<p>... who are willing to go through the regular round.</p>
<p>being deferred sucks but since there's no point in wallowing, how are you going to use the deferral as motivation to kick ass? ;) what practical steps are you going to take to improve your application: are you going to submit supplements, additional letters of recommendation? are you going to revise your essay?</p>
<p>i was deferred and i'm considering revising my essay... however, this might just eat up time. i may have my guidance counselor to call the office on my behalf and i might call'em too. i might also contact some professors from the visual arts department since i submitted a visual arts portfolio. i know i will definitely write a heartfelt (LEMME IN!) letter to my admissions counselor and update them about the status of my scholastic arts&writing awards submissions.</p>
<p>so, what are y'all gonna do?</p>
<hr>
<p>past threads on deferral--> acceptance strategies</p>
<p>Oh, I'm definitely going through the regular round. In fact, to all the deferrals out there, I'm going to say this because you definitely don't hear it often enough: Congrats! They were interested enough to give you a second shot!</p>
<p>I've already done the normal routine. I've sent an email to my admissions dude, and I plan on sending one or two more with updates before April rolls around. Talked to my adviser, who's also my senior year Spanish teacher, and she'll be writing me a supplemental recommendation. I'm also sending in a transcript of a speech I delivered in front of a rather decently sized audience (~150-200 people) this past November. If I finish my latest short story soon enough, I'll send that in too, but I'm thinking that having it done by Jan 2nd's far too optimistic. I'd send in one of my previous short stories, but those don't really reflect me in any substantial way.</p>
<p>I'm also sending in a new "Why Chicago?" essay. Wrote it at about 3AM yesterday and while it's a bit delirious from sleep loss (not necessarily a bad thing), it's much more... "alive" would be the right word, I think. Passionate. It has a very different feel compared to the other two (Question 2 is formal and the Extended Essay is satire), though much the same voice.</p>
<p>Otherwise... I'm going to wait. I hate waiting, you know that? I really do.</p>
<p>c'mon- 88 views and only 1 person posted? the deferred applicants should show more solidarity than this. (jah jah sista!... or brother) ;)</p>
<p>liaku, everything you said you'll do sounds good. i just may try the delirious-typing-at-3am method for my whyuchicago and extended essay. after all, it seems to work for my school papers.</p>
<p>and yes... the waiting sucks. april seems so far far away.</p>
<p>I'm thinking of getting a supplemental rec, and I'm definitely going to let the adcoms know I'm still interested.
I'm not sure what else to do... I didn't include any awards on my app 'cause there wasn't a section for them, and I didn't feel as though they were significant enough to elaborate on in the additional info part. I didn't include a science camp I went to either... Think I should add them in? I just don't want to accidentally come off as a braggart. Haha.</p>
<p>I love Chicago though; I hope the regular round goes well.</p>
<p>I wish UChicago had peer recs like Dartmouth. : P</p>
<p>P.S. liaku, I think I know you from livejournal!</p>
<p>Yeah, I'm the liaku on LJ, so yep, LJ for sho'!</p>
<p>Delirious typing in the wee hours of dawn is highly, highly recommended. Even if what you write doesn't make any sense, you can at least pick through everything in the morning for some amazing ideas.</p>
<p>I think awards are definitely worth mentioning if there's a non-unflattering method to do it. If they're recent, I'd just send a letter/email with an update about them, but otherwise... yeah, I'd say sending in a list of awards you've received since you were a freshling might be a bit tasteless.</p>
<p>If you will be resubmitting essays, take a good, hard look at your initial ones. College essays can be less than successful for a number of reasons, including ...</p>
<ol>
<li><p>The student is trying too hard to reverse-engineer what a college wants. This isn't you, its you trying to produce an image of the perfect student. Leave that to the politicians. </p></li>
<li><p>Your essay has been over-editted ... especially by adults. You want it to be perfect, but its better to have a bobble or two than to sound like your mother. </p></li>
<li><p>Your essay hasn't been editted at all since it was written at 3:00 AM and its sloppy and looks like you don't care. </p></li>
<li><p>You have tried for a wonderful and intellectually stimulating essay. Unfortunately, you have been force-feed 5 paragraph essays in AP English instead of actually learning to write. Your essay has great potential, but is sadly incomprehensible to most humans, even Chicago adcoms. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>The last two problems can definitely be corrected, with proofing (by yourself and others - but not rewriting by others). In the case of problem 4, a close look at the structure will help.</p>
<p>My biggest trouble with student essays is #1 and #2. It seems like everybody and their mother has reviewing this essay and has deemed that there is NOTHING in it that could POSSIBLY be misconstrued as offensive or negative to you, and in the process has sanitized your essay so much so that you become that politician.</p>
<p>I'm not advocating for a tell-all about what you and your girlfriend did last weekend when you were tripping on acid, but at the same time I think that you, the college applicant, need to be honest with yourself and your limitations and make that honesty towards yourself explicit in your writing. (Not only for Chicago, but for every college).</p>
<p>Yes, 1 and 2 are the real problems. I'm not sure but that its better to just start again. </p>
<p>If you you have been deferred, you can probably at least guess at the reason. If its grades, you've still got a shot with your senior year marking period. If it's something with your essays, then you've got a shot at that, too.</p>
<p>i agree with unalove. i actually included a racy quote from my grandmother in my essay. she's very old and has gone a little senile and consequently a little racist, but i make poke fun at her for it instead saying racism is bad and evil and we should stop it at all costs. she's almost 90 and doesnt have full control over herself anymore, but that doesnt make her a bad person.</p>
<p>anyway, i was also thinking about including an additional essay explaining my living situations (i lived alone last year and this year im living with my parents in the dominican republic and going to 3 online high schools) as well as clarifying a few things. while i was visiting chicago in late october, i met with one of the professors in the classics department and kinda screwed myself over while talking to her. i asked her about the grading system (i told her the horror story of a family friend and his latin class at princeton) so i wanted to make sure that i wouldnt be put in the same situation. she unfortunately took it the wrong way and thought all i cared about was grades and questioned my fit with chicago. it was not a warm and fuzzy experience to say the least. the truth is that i only really care about fairness. who likes getting a C in a class of 3 because the teacher grades on a bell curve? you may have done A work, but if someone else does A+ work, you still get a C, and that's what happened to my friend. true, grades dont really matter, and they are only external validation, but why should a student be cheated out of something s/he deserves just because of a grading system? i didn't get to explain this point to the professor because i was in utter shock when she told me that i should rethink my fit with chicago, but im pretty sure she didnt tell anyone in admissions b/c i doubt she remembers my name. </p>
<p>anyway, i was wondering if it would be a good idea to write about this little mistake as sort of a supplement to the why chicago short answer. would it come off as too pretentious and i am never wrong type of thing? or do you think it would show that i am human and i do make mistakes, but i mature enough to admit i made a mistake and came off rather grade-conscious in the interview and then correct my mistake?</p>
<p>Yeah, DS kind of embraced his faults and quirks in his essays (not to the exclusion of everything else, though). His goal was to make his voice clear, his thought processes explicit and to write the best essays of his life.</p>
<p>He had written a draft of his Option 5 essay back in August, changed to something else entirely, didn't like that, and went back to his original idea and re-worked it. Why Chicago wrote itself. The books/music/art/etc. was originally books and music, but the books part was so much stronger than the rest of it that he wound up cutting out the music and made the books part more personal.</p>
<p>He also spent a lot of time on his activities resume. He purposely did not include everything he's done so that the big things could really shine. He also spent time writing brief statements detailing what he had done. That was the one useful thing we got out of the various "how to apply to college books" I skimmed through -- he presented his activities in a way that complemented his essays and demonstrated long-standing deep interests. I bit my tongue at Cohen's and Hernandez's self-aggrandizing (and I borrowed the books from the library so they wouldn't get a penny out of me ;)), but it did give DS a launching point for the resume.</p>
<p>Okay, so I was deferred. How does this plan of action sound?</p>
<ol>
<li>Email my regional rep and let her know I'm still interested in Chicago.</li>
<li>Have my GC call admissions (everyone says they're having theirs do this--what are they supposed to say?? O_o)</li>
<li>Perhaps send in another writing sample (a short paper [4 pgs] on Shakespeare's King Lear)...?</li>
</ol>
<p>Should I let Chicago know I'm self-studing for AP Euro since my school doesn't offer it?</p>
<p>I'm curious about the importance of having my GC call in. I'm uncomfortable having anyone call on my behalf in general and I've always taken care of myself, but in this case... what IS there to say?</p>
<p>Golddustwoman, for your writing sample, I'd say it's fine so long as it reflects who you are moreso than King Lear. It's you that's important, not King Lear, after all. =)</p>
<p>I think comfort is an important feature of any action taken between EA and RD.
In our local public school GCs call colleges frequently and with ease, they know what to say. Sometimes the information is useful and sometimes not, but I think it's routine and doesn't reflect poorly on one's usual independent action.
So, it's something to consider</p>
<p>gold -
Your GC should know about calling. If there is any info that didn't make the deadline - or that you should have included in the first place, mention it to her if you will not be providing it yourself.</p>
<p>Hard to tell if a 4 page paper will be fully read. If they only read paper of it ... make sure the first 2 and the concluding paragraphs are spot on.</p>
<p>liaku -
remember that an essay doesn't have to be about a person to tell us something about them. If gold has a fabulous paper on King Lear, it will tell them that she can write, think, and something about the way she analyzes and views the world. Some of college admission books tell you to 'show' rather than 'tell' about yourself, if possible - this would be an example of doing so.</p>
<p>i am almost certain that it didn't get back to the admissions people, as i said before, but that's not the point. i was just thinking that if i came off that way while talking to her and didnt even realize it, maybe i came off that way in my application too and didnt realize it. if thats the case, then i should probably do what i can to correct that misunderstanding. it is very rare that you get a chance to go backwards and correct something so that you can move forward again, and i would absolutely take that opportunity if i knew there was something to correct. i was just thinking about hedging my bets and making my views especially clear just in case they weren't before, but i don't know if that would be inappropriate or misconstrued as desperate.</p>
<p>concrete -
although Chicago doesn't have an official award section, a lot of other prospects jammed them in somewhere amongst their activities (I know my son did). You could provide this information (in a simple, bulleted format) when you write your regional admissions person, and simply mention that they were not included in your original app.</p>
<p>"maybe i came off that way in my application too and didnt realize it. who knows."</p>
<p>Still the same advice. Move forward, not back. You could say something to the effect that as you have become more mature, you appreciate the importance of learning for its own sake (put it in your own words - lots of people read these posts ;-D)</p>
<p>O_M:
"liaku -
remember that an essay doesn't have to be about a person to tell us something about them. If gold has a fabulous paper on King Lear, it will tell them that she can write, think, and something about the way she analyzes and views the world. Some of college admission books tell you to 'show' rather than 'tell' about yourself, if possible - this would be an example of doing so."</p>
<p>Note that I said "reflect" rather than "tell".</p>
<p>I hope you are admitted - you will have so much fun arguing semantics. I see your point - but I don't entirely agree in this case. Unless the paper is on your own reactions to King Lear ... or King Lear and My Dysfunctional Family or some such, the focus probably has to stay on King Lear. If not, it's likely to end up as a trying too hard easy.</p>