The prompt is: Have you ever walked through the aisles of a warehouse store like Costco or Sam’s Club and wondered who would buy a jar of mustard a foot and a half tall? We’ve bought it, but it didn’t stop us from wondering about other things, like absurd eating contests, impulse buys, excess, unimagined uses for mustard, storage, preservatives, notions of bigness…and dozens of other ideas both silly and serious. Write an essay somehow inspired by super-huge mustard.
*Essay is incomplete because of writer’s block btw. The approach I took was symbolism. Please review, offer insight, and help fill in blanks. Thanks.
ESSAY:
It’s easy for individualism to turn into pretentiousness. The evolution of one’s own manner of perceiving and inevitably expressing the world’s many multi-differentiating series of selves unto others encourages limited resources which wrongly become outgrown. Life is not all black and white. It’s a game fulfilled in gray mannerisms, stronger than what the terms ‘antagonist’ or ‘protagonist’ can attain to wholeheartedly.
Symbolism, while it may be essential in terms of structure or definition, is not a priority in the eyes of an individual. Impressionism is a characteristic, nothing but of structural prerequisite when applied to formalism.
Iconoclasm is, however, anticipated at a level of difficulty rather than easier said and done. Presentation of dissertation in an academic environment is rightfully declined as apocrypha rather than accepted. With the consideration of mass-cultural phenomena, I…
This is way, way, way too dense. I have no idea what you’re trying to say… And I don’t know what this has to do with mustard.
Does this have anything to do with mustard? I have no idea what you’re trying to say. Remember that admissions officers have very little time to read your essays. They don’t have time to sit and think about what you’re trying to say.
Do not post your essays on line.
That said…I don’t think an admission officer would make it to the end of this. Say what you mean.
“Impressionism is a characteristic, nothing but of structural prerequisite when applied to formalism.”
No thank you…
Do not post your essays on line.
That said…I don’t think an admissions officer would make it to the end of this. Say what you mean.
I agree with the posters above that the response doesn’t seem to answer the question. UChicago’s essay prompts are crazy and weird and unique. That being said, your response should be unique! Don’t use cliches like “life is not black and white.” Also, do not define terms that the average person could look up in a dictionary.
You’re lacking a lot of basic grammar in your essay, which makes it even harder to read beyond the words.
You have a lot of ideas all within three sentences, all which don’t say anything about YOU, the applicant. Essentially, that’s what you want to get at: yourself.
My kid, who got into UChicago, was quite taken with that essay prompt when she heard it, and immediately had ideas about either making a battery from it or painting with it… it wasn’t her application year’s prompt, so she didn’t write on that, but that is where one admitted student’s mind went as a starting point. (Science and art happen to be areas of strong interest for her). Your essay sounds like you are trying to show yourself as intellectual… you aren’t pulling it off. Intellectual doesn’t mean unintelligible to the average reader.
Take @intparent 's advice very strongly. You need to have an essay that goes in such unique directions or you don’t even have a shot at UChicago–no matter your stats. The key is a strong essay. Choose an example that shows who you are beyond your application.