The first essay prompt suggest about 500 words or 1-2 pages. If mine is closer to 1000 and 3 pages do you guys think that’s an issue? I know it isn’t too wordy and I’m sure they wouldn’t get too bored to finish it but I’m not sure if its just too long.
@rayb248 they recommend around 500 to 650 words, so use your judgment I guess
Welp, I finished my uncommon essay on the tightrope and just realized that it mirrors The Martian’s plot completely :)
I haven’t even read the book and there’s just way too many things that are similar to it, so it looks like I’ve gotta redo it 
For the extended essay, I wrote about a theory of consciousness (a past prompt), and it ran into something like 1800 words and four pages… is that problematic?
Also for the book/poem/author… prompt, can I write a not-so-popular book like the Three-Body Problem? In case you haven’t heard of it (which is very likely), it is a Chinese sci-fi about alien invasion or the like.
4 pages will be fine…IF your writing keeps the reader interested that long.
As for the “Favorites” prompt, if there’s one place where eccentricity won’t hurt you, it’s Chicago.
For my Favorites prompt (I applied EA this year), I just had a few categories (Favorite books/movies/musical albums /etc.) and listed a few under each. For ones that were significant to me, I gave a one line explanation why it was a favorite, nothing too deep, I kept it very light-hearted.
@NotVerySmart How quirky is quirky before it gets weird? For example, if I’m a huge fun of a book titled Necrophilia Variations, and I even elaborate on what it’s actually about, will they think I’m crazy? It’s hard to know where to the draw the line.
Also general question: what’s the average length of essays here? I’m at 946 after cutting out a bunch, but eliminating anymore would only kill my essay. Is that too long?
@Kasami: My uncommon essay (I chose the tightrope topic) was around 750-800 words. The suggested length was around 500-650 words for each essay (if I recall correctly), but I have seen many people on here get accepted with their essays going well about that limit. I guess it’s alright to have a long essay as long as it keeps the readers (in this case, the people at the admissions office) drawn in. It would only hurt you if your essay were to bore the admissions office people.
@Kasami I think there are very few topics that would be considered weird, provided your essays are well written.
A topic like the book you’ve chosen is obviously easier to go wrong with than a discussion of sliced bread, but there’s no reason it can’t be one element of a strong supplement.
@Kasami My uncommon essay was about 750ish, and my Why UChicago essay was about 400-500.
As long as your essay isn’t boring and you’re not restating the same thing over and over, you should be fine. Have a few people read it and ask if they were kept interested throughout the whole essay.
There’s a meaningful difference between quirky-weird and disturbing-weird. It’s not a bad idea to indulge the first and avoid the second.
@NotVerySmart @Mochis1 @waddups Thanks for the input. I suppose I should have clarified but the book would’ve been part of the optional essay which asked to list some of your favorite things. I was on the fence about putting it down for obvious reasons, even though there’s an incredibly insightful passage near the end about existence and etc which is what made me love it in the first place.
Anyway, I’ve had some teachers and people read over my essay which now sits at 850 ish. I’ve cut down a lot on the redundant stuff already, so we’ll just see how it goes.
My extended essay was 1050 words, and my Why UChicago essay was about 730 words.
My Why UChicago is close to 700 words and my uncommon essay is 870 words… Although I formatted my uncommon essay as a series of anecdotes and not so much like a traditional essay.
I thought why uchicago had a word limit so mine is 500, but my extended essay is 960
on the commonapp, it says that the extended essay should be around 500 words and the why uchicago essay should be around 250
Is it ok if my Why UChicago essay goes over a page? Like will they be able to read it?
I think so, 500kb is usually more that two pages
Can comic books be included in the optional essay? And Jon Cozart (Paint) who does musical parody rather than Beethoven? Because I’m afraid if my answers will not sound intellectual enough if they don’t have as much literary value as something like or The Odyssey and Heart of Darkness (for which I’m not that much of a fan)