Chicago's Uncommon Application, 2007-2008

Even more on the wait list

noreply@blogger.com (Libby Pearson) — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 17:13:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Libby Pearson) — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 20:50:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Libby Pearson) — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 22:03:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Libby Pearson) — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 15:13:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Libby Pearson) — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 19:18:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Libby Pearson) — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 19:46:00 +0000

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!

noreply@blogger.com (Libby Pearson) — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 16:57:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Libby Pearson) — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 15:40:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Libby Pearson) — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 21:31:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Libby Pearson) — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 16:22:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Libby Pearson) — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 15:43:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Austin Bean) — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 18:20:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Libby Pearson) — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 20:54:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Libby Pearson) — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 20:11:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Austin Bean) — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 17:58:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Libby Pearson) — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 14:57:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Austin Bean) — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 19:50:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Libby Pearson) — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 14:20:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Libby Pearson) — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 16:48:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Libby Pearson) — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 18:11:00 +0000

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

If you're visiting on January 15...

noreply@blogger.com (Libby Pearson) — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 15:08:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Libby Pearson) — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 19:59:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Libby Pearson) — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 14:54:00 +0000

... 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

noreply@blogger.com (Libby Pearson) — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 17:14:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Libby Pearson) — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 17:58:00 +0000

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.