Optional Essay?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Chicago ✅
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<p>I asked this on another thread, but I just wanted to make it more visible because I am going to work on this as soon as my question is answered, so thanks.</p>

<p>perhaps this has already been asked, but I was wondering about the optional essay... It says to list a few of our favorite books/plays/music/ etc, so does that mean like</p>

<p>"Movies: Star Wars, Inception, Godzilla
Musics: Britney Spear and the Rolling Stones
Books: Harry Potter and Catcher and the Rye"</p>

<p>(not that any of that is true, just first things that popped into my head)</p>

<p>OR are we supposed to, say, pick 3 of our favorite books and write a 250-500 word essay about why we like them and what they mean to you?</p>

<p>OR just write like a sentence or so about each one like "I like listening to _____ because their sound is very experimental and unique" (which I feel is a very generic thing to do, but you don't have a lot of room if a sentence or so is what is expected)</p>

<p>If anyone can help clear this up that would be great... I was showing my essays to a teacher and he saw that I had option 1 (the list) going on and he told me I should write an essay and so I did but I ended up with about 2 pgs doubled spaced and I don't want to surprise the admissions officer with yet another essay they did not want.</p>

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<p>[Here</a> is a previous topic about this](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-chicago/990623-optional-essay-2-a.html]Here”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-chicago/990623-optional-essay-2-a.html)</p>

<p>In short…do whatever you want. You can write about a single book and how it affected your life, or choose a lot of books or paintings, etc, and write a short sentence on each.</p>

<p>(My first goal before I start writing any supplemental essays or short answers it to see if there’s any overlap between colleges. For those interested, Caltech asks you to list three books that have influenced you and explain why in a sentence. I’m sure I will at least copy this list and maybe add some music and movies in my optional essay for UChicago.)</p>

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<p>You can kind of do whatever you want - I only wrote about one thing, but some of my classmates wrote about 2-3. I really wouldn’t advise a simple listing, unless it includes something more substantive.</p>