Question 1. How does the University of Chicago, as you know it now, satisfy your desire for a particular kind of learning, community, and future? Please address with some specificity your own wishes and how they relate to Chicago.
For my personal preference, I want an education in an encouraging and versatile community as I believe that that is how good learning comes about. It is because the community members of the University of Chicago are willing to listen and accept new ideas that the university has become the outstanding place it is now. Unity is imperative to the improvement of any type of educational facility and work environment. A second aspect of the educational style that I learn best in lies in that visual learning must be present because I myself use pictures as vivid reminders of the information that is absorbed. I find it to be a very helpful aid in classes such as biology, where the processes of DNA replication and digestion need to be memorized and in chemistry with the continuing onset of many types of formulas such as the pressure law of PV=nRT.
Keeping my perspectives in mind, I used my hopes and thoughts as a means to control how I knew how I would feel with a college and how I would actually feel once I saw it for myself. I found the campus situated in the rich surroundings of Chicago and saw that it also retained the peace of studying that was needed by the providence of luscious trees. Walking around, I found a glorious look into one of the local bookstores on campus; while there, I picked up a valuable piece of research in that it offered a complete version of the letters exchanged between Thomas Jefferson and his wife in the years of their marriage. This was one of the greatest memorabilia items I took with me as I treasured the words on the page with a different sense of pride and happiness: this was the first piece of literature that I had purchased off of campus.
After wandering back to the main hall, there was a campus tour conducted and I got to see the real reactions of students who were busy studying for their respective classes. Not only were they concentrated on their work, they were also focused on keeping their composure together. They kept themselves occupied and this showed me how much self-control University of Chicago students maintain. They know when to study and when to be a little crazier; the balance of necessary elements is then very apparent. Balance is a great aspect of the community, an aspect echoed in the maintenance of the core curriculum that is present. Students must take a humanities course, math courses, science courses, history and a foreign language, no matter what major they have. This gives the students a chance to explore a verisimilitude of different subjects, all carrying their own implications. This balance interests me in addition to the campus and the student life available on campus; I believe that this makes the University of Chicago a good school for me.
The last paragraph is nice - talking about the balance between studies and extracurriculars at Chicago. Perhaps you could use this as the main theme of your essay - write about the many courses available for students as well as the student clubs and other sports activities and show how they are well balanced. Why is this balance important for you? Have you balanced your activities while at school? You could use this as your reason for applying to Chicago
Isn't the deadline way over?
lol yea. maybe going for late?
For my personal preference,
haha, isn't that everyone's "preference"?
oh, btw, this essay is supposed to be 2 paragraphs, not 3, so make it short.
Also, you have some good details, but watch out for syntax, you might wanna get an english teacher to check it.
Finally, I personally didn't care about this prompt much, and I highlighted in a rather concise essay some of the main elements of the school, like scav hunt, econ dept...you have to understand that this school's very creative and ridiculously "nerdy", so try targeting your answer in that area. don't spend too much time on this tho, the biggie is honestly the 5 choice long essay. That's really what you need to do well on to get in. trust me, i've gone thru it.
Moonshadow, thanks so much for your comments! I wish I had seen this before I submitted it a week ago :(
and yes, Paulina, the deadline was definitely way over. I already submitted this essay to U Chicago before I posted it on here.
and yang, you're right, I thought it might've been too long but I wasn't sure what to do to it. I cut out some of the loose detailing but I don't know if it helped the essay much.
heres the problem you talk about in your intro the u. is willing to accept new ideas, but what actual direct experience do you have w/ this? You do what so many others who write these why this college essay do, name drop, meaning you give complements about the school but you have very little if anything substantial to back it up(and it reallly is hard to back it up unless you have spent substantial time on campus and/or know about the school)
The crazier idea is something i think your essay could have done w/o, i know what you're getting out, but you could have come up w/ a much better word choice and or elaborated on this, adcoms arent going to be too thrilled w/ you saying their kids know when to go crazy.
But perhaps the biggest advice i could give you, and this ties back to the first thing i said, you need something far more specific, an anecdote, a specific recollection that supports this balance. Vague ideas that could be applied to almost any school dont work, while you probably do have a genuine interest in Chicago, it wont come across through these vague, name calling ideas, like oh this school is so balanced, or so open, or such and such. rather than talking about your new ideas and t.j book idea which seems out of place, if you had started from the first sentence an experience where you saw the balance of U Chicago, then you would have the potential to create a more lasting image in the mind of an adcom. And through this you could have added tremendous details that really would tell an interesting essay. Still not a bad job though, dont get too down, these why essays usually dont play much role in admission, espec at a school like U Chicago that requires 2 other supplements.
Good luck
actually, gerry, the length might not matter, since you surely have heard of the essay that the Dean sent out for this topic that is a pretty huge controversy.
Here's the link to the essay: talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-essays/834970-should-u-chi cagos-admissions-dean-have-sent-essay-around-am-i-too-strict.html
It's quite long, so I guess that originality tops reading the instruction!
yang[Contributor] Jan 16, 10, 11:43pm #7
actually, gerry, the length might not matter, since you surely have heard of the essay that the Dean sent out for this topic that is a pretty huge controversy.
Here's the link to the essay: talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-essays/834970-should-u-chi cagos-admissions-dean-have-sent-essay-around-am-i-too-strict.html
It's quite long, so I guess that originality tops reading the instruction!
hahaha, yang, thanks for posting that! I had not actually seen that but I believe that this student definitely had originial thought in that. im glad he submitted his essay that way; it was direct, personal and showed his creativity.
hahaha, yang, thanks for posting that! I had not actually seen that but I believe that this student definitely had originial thought in that. im glad he submitted his essay that way; it was direct, personal and showed his creativity.
i thought it was brilliant also. after all, that's how he got in
