advice on essay mechanics

unalove
Wed, 03 Dec 2008 09:06:08 +0000

And this, from former U(C) admissions counselor Libby Pearson:



Your essay is not “supposed to be” anything… funny, a particular number of pages, about you, about the cure for cancer, etc. That is what is so great about having new questions every year – we have no expectations when we begin reading in November. Any preconceived notions we have when we read the questions in the summer usually fly out the door when we read the first ten essays of the year



Anecdotally, I can tell you that students here took all sorts of approaches to writing their essays. I think Chicago purposely tries to balance out the questions each year and the ways they imagine they can be answered… so, for example, some are more quantitative, some lend themselves to stories, some are great for common-app style personal reflection.

The other thing I’d point out-- again-- is that it doesn’t have to be the slightest bit weird. You can write about yourself and real things that happened to you, and you don’t need to talk about chocolate elephants or golden toasters.