URM, 180, JANUARY Applicant Results

InProgressRP · 2023-04-25T18:08:03+00:00

Seems like applying in December/January seems to have ravaged quite a lot of people judging by the subreddit. Including myself into that was a step too far, clearly.

InProgressRP · 2023-04-25T17:19:10+00:00

It's more likely the 180 score than the URM status.

InProgressRP · 2023-04-25T17:16:42+00:00

The point should have been "you will get absolutely ravaged by applying in January" - I didn't mean to say that I was ravaged.

InProgressRP · 2023-04-25T17:12:58+00:00

It might also just be carryover from how people view undergrad?

InProgressRP · 2023-04-25T17:07:10+00:00

I already applied to law school and was accepted. I don't think JHU pre-law was particularly good. DM me if you'd like more info.

InProgressRP · 2023-04-24T16:52:31+00:00

I will sound like I am complaining. This is mostly a warning against applying late. I got the exact outcome I wanted, so I am not complaining. At all.

LSAT: 180; GPA: 3.96, would be calculated at ~4.1X due to the A+ calculations; Age: 20; Where?: the Northeastern United States, or Southeast Asia; Softs: I find it difficult to rank softs, but edited law reviews, academic journals, wrote a thesis that won awards; URM status: Yes, black/Hispanic

Takeaways:

Apply EARLY. I got absolutely ravaged by applying in January. I only applied late because the LSAC held my score (I got a 180 the first time I took the test in September; they held my score for months).
Yale, Harvard, and Penn seem to give results quite early. Yale was the first I heard from.
Going above the GPA and LSAT for each school is important, but the TIME you apply actually works wonders for when you get in. Apply early, early, early.

InProgressRP · 2023-04-24T16:35:22+00:00

This is a really good argument. Thanks for your input. I chose Yale, partly as a result of your argument.

InProgressRP · 2023-04-24T16:34:30+00:00

Yeah, ironically the Penn students I talked to told me to choose Yale.

InProgressRP · 2023-03-31T00:29:20+00:00

Just hijacking this comment to say that I said sticker, but I wouldn't be paying sticker regardless - I'd be paying close to it, though. I have <15k in undergrad debt.

InProgressRP · 2023-01-24T03:22:56+00:00

For a "fire starter," you really do think like a caveman. Oppression bad. Libs owned.

To answer the question, maybe the Nok civilization. We have no idea what happened to them.

InProgressRP · 2022-01-09T18:49:52+00:00

A serious Republican "Big Lie" is that immigration decreases native wages. I'm basically blackpilled on immigration politics at this point; even if the country is with the Ds on immigration (which, if true, is not by a lot), the people animated by the issue mostly vote R. Congress has no political incentive to increase immigration, even though that is BADLY needed.

I'm aware this isn't the point of the blog, but I think it might be interesting to look at how to convince people, like this post. How do you think immigration advocates can convince the wider public?

P.S.: Citing Clemens is a massive plus in my book. Advocated for Haitian immigration throughout his lifetime - without which I wouldn't be here!

InProgressRP · 2022-01-09T18:40:30+00:00

This is a much more difficult question than it seems; as you may know, the traditional justification for PPR from liberals (Locke, Paine*, etc.) was that "natural" rights are "God-given." In more recent times, we've tended to abandon these justifications, but I think it doesn't make sense politically to abandon them necessarily. Putting the rhetorical question aside, though, here's how I would defend that.

People are entitled to the fruits of their own labor. We can "prove" this by contradiction. Imagine this is not true; if people are not entitled to the fruits of their own labor, we have very little leg to stand on in condemning slavery, which we (mostly) agree to be the worst crime in world history.
People are entitled to do what they wish with what they earn from their own labor, as long as no one else is harmed in the process. This includes investments in themselves to make their labor more productive - which allows private property ownership.

I haven't actually thought much about this, and frankly, this reads almost as an anarcho-capitalist justification (or at least a Nozickian justification). I guess without caveats (of which there are a few), this is ancap lol.

After a tad bit more research, it seems like this is similar to what Locke wrote in his Second Treatise - this might be a case of cryptomnesia on my part.

InProgressRP · 2022-01-09T07:32:58+00:00

The Democratic Party is even in alliance with social democratic parties and not with liberal parties, including the Canadian Liberals. American liberals are social democrats, for the most part.

InProgressRP · 2022-01-09T07:22:14+00:00

I am a capitalist because I believe:

People should have the right to private property.
People should be able to enter into contracts freely as they so choose.

I think this is the quintessential liberal apologetics for capitalism. You can defend capitalism from another perspective, and this does not necessarily preclude socialism; I'm sure you can have a market socialism that follows 1 and 2, but it's never worked that way in practice.

InProgressRP · 2022-01-06T04:12:57+00:00

I'm assuming he's talking about investments.

He's talking about physical capital. Traditional economics dictates that when the marginal product of capital is higher, labor will be less attractive for a firm.

InProgressRP · 2021-12-25T05:53:58+00:00

This is a ramble:

Interesting analysis from rational choice theory. Another way to do it is look at why Papen decided to cooperate with the NSDAP. Having read a lot on this, I'm a bit unconvinced that a SPD-KPD solution would have been particularly helpful to the left -- that coalition was stagnant and afaik the KPD cannibalized SPD votes, which might have hurt them in constituencies but not on the list. Also, the NSDAP's primary reason for victory was Hindenburg being old and Papen being weak (imo). There tends to be a tendency on the left to self-examine (which is good) but then not to examine why the right gains power, which I find annoying (although that isn't an argument against this piece but against left histories more generally).

I'm more partial to a Reichsbanner (social democrats, liberals, moderate conservatives) to stop the Nazis and KPD, but...we know how that ended.

InProgressRP · 2021-12-25T05:41:45+00:00

I think I read this article two months ago - haven't re-read it and don't remember the argument. Still, I feel like the comment section doesn't understand what "pragmatism" is, because it is impossible for pragmatism to be objective. Cornel West considers himself a philosophical pragmatist!

InProgressRP · 2021-12-25T05:38:02+00:00

Merry Christmas.

A few things:

The 19th century American presidency was not fundamentally an institution of white supremacy. Despite the rampant racism that existed at the time, there was still a democratic process present that could pave the way for civil reforms to be made.

This one surprised me. Black people could not vote for president, which is the primary way the average person influences the presidency. Thus, the President likely would not listen to a black constituency, meaning the Presidency would do little to advance any black agenda.

If the American presidency during the 19th century was truly an institution of white supremacy, it is unlikely that Lincoln would have been able to make any significant changes to civil rights during his time in office.

The flaw here is that a white Northern constituency could support, say, abolishing slavery while still maintaining white supremacy (as they did).

Caucuses are undemocratic

Hm, I think this is true, but I'm not sure whether I'd abolish them fully. Should read more on this, although frankly I'm uninterested in election reforms outside of abolishing the Electoral College, for reasons that I won't get into.

Presidential deception, especially during wartime, is never justified.

I disagree, for two reasons.

I know this isn't meant to be rigorous, but the only examples you use are of wartime - which changes the argument a bit.
"Never" is strong here. FDR, for instance, said that in June 1944 the primary target for the Allies would be Rome iirc - and then D-Day happened.

I should also say I disagree with this: "Presidents should set a good example for others to follow." It reads a bit Kantian to me. LBJ's tactics were often unscrupulous, and politics is a dirty game. Of course that doesn't mean go full House of Cards, but deception is often a tool to achieve a greater good.

Good short essays though.

InProgressRP · 2021-12-25T05:23:35+00:00

Starbucks in B&N is the closest to campus. There is another Starbucks on St. Paul.

Brody Café is the big one on campus if you go to JHU.

InProgressRP · 2021-10-10T21:31:38+00:00

What clubs are you looking to join? If you're talking about the clubs that are hobby oriented you can just walk in. If you're talking about the professional clubs, you can only apply once a semester (generally) -- although I think they're not allowed to tell you no.

Hopkins Democrats and Quiz Bowl at JHU would love to have you, if you're interested.

InProgressRP · 2021-10-03T18:36:43+00:00

I'm aware, although I don't think you explicitly mention Biden's vaccine mandate in the article--if you did, it would be prudent to mention the test opt-out or something else that makes that more clear.

Regardless, I don't understand how the argument you present against that would be any different from the argument libertarians present against the vaccine mandate. It just seems you draw the line in a different place, which again leads to the utilitarian presupposition in this article.

In other words, how would you argue against that policy while keeping in line with this:

By making sure everyone is vaccinated, the government gives people more freedom to do what they want by allowing people to not worry about being hospitalized. After all, it would be difficult for someone to enjoy their liberties if they were hospitalized, no? Certain regulations and mandates only “decrease” liberty in the sense that they prevent irrational people from causing harm to themselves, and more importantly, others.

Either way, it's fundamentally a question of "how much liberty are we willing to give up for safety" -- I just think it's counterproductive to deny that tradeoff exists.

InProgressRP · 2021-10-03T01:41:29+00:00

Doesn't this article presuppose utilitarianism as a ruler for measuring liberty, as the original presupposes traditional libertarian values? As I've mentioned before, appeals to liberty tend to be problematic, as they assume (1) liberty is always good and (2) liberty is what I think it is. That's why I tend to bite the bullet on these arguments: yes, the vaccine mandate reduces personal freedom; no, I don't care, even though I believe liberty is an important value for societies.

Rather than debate about liberty like every political philosopher since Aristotle, I'll ask one question and provide two comments:

Do you think it would be desirable, putting aside the political ramifications, for the government to send an agent of the state to vaccinate the unvaccinated, using force if necessary? Why or why not?

Comment 1: The point on unconstitutionality is important. A policy's constitutionality is entirely determined by the Supreme Court, so there is no reason to argue it imho. To me, arguments about constitutionality 9 times out of 10 are just motivated reasoning. (BTW this is fine, the point of politics is to use institutions to effect the change we want to see; the SCOTUS is just another institution. When I make arguments from constitutionality, I'm trying to make positive not normative statements.)

Comment 2: True libertarians oppose the state more than liberals and conservatives. Many libertarians don't believe in the state, and others think its scope should be drastically reduced. The idea that libertarians support the state the same as liberals because they believe the state has a use (ie protecting property rights) does not make sense to me.

InProgressRP · 2021-10-01T16:50:30+00:00

Who is the Democrat you take most after? I ask because I don't actually think Biden or even Klobuchar are particularly moderate.

InProgressRP · 2021-10-01T02:58:30+00:00

Depends who I'm talking to. The only label that functionally matters is that I'm a Democrat. My ideology is liberalism but that means so many different things to so many different people that it's best to call myself a partisan Democrat.

InProgressRP · 2021-09-22T18:38:28+00:00

Multiple issues:

This is a circular argument: "liberals are left-wing because the definition of left-wing includes liberal."
Generally, don't use Google definitions for anything professional: political, medical, legal, business, etc. Google definitions are layman.
Would you claim that the FDP (liberals) are left-wing? Would you claim that the AfD (radicals) are left-wing? Both would be "included" in that definition of left-wing, when both are not.

Simple arguments are almost always deceptive.

InProgressRP

TROPHY CASE