<p>Without going into much detail, I wrote an essay that involved a graph as a primary thread. Like a mathematical one that I used as a metaphor of sorts. </p>
<p>Thing is, I did not know that UChicago used a “cartesian coordinate” prompt in the past. Now I’m afraid it will look as if I used an old prompt or something, which AFAIK is generally frowned upon. Should I just throw out this essay/the graph metaphor or what? I really liked what I did, since I feel it was creative and worked well :/</p>
<p>How similar is this essay to the prompt - is it that you created your own essay question that is strikingly similar to the one in question, or have you just created an extended metaphor in the process of answering an otherwise unrelated question? Honestly, I would not worry a whole lot either way - from what I know of the people in admissions, I get the impression they care a lot less about the inspiration for your question, more about how it’s written and what the content relays about your personality and passions. But even if they do care more than I think they do about question sources, I can’t imagine them getting too picky over a well-executed metaphor, even inspired by an old prompt, in an otherwise novel composition.</p>
<p>(of course, take everything I say on this with only the credibility it deserves - I’m just a recent alum with some acquaintances in admissions, not at all involved in the actual process or speaking from any more experience than my own application 5 years ago and impressions of those I know currently there)</p>
<p>i’m answering one of the given prompts from this year, and in doing so i wrote an extended metaphor that i thought worked well…it’s pure coincidence [i think, i might have subconsciously remembered it from reading about UChicago this past year, but i don’t think so]</p>