<p>I’ve been following all 42 pages of this thread and the one question that comes to mind is, “If you don’t like the prompts, write your own.” As the parent of 2 kids who chose to apply to Chicago, were accepted and matriculated, I can say with certainty that the essay prompts were not part of their decision to apply or not apply. They loved what the school offered, academically, socially and geographically. My S (Class of 2007) responded to a provided prompt in a very personal, yet philosophical (for a 17 year old), manner, and my D (Class of 2011) wrote her own. It was cute, based on something that was very much her, and no, not really “out there.” I think Chicago, like certain other schools (none of which have been mentioned in this conversation), has its own style, and it works…for Chicago. Has there been a change in the student body over the 7 years our family has been associated with the school…yes, according to my kids. Maybe the Common App, maybe the demographics of the applicant pool, including the size of the baby boomer classes, who really knows. But the quirky prompts have remained the same, and it sure as heck doesn’t seem to be hurting the applicant pool. The increase in applications this fall is proof. So though the quintessential “Chicago kid” be evolving, I suspect that most choose to apply to the school for many of the same reasons as my kids. Personally it would be interesting to me to know how many applicants respond to Prompt #5…its there for a reason. And by the way, our middle guy, S2, applied to and graduated from that other school PizzaGirl mentions, oft bashed here on CC as well.</p>
<p>[Re xiggi, #636] Actually, no. As the recipient of the “‘barb’”, you are in a uniquely bad position to consider whether it was funny. (I didn’t think it was funny, either, except for using French, but I didn’t think it was meant as much of a barb. I was surprised that you took it so badly.)</p>
<p>Discussion of the prompts and their efficacy at whatever they are meant to do – I think I know, but of course I don’t really – is obviously appropriate here. And at times, it has even been valuable. There is a weird level of personal investment and vitriol on both sides, that has sometimes ramped up the rhetoric. I understand my side of it – I like the University of Chicago, I generally like the prompts (some more than others), I like what they do, I am grateful that Chicago accepted my kids and provided them with pretty much precisely the college experience I hoped they would have, and on the whole I admire what Chicago’s administration has done over the past 20 years or so to bring the college back from the brink of irrelevance/nonexistence to vibrancy and even, lately, “hotness”. If I were a college administrator, I would be looking at their playbook and thinking about what I could learn from it. </p>
<p>I’m not certain what spikes the emotions on the other side. This whole arc seemed to begin with mummom and epiphany saying that their children rejected Chicago because they were so turned off by the essays, although the actual truth is more like mummom’s son rejected Chicago for unrelated reasons and epiphany’s daughter never actually got around to rejecting Chicago, and might not have rejected it at all. But both of them, and xiggi, are certain that there are tons of other people’s children out there who are passing on Chicago because of the stupid essay prompts, and whom Chicago would and should want to accept. </p>
<p>I find that hard to believe, but that’s just my opinion, and maybe they’re right. I will say this – I believe Chicago’s current goal is to be seen as the equal in all respects of Harvard or Yale, and I believe that if and as it is successful in approaching that goal it will consciously abandon many of its quirky, endearing/annoying behaviors, including these prompts. But not yet, and not for a few years at least.</p>
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<p>I think its pretty clear from all this discussion that there are some students who are so intimidated by first 4 prompts that they are afraid to write the 5th. They don’t like 1-4 because they think the questions are stuffy or pretentious or silly… but then they get stuck on the idea that they must invent something equally stuffy or pretentious or silly to qualify as #5.</p>
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As the parent of a successful Chicago applicant, although not a matriculant, I was and am very glad that the essay prompts succeeded in thinning the field. If my daughter only had to compete for attention with those students who wanted to attend Chicago badly enough to jump the first hurdle of possibly inconvenient essay topics, I’m glad for that. And I say that also as the parent of a son who decided he didn’t want to be bothered. If he wasn’t going to attend the school anyway, why bother with the application?</p>
<p>I am sure that there are many, like my daughter, who did put some effort and attention into crafting a strong, Chicago-specific application, who are very appreciative of the sense they got from the application process that Chicago CARES about what they have to say. (Back in 2001 when my son chose not to apply, he received a letter from the Dean of Admissions after the application deadline saying that they were sorry that they had not received an application from him, as they had been looking forward to seeing what he would have written.)</p>
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<p>If we allow each person the right to his own idea of what’s funny, then the terrorists have already won. :(</p>
<p>“certain that there are tons of other people’s children out there who are passing on Chicago because of the stupid essay prompts, and whom Chicago would and should want to accept.”</p>
<p>Since Chicago doesn’t have space for all of the qualified students who’d like to go there now, why does it matter that it could be attracting even more applicants?</p>
<p>This reminds me of the comments by people who say that if Harvard stopped charging tuition, it could get more applicants. It doesn’t need more applicants.</p>
<p>Well, in all fairness, Chicago seems to want to attract more applicants. If it doesn’t, then someone is screwing up really badly.</p>
<p>With all due respect to mummom and epiphany, why is it any more sad that their smart children were turned off by Chicago’s prompts than that other smart students are turned off by Duke’s sports culture or Northwestern’s Greek system or Cornell’s remoteness or Yale’s neighborhood or Stanford’s style of architecture or anything else? It’s not bad for a student to discover that some aspect of the school doesn’t suit his personal tastes. Should everyone indiscriminately like everything?</p>
<p>That doesn’t mean that they want to attract just anybody. </p>
<p>I do think their targeted marketing is important for yield management, and I think that it is reasonable for a college to want to gradually increase applicants in a controlled manner – on that keeps yield predictable and also allows the admissions committee to continue to operate efficiently. So to the extent that the essay questions function as a first screen – unlikely to deter students who strongly want to attend the college, but possibly deterring the “what if” crowd (those who might apply to Chicago just to see if they can get, but who don’t particularly want to attend) — then they continue to serve an important purpose. A sharply increased number of applications would not be helpful if there was a corresponding sharp decrease in yield among the accepted students. </p>
<p>I honestly can’t see any student who is a good fit for Chicago and who seriously wants to attend being deterred by their essay questions. I think a substantial number of students are attracted to Chicago precisely because of those questions, together with the notion of an “uncommon” application and the academic focus of the marketing materials.</p>
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<p>You, actually. At least, you have said over & over that’s “it’s wrong” to discuss disliking the prompts. It’s apparently not for anyone to discuss unless you OK it. </p>
<p>And just in case any of you think I lack a sense of humor, this thread is hysterical when you step away, then come back. Because the people supposedly least invested (or so they say) in the quality – or lack thereof – of the essay prompts, are the ones spending the most keystrokes trying to make sure that no one discusses them.</p>
<p>Too funny.:D</p>
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<p>Epiphany, you’ve said that more than once here, and I’m curious as to whether you can provide any examples of people actually making that argument. Because nobody’s said that on this thread. And I’m glad they haven’t, because that would be a very foolish argument.</p>
<p>In my opinion, if these prompts are intended to attract applicants with any particular attribute, that attribute is quirkiness, not intellectualism. Because quirkiness (and not minding working extremely hard!) seem to be the attributes about which my son, and other Chicago students he knows, have the most “school pride.” They certainly have no illusions that they’re smarter (or even more intellectual/scholarly) than the student body at any other top school. And the fear of losing that quirky quality is why so many students there were so upset about the change to the Common App, and why, every year, the students seem terribly worried about, and complain about, their perception that the incoming freshman class isn’t quirky enough. Too “normal,” etc. As my son complained to me this fall, “too many dudebros!” He knows that he’s unusual in some of the things he’s interested in and some of the things he likes to talk about; I mentioned some of them in a post a while back. It isn’t as if he and his friends sit around talking about Heidegger and Kant far into the night, any more than I did when I was in college. They’re far more likely to discuss a subject such as, say, the semiotics of The Golden Girls. In a quirky, intellectual way, of course!</p>
<p>By the way, to return for a moment to the earlier discussion about the “enthusiasm” of the faculty at U. of C., my son called me up last night to talk about his first day of classes in the Winter quarter. And, remarkably enough given that the faculty is supposedly plagued by a lack of passion and enthusiasm, he was very impressed by the professors in all three of the courses he began yesterday. As he was by all four professors he had last term. And almost all of his professors last year (with the most notable exception of the person who taught the statistics course he wanted to take to satisfy his math requirement; he ended up withdrawing from the class because the professor didn’t speak English very well. Math is not my son’s favorite subject, to put it mildly, and he wasn’t going to go forward without a professor who was capable of explaining things!) But that professor was definitely an exception. In fact, he is so enthusiastic about the professor in the course on Manet that he just began – [Prof. Ralph Ubl](<a href="http://arthistory.uchicago.edu/facultystaff/ubl.shtml"“>http://arthistory.uchicago.edu/facultystaff/ubl.shtml”</a>) – that he actually said to me, “I want to be him when I grow up”!</p>
<p>Yes, I also think this thread is hysterical. But I like arguing for its own sake, especially since my kids will never have to write another college or grad school application essay. I’m doing it for the pure fun of it:) Now, come to think of it, I should have applied to UofC, but alas, I did not know it existed then. I passed up my chance to write about Husserl, Kant, Hegel; instead I wrote a truly lame essay about wanting to learn more about the American way of life and American college experience. :(</p>
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<p>I had to laugh at that. S1 who is a fourth year has similar fears. He is not sure that the incoming class is as “Chicago” as was his class. He is fiercely proud of the College and the commitment to inquiry above all else.</p>
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Well not too many it seems, the EA applications were up 54% over last year, and I read on another thread that Chicago had more EA applications than did Yale.</p>
<p>I’d like to issue a challenge to those who hate the Chicago prompts to list some of their favorite prompts from other schools.</p>
<p>Chicago did have more EA applications than Yale (barely). But it operates under different rules. Yale requires exclusivity, Chicago doesn’t. If you date Yale, you can’t date anyone else until December 12 (at least not anyone really attractive). If you date Chicago, you can also date Georgetown, MIT, BC, and several others, and/or propose marriage to Columbia. Chicago is what they used to call “easy” in this regard. It’s popular with kids who may have commitment problems, or are on the rebound.</p>
<p>Re mathmom: Someone should start a new thread, in which we can put aside all the rancor this one has evoked and propose our own prompts for various colleges. And of course tear into one another with accusations of pretentiousness, lack of intellectual rigor, elitism, anti-elitism, and such. It will be fun!</p>
<p>For those who do love the prompts, if you were applying to Chicago, which prompt would you use and what would you write.</p>
<p>I love that “caught” prompt. I’d write about some of the times in which I’ve been caught by EC and intellectual passions that I’d never imagined that I’d be interested in. Maybe I’d lead with how I used to be vehemently pro death penalty, and after ferociously arguing for the death penalty years ago, later became head of an anti death penalty group. I could write about I changed from being a shy kid who loved to watch theater, to being an adult on stage doing one of the more explicit V monologues.</p>
<p>I’d enjoy responding to the prompts. Studying so hard there as a student, though, isn’t something that I’d enjoy.</p>
<p>And just last term, [URL="<a href="http://arthistory.uchicago.edu/facultystaff/snyder.shtml"]this[/URL">http://arthistory.uchicago.edu/facultystaff/snyder.shtml"]this[/URL</a>] professor, Joel Snyder, was so wonderful that he inspired my son to change his major from History to Art History. I could give many more examples, but won’t bother. According to IHateUofC, it’s all meaningless anyway because my son is clearly lying to me and is actually miserable and hates the place!</p>
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<p>The common app prompts have to be among the worst. S2 wrote a really good essay and then fit it to one of the prompts.</p>
<p>JHS,
Would you mind elaborating on your daughters’ experience with creative writing at Chicago? DS is an aspiring writer with Chicago currently his first choice, partly because he is of the opinion that a good education (core+major in bio or psych+quirky, intellectual environment) will be more helpful in the long run than a single minded focus on creative writing (a minor in creative writing seems just right). What is he not considering? </p>
<p>To keep the post somewhat on topic–he just applied RD using the “choose your own prompt” option. He found the other prompts intriguing, but option 5 allowed him to use some previous writing (not a college essay). The “love letter” essay did cause him to send in a different, more humerous response to the Why Chicago essay than he probably would have otherwise.</p>
<p>Sorry for the short-shrift reply, Donna. In a hurry right now. Certainly the Ivy Reject thread brought up such a link (with essay prompts). However, many other threads in previous years addressed this, as well.</p>