<p>My UnCommon Application Essay answers the question “A community can be defined by its table. Tell us about your table.” Do you think that I can use this prompt for option 6 on the Common App (“Topic of your choice”)?</p>
<p>For whatever reason, I’m just having a hard time on the Common App essay, and I really like my Uncommon essay.</p>
<p>i did 10 char…</p>
<p>Yes, but I see you got into UChicago! So that doesn’t tell me what colleges think about this idea. Perhaps I shall e-mail a college I’m applying to, but does anyone have any other input?</p>
<p>it depends on how blatantly “i love u of chicago” it is probably. If its not completely wacky, says something about what you’ll bring to a school and what makes you a good student, I don’t see any problem with it. Honestly, it common ap so it CAN’T or isn’t supposed to cater to just one regular school. Just make sure you get rid of that “and that’s why I want to go the U of C” line (not that U of C applicant would ever write that probably, lol)</p>
<p>I wouldn’t email a college you plan on applying to to ask about whether you should use another school’s essay as part of your application to them, that doesn’t sound like a good idea at all, not that you shouldn’t use the essay, just that you shouldn’t explain the situation.</p>
<p>I guess. They’ll probably know that it’s from another school when they see that the question is “Tell us about your table.”</p>
<p>what does “10 char” mean? I’ve seen it a few times…I have no clue.</p>
<p>10 characters. It’s used to indicate that a poster has nothing further to say, but that he or she needs to reach the 10 character limit need to post.</p>
<p>I would write your own prompt for that essay, but as long as it’s not blatantly obvious, you should be OK. Just be very aware that top colleges know each others’ essay topics and will know right away if your essay is very obviously about tables.</p>
<p>Yeah…writing the CommApp essays has been so anti-climatic, especially after spending the entire day writing UChic essays…gosh.</p>
<p>I only ended up writing two long essays: My UChicago essay, and one which I twisted to fit a variety of topics which discussed how a 3 year old helped me overcome my deathly fear of closed shower curtains.</p>
<p>If you’re stuck on the CommonApp essay, think of a really unique flaw (in my case, fear of closed shower curtains) and talk about it. My essay was admittedly a bit uh, embellished, but it’s a good story and it has a good moral. My essay is honestly more of a short story than a college application essay, but it got me into MIT.</p>
<p>I took the same approach. I wrote a short story that hopefully conveys my sense of humor and view of life.</p>
<p>I used a shortened and dechicagofied version on my uncommon (Borges prompt) essay for the CA. It was really the best justice I could do to my personality, goals, interests ect. in 1000 words.</p>
<p>Well, my UChicago essay on the tables never mentioned UChicago at all. I don’t know if that’s good or bad… I just told a story without referencing UChicago.</p>
<p>Wouldn’t it be okay to use the UChicago prompt as the prompt for the topic of choice, because colleges want to get a piece of you in it, and it doesn’t matter what the topic is, as long as it captures a bit of your personality?</p>
<p>My U of C essay doesn’t mention U of C either. Well then…</p>
<p>But if you use the same topic as the U of C prompt, it’s basically saying to the college that “you’re not as important to me as U Chicago is, so I’m just going to reuse this essay.”</p>
<p>Not a great idea.</p>
<p>What about the fourth topic? Namely…</p>
<p>Modern improvisational comedy had its start with The Compass Players, a group of University of Chicago students, who later formed the Second City comedy troupe. Here is a chance to play along. Improvise a story, essay, or script that meets all of the following requirements:
• It must include the line ?And yes I said yes I will Yes? (Ulysses, by James Joyce).
• Its characters may not have superpowers.
• Your work has to mention the University of Chicago, but please, no accounts of a high school student applying to the University?this is fiction, not autobiography.
• Your work must include at least four of the following elements:
o a paper airplane
o a transformation
o a shoe
o the invisible hand
o two doors
o pointillism
o a fanciful explanation of the Pythagorean Theorem
o a ventriloquist or ventriloquism
o the Periodic Table of the Elements
o the concept of jeong
o number two pencils </p>
<p>What if I take out the Chicago reference? And maybe jeong and ventriloquism would give it away… If I changed those, they probably couldn’t see that it is a Chicago essay, right? Though it is a bit on the creative/quirky side…</p>
<p>Of all the prompts from this year, I would most strongly discourage people from reusing option 4, just because it is so, SO UChicago.</p>
<p>And I’m dead serious about the whole colleges-know-their-competition thing.</p>
<p>Just write another essay. You’re on holiday break, it won’t kill you.</p>
<p>Haha, ok. I am on holiday break, and am… applying to 15 schools. :(</p>
<p>My reasoning goes
<p>Mmmph.</p>
<p>If I were an admissions officer at Swarthmore, I probably wouldn’t mind if an applicant used a Uchicago prompt. To me, it’s smart. If you have an essay that demonstrates your personality well, why do another one?</p>
<p>But at the same time, I can sort of see how other people might feel a little disappointed. It just doesn’t sound as unique.</p>
<p>For the common app essay prompt, I decided to use Topic of Choice and put my question ask, “Discuss something that is important to you.” And the answer is my table! This means that I’m going to change a bit to my essay to make it fit better, but the ideas will still be the same.</p>
<p>But again, to be honest, if I were an admissions officer from another school, I’d be so bleary-eyed from all the essay reading that I wouldn’t care.</p>