<p>Colleges are beginning to post their essay prompts for the coming year. Here are UChicago’s famously unique prompts (still required even though they have gone to the common application). Perhaps readers know of other’s now available that would be fun to see.
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<p>No wonder why the U of C is so self-selective! ;)</p>
<p>Huh. I’m guessing my crayon drawing of stick people in response to prompt #4 (the one with all the scary words) wouldn’t get me a second look. ;)</p>
<p>curmudgeon: I’m intrigued.</p>
<p>curm, let the goats have at it! ;)</p>
<p>I don’t think I’m college material any more. These prompts make my eyeballs ache.</p>
<p>curmudgeon: I’m intrigued.</p>
<p>Don’t be. I’m not kidding. 
“Z bosons” sounds to me like Kissinger trying to talk about “Z boffaloes”. I got nothing. :(</p>
<p>curm, let the goats have at it!</p>
<p>Hey, if I could work goats in there then I’m golden.</p>
<p>Pompous. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>Three years ago, my d. went for option #5, created a question that was simple + frivolous - wrote a tongue-in-cheek, humorous response… and was accepted to Chicago. Turned them down, of course… but the point is that the essay prompts are only a barrier for individuals who are easily deterred. </p>
<p>(Note: my d. applied EA and was initially deferred; after the deferral she sent supplemental info, including her common app essay - so in the end Chicago got the same essay that went to every other college)</p>
<p>Rodins Secretary</p>
<p>Rilke, take a letter,…to Dreyfus Castings
Sirs, about my bronzes?
there is an empty square in Paris
where my buerghers should be milling.
Calais officials breathing down my neck-
Pour the metal, send it and so forth,…
got that?
then bring me a tall chocolate,…
so your names Maria and your girlfriends Lou?
Oh and fetch my hammer and chisel from the rose garden
and my frogskin gloves,…
whos my 2:00? Do I pay you to dream?</p>
<p>I believe now that they use the common application the University will see the common app essay as well. They now state, however, that option 5 cannot be the common app essay, I believe some applicants in the past did use their common essay. Chicago also requires a type of a “why Chicago” essay and offers another optional (was required) essay on one’s favorite things.</p>
<p>I am looking forward to seeing Tufts’ optional essays, last year they were pretty interesting if I recall.</p>
<p>I know the Powers of Ten movie cold (I have the video and showed it to my students three or four times a year for ten years)—and I have no idea what they want in any of these essays.</p>
<p>Clearly I am not U of Chicago material.</p>
<p>D looked at the UChicago essays when she was applying a couple years ago & knew immediately that it was NOT the place for her. The essays do a good job of helping students self-select.</p>
<p>D was accepted to Tufts WITHOUT doing the optional essay. She just doesn’t do the whole oddball writing thing. Not that there’s anything wrong with it or with those who like it. It’s just that it’s not everyone’s cup of tea … not even when the kid is a good writer.</p>
<p>Other universities must have similar essays. Some years ago I remember reading a fun prompt from I believe Penn.</p>
<p>This thread proves to me one thing: parents should have no hand in helping their kids write their college essays. With regards to the Chicago essays, it seems to me that the high schoolers have beaten the parents, coming forth with excitement and great ideas.</p>
<p>The fun in these essays is that there is no right answer, that there are many solutions and many paths towards the same destination of interpreting and treating the essay prompts. Obviously, knowledge of the work that the reference comes from is unnecessary-- if it were, the essay would ask students to write a poem analysis or a movie review. Instead, the essay prompts are trying to elicit gut reactions, they are trying to see how students take an incongruous introduction or an idea and incorporate it into something else.</p>
<p>These questions are the verbal equivalent to the AMC/MAA/AIME math exams. The AMC exams are known for asking oddball questions, and while the math needed to solve them doesn’t usually go beyond simple calculus (or might not even reach calculus), the questions still beg creative problem-solving. And there are many, many ways to arrive at the right answer mathematically. So it’s not really about math-- it’s really about thinking, just the way these essays aren’t about writing-- they’re really about thinking.</p>
<p>I’m really happy that Chicago has essays like these, because the fact that they are there helps weed out students who probably wouldn’t like to be here anyway. At the same time, there seem to be a lot of students (myself included) who have great fun with these essays, and that they are able to connect the experience of writing these essays to a particular school is more or less free marketing for Chicago.</p>
<p>For me, it made me want to go there more badly, if only because I would be able to ask people how they treated the essay questions. Every once in a while I walk around campus and think, “Gee, everybody here was confronted with a set of bizarre essay questions, and everybody here dealt with them somehow. No wonder people don’t complain when they read Marx and Freud!”</p>
<p>That’s not to say that these questions are easy to answer-- but rather, I think they probably provide fuller, deeper, richer reactions and responses. I found these questions a lot easier to answer than the common app questions. I also think (maybe for better than for worse) that applying to Chicago is harder this year than it was in past years. In past years, with the “UnCommon Application,” the Chicago essays were backwards compatible with the common app, and Chicago’s “option 5” allowed for a student to submit their common app answer if they really liked it.</p>
<p>Now, students must write two unique essays-- one for the Common App, one for the supplement, and one essay on Why Chicago. The favorite media essay is optional, but I figure many CC applicants will end up filling it out anyway. The students who want to apply to Chicago are going to be writing quite a bit!</p>
<p>For those who go off on a Question Five tangent, I think the prompt itself gets as much scrutiny as the response.</p>
<p>S1 did his Chicago essays first and spent a ton of time on them. By the time he got to the other apps, those other questions were boring. On the other hand, the Uncommon App did help convince him Chicago was the place he wanted to be…</p>
<p>I find it interesting that essay prompts can have that much influence on application decisions. Is this a Chicago thing or are other schools avoided or sought out because of their prompts?</p>
<p>Back in my day, Yale went in for questions like these and I took one look at them and didn’t apply. Now I’d much rather respond to one of these questions than the usual “tell us about something that influenced you” type essay. Even my non-creative son enjoyed figuring out what to put in Caltech’s equivalent. A blank box which you fill up with anything you like - artistic, scientific, programs it’s all been done. I’ve seen some great examples.</p>
<p>Is this a Chicago thing or are other schools avoided or sought out because of their prompts?</p>
<p>idad, I know this is not what you were asking but I am finding out that Med schools run the gamut, too. Some schools have short or non-existent essay requirements, some have substantial, and Duke has 6 (Six) required essays with its supplemental app. It is as famous in that world as Chicago’s uncommon app is in UG-world. My D, the one who absolutely hated app essays, plans on applying to Duke. <merciful god.=“” please=“” let=“” the=“” process=“” be=“” less=“” painful.=“” or=“” at=“” least=“” in=“” memphis.=“” dad=“” is=“” older.=“” i=“” don’t=“” believe=“” can=“” listen=“” to=“” that=“” again.=“”></merciful></p>
<p>I know that my D had a few oddball essays to do for various schools (can’t remember which now), but they didn’t put her off the way the UChicago ones did. She was actually pleased to see the UC prompts, because it did help her to realize she would not be happy there … not that there is anything wrong with the school … it was just the wrong school for my D.</p>