<p>Is it frowned upon in any way to choose the create your own option. . .i mean why would they put it there if they didnt want people to use it . . .but still.. .please put in your $ .02. . .>_<</p>
<p>I'm going to repeat what I heard when we visited for the umteenth time: The AO that spoke to our roomfull of people on prospective student' day said that doing the 5th option was the most risky, because how would you come up with more original and interesting prompts than they did? This led me to think that they do not want you to choose this option unless you are really original.</p>
<p>Btw, my dd did the mustard essay, but made it personal. We heard from her advisor that they enjoyed reading her application. In a way, she gave lip service to the prompt, but it motivated her.</p>
<p>oh well, I wrote my own prompt and I already submitted it, so if they <em>do</em> really frown upon that, its too late
however, like some other posts have said, I think they just want to see that you are creative and can write well, and if your own question is something unique, i'm sure it would be fine (at least I hope so lol)</p>
<p>what was your self-made prompt?</p>
<p>yeah, well i made up my own prompt but it still had to do with the prompt number....er teh teleclone one. i really dont think it matters as long as your essay is interesting, intellectual and creative.</p>
<p>oh, and mine was pretty straightforward. 'envision yourself insane and guide us through your mind as you contemplate a uchicago prompt' really the only reason i 'made up my own' was because i wanted to write it a certain way, and, sicne my essay was a bit strange, it worked best with the slight modification on the prompt</p>
<p>for mine, I already had this essay I had written for another college, and since I was being lazy I just decided to tailor the prompt to my essay...</p>
<p>my prompt was something along the lines of "describe yourself/your daily routine from the perspective of an inanimate object" (not the exact wording; I tried to make it sound more creative); I don't know if that's really creative, but I honestly could think of nothing to write for the other topics</p>
<p>I wanted my essay to explain some holes in my application so I created a prompt dealing with bad things that turn out to be good things.</p>
<p>I wrote about how stupid scheduling kept me from ever taking an advanced social studies class which meant I couldn't attempt the IB diploma. My social studies classes are quite boring, but this change made room in my scedule for some fun electives (namely jewerly) which I absolutely fell in love with and will have completed through level 4 by graduation. </p>
<p>It might be a little generic of a prompt but its different from the "greatest life experiance" type prompts and it allowed me to both show why I didnt take any advanced social studies and why there were various slacker classes (jewelry 1 would be the class that they stick you into when you simply decide not to register for classes). I think the way I wrote it helped show that I really just want to learn and that I want to learn about a multitude of things.</p>
<p>They accepted me EA so they must have liked it (and I dont think they ever said it was risky to write #5 to me)</p>