<p>As ihs76 says, you really don’t need to be a great writer. You just have to express your ideas clearly and concisely*, provide evidence to support your claims, and make sure there’s a logical flow and organization to your paper. I mean, it helps if you can write well, but not everyone’s cut out for it.</p>
<p>*I actually got slammed on one of my essays for using too many convoluted and long sentences. The professor had written, in the comments, “Most of your sentences are too long.” Bah.</p>
<p>idad:</p>
<p>Most colleges that have a gen ed requirement will similarly expose their students to a wide variety of approaches. My S took at least as many humanities and social sciences courses as he did math/science ones. Many of these he took as electives. </p>
<p>So, you don’t need to write well at Chicago? one illusion goes out the window…</p>
<p>Depends on whose defining “well.” S1 went in a good writer and has had to work hard to continually improve as the years progressed. He now is an excellent writer. He feels equally confident writing creative pieces or scientific articles for publication.</p>
<p>Students may elect to take the equivalent of the Core at many places, at Chicago it is not easy for anyone to avoid it. There are ways of meeting the requirements (though met they must be) that are easier than others, but not many take that route. Further the Core is designed in sequences that hopefully have a planned cumulative effect. A lot of thought and work has gone into trying to find the “right” sequences, for a compelling history of the effort I recommend Donald Levine’s Powers of the Mind. </p>
<p>I understand that for the Class of 2013 Harvard has adopted a new Program of General Education that is more like Chicago’s Core than the previous requirements.
Sounds like they are trying to get with the “Chicago Program,” though at Chicago they would likely substitute the word “rigorous” for “free.”</p>
<p>NSM, sorry if my post came across as criticizing or attacking you… I sincerely did not mean it in that manner…</p>
<p>Hope you feel better soon!</p>
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<p>Whether or not you’re referring to me (I don’t care, although I would dispute I’ve discussed them “heatedly,” I’ve been pretty tame), I do care about the general representation of this concept – the leap that 1 + 1 = 3. I hardly need to be measured by the writing of college students, in terms of my sense of self-worth. I am rarely accused of poor or sloppy writing, although surely I’m an imperfect member of the human race in that department as well. </p>
<p>There are several people on this thread enamored with creating either/or categories, artificially & i.m.o. arbitrarily. They seem unable to hold two concepts together in balance; rather, everything is a dichotomy. This is an intellectual ‘investment’ of mine, not a personal/emotional one. It’s convenient, when you disagree with someone, to label them, marginalize them as having some personal deficiency, but that’s a politician’s trick, not an intellectual defense, not answering the question. (Hear mantori.suzuki munching his popcorn.:D)</p>
<p>These same people are very, very uncomfortable with true intellectual conflict and with gray area. When one (not just I) observes legitimate connectivity, they hasten to sever the cord & become very anxious about the lack of separation.</p>
<p>No, I’m sorry: the ones expressing the greatest personal angst (sense of threat) on this thread are not the ones who have issues with the essay prompts, but those who will tolerate no issues whatsoever & move quickly to name-call, psychoanalyze, & more.</p>
<p>I should’ve specified more. “Well” is an extremely subjective word. When I say “great writer”, I mean someone who not only has a good grasp on the mechanics of writing but also someone who has good sense of flow (not only logical flow, but also a sense of rhythm in the words/sentences/phrases such that the paper is easy to read even if the subject matter is complex or the vocabulary is elevated). That is only part of my criteria, and other people may have different ideas of what constitutes “good writing.”</p>
<p>So, by my definition, it is possible to write a “great argument/essay/what have you” without necessarily being a “great writer.”</p>
<p>(Admittedly, my concept of good writing really tosses a whole lot of academic papers out of the pile, as I do approach it from more of a creative writing-based direction. But that is just me.)</p>
<p>idad: Undoubtedly, life is easier if one is a good to excellent writer. I sure spent a lot of hours agonizing over papers that did not come easily. However, my only point is that being a mediocre writer does not preclude one from doing well overall, particularly in the non hume majors, and sometimes even in the hume majors.</p>
<p>I don’t think anyone said you don’t have to write well. They said you don’t have to be a greatly talented writer. You don’t have to have a perfect, pellucid writing style, with sentences dropping from the end of your pen like sparkling jewels. </p>
<p>In any event, as recently as 2006-2007, English was essentially tied with mathematics as the 4th most popular major after economics, biology, and political science; see page 1 of [this</a> link](<a href=“http://www.math.uchicago.edu/~may/VIGRE/CollateStats.pdf"]this”>http://www.math.uchicago.edu/~may/VIGRE/CollateStats.pdf). (I can’t find the other link someone posted.) And the school certainly has wonderful departments in English, history, art history, etc., for all of which I think it’s safe to say that good writing is a requirement! In any event, my son tells me that there probably aren’t more than 15 or 20 art history majors every year. He doesn’t mind at all. Smaller classes!</p>
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<p>Somewhere in the depths of Regenstein Library, my MA Art History thesis resides. I would defy anyone to read it (shudder) and call it ‘good writing.’ 
Good analysis, yes, good writing, no.</p>
<p>ihs76: I’m not disagreeing really. I’m just clumsily trying to say that one person’s passable writing may be viewed by another as quite good. If one gets through the Core, one’s writing skills, while personally viewed as poor or passable, would likey be considered pretty good in a variety of other contexts.</p>
<p>"NSM, sorry if my post came across as criticizing or attacking you… I sincerely did not mean it in that manner…</p>
<p>Hope you feel better soon!"</p>
<p>Thanks so much. I’m feeling better now that skies are blue again. I tend to suffer from SAD.</p>
<p>idad:</p>
<p>I appreciate that the core is a well thought-out program. This has its definite pluses as well as some minuses. It is far more coherent than what passed for a Core at Harvard. This very coherence, however, made my son afraid that scheduling might be an issue as he wanted to take more advanced classes than his peers would ordinarily take.
The point I was trying to make, however, is that coherent or not, a set of requirements such as Harvard’s will also require students to produce a lot of writing. My S took at least seven courses (not counting Expos) for which he had to write term papers that ranged in length from 10 to 20 pages, as well as shorter papers and weekly response papers.
I don’t think that, as a math major, he was at all unusual. After all, even MIT has humanities and social science (HASS) requirements. The topics may be more history of science and technology than, say, Daily Life in Medieval France , but I would assume that there would be an emphasis on good writing.</p>
<p>marite: One would hope it would not be otherwise.</p>
<p>I don’t understand why anyone would equate strong writing skills with being an English major. Chicago is known for its econ department, so of course people go there to study economics. Strong writing ability is an asset in any field, especially in fields where good writers are in short supply. For an example from the field of economics – I probably wouldn’t have a clue as to who Paul Krugman is if he didn’t write well and prolifically. (And yes, I know he never studied at Chicago – my point simply is that it is perfectly normal for people who write well to choose different majors). In fact, all of my favorite authors have Ph.D’s in sciences.</p>
<p>I mean, of course it is o.k. for good writers to want to major in English… but a degree in creative writing isn’t worth all that much in terms of employability, and most English majors are studying literature, usually fiction and poetry. Many of us who love to read and write prefer nonfiction, and have other areas of interest we’d rather pursue in college.</p>
<p>Humanities at Chicago offers the following majors, of which English is but one:</p>
<p>In the Humanities Collegiate Division (HCD):
Ancient Studies<br>
Art History<br>
Cinema and Media Studies<br>
Classical Studies<br>
Comparative Literature<br>
Early Christian Literature<br>
East Asian Languages and Civilizations<br>
English Language and Literature<br>
Gender Studies<br>
Germanic Studies<br>
Interdisciplinary Studies in the Humanities<br>
Jewish Studies<br>
Linguistics<br>
Medieval Studies<br>
Music
Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations
Philosophy
Philosophy and Allied Fields
Religion and the Humanities
Romance Languages and Literatures
Slavic Languages and Literatures
Visual Arts</p>
<p>And related: In the New Collegiate Division (NCD):
Religious Studies
Fundamentals: Issues and Texts<br>
Law, Letters, and Society
Tutorial Studies</p>
<p>So even here a count of English majors doesn’t tell one very much.</p>
<p>Fair point, idad.
I am sure that if we looked at other colleges, one would see a similar breakdown of the student body. I read somewhere that Harvard tries to distribute its students into 1/3 humanities; 1/3 social sciences and 1/3 math/sciences.</p>
<p>My point in discussing writing and writing-intensive fields is that the Chicago writing prompts celebrate creativity expressed through writing in a way that writing prompts such as “tell us about an important figure in your life/an important experience/an obstacle you have overcome” do not even begin to seek to uncover. In fact, a number of admission deans have suggested that they are more interested in learning about the applicant than about good grammar and correct spelling. </p>
<p>I think that Chicago’s special character may come from combining some factors that are present at some other colleges but not in the same way: a true core rather than a distribution requirement that allows students to pick and choose and to fulfill the requirements at their own pace; a quarter system that forces students to constantly keep up with their assignments; a faculty that is in love with theory and verbal jousting. The core allows students in the same year to engage one another intellectually in a way that students who are dispersed through a larger range of distributional requirements cannot (it was the scheduling issue that my son was concerned about, not the core itself).</p>
<p>How much the writing prompts contribute to shaping the student body and to what extent they reflect its character is what I thought the thread was about.</p>
<p>I don’t believe to goal of the prompts is to assess writing skill in and of itself. The former dean once said it was to see how the prospective students could handle ideas. The essay published that occasioned this thread was a response to the more mundane Why Chicago? prompt. I am sure that writer must have done well on the other essays as well. Further, the Dean of the College has said that Chicago admits for its faculty; that is, is there evidence the students would be one a faculty member would like to have in his or her course? That is what is trying to be gleaned from the essays, recommendations, and curriculum attempted, and much less so by simple GPA or test scores.</p>
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<p>Which (again) is also what other highly ranked, well-reputed colleges/U’s do, and that’s exactly why two students with exactly the same stats while the same SES and geographic & racial/ethnic background can have two entirely different results to the same institution. (And in many cases at other U’s, unhooked students with “lesser” stats than others or another are still seen as academically more desirable than a competitor with higher stats.) </p>
<p>There are actually not many “purely” or almost singularly-stat-driven U’s in this country any longer. Some U’s may put more of their decisions into that, and certainly for cut-off eligibilities such as Honors colleges & merit scholarships. But for admissions, it’s at least semi-holistic pretty universally. They’re looking at what kind of a student you are, not your “number.”
:)</p>
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<p>I have no doubt that you’re correct. It couldn’t possibly have hurt my son’s chances at admission that when he was in the process of applying, he happened to be seated next to [Linda</a> Seidel](<a href=“http://arthistory.uchicago.edu/facultystaff/emeritus/seidel.shtml"]Linda”>http://arthistory.uchicago.edu/facultystaff/emeritus/seidel.shtml) – a professor emerita in the Art History department, and, I believe, a former chair – at a dinner party at his great-aunt’s house (I wasn’t there; this is someone on my ex’s side of the family), spent a couple of hours talking to her, and apparently impressed her sufficiently that, unsolicited, she offered to write a recommendation for him, and also telephoned the Dean of Admissions on his behalf. What I’d call an amazingly lucky break, because his great-aunt had no idea he was even interested in the University of Chicago, let alone that it was his first choice. He had a very decent chance of admission without this, but, as I said – it didn’t hurt that a faculty member took an interest in him and believed that he would thrive there. </p>
<p>[Linda</a> Seidel | Emeritus Faculty | Art History Department | The University of Chicago Division of the Humanities](<a href=“http://arthistory.uchicago.edu/facultystaff/emeritus/seidel.shtml]Linda”>http://arthistory.uchicago.edu/facultystaff/emeritus/seidel.shtml)</p>
<p>Marite, the Chicago prompts invite students to <em>think</em> about something in a new way. Rather than being transparent – the type of questions where the answer is suggested by the question – they tend to present some sort of enigma, or an ambiguity that leads to many different interpretations. Even a simple, straightforward question (“how did you get caught”) is immediately susceptible of many different interpretations. The “creativity” part comes in simply that the question itself invokes some degree of creativity just to figure out what the question means.</p>
<p>Chicago values written expression, but they aren’t interested in seeing how the student <em>writes</em>. They have designed the questions to give them a window into how the student <em>thinks</em>. There is no particular right or wrong answer – I think that’s why my daughter could get accepted with light-hearted, whimsical submissions – but certainly in general there are some people who express greater complexity and/or originality of thought than others. </p>
<p>Sciences and social sciences are fields that benefit from creative thinking. Einstein himself said that imagination is more important than knowledge – and many of the greatest advances in science originated in thought experiments. (Einstein imagined himself riding on a beam of light, the chemical structure of benzene was discovered through Kekul</p>