puerto Rico. -salute- I was just emailing you to let you know that I'll be applying under the Baker Island time zone. (Hey, it's a few more hours to review my application and freak out over the fact that "YES, I HAVE COMPLETED IT! OH GOSH!", so why not? :D)

I am writing to clarify that I applied from the time zone in Tegucigalpa, Honduras as opposed to my local time in Jerusalem, Israel. Thank you and have a happy new year.
- Ross

I'm pretty sure that at midnight east coast standard time you may receive quite a few emails. Because of this I am writing in advance to tell you that I am applying in Samoan time relative to the capital of the country, Apia. It is currently around 5:30 P.M., Tuesday, Jan. 2nd there. On a side note, you must really like coffee.
- Nina

I was visiting some relatives in Meyerton, Baker's Island, only to find that they were driven off by the Japanese 65 years ago. Bad luck, huh? Anyways, I'm sitting here on Baker's Island with a laptop and 6 hours until January 3rd and I decided to review my application. As a result, I wish to apply under the Baker's Island time zone and not the one of my mailing address. Thank you for your patience.
- Eating a giant box of Nerds to stay awake, Brian

Sorry to add to your workload this evening, but my name is Andrew, and I submitted my application to the University of Chicago at near about quarter of midnight, Eastern time, from New York. Just for the sake of being safe, would you just report me as having submitted from some exotic Pacific locale? Choose someplace that would be pleasant compared to Upstate New York in January, that would be appreciated.

I'm applying Boise time! (earlier than I thought...)
- Thanks, Weyam

My name is Mattias, and I will be applying under the Pago Pago time zone for U Chicago's Undergraduate admissions.

Hello Libby. My name is Bharat and I turned in my application before midnight in the time zone of Unalaska, Alaska because that is just an awesome name for a city.

This is just a note to tell you that I'm applying under the Hawaii-Aleutian Standard Time Zone, because it's still 11:07 pm on January 2 in Adak, Alaska, although it's 4:08 am here in Virginia.
- Kelly

I'm applying under the Pago Pago timezone. (I hear there's lovely weather there.)
- Yvonne

I've submitted my application to UChicago in the last few minutes, and would ask that it be considered as submitted under the timezone of Alofi, Niue (UTC -11), where it is as of this writing 10:39 PM on January 2nd.
- Sean

Hello Libby! Although it is after midnight in Fresno, California, it is still January 2nd in Suva, Fiji located in the UTC-12 time zone.
- Emily

I just submitted my University of Chicago application at the conclusion of January 2nd, 2007 on Baker Island. It is a very nice island, but it is very lonely ;-).
- Jay

UFO spotted over O'Hare, and other deadline mayhem

2007-01-02T11:14:00.000-06:00

Here's the UFO story, courtesy of NPR.

The great thing about the digital information age is that inconsistencies in the information we publish (usually my fault) can be found immediately and discussed at great length on this blog and on College Confidential. Recently I've become aware that there's a little confusion about the deadline. The deadline to submit online materials (the application and essays) is tonight at midnight. Which midnight? There are 24 of them. You can submit your application on the latest midnight there is, in Baker Island in the Pacific, the last place the sun hits before it goes over the international date line. Read more here.

Also, students were discussing whether we award 20 or 30 College Honor Scholarships, our full-tuition scholarship. We award around 20, and they are renewable for four years. Students who were admitted early action will not hear about scholarship decisions until April.

Rearranging deadlines

2006-12-29T11:58:00.000-06:00

We've just heard that post offices will be closed on January 2 in honor of deceased president Gerald Ford. Therefore, the postmark deadline for application materials is now January 3.

Online application should still be submitted on January 2. The post office being closed does not change that.

If you want to read more about exactly when you can submit your online application, click here.

A little note about the earthquake and damaged undersea internet cables office of coast of Asia:

Apparently it could take up to two weeks for internet and phone services to return. Obviously we don't expect anyone to be able to read this blog or be able to communicate readily with us, but rest assured that we will read your application when it gets here. Many students have already contacted us and are making plans to send us paper copies of their applications.

What does my decision mean?

2006-12-21T22:03:00.000-06:00

I was deferred. Is that a lot like being denied?

Not at all. Being deferred is our way of saying that we need more information, both about you and about the regular notification pool, before we can make a final decision.

How many deferred applicants are accepted for regular notification?

In recent years, between 18 and 27 percent of deferred candidates were offered admission. We have no way of telling what this year's new applicant pool will bring.

I was deferred, and I think that an interview with an alum would really help me out. How can I have one at this point?

We are offering alumni interviews only to early action candidates who were deferred and who requested an alumni interview before the October deadline and did not get to have one. Students who did not previously request an alumni interview cannot have one now--we just have too many interview requests for this to be possible. To inquire about an alumni interview for the regular notification round, email your admissions counselor.

My deferral letter said to update our files with new information. How can I do that?

The most common and convenient thing is to include any new information--including grades, classes added or dropped, or awards--in the midyear report, which will be available online in late January. If you have new writing samples or significant letters of recommendation, mail them to the office.

I was denied. Can I apply again for the regular notification cycle?

If you were denied, then you cannot apply again this year.

I want to know why I got the decision I got. Can someone in the office tell me that?

It is our general policy not to discuss admissions decisions with applicants or their parents. Our decisions are made during a careful reading of the entire contents of your application by three or more members of our committee.

Hello! I haven't gotten my decision yet!

If you haven't yet received an email or anything in the mail (we mailed last Friday), please email your full name and hometown to eap@uchicago.edu (me!) so that we can re-send your letter.

I was admitted. Do I have to do anything else?

All candidates, even if they were admitted early, must submit the midyear report in late January. We will email everyone about how this is done. Students who matriculate must also submit a final grade report by July 1.

A message from the dean

2006-12-19T13:49:00.000-06:00

Here is an update from the dean:

I’d like to take a moment to explain the ways we distributed Early Action decisions.

At 4:00 pm on Friday, December 15^th, all domestic admissions decisions were metered first class mail and delivered by courier to a post office downtown. From there they began their journey to your homes around the country. International applicants were sent decisions by UPS courier and the first of those packets should begin arriving Wednesday, December 20^th.

These letters are your official admissions decisions.

However, as a courtesy to applicants, email notifications of all decisions were sent at 5:00 pm on Monday, December 18^th. For some reason, a very few email decisions were not received. We will not resend email notifications, nor will admissions decisions be given over the phone, in order to protect the confidentiality of these decisions.

We understand your anxiety if you have not received your decision letter. Please be patient as the US Postal Service does its work during this busy time of the year. If you have not received your official letter by Thursday, December 21st at 5pm, please call our office on either Friday, December 22^nd or Tuesday, December 26^th. At that point we can work to resend admissions decisions by mail.

Sincerely,
Ted O’Neill
Dean of Admissions

A wise person once said

2006-12-18T23:07:00.000-06:00

Wow, I leave my computer for 4 hours to go downtown to a sneak of We Are Marshall and the blog explodes (by the way, the movie was Velveeta cheesy, in a really bad way...no offense to the kind souls from Huntington, West Virginia).

For those of you who received good news earlier (by post or by email), congratulations.

For those of you that did not receive the decision you had hoped for, I know it is hard to swallow (believe me, I've been there for deny letters...more than a few). However, at times like these I'm reminded of wisdom spoken by two people who have done this much longer than I. Firstly, in selective college admissions, the vast, vast majority of students can do competent work and succeed academically at the institutions at which they apply. It's not simply about the GPA, the rank or the test scores. Following from this, as a sage person once stated, "College admissions is a game not to be won, but instead a match to be made". Please keep this in mind as you proceed through the college search. Though you may not find a home at Chicago, realize that you will do great things and find a home some place amazing.

Finally, a quick aside. To those that think the email is just a scan of your original letter, I'm both pleased and hurt by that statement. I'm elated that you thought they imitated the letter so closely (indeed, that was the point). But, it's sad because Libby spent a lot of time creating them in our email program to look exactly like them, though they are not duplicates.

Anyway, here's to everyone getting some sleep and resuming normal proceedings in their daily lives...more work looms for us: Regular Notification.

Decisions are coming

2006-12-16T16:01:00.000-06:00

It sounds like some people have already received their decisions in the mail. We will email everyone their decisions on Monday afternoon, followed by a note on Tuesday from the Office of College Aid for students who were admitted and who applied for financial aid.

In the meantime, I'm going to take a brief break from posting due to a family emergency. You're welcome to keep talking to each other in the comments, but there won't be a new post until Thursday.

Post your favorite recipe

2006-12-14T08:51:00.000-06:00

It seems like there's a lot of freaking out and cooking going on. So, everyone, post your favorite recipe.

Reminder: RN applicants should request alumni interviews by December 15

2006-12-13T11:06:00.000-06:00

Regular notification applicants have until December 15 to request their alumni interviews. To request one, log into the online application and click "Request an alumni interview."

Also, now six University of Chicago teams are in the NCAA top 25 for Division III.

More Truth

2006-12-11T15:51:00.000-06:00

Gee, it took last year's class months to get up to the sheer volume of commenting that you guys have.

The party line for when decisions will be mailed and e-mailed is: "Early next week."

I know a lot of you will be disappointed to hear that, but believe me, it's better to get the correct letter than to get the letter early!

The Truth about admissions decisions and alumni interviews

2006-12-06T08:55:00.000-06:00

A.k.a. More Bad News

It's a great time to be an admissions counselor at the University of Chicago.

Early action admissions decisions will be emailed this year to every applicant. Regular notification decisions will not.

We are trying to get this email out before December 15. We are not quite sure when it will go out. It depends on how fast we can read and how many hours we can put in. I'm happy to say that we've been reading a lot and working a lot, and making a ton of progress on our record-breaking early action pool. However, we still have a long way to go.

We readers have been noticing that more interview reports are coming in this year than ever, and they are really helping us out. Of course, since there are more of you, more requests were made, and more people will hear that they won't have an interview. If you have not been contacted by your alumni interviewer yet, you probably will not get one for the early action cycle. If you are deferred, you will have another chance at an alumni interview.

I don't know if I've already told this story on this blog, but back when I applied to college, there was no internet. I checked a box on my paper Basic Information Form that said I would like an alumni interview. A month later, I got a letter that said no alum lived within 75 miles of me. AND my science teacher recommendation never made it.

Not having an interview, and not having two recommendations, does not hurt your chance of admission.

The Truth about the common application

2006-12-04T17:34:00.000-06:00

First, a message from Ted O'Neill, the Dean of Admissions:

The University's Office of College Admissions has just submitted an application to be accepted as a member of the Common Application group. You will find attached a statement which explains something of the reasons we have decided to add the Common application as an option for applicants to the College. Let me add a word from those of us who recruit the students and who read the applications. We have come to love our Uncommon, so named seven or so years ago, but at heart the application we devised some 24 years ago when we began to ask "uncommon" questions. But, even as we loved the document, and patted ourselves on the back for being different and clever, we realized that there was a chance that some students would be confused or intimidated by our use of an instument that looked different and difficult. And, we always feared the the students who might turn away from the Uncommon might be, disproportionately, students who were the ones most likely to be least comfortable with competitive college admissions--e.g., those without counsel, the first-generation applicants, and the low-income students. Now, as other universities have followed Harvard's lead and have, one by one, decided to add the Common Application or to replace their own application entirely with the Common, we find that we are almost alone (Georgetown seems to be the other holdout) in requiring a separate and different application. So, we have decided to keep the Uncommon as an option for those students who like the look and feel of it, and who appreciate the hard work that has gone into making our on-line application so useful and friendly.In addition, we hope to add the Common Application as an option. The students who use the Common will have to fill out a substantial supplement, which means they will have to answer our interesting questions. Maybe more applications will be forthcoming as a result of this change. We hope so, because we devote a lot of our energy every year to persuading more students to apply to Chicago. More students should apply to Chicago--we know that too many students who would love this college don't apply, and our mission is to spread the good word to any student who wants this kind of education, which is only offered here. Who wants to tamper with a great thing? Well, sometime the time comes to try something new in the interests of furthering the values we hold dear. If some new, worthy, Chicago-type kids are welcomed by the Common Application into the fold, this change will be a very good thing. And, in our welcome to them, we are determined to let them know, in no uncertain terms, that whether they choose to use the Uncommon or the Common application, they are filing a distictive application to a distinctive University.

And now, a message from Michael Behnke, our Vice President for Enrollment, and John Boyer, the Dean of the College and the guy who edits our history books:

The current application for admission to the College of the University of Chicago consists of two parts. “Form One” collects routine information such as name, address, school information and an activity list. The “Essays” part contains the uncommon essays that are the distinctive part of the application.

The University has applied to be a member of the Common Application. This will give students the option of submitting the Common Application instead of Form One of the University’s application, which asks for similar routine information. The uncommon essay section of the University’s application will remain the same and will continue to be required of all applicants.

This additional option will be available to students in the 2008-2009 or 2009-2010 application cycles depending on when systems can be modified.

This option to use the Common Application will allow students to submit standard information in a standard format, while still preserving the distinctiveness and important information contained in our uncommon essays.

The Truth about application credentials

2006-12-01T08:45:00.000-06:00

Here is the email:

As of this date, your University of Chicago Early Action Application
remains incomplete. It is likely that whatever is not here has gone
astray, though we assume that you and your school have made
every effort to send all material in a timely way. We still have time
to complete your file, to read it, and to render a decision in December.
Let us work together to complete your application.

Please go to the Uncommon application homepage. Enter your username and password, and click "Login." Click
"Check Credentials" in order to see which credentials continue to be missing.

If any of the following credentials are missing from your application, please email the documents by the end of the day, Monday, December 4 to recommendations@phoenix.uchicago.edu or fax the documents to 773-702-8599 (domestic fax) or 773-702-4704 (international fax):

Essays
Secondary School Counselor Report (Form 2B)
SAT or ACT test scores as reported to your high school
Teacher recommendations (Forms 3A or 3B)

Official high school transcripts and application fees, which must be paid
by check or money order at this time, must be mailed to:

The University of Chicago
Office of College Admissions
1101 E 58th Street, Suite 105
Chicago, IL 60637

Transcripts and fees must arrive in our office by Wednesday, December 6.

We look forward to working with you to complete the remaining credentials
required in support of your application.

Applications which remain incomplete after December 6, 2006, will be
deferred to our Regular Notification program.

Only 308 people got this email. Now, if you did not get the email, that means your application is complete, or at least complete enough to be read. Applications with only one teacher recommendation are complete enough to be read. Will your chances of admission be harmed if you got the email, or if you only had one teacher recommendation? No. I found this out after I graduated, but I was admitted with only one teacher recommendation! Mrs. Sturgill, where did your recommendation go?

Knowing how shy I was in high school, I probably never gave her the form.

Any questions? Ask them in the comments section.

Back from Thanksgiving

2006-11-29T10:38:00.000-06:00

The office is back from our few short days of vacation, and we're reading reading reading and scanning scanning scanning. We have 3,041 early applications this year, up about 10 percent from last year. The Maroon did an article on the increase.

Most of the applications in the office are complete right now and being read. We are working to find documents for incomplete applications. At this point, please do not re-send any materials that you see marked as "not received" on the credentials checking site. We still have some things to sort through. We will email everyone whose application remains incomplete.

Fear not, your early action status is not in jeopardy if your application is still incomplete. We will do everything we can to complete your application and get it read for the early action cycle.

And remember, this year we will be emailing early action decisions as well as sending paper mail. I'm designing the decision emails right now. Any suggestions?

Also, the women's basketball team made it into the top 25, and women's cross country is ranked 19 -- check out the athletics website here.

Professor emeritus Milton Friedman dies at 94

2006-11-17T10:42:00.000-06:00

Here's our note in the University of Chicago news site

A Taste of Chicago Science on November 18

2006-11-16T12:17:00.000-06:00

For students in the area, the alumni club is having a day of science.

Get a taste of the science research and teaching going on at Chicago in this day-long series of lectures from four of the University’s most engaging and accessible scientists. Physicist Sidney Nagel will discuss several familiar phenomena that are so ubiquitous that we hardly realize they defy our normal intuition in “Physics at the Breakfast Table;” evolutionary biologist Michael Coates will explore the fossil record to present the monstrous precursors of the shark in “Jaws: The Early Years;” cosmologist Rocky Kolb will talk about the mysterious dark matter and dark energy that make up 95 percent of the universe in “The Dark Side of the Universe;” and marine biologist Michael LaBarbera will tell the strange and curious story of how blue-green algae evolved into chloroplasts that were subsequently traded and lost by various organisms in “How the World Became Green.”

The price is $35 and includes a yummy breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Click here for more information.

Redesigning the PSAC website

2006-11-15T09:09:00.000-06:00

This winter, a committee of students and I will be working on redesigning the Prospective Students Advisory Committee's (PSAC) website. What should the new one have? What should it look like? What should be more prominently displayed? Any ideas for color schemes? Draperies? China patterns? We want your feedback.

Warning: if you click the link, you will see one of the worst websites ever.

Chicago alum wins senate seat

2006-11-09T08:17:00.000-06:00

Guess which one? Could it be the... Socialist from Vermont? Of course it is! Bernie Sanders graduated from the College with a Bachelor's of Science in 1964. If you look at the votes database of the Washington Post, it sounds like he's had a pretty interesting life.

Chicago wins contract to manage Fermilab

2006-11-06T16:55:00.000-06:00

Click here for the news article.

The University of Chicago is the only single university to manage two national laboratories, Argonne and Fermilab. The other is the University of California system. Fermilab is also looking like a good spot to put the International Linnear Collider, and its management is trying their hardest to bring the ILC to Illinois. Two of six quarks were discovered there, as well as one of the three neutrinos. Hooray for particle physics!

Update: An article in the Trib on both labs

Academic learnings for make benefit glorious institution of non-binding early action

2006-11-04T10:58:00.000-06:00

Top administrators at Chicago actively choose to keep early action, but even though I've actually seen the data they are talking about, I still couldn't understand any of the quotes in that article. Here is my take on it: basically, a higher percentage of early action candidates apply for financial aid than regular notification candidates, meaning that early action candidates have more financial need than regular candidates in our pool. And they are getting the same packages as regular candidates, besides still having the opportunity to compare packages across institutions. We've done the research on our own pools of candidates, and we've decided that we can keep early action.

Time zone madness

2006-11-02T09:05:00.000-06:00

I am sending my application in the UTC/GMT-11 hours time zone, or Pago Pago's time zone. Thank you for your patience and an inventive take on deadlines.
Sincerely,
Michelle

I am submitting my application on Pago Pago time, just in case. My current time zone (Stgo, Chile) is two hours later than Eastern Standard Time, even if it's technically in EST and until a few weeks ago I was on the same time.
Claudia, formerly of Christiansburg, Virginia

My name is Annie, and I'm a freshman applicant for UChicago under Early Action. I'm writing to tell you that I'm applying under a different time zone than the one I live in, which would be Eastern Standard Time (EST). I would like to apply under the UTC/GMT time zone, the one that includes the island of Pago Pago, located at 14 degrees, 16 minutes South, 170 degrees, 42 minutes West.

Hello,
I am going to submit my application under the time zone of Pago Pago, American Samoa, USA., which is GMT -11 hours.
Nyssa

My name is Pengbo and I applied through the Early Action plan. I am submitting my application from England because I am on an exchange trip so I just wanted to let you know that I want to apply through the Eastern Time (US and Canada) Zone (GMT -5:00). Thank you so much and have a nice day =).
-Pengbo

As it is slighty past midnight in my timezone, I would like to apply under the Chicago timezone.
Adrianna

I have just sent my application electronically. Because it is past midnight here in Northern Virginia, I will be using the Chicago timezone to comply with the Nov 1 deadline.
Thank you,
Justin

Hello! I wanted to let you know that in honor of the college's location, I am sending my application in Chicago time, making it about 11:25 p.m. when submitted. Thank you!
Mary Beth

I submitted my application to the University of Chicago past midnight from New York. However I would the application to be treted as one submitted under the U.S. Central Standard Time. Sincerely, Proshawn

I'm submitting my application under Mountain Standard Time. I was done much earlier but making revisions was just too tempting.
-Diana

I have submitted my application for admission at 12:10am, November 2, in my local time zone (central standard time). I wish to submit my application under the pacific standard time of !0:!0 pm, November 1.
Trisha

I am applying under west coast time. It is still November 1 on the west coast.
Beth

First of all, thank you so much for this amazing application policy! I truly appreciate the extra 20 some odd minutes that I required to finish up my essay questions.
I live in Nashville, TN (where it is now November 2nd) but I would like to turn in my Early Decision essay as if I were in...let's say Tijuana, Mexico where it is 10:21 Wednesday November 1st.
Again, thank you!
Veronica
Brentwood, TN

Hi Libby. I just submitted my application 15 minutes past midnight in my time zone. However it's only 8:15 P.M. in Honolulu so I'll submit under their time. Hope the admissions office let you sleep tomorrow after you're up all night making sure everything runs smoothly. Thanks a lot. Hope to see you in 11 months.
Will

I would like to submit my early application under the time zone of Mauna Kea, Hawaii, USA. This is especially signifigant to me because astronomy is a big part of my life and Mauna Kea is the greatest viewing site in the world and home to earth's
largest optical telescope. I attached my science research paper in case you get bored staying up all night. What I like to do at times like these is go outside for a sec and just look at the stars.
Hope its not too cloudy,
David

I just submitted my application electronically on Pago Page time(UTC/GMT -11 hours). This was arbitrarily decided.
Kate

I procrastinated, but I finally finished and submitted my application to UC under the Baker Island time zone.
Thanks,
Samuel

I am situated in the Pacific Time Zone, but I will be submitting in accordance to the Baker Island Time (BIT) zone
thanks,
Stuti

I applied to the University of Chicago under Honolulu time, which is GMT -10 hours.
I'm happy!
-Jenna
Tallahassee, FL

I live in Kansas. It is still Wednesday in Anchorage, AK. UTC-9 Time Zone.
My name is Hannah.

As instructed in the opening page to the application, I'm e-mailing to notify you that I've submitted my application after midnight in my local time zone here in upstate New York (UTC-5), but indeed well before the midnight deadline in Hawaii (UTC-10). Somehow, with a forecast of snow here overnight on the eastern end of Lake Ontario, the balmy night temperature of 75 ° in Honolulu seems like a much nicer alternative-- and besides, who am I to deny myself any extra time for editing and the like?
At any rate, thank you very much for the flexibility that the University of Chicago application provides, and of course for such interesting prompts. Good luck with the coming weeks' work! I must say, I'm quite happy that my part is done for now...
All the best,
Kelsey

I am a Texas applicant but am submitting my application under Hawaiian time.
Bryce

I hope you have lots of caffeine. I just sent in my application under UTC-12 Time Zone (Baker Island). I think everything is complete. I know I'm brain dead.
Thanks,
Ryan

I have applied to the University of Chicago on Pago Pago time (UTC/GMT).
thanks much,
Noah

I have finally submitted my online application! The essay was such a challenge! I am applying under GMT +8.00 (Singapore, Kuala Lumpur).
Regards
Darren
Singapore

We have ONE MORE HOUR, right? Baker's Island is UTC -12, which would leave us at 7:00 AM Eastern Standard Time, right? Nothing like waiting until the last minute!
Sincerely,
Andrew

I submitted my application on-line at 4:48am CST, but am submitting it using Alofi's time zone. That should get me in before midnight, their time. If for some reason I've misread World Clock- Time Zone list, I'm requesting that it be accepted using Baker Island Time Zone. Thanks!
Sincerely,
Marcella

Early action activities in the office

2006-10-31T09:59:00.000-06:00

We're all back from our travel -- here's the view out of my office window today:

In a few minutes the whole office will go downstairs and start opening mail. We will remove staples (even though we said do not staple, to err is human), flatten folds, and discard envelopes. Then, the mail will go to our scanners, which will scan it in. Each individual piece will be linked to the student's file (which is why it's completely okay to send your application in separate pieces, and for some pieces to arrive sooner than others). When a file becomes complete, it will be available for us to read electronically.

At the moment only four files are complete. Does this scare us? Not in the slightest. It takes weeks and weeks for us to receive and open every piece of mail. We usually aren't ready to start reading in the first week of November. So we just sit back and enjoy the foliage and the sunny weather.

We believe at this office that decisions should be made based on what an applicant says, not in how many words it takes him or her to say it (that's why we have no word limit on our essays.) We also believe that decisions should rest on the content of a file, not how long it takes to get here. The November 1 deadline should obviously be honored by each early action applicant, but no freaking out is necessary. If your application remains incomplete when we are well into the reading cycle, we will contact you.

That said, as of November 1, you will be able to log into the online application and check your credentials. However, I don't want anyone to panic when they see that a credential is not listed. Your credential could be in one of our many brimming mail bins. It could be in a stack waiting to be scanned. It could be in the electronic ether, waiting to be linked to your application. Once again, we will contact you if your application is in danger because something is not in our office. The credential checking feature is meant to reassure you, rather than to induce widespread panic.

What is a deadline, anyway?

2006-10-30T12:32:00.000-06:00

Is the deadline when the application has to be in the hands of the admissions office? Is it when my application should be floating through the air, on its way to the admissions office? Or is it the date that I should give my teachers their recommendation forms?

No, yes, and definitely not.

The November 1 deadline is a postmark deadline, meaning that your materials should be postmarked by November 1. If you are applying online, you should click the "submit" button sometime on or before November 1.

Standardized test scores do not have to be in our hands by November 1. You do not have to send the scores by November 1. You only need to have taken the test by November 1. If your scores come out on November 2, 14, or 100, but you took the test before November 1, you will be absolutely fine. This is the same for the regular notification deadline of January 2.

Please do not rush your scores. Rushed scores come to us on paper, which must be entered by hand. Scores that are reported normally come to us electronically, which upload automatically. Even if you think you are very late, your scores will come to us faster when you do not rush them!

Just a friendly note from an admissions counselor who is getting a lot of worried emails.

Some days in the life of an admissions counselor on the road

2006-10-23T07:20:00.000-06:00

Sunday, October 15

5 a.m. - I'm up. I didn't sleep last night because I was too excited, or maybe because I had coffee after noon.

5:30 a.m. - I've forgotten to call a cab to take me to the airport. I call directory assistance. They give me the number of a local company. I call. They're not picking up.

5:45 a.m. - I give up and walk out to the bus stop. It's chilly and I can see my breath, but for some reason I'm not feeling cold. Still excited, I guess.

5:50 a.m. - I'm eyeing the Mexican bakery across the street, which, unlike a certain cab company, is open.

5:55 a.m. - I walk down to a coffee shop. They're not open.

5:57 a.m. - I'm back at the bus stop in front of the Mexican bakery. They are open. It's so warm in there, the windows are steamed up. I'm beginning to feel the cold.

5:58 a.m. - The bus comes. I'm saved, but not from my stomach.

6:10 a.m. - I transfer to the blue line, on my way to O'Hare.

6:40 a.m. - Hundreds of other travelers and I get off the train at the same time, creating a bottleneck at the one escalator. The music in the transit area is really great -- an electric violin. After a moment or two, I realize it's an actual person playing.

7:00 a.m. - I'm checked in. I love those kiosks. I go to leave my bag at the scanner. There are hundreds of other bags waiting to be scanned. (Warning: foreshadowing!)

7:30 a.m. - I'm sitting at Wolfgang Puck's for a four-cheese omelet. Honestly, the food at Midway is much, much better than that at O'Hare. It's also much closer to campus, so I usually recommend that people fly into Midway. However, the two places I have go to all the time -- the West Coast (where I recruit) and Virginia (where I'm from) aren't well-served at Midway, which is a much smaller airport.

7:45 a.m. - Not that impressed with my breakfast, I head off to my gate.

8:20 a.m. - We board, and I promptly fall asleep. That's good, because I haven't brought much reading materials. I'm actually at a point in my life where I've read all the books I own, and pretty much all the books sold in airports (though it took 23 years).

Around nonn, west coast time - I arrive at San Jose airport. We go down to the baggage claim. The carousel is going around, but there are no bags. We wait long enough to make someone ask what's going on. Oh, by the way, none of your bags made it onto the flight. What?! How can a plane take off without anybody's luggage on it? Then I remember back to the sea of bags at O'Hare...

I call my mother, who I'm going to be having dinner with (plus Grammy and cousin Paul), and tell her the news. I pick up my rental car. They say our bags are coming in on the next flight, so I give them the address of the hotel. I drive up to mom's house, directionless, without my business attire, without my information cards, without anything to hand out. Also without the list of schools I'm visiting, and when. But my bags will be there at 5 p.m., right?

9 p.m. - Dinner is over, and I call the hotel to make sure my bags are there. No. I call the airline. The guy clickety-clacks at a computer. He says something about a flight coming from Los Angeles. When? 10 p.m. Okay.

9:30 p.m. - I drive down to the hotel and check in. I wait.

10:20 p.m. - I call the airline. They still think the bag came in at 5 p.m. They call the airport. The airport is closed, but will re-open at 5 the next morning. I finish watching What Not to Wear and fall asleep.

Monday, October 16

5:05 a.m. - I'm up and calling. The man calls the airport, and says they will call back.

6:20 a.m. - They haven't called back. I'm freaking out. I call again, and speak with a very sympathetic woman. She, of course, doesn't know, but assures that they will deliver the bag as soon as it gets to San Jose, which may be sometime in the next few years.

7:00 a.m. - I call the admissions office in Chicago. I ask Carol, our receptionist and Director of First Impressions, to read me the schools I'm visiting, and the times. Directions to these schools? Who needs directions?

7:40 a.m. - Visit number one in San Jose. I show up in jeans and a sweater. To my astonishment, no one really notices. I pass around a pad of paper and a pen I got from the hotel, and students sign their names. Good enough, I guess. We have a nice conversation about Chicago. One of the counselors gives me great directions to my next school.

8:55 a.m. - Visit number two.

10 a.m. - Visit number three. My cell phone has died, so no more pestering the airline, and I can't call ahead to my next school for directions. Luckily, the counselors are letting me print out Google maps wherever I go. In my day, schools didn't have the internet...

11:15 a.m. - Visit number four.

12:25 p.m. - Visit number five. Over thirty students show up. Maybe I don't need a suit or promotional materials after all... we should re-think this whole recruiting thing.

1:25 p.m. - I have a little time before my next visit, so I use the school's phone to call the hotel. It's there! I make my way over -- no map, remember, and not much working knowledge of San Jose, aside from its high schools.

1:45 p.m. - I have my bag. I change immediately and go to my last school in style.

2:30 p.m. - I'm up at a school in Palo Alto that couldn't have me during my normal Palo Alto day. Of course, I forget my information cards for the students to fill out. Otherwise, it goes really well. I drive to mom's house afterward. She has my box of materials that I shipped last week.

5:30 p.m. - I drive back down to Palo Alto for a college fair. I don't really know when I'm supposed to be there...

6 p.m. - I make it into the gym with my banner and heavy box of materials. They can't find my name on the list, though. I get a makeshift table in the corner. I was pretty sure I had registered... They serve a great dinner, though. A slow-to-medium trickle of students comes by through most of the night. A dad keeps coming by and saying "These students just don't know how good this school is!" I think that all the time. A few GSB alums come by to share their excitement about the GSB being ranked #1 the week before.

9 p.m. - I drive down to Saratoga and check into my hotel, and get ready to start this dance again tomorrow.

Early action applicants now have until October 20 to request alumni interviews

2006-10-15T16:25:00.000-06:00

I love this blog, because it lets me make announcements so quickly.

We sent an email to our entire senior mailing list on Saturday (the October Update), which included information about requesting an alumni interview. Because we promised on the printed application that we would email applicants about this, we thought that it would not be fair to close alumni interview requests to early action applicants until after we had told them definitively how to request them.

The deadline is now Friday, October 20.

Early action applicants - request those interviews!

2006-10-12T09:40:00.000-06:00

Early action applicants have until Saturday to make their alumni interview requests. To request one, just log into the online application, click "Request an alumni interview," and follow the directions (which mainly consist of clicking "Save"). If you have an interview, you are under no obligation to apply, and you do not have to turn in your application before you make your request, or before you are interviewed. When you request an interview you should get an email within the next two days, confirming your request. So far only about four or five percent of all requests have gone unmatched (normally because the student lives in an area with no alumni volunteers.) Over a thousand students have requested interviews.

Regular notification applicants can also request interviews, now until December 15.

Because we've been having problems with our emailing program, we haven't yet sent out the promised email to students who have filled out a Basic Information Form on how to request interviews. We hope those emails will go out today or tomorrow. If not, we may extend the deadline.

Also, students may have noticed that the credential checking feature is not yet available. Early action applicants can click "Check credentials" on November 1 and see the documents we've received in our office. This is the first year that we are reading applications entirely on computer screens. Once we work out the final kinks in scanning and linking documents, we should be able to start scanning in credentials, and we will make the credential checking feature available.

That reminds me: Do not staple!

The Biggest Program Ever

2006-10-04T14:26:00.000-06:00

We just closed registration for our upcoming Columbus Day Open House, which promises to be the Biggest Program Ever. We have about 530 students confirmed, so perhaps 800 or 900 guests. Luckily, not everyone who registers for these events shows up. Otherwise, it would be utter pandemonium.

To prepare, we're printing up class visit lists, carefully vetted with professors, and stickers for each individual class, so that you'll know where to go and when to get there. We are printing hundreds of schedules, handouts, meal passes, library passes, and gym passes. The PSAC board is stuffing hundreds of folders with information about the neighborhood and the school. We're buying scones and coffee for around 800 people, and setting out chairs all over Ida Noyes Hall, where we will be holding our sessions. We're confirming faculty speakers, notifying the parking lot that they will have more visitors, laminating signs, and telling the dining halls to cook more food. Dozens of tour guides are booked, lunch hosts are signed up, and sidewalk chalk has been bought to direct our guests to Ida Noyes.

What happens during these larger events that doesn't happen when you come for just a tour and an information session? We offer a wider variety of sessions, from pre-professional planning to community service. We serve breakfast and have a distinguished faculty member come to speak on the aims of a Chicago education (and they are very high aims, if I do say so myself.) We have more students and staff on hand to answer questions. The student panel at the end of the day is always a favorite.

But students can have an interview, visit classes, and do the tour and information session on any weekday. Seniors can also stay overnight on Thursday and Friday nights. For people coming from out of town, we offer Saturday tours, information sessions, and interviews in the fall. You are also welcome to make your own appointments with faculty, staff, and coaches, so that you can learn more about the parts of the university that interest you most. Plus, you may get more personal attention by visiting on a regular day. We have anywhere from 10 to 100 guests on our normal days, depending on the day of the week and the time of the year.

To schedule an interview or overnight, call 773-702-8650. There is no need to reserve space for a tour, information session, or class visit.

Stormy weather

2006-10-03T08:11:00.000-06:00

Last night, severe thunderstorms on the South Side took out several campus trees, and the power in the admissions office. Students are surveying the damage as they walk to class on this deceptively sunny, warm day. So, some of our servers are down, and some images on the website may not be working. Austin and I are at the library, checking email and enjoying the working lights. Pictures to follow.

University of Chicago scientists observed that a hurricane in the Gulf of Alaska caused an iceberg to break up near Antarctica. Six days and over 8,000 miles away. Click the link to read about their harrowing helicopter ride to Antarctica to check it out.

Is admissions an arms race?

2006-09-19T07:54:00.000-06:00

And if so, are we "disarming" this year?

Princeton has decided to follow Harvard and get rid of early admissions, a practice that they believe disadvantages low-income students, who, when they are bound to a particular college, cannot compare financial aid decisions between colleges. The funny thing is, though, that Harvard does not practice early decision. Harvard is single-choice early action, which is non-binding.

The only conclusion I can draw is that they are not making this change as Harvard and Princeton, but as "Harvard" and as "Princeton," in hopes that other universities will follow suit. The University of Delaware actually declared that it would abandon early admission last May, but it did not get nearly the press coverage that Harvard and Princeton are getting. It also took a conference in June among presidents of highly selective universities to seriously call early admissions into question.

However, there is a general tone of anxiety in college admissions right now that is leading many universities to want to call even more practices into question, such as the pervasiveness of merit scholarships or tuition discounting, or the very value of hyper-selective admissions. The New York Times article on Princeton's decision brings some of these issues to light. Why do we need to apply to colleges that we probably won't get into? Why do schools feel the need to give huge sums of money to students who are perfectly capable of paying themselves, to the detriment of low-income students? Both students and colleges feel intense pressure, the students to get into top colleges, and the colleges to attract those top students.

I think that an even more dramatic and beneficial move than nixing early admission would be if all colleges were required to give out financial aid money to needy students only.

But there is also a tendency in the media to overemphasize the amount of pressure and prep in the college admissions process. Less than one half of one percent of all students are probably getting professional coaching outside of their appointed college counselor. The media is also slow to see the benefits of a private counselor. In most of the country, there is only one college counselor for 500 students. In California, my territory, there is one college counselor for every 1000 students. Some counseling services are extremely affordable, and can be very helpful for students whose parents didn't go to college, or who are the first in their generation to navigate this new system.

What are your thoughts on the current state of college admissions?

Alumni interview requests are now available

2006-09-13T08:44:00.000-06:00

As of today, first-year applicants can log into the online application and request an alumni interview. If you already have an account, you can just enter your username and password and click "Request an alumni interview."

If you have not created an account yet, just go to the online application and click "First-Year Applicant" or "Transfer Applicant," whichever describes your situation. Fill out the Basic Information Form, and click "Continue" until you get to your homepage. There, you will see the "Request an alumni interview" link.

What happens after you check that box and click "Save"? The request gets sent to our servers in the office, where Zach Rankaitis ('07), our geographic matching genius, has written a code to match you by latitude and longtitude with the Alumni Schools Committee chair nearest you. There are around 2,000 ASC volunteers, with maybe 50 chairs sprinkled around the world. The ASC chair gets an email with your information, and forwards it to one of their volunteers. You will also get an email confirming your request. The interviewer is instructed to contact the student within 10 days of getting the email, but, of course, not everything always goes according to plan. Still, we are able to meet about 70% of interview requests.

What if your request is not met? Students who live in the Chicago area will get an email telling them to schedule an interview at the office, since they are within driving distance. Students who are in areas with no ASC volunteer nearby (such as me, when I was growing up) will get an email saying that we do not have a volunteer available. I have to say that it was very strange to get a letter from the University of Chicago saying that there were no alumni within 75 miles of my home -- I finally realized how rural I truly was.

Early action applicants must make their requests by October 13. Regular notification applicants must make their requests by December 15.

The mid-September lull

2006-09-09T07:36:00.000-06:00

Things are pretty slow as the staff slowly trickles away and we are waiting for the campus to liven up again.

It's been a while since the last update, but, honestly, folks, not that much is happening. We just got back from our staff retreat this week, where we had our first book club meeting about The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, by Berkeley sociologist Jerome Karabel. We read the last three chapters, mostly about Bakke and affirmative action, but also summing up Karabel's arguments and his thoughts for the future. A lot of us also read the first section, about the birth of selective admissions.

Hidden history? Probably not, but many people are shocked about the extent of anti-Semitism in universities at the beginning of the 20th century. The end of the book wasn't so shocking, but gave us food for thought as we discussed our own admissions practices.

Kate Spelman is the first to head out for travel this Saturday. She'll be making a swing through Texas and will send a blog entry or two about what that's like. Melissa Meltzer will also be in Texas for the Dallas fairs this weekend, and Ted will be visiting a school or two in the middle of the week.

This year we have five new staff members -- Kate, who graduated from the College with a degree in anthropology and linguistics this year; Colin Melinda Johnson, who is finishing her PhD in English and who has been interviewing for us for five years (so, not that new); Jon Quinn, who graduated from the College in 2004 and has been working at the Museum of Contemporary Art until now; Zarinah James, who came to us from Penn to be our minority student recruiter and our counselor for Chicago schools; and Mary, who comes to us from work with non-profit organizations and will be our marketing strategy director. She will also read applications from Missouri, where she's from. Once Zarinah and Mary get email addresses, they'll start appearing as your counselor in the upper part of the Uncommon Application. This should happen in ths next few weeks.

Today football opens and women's soccer opens at home. I'm gathering a group of alumni to do some grilling and watch the games. This Week in Pictures hasn't been updated for a few weeks, so I hope I get a chance to put some photos up there.

New students arrive on the 16th, and everyone else two Mondays later. It will be so nice to see the students and parents I met during the 2005-2006 cycle finally arriving on campus. Some of them are already here -- first-year and soccer player Alex Takakuwa made what my friend Omar Al-Ubaydli called "the best goal ever made by any Maroon" during their first game against Kalamazoo, which we won 4-1. Omar and Sean Ahmed, long-time editor of the Maroon sports section, have a blog about UChicago sporting events, and you can watch Alex's goal, and everyone else's from that game.

Ah, rankings

2006-08-25T14:06:00.000-06:00

We had a little mention on Good Morning America that just makes you yell, "Yes!" Here is a link to the clip, which requires QuickTime Player to view.

Even though the spot is only a few seconds long, Diane Sawyer still manages to buy into the pervasive myth that the toughest schools to get into are also the best, and that all any college student should want is to be surrounded by other people who have very high SAT scores. She also echoes what a lot of people have in the back of their minds when they think about Chicago: "I guess it's good to get off of the East Coast..."

Interesting tidbit though: Diane Sawyer is married to film director Mike Nichols, an alum of the University of Chicago. While he was on campus in the 1950s, he was involved in the Compass Players, the world's first improvisational comedy group. He eventually went on to more legitimate theater projects, won seven Tonys, and then went into film, directing Closer, The Birdcage, Postcards from the Edge, Working Girl, The Graduate, and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Fall travel and school visits

2006-08-16T16:17:00.000-06:00

Right now in the office, we're gearing up to do our fall travel, which includes public information sessions and high school visits.

So far, we've scheduled one late-summer information session in the Fort Myers area. It will be in the afternoon on Sunday, August 27. Click here for more information and to register for the session.

We're also contacting high school counselors to set up our high school visits. Usually we visit four or five schools in a day. If we are visiting yours, you will get an email in September or October.

Joint travel with Columbia, Cornell, Brown, and Rice (we like to call the group BroCoCoRiChi) will happen September 17 to September 21. We will be visiting Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Virginia. (That was in alphabetical order, not in order by date!) Click here to see our exact locations and times.

Argonne National Laboratory

2006-08-02T06:33:00.000-06:00

Yesterday morning, faculty and staff got an email from our new president, Robert Zimmer (more on him later) announcing that we have won our bid to continue to manage Argonne National Laboratory! Here is Bob's letter:

Re: Argonne contract

I am delighted to report that the U.S. Department of Energy announced today that the University's company, UChicago Argonne, LLC, has been selected to manage Argonne National Laboratory for a five-year period beginning October 1, 2006. The contract can be extended, based on performance, for up to twenty years without competition.

The University of Chicago has managed Argonne National Laboratory since 1946, when the Laboratory was established to build on work originally done at the University. Several years ago, Congress mandated that the Department of Energy put contracts for several national laboratories up for competitive bid, and the University has been involved for well over a year in the competition for the contract to manage Argonne. We are very pleased to be able to continue our management role.

The University is fully committed to the stewardship of the extraordinary national resource that Argonne represents. In recent years, the scientific partnership of the University and Argonne has deepened, contributing to both the strength of the Laboratory and to science and technology development at the University. We anticipate that this relationship will continue to strengthen and evolve productively in the years ahead. The award of this contract is a basic component of our capacity to contribute to the development of science and technology at the highest levels, and through it to enhancing the well-being of the nation.

The University will manage Argonne through a new entity, UChicago Argonne, LLC. The University is the sole member of the LLC, which will bring together the expertise and experience of the University of Chicago with Jacobs Engineering Group, Inc. and BWX Technologies, Inc., both high-quality industrial firms with proven experience in science and technology management. We also benefit greatly from our partnerships with Northwestern University and the University of Illinois, which are represented on both the Argonne Board of Governors and the Board's Science Policy Council.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank those at the University and Argonne who worked tirelessly to achieve this success, including Vice Presidents Thomas Rosenbaum, Hank Webber and Beth Harris, Argonne National Laboratory Director Robert Rosner, Argonne National Laboratory Deputy Director Don Joyce, and Assistant Vice President Diana Jergovic.

As members of the University of Chicago community, we can all be proud of this achievement. The University has a 60-year record of success in stewardship of Argonne, and I anticipate a future of lasting scientific and technical contributions for generations to come.

What does that mean for undergrads? Why, fully-funded internships, of course!

RSS feeds and podcasts from across the university

2006-07-26T13:26:00.000-06:00

I just stumbled upon a website of ours, a kind of clearinghouse for RSS feeds , plus video and audio podcasts from departments all over the university. I'm always looking for means to convey the bold intellectual atmosphere that characterizes this place, and, by George, I think I've found a way!

Click here to browse our RSS feeds.

Some of my favorites, or just some things I want to brag about:

The Poem Present feed, with audio and video. The Poem Present program brings poets to campus weekly and supports student poetry, classes, and workshops. Poets come from around the world to read on our campus.
The Beckner-Posner Blog. This was a pretty obvious pick. Written by an (incredibly famous, Nobel prize-winning) economics professor and a (incredibly famous, oft-quoted) law professor, this is one of the most well-known blogs to come out of the University of Chicago.
The World Beyond the Headlines Series. This series brings international journalists and scholars to campus to talk about international issues and how they are portrayed in the media. Also check out the Latin American Briefing Series and the Human Rights Distinguished Lecturer Series, both sponsored by International House and both available on the link above.
The University of Chicago Press Blog. What University of Chicago-ite doesn't love books! This blog features all of our new books, including excerpts and short reviews.
Research at Chicago audio and video podcasts. Interviews with and lectures by researchers at the University of Chicago. Interested in researching as an undergraduate? Check out the FROGS website.
Mind Online. Gives concrete evidence of minds at work for our alumni, who sometimes feel starved for intellectual life after they leave the quads. Or maybe I just like it because that Bill T. Jones lecture was amazing.

The application fee in its many forms

2006-07-25T14:32:00.000-06:00

On the Uncommon Application, you can only pay your application fee after you have submitted your application. This means that sometimes students are unaware before they submit their applications of the payment options available to them . So, let me tell you about them.

The application fee is $60. This is true whether you are applying by paper, online, or carrier pigeon. It can be paid by check or credit card.

The application fee can be waived by international and domestic applicants alike. Usually applicants will send in:
- their SAT fee waiver form, or other documentation that says their SAT fee was waived, or
- the NACAC fee waiver form, available from your counselor and on our online application (though only after you have submitted the application). This form must be filled out by your counselor.

The application fee is automatically waived for the following populations:
- Students with a parent who is an alum of the University of Chicago
- Students in the Chicago Public Schools
- Students in schools marked as part of our Small School Talent Search, or SSTS program. If your school is small and in the middle of nowhere, then you may be in the SSTS program. Your counselor will know if you are part of the SSTS program.

College Admissions Summer Bike Tour of Iowa

2006-07-19T08:41:00.000-06:00

Dear Iowans,

As many of you may know, next week 12,000 cyclists will converge on your state to block your roads and eat most of your corn and pork chops, while in the process slowly making their way from the west side to the east side (hopefully downhill the whole way!).

It just so happens that a member of the admissions staff is going to be participating. I thought it would be worth checking to see if there are any interested students in the parts of Iowa we are going through (check http://www.ragbrai.org) who have any questions about the application or the admissions process, or would like to meet with and talk to someone who knows a bit about the application, the school, the city, etc.

So, if you live in Sergeant Bluff, Ida Grove, Audubon, Waukee, Newton, Marengo, Coralville, Muscatine or any of the towns that the race will be passing through (all are listed on the website), please do let me (Austin Bean) know. You can get my email address off the main admissions website, or just post a comment. I would be happy to meet with or talk to anyone with any questions. Perhaps we will make this a yearly event in the future!

Welcome to the 2007-2008 application process

2006-05-16T08:42:00.000-06:00

Why 2007-2008? It didn't make sense to me either, at first. But 2007-2008 is going to be your first year in college, so therefore this is the 2007-2008 application year, and that is what it says on the front of your Uncommon Application.

Welcome to the application process. We are admissions counselors, plus maybe some students, and perhaps also a few web services people who can help you with the online application. We are here to answer your questions and provide ready information so that this year is as smooth as possible. When new things come up, or when deadlines are nigh, we will post clarifications and news on this site, and we will always welcome your questions. Make sure to check back from time to time to make sure that you aren't missing anything, or subscribe to our RSS feed and get news delivered right to your browser.