<p>The writing prompts themselves or not the problem, and I agree they can generate much more interesting essays than the bland prompts in other application forms. It's the pretentiousness of the surrounding expository materials. </p>
<p>What's wrong with asking: Describe your ideal dinner scenario: guests, menu, conversation?</p>
<p>And the whole Langston Hughes para boils down to: In one page, describe yourself. So does the He'lade prompt. </p>
<p>I suppose that if an prospective applicant has not been intimidated by refernces to some obscure community of people, or turned off by the pretentiousness of the admitted students, then Chicago has accomplished its goal. </p>
<p>BTW, I rather liked the giant bottle of mustard topic, though I would have drastically shortened the expository stuff leading into the prompt.</p>
<p>The essay prompts, the campus tours, how the college receptionist sounded on the phone, and the age of the sofa in the admissions office, are all superficial entities. I would be more concerned about the intellectual environment in the college, types of courses I can take, quality of teaching in my intended major, support services, housing conditions, ECs that interest me, and of course, affordability.</p>
<p>NMD, I added the "older' essays for a reason: it shows a growing trend in the degeneration of the essays. The essays for the class of 2008 were a bit quirky but interesting. Would I have found the prompt "The College Rankings in U.S. News and World Report" worth an effort? :) </p>
<p>However, eating too much of anything gives an indigestion. Chicago did cross the line of over-indulgence with their 2007-2008 version.</p>
<p>ziggi, what didn't I comprehend? You said you and sister selected yourselves out because of the essays, right? ("the school would be the last she'd apply if she had to live with people who do well on those essays! I agree as I would have done the same!")</p>
<p>Then you said "I do not think that this year's essays are particularly selecting."</p>
<p>So, if the nature of the essays led you to believe you and sister wouldn't be a good fit at UChicago, then UChicago's strategy of self-selection worked, no?</p>
<p>Are we using the vocab in different ways? Or ...?</p>
<p>go for it. we haven't had a good word fight on these boards in a while. Too much summer heat mellowing people?</p>
<p>xiggi,</p>
<p>You may be entirely correct in your conclusion, but missing a key point:</p>
<ul>
<li> maybe chicago is trying to attract precisely those students who are attracted to what you and marite find "pretentious?" Keep in mind that neither you nor marite have a "typical adolescent mind", at least not the kind they're trying to appeal to!</li>
</ul>
<p>You may also be taking this a little bit too seriously. After all, this is an admissions packet designed to stir interest, not to teach expository writing.</p>
<pre><code>I think that what is pretentious or exasperating to you is part of what poses a challenge to the student applicant. If the challenge of the application packet -- the whole quirk-filled package -- elicits a grin and sparks a great essay rather than a smirk and a toss in the garbage can, then it IS self-selecting which is exactly what the university set out to do. Why should administrators worry about which students get turned off by it when they already are rejecting applicants in droves with the system they've got? Why should they change what works for them? If they find that this years' essays created a dearth of qualified applicants, then I guess they'll make adjustments for the next go round. Big shrug.
</code></pre>
<p>Perhaps. Where is Libby Pearson when we need her? Isn't she the visiting admissions rep on the boards right now? It would be interesting to hear the perspective of someone "in the know" at UofC. Who else can tell us what those Chicago adcoms could possibly be thinking?</p>
<p>I don't suggest for one minute that Chicago ought to adopt the Common App prompts. There is intellectual laziness at work there. But as Xiggi suggested, the Chicago adcom tries too hard to be uncommon; and in the process it gives an image of its students that many terrific students (and I know Xiggi's sister is one) find off-putting. That is really too bad. Chicago's curriculum is already uncommon enough to attract self-selective applicants, the kinds who will enjoy its core curriculum and will not be afraid of working hard. It does not need to use as prompts passages that would not be out of place in Andrew Sullivan's Poseur Alert posts.</p>
<p>Chicago does attract students away from HYPSM. I am going to the airport in an hour to pick one of them up.</p>
<p>But, realistically, it's not going to do that much -- from my standpoint, the reputation of those schools is pretty justified -- and it doesn't have to, either. The total aggregate freshman class at HYPSMC (I'm adding Columbia because it's really Chicago's most natural competitor, due to urban locations and very strong core curricula, and its selectivity is behind only H & Y now) is about 7,500 kids, and lots of those are kids who would never be attracted to Chicago in the first place (e.g., Division I athletes, aspiring engineers, legacy Bonesmen). There are lots more smart, capable kids whose foremost demand is an intellectually engaged and challenging community than HYPSMC can admit. Chicago is doing fine if it attracts a large percentage of those, compared with their other options -- and I think it does.</p>
<p>Also, its student body really is intellectually engaged. It's the kind of place where the hard-core partiers argue about Plato while they're hard-core partying. (And, honestly, it's a place where you can fit all the hard-core partiers into one medium-sized room.) It's a place where 100% of the physics majors have volunteered to read Marx and Foucault. And everyone chose to write one of those pretentious essays. Is there perhaps a little bit of pretentiousness going on? Yup . . . but not quite up to the pretentiousness standard of HYPSM.</p>
<p>You may be right that I am taking it a tad too seriously. But Xiggi is right, the prompts have changed over the years since I first looked at them when S1 applied there (he decided not to stay on the WL). If I remember correctly, it was quite straightforward. As I suggested, some of the prompts beg to be rewritten. </p>
<p>JHS: I said nothing about the quality of the essays. I commented on the prompts, and I stand by what I said. They are pretentious.</p>
<p>Marite: I wasn't disagreeing that the prompts are pretentious (really mainly prompts ## 2 and 4). All but #1 could be "translated" into something fairly simple, and of course that's what a kid should do. I was disagreeing with you that the prompts clearly turn off kids the university wants to apply.</p>
<p>For better or worse, I think Chicago is targeting kids who will be attracted by what you are finding pretentious, or who at least will not be turned off by it. One of the characteristics of the place is a conscious -- one might sometimes say "defensive" -- intellectualism. That can be attractive to kids who are tired of trying to "act normal" at their high schools, or who are tired of being ostracized for not acting normal. The more outrageous prompts are an invitation to let their freak flags fly (and an implicit promise that freaks are welcome). And it does attract those kids. If you really dislike kids like that you won't be happy at Chicago. </p>
<p>The scav hunt list I linked to above is a pretty pure artifact of the Chicago ethos. Not everyone there loves scav hunt, but everyone has to be around a whole lot of people who love scav hunt. And I would submit that the scav hunt list (student generated, not for marketing purposes) is genetically linked to the essay prompts.</p>
<p>The UChi application struck me as pretentious as well, as it did several other friends. The questions are just plain stupid. These are students still in their 4th year of high school, not educated, experienced philosophes. To ask them questions that try that hard to be profound, you're just stroking their egos. No offense, but asking a 17-year-old about a Zen koan is lovely, but more than a bit pretentious. What kind of ideas are you putting into kids' heads? That their current state of mind should be one of Zen analytics? That UChi kids are too "intellectual" for such mundanities as "Who is your role model?"
Ask questions that appeal to the more humble side of students. Sorry, 17-year-old Chicago hopefuls. You're still stuck on the same plane of reality as the rest of us. Deal with it. Opining on a Zen koan doesn't make you above mowing the grass or studying for the upcoming civics test.</p>
<p>Maybe you are right that some kids could overcome the feeling that the prompts are pretentious and reflect a certain kind of students. I also think that they probably turn off some terrific students, in particular those who wear their knowledge lightly without trying to be anything but what they are. Because since the adcom clearly have put a lot of thought into the selection of the writing prompts (something HYP which use the Common App equally clearly have not), it is an invitation for prospective applicants to reflect on what the student body is like. One problem in high school is for kids to "act normal" (an ideathat I resisted in the thread on Intel.) One problem in college is intellectual name-dropping. </p>
<p>As I said, I read the Chicago prompts back in 2000 and they were not like the prompts this year.</p>
<p>DS responded to option #5. Write your own interesting prompt, answer it and a great essay will ensue.</p>
<p>Son wrote the prompt, the essay, submitted it to Chicago, was accepted EA. It was useful in his other apps as well. His favorite prompt was from Sarah Lawrence's app last year regarding Homer Simpson. His other fav was the empty box on Cal Tech's app. You would not believe what he put in that box!</p>
<p>I think Chicago is making the right decision by including these prompts. While you may not like them, you'd be surprised how many students and applicants do. The prompts also serve as a mini-selection process. No one is going to apply to Chicago as a semi-safety (a la Tufts) without revealing it in their half-hearted attempt to reply to the prompt. Only students who are genuinely attracted to Chicago will bother to complete the uncommon application. Thus, Chicago has a relatively low number of applicants compared to similar universities, but a very high acceptance rate and yield rate.</p>