<p>Would a list of my favorite books, music, etc. followed by an explanation for each item be okay? Or does it have to be a formal essay?</p>
<p>anyone?! 10 char</p>
<ol>
<li><p>I don't know of any "favorite things" essay prompt for the University of Chicago, and I'm pretty sure that next year's prompts aren't out yet. So this can't be a question about the Chicago application.</p></li>
<li><p>There's really only one rule for a college application essay: It has to work. You can take risks, or you can play it by the book, but you have to feel confident at the end that your essay works. What do I mean by an essay "working"? You want your essay </p></li>
</ol>
<p>(1) To show something important, true, and engaging about you. It doesn't have to be everything important, true, and engaging about you, and it may not really have to be important or true, either. It doesn't have to be about you, explicitly. It does have to sell you to the admissions people.</p>
<p>(2) To accomplish all that concisely and plainly. What you are trying to communicate has to come across clearly on the first read, with a reader who is paying attention but who doesn't necessarily know anything about you or anything about the things in which you are interested.</p>
<p>(3) To be unique. Your essay makes you stand out from the crowd in a way that your GPA, SATs, ACTs, and ECs can't. In the 10,000 or so applications Chicago receives, there will be plenty of people who are interchangeable with you in those regards (unless, perhaps, your GPA or tests are really, really low, in which case you have other problems). I suspect most teacher recommendations for smart students blend into one another, too. Your essay is what makes you a real person to the admissions staff, makes them want to meet you.</p>
<p>(4) To be engaging, true, concise, unique . . . in a way that matches up with the character to the college to which you are applying. For a place like Chicago, your essay should demonstrate -- not tell, but show -- that you are turned on by intellectual inquiry, and that you are capable of doing college work at a high level. That you have ideas you care about, and that you are pretty good at expressing them in an essay format.</p>
<p>So . . . why this long lead-up? To get you to think about doing a list. A list is a big, big risk, because it doesn't naturally lend itself to ## 3 and 4 above. It's hard to make a list unique, and it's hard to make a list show that you are capable of extended expression of ideas. In fact, it might give the impression that maybe you chose that format because you are not capable of expressing ideas over a few paragraphs. </p>
<p>I say "hard", not impossible. Years ago, novelist Lorrie Moore's first book, Self Help, consisted almost entirely of to-do lists that were quirky and told stories and expressed ideas (not just listed them) and had shape and structure. It was great, and memorable (and unique!, at least back then). If you want to try to do a list like that, great. But be prepared for it not to work unless you happen to be almost as good as Moore, so you may have to rip it up and start over again with a conventional essay.</p>
<p>Or . . . you can play it a little safer, and write a more conventional essay. Pick one or two things, not everything, and show what you appreciate about them, how they fit together, and implicitly how you are the only person in the world who would fit them together exactly that way. Over three or four paragraphs. With complete sentences and correct pronoun agreement (unlike me). That's what I would do.</p>
<p>No, this does not need to be a traditional "formal essay". A list with explanations for each item will do just fine. In fact, I actually submitted a list without any explanations (but that is not something I would recommend!).</p>
<p>I'm not a great, nor very imaginative writer, but for an essay going to UofC, I would certainly give it a lot of thought.</p>
<p>One of MY very favorite things in life is to hear a 3-4 year old laugh. When a little kiddo starts to understand humor, his laugh is so pure and straight from his gut. To expand on this idea, maybe I would start a theme ... maybe my favorite things related to the five senses. Favorite things I have tasted, seen, heard, felt and smelled. Have you ever smelled an brand new baby? The smell is so soft and clean ... </p>
<p>Reading an essay about favorite music, books and TV shows probably would not excite me as a reader.</p>
<p>If you're sending an essay to UofC, make it heartfelt and perhaps even quirky. It cannot be done in one or two sittings.</p>
<p>ok thanks for the tips, guys! It looks like I have alot of thinking/reflecting to do!!</p>
<p>I'm quoting this from the introduction to the questions and the questions themselves from a printout I have of the Uncommon Application from two years ago. I'll add comments in the next post:</p>
<p>"Respond to Questions 1 and 2 by writing a paragraph or two for each question. Then choose one of the five extended essay questions [not out yet!] and respond to it in a page or two. Be sure to write your name on each of the sheets and attach them to the application form. This is your chance to speak to us and our chance to listen as you tell us about yourself, your tastes, and your ambitions. Each topic can be addressed with utter seriousness, complete fancy, or something in between-- it's your choice. Play, analyze (don't agonize), create, compose-- let us hear the result of your thinking about something that interests you, in a voice that is your own.</p>
<p>"1. How does the University of Chicago, as you know it now, satisfy your desire for a particular kind of learning, community, and future? Please address with some particularity your own wishes and how they relate to Chicago.</p>
<p>"2. Tell us a few of your favorite books, poems, authors, films, plays, pieces of music, musicians, performers, paintings, artists, magazines, or newspapers. Feel free to touch on one, some, or all of the categories listed or add a category of your own."</p>
<p>First of all, God I love this school.... even reading these questions and looking at how they are worded makes me warm and fuzzy.</p>
<p>Secondly, I really like fpfan's idea. One of the uncommon essays posted (from two years ago or so, the thread where students posted past essays is buried somewhere on the boards) wrote about why she liked Yom Kippur, a somber Jewish holiday. You can get really creative with this one. You don't have to.</p>
<p>Third, I would discourage the list idea. You'll be too concerned with being showy and smart and will think about name-dropping more than anything else. This essay was by far the hardest one for me to write, because I, like you, like everybody else, like too many things! Bob Dylan, though, ended up being a perfect topic for me-- I was able to tell the story of how I got into him (a story in itself, about me trying my hardest as a fourteen-year-old to be cool and intellectual) as well as why I like him. I would encourage applicants not to think that their choice has to be tasteful or intellectual, necessarily-- I could imagine some quality essays written about Sesame Street and America's Next Top Model.</p>
<p>I'd like to see an essay written out of the lyrics/quotes of the writers favorite "things" all pieced together. </p>
<p>Though it would take far too much time- oh the creativity!</p>
<p>I made a list of TV shows, plays, etc, and I'll be attending in the fall. ;)</p>
<p>I threw in a few other categories, though. I think I had "favorite law" or something. Still, I think the "favorite things" prompt was the weakest part of my application.</p>
<p>Let me tell you this, though: the first short answer is MUCH more important (the Why Chicago? question). This is the one you absolutely have to nail, or you won't be taken seriously.</p>
<p>Right now I'm thinking food..like how what I like to eat relates to my personality. I know UChicago loves oddball answers, but is this TOO odd?</p>
<p>I think they're leaning more to the side of books, plays, and other things that will show you as a well read/cultured person.</p>
<p>Maybe create two sections? It's difficult to tell from the wording whether they encourage oddball answers or they encourage something within the category.</p>
<p>just write what comes to mind. the question states you do not have to have examples for each category, write as little or as much about each as you care to do. you can use anecdotes, don't make a laundry list either.</p>
<p>okay this is what I'm thinking; let me know if it is too over the top: peanut butter and cheese sandwiches are like my favorite thing to eat (weird I know, but hear me out). I was thinking about it today and found that the sandwich kind of represents me. I am the bread; in between the bread is my personality. My versatility is the peanut butter (George Washington Carver came up with like a hundred uses for peanuts, so they are versatile) The cheese is my optimism towards life (bc cheese typically makes nasty things tastes better, like broccoli and cheese and Brussels sprouts and cheese). I'm like one of those annoying glass half-full people. Like after our incredibly hard AP Physics B final in May, everyone was complaining about it, and I was like at least we don't have to take the Physics C final (which had twice as many questions as ours and was an hour longer)...
Any way I'm rambling. So what do ya'll think? Too out there? yea or nay?</p>
<p>Nay. It's a bit forward and trying to stretch it. </p>
<p>When i did my interview- he told me not to write about Harry Potter let alone a sandwich. He said that it's an essay to show them how mature you are in reading and "stuff thus related."</p>
<p>I just used stream of consciousness...mainly because I totally forgot about it until the night before the app was due...
Regarding the structure, it wasn't formal at all, and it definitely does not need to be that creative. Mine was fairly simple...I just listed some of my favorites in a particular category and explained; then I branched off and continued from there. Don't kill yourself over this essay..just have fun with it!</p>
<p>i got in and i just wrote a paragraph about one punk band i love and how they influence me not just with their music but their counter cultural ideas. and somwhere i tossed in that i have pink hair.</p>
<p>hahahaha I wrote about Bob Dylan, Patti Smith, and Morrisey's intestinal tracts (I was talking about why I liked music because, unlike other forms, I felt, music came from the gut).</p>
<p>If there's a moral to the story here, it's that you want to be yourself without trying too hard. I don't think the admissions officers necessarily want to read about how much you loved HP7, nor do they necessarily want to read about how much you loved War and Peace (or at least you pretend to). Both HP7 or W&P have the potential for good essays, but the major difference between a good essay and a lame one is that the former includes your incisive and amusing thoughts. It's not a book review. It's a you review.</p>