<p>I agree with you mum—not necessarily about the essay, don’t really care about that, but why do people have to put in rude and personal comments when defending their points? Perhaps if they don’t have a good argument, say something personally attacking the other poster instead? I hope I don’t do that, I try not to. What’s the point? We’d never be so rude to someone if we were sitting down talking to them. Kinda takes the entire discussion off track.</p>
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<p>I’m probably reading too much into something that would be put into context in the rest of the app, but if I were reading this essay and had nothing else to go on, I would be concerned about the apparent swings of emotional highs and lows the writer describes. I agree that it does not show the ability to develop a topic, but it’s fairly creative and tells you something about the writer in a way that only the writer would have said it. From that point of view I think it does a better job than many.</p>
<p>Edit: I’m referring here to the Tufts essay NSM mentioned, not the one from Chicago.</p>
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<p>Exactly. </p>
<p>Additionally, every applicant needs to write their own essay. I would assume that U of Chicago does not want to see the same type of essay over and over again. Every applicant is an individual with their own voice. I know that I am stating the obvious. I don’t even understand why people are feeling so passionate on this thread. I guess this essay brought out a lot of emotions!</p>
<p>“I don’t think, though, that one adcom can or does speak for an entire school. That is what makes me sort of nervous for my kid next year. I think a great deal depends upon who picks up your file first (and how much s/he is willing to go to bat for you). For example, I don’t think that the fact that one adcom liked that essay at Tufts means that Tufts always values those sorts of essays, and others should model theirs after it.”</p>
<p>I think that when an adcom is allowed to post on a university’s site an essay the adcom admires or is allowed to send a mailing containing an essay they love, the adcom is being allowed to speak for the entire university. If other admissions officers (or at the least the dean of admissions) hated the essay in question, I doubt they would have allowed it to be posted or sent to the public</p>
<p>I’m sure that some students get into colleges even though some admissions officers hate their essay. I’m sure that some don’t get into colleges even though some admissions officers love their essays. I just don’t think that if a dean of admissions hated an essay, the essay would be posted on a college’s web site or sent to applicants as a good example.</p>
<p>I hate that Tufts essay. The writer sounds like a self absorbed, superficial, lazy nitwit. </p>
<p>Although I don’t know any Tufts grads, I have always had a good view of the school, and it surprises me that Tufts would post such an essay on its website. If there are any Tufts grads here or people with offspring at Tufts, I’d be interested in your view about how well the essay represents the kind of students who attend Tufts.</p>
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<p>Going a little far there, yeah? I wouldn’t say she’s a “nitwit”, but she does come off as rather self-absorbed. I stopped reading it seriously once I read this line:</p>
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<p>There is no reason to include those last few words about poets. If she’s a poet, then she comes off as an arrogant and bad one, IMHO. For one, there are people out there who can appreciate the “empty space between stanzas” without being poets. Plenty of prose-writers and, in general, just people who read poetry to unwind can do this.</p>
<p>There are other problems with it, as well. Too scattered, and there’s not even enough rhythm to hold the scattered bits of it together. I suppose both the Tufts essay and the UChicago essay can be described as “poetic”, but one of the things that the UChicago essay has that the Tufts essay lacks is precisely a sense of rhythm, which is not only important in poetry but also in prose, as any writer should know.</p>
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I don’t disagree with this at all. That’s why I think that any school’s doing this is not quite right. Kids already second guess themselves enough in this process, and from the “accepted essays” posted, I can see why. It has already been established that quite a few people have used the “love letter” approach. Nothing new under the sun there, apparently. In fact, with all of the essays required each year by each school, there can’t be that much new under the sun in general. I would think the writing style and ability to engage the reader would be more important than content. Neither essay struck me as very appealing in those respects.</p>
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<p>Adding more agreement to mum’s point. What’s interesting to me is that certain posters seem to have a consistently belligerent style. It’s hard to tell if it’s designed deliberately for this forum or if it is just the poster’s real-life personality. Some people can say very controversial things in a nonoffensive manner, and others can say “The sky is blue” and sound like the human equivalent of an aggressive pit bull. I find the entire thing fascinating.</p>
<p>^^^ Yes, fascinating indeed. And on this we certainly agree. Seems there are some posters who read way more into a post than is there, overreact, or come in with a chip on their shoulder looking to turn a statement or opinion into world war III.</p>
<p>I liked it as a creative writing piece but I didn’t find it to be a good Why Chicago essay, which I thought was supposed to reveal how a particular applicant would take advantage of the university’s resources. Anybody with writing talent could have written something of this quality, but I never imagined such an essay would be enough to get one accepted (this is certainly not the case at HYP?), let alone make up for one’s “past.” It also did not strike me as particularly intellectual-- maybe it only sounds that way? I’ve read essays with much simpler writing that are much more profound without even trying.</p>
<p>I also think it’s dumb and overly simplistic to think one could ascertain a fit at a school just by reading one essay. The student doesn’t even strike me as particularly Chicago-esque. I imagine he would fit in at many different kinds of schools.</p>
<p>" I never imagined such an essay would be enough to get one accepted (this is certainly not the case at HYP?), let alone make up for one’s “past.” It also did not strike me as particularly intellectual-- maybe it only sounds that way? I’ve read essays with much simpler writing that are much more profound without even trying.</p>
<p>There’s no evidence that this essay made up for weak ECs or stats. In fact, someone who says she’s the writer’s girlfriend has posted on a thread about this in the Essay forum, and says he had strong ECs and stats.</p>
<p>Typically most applicants to schools like HPYS, Chicago have the stats to be admitted. To get accepted, however, one must have something extra that the university desires. That could be an unusually interesting, well written essay, outstanding ECs, being from a region, socioeconomic group, ethnic group or religion that’s underrepresented, etc. Chicago particularly values fit.</p>
<p>Essays also don’t need to be intellectual to impress top colleges’ admissions officers. Many students try so hard to sound intellectual that they produce crappy essays with awkwardly placed and misused big words.</p>
<p>Humor is one of the most difficult things to accomplish well. The student who wrote this essay managed to achieve this.</p>
<p>“Anybody with writing talent could have written something like this (come up with their own version, using their own voice”</p>
<p>One has to be a reasonably accomplished writer to have developed a voice, and one has to have the guts and creativity to be a risk taker to produce something like this essay. </p>
<p>The below is from U Virginia’s website, and illustrates how unusual it is for even top universities to get well written, creative essays:</p>
<p>"Ninety percent of the applications I read contain what I call McEssays - usually five-paragraph essays that consist primarily of abstractions and unsupported generalization. They are technically correct in that they are organized and have the correct sentence structure and spelling, but they are boring. Sort of like a Big Mac. </p>
<p>I have nothing against Big Macs, but the one I eat in Charlottesville is not going to be fundamentally different from the one I eat in Paris, Peoria or Palm Springs. I am not going to rave about the quality of a particular Big Mac. The same can be said about the generic essay.</p>
<p>If an essay starts out: “I have been a member of the band and it has taught me leadership, perseverance and hard work,” I can almost recite the rest of the essay without reading it. Each of the three middle paragraphs gives a bit of support to an abstraction, and the final paragraph restates what has already been said. A McEssay is not wrong, but it is not going to be a positive factor in the admission decision. It will not allow a student to stand out.</p>
<p>A student who uses vague abstractions poured into a preset form will end up being interpreted as a vague series of abstractions. A student who uses clich</p>
<p>I know essays don’t have to be intellectual for the author to do well, but your point was that this essay was successful precisely because it displayed intellect, a Chicago quality. I’m saying it didn’t really even do that, though I like it nonetheless.</p>
<p>It does display intellect. One has to be very bright to write good parody. Lots of people incorrectly assume that people who are funny are stupid,but that’s far from the case even though in many cases, the class clown’s grades are far lower than is their intellect.</p>
<p>The essay displays intellect, but it’s not what I’d call intellectual. It’s not as if the writer did an analysis of Kant, for instance. The writer, however, did display an appreciation of Chicago’s intellectual atmosphere.</p>
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That was never my assumption. Like I said, I’ve seen essays that are profound yet not written in a conventionally academic/intellectual style. I really liked the essay but I don’t see why it’s so special. The kind of “intellect” the author displayed through it is something I expected of the vast majority of applicants to top schools, not just Chicago applicants and certainly not just the admissible lot of Chicago applicants. So why was it singled out?</p>
<p>I really liked this essay on the Tufts website: [Essays</a> That Matter: Hana Agha - Office of Undergraduate Admissions - Tufts University](<a href=“Tufts University”>Tufts University). It was well-written and creative. However, I’m not one to conclude I’m automatically a fit for Tufts just because I like it (that would be far too simplistic of an analysis, though I have concluded independently that I like Tufts). I think any highly selective university can and should nourish a wide variety of thinking styles and in fact, do seek out this diversity.</p>
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<p>In your opinion. IMO, I found this essay from Tufts (<a href=“Tufts University”>Tufts University) to be funny, clever, and actually tell me something about the applicant, which I didn’t get from Rohan’s essay. However, YMMV, and in this case, it clearly does.</p>
<p>I definitely get the tone from some of these posts that not liking Rohan’s essay=not being able to judge writing/not having “intellect” or “wit,” though. This may be where some of strong responses are coming from.</p>
<p>I am not at all referring to pysch’s post. Everyone, of course, is entitled to “their opinion” .</p>
<p>I did want to say that I don’t know what some of the newer posters on this thread have against some regular, longtime CC posters who have often been insightful, helpful, and have had much to contribute. It is fine to have differing opinions, and to disagree, but lets all try to be respectful of others.</p>
<p>Isn’t that I just said?</p>
<p>The below is the Tufts essay that Psych and nychromie referred to. It combined with the list-like Tufts essay that I loathed seals my belief that although Tufts has a great reputation, it wasn’t a school where I would have been happy.</p>
<p>I find this essay to be a laborious, unfunny read filled with boring trivia about the applicant. I think it’s great that the applicant tried to be creative, but the essay just doesn’t work for me. </p>
<p>Our differing reactions to these essays certainly demonsrate that colleges have their individual personalities, and essays that may appeal to adcoms at one college may not appeal to adcoms at others.</p>
<p>"How do I define myself?</p>
<p>Hana: (ha●na) noun: [derived from Arabic word meaning happiness or satisfaction] A slow-moving mammal belonging to the human species, first discovered by doctors on June 9, 1988. Its defining characteristics are its brown hair, crooked nose, and round protruding behind, which is designed to attract mates and store chocolate. The Hana baffled scientists for several years due to its inability to be categorized. It’s a nocturnal creature, doing its greatest work in the middle of the night in its sleeping quarters, although it becomes quite irritable under stress. During the day, it generally wanders about in a dream-like state, in a building with other humans, engaging in what the teachers call education. Hana possess the amazing talent of sleeping with its eyes open, so that it gets its needed amount of rest, but at the same time keeps its predators (teachers) away. Scientists have observed that it actually absorbs knowledge while in this sleep-like stage quite well, and often snaps back to attention, usually when politics, literature or Johnny Depp is discussed.</p>
<p>The Hana is not a picky sort of character. Its indecisive nature often leads to having excessive amounts of food, friends and work. Rather than limit its classes, and actually narrow down its field of education, the Hana took a broad range of subjects, and even pursued education outside of school: taking private lessons in Spanish. It has good relations with other living organisms, even outside its immediate habitat. In fact, it seems that this specimen is comfortable nearly everywhere in the world (a rare phenomenon in most creatures), as it has the ability to read other animals well. This animal travels frequently, and picks up new knowledge and habits from the different locations – scientists have found it can speak other languages if in a setting long enough. The hunger for knowledge even led the Hana to pursue education during the summer months, even though it is normally a period of hibernation for most of the human species.</p>
<p>This is an animal that has the constant laughter of the hyena, the wittiness of a fox, the friendly disposition of dolphins, and an odd, indescribable nature all its own. Although it rarely moves, it often participates in a ritual where it thumps and shakes its behind to loud vibrating noises with much enthusiasm. It calls this dancing, behavior which is hard to explain, but the Hana seems to be fond of it regardless. It can sit for hours absorbed in papers with black markings on them, called books. Sometimes, it has been spotted painting white papers in a frenzy, or creating collages or sculptures, as an indirect way of expressing itself. This behavior, which has no scientific explanation or purpose, has not only made the Hana endearing, but also interesting.</p>
<p>The effect of the Hana on its environment, and even on other habitats around the world, in the short eighteen years since its discovery, has made it a creature of much interest and debate. Scientists have managed to come up with one solid conclusion to date: based on what we’ve seen yet, the Hana is a creature which will no doubt affect the environment it resides in greatly, and it will not be easily extinct. However, first-hand study will no doubt shed much greater light on the great modern mystery that is the Hana…"</p>