<p>“Sorry, but every single piece of literature Chicago sent out reflected their personality and begged students to respond to them in similarly creative fashion. Maybe the posters are very bright students, but just weren’t paying attention?”</p>
<p>I agree that Chicago provides lots of info about what kind of students and applications it wants. I just think that a student can be very bright, but still may not understand what Chicago wants. Some folk just don’t understand that kind of humor/creativity/intellectualism. </p>
<p>Not “getting” what U Chicago is looking for is a big indication that Chicago isn’t the right place for a student. Fortunately, the U.S. has thousands of other schools, including some that are as good as is Chicago.</p>
<p>I think the essay is really funny. Definitely a fitting essay for u of chicago. they like that kind of witty creative original stuff. I dont think it’s too provocative since the writer is clearly just trying to be funny and stand out. The letter is to a school not a person :P</p>
<p>I think there will be very qualified applicants for whom the UofC could be a great fit and yet they would not write an essay anything like this one. They wouldn’t do it because while they realize it’s just the kind of thing the Chicago adcoms would like, they’re smart enough to assess their own abilities and know they couldn’t pull it off well. It’s these students who must be feeling rather frustrated now. If a student knows his/her strength is factual, academic writing, not creative writing, s/he would avoid certain prompts like the plague. That does not mean s/he’s not quite intelligent, does not enjoy an intellectual atmosphere, and or can’t conduct himself/herself Chicago-style in discussions or academic arguments. Would a mailing containing that love letter essay scare those students away? Possibly. Maybe northstarmom is correct and that’s the desired effect, but it seems to me that then you’d have a very homogeneous student body.</p>
<p>@Greenery I understand why it makes you a little uncomfortable. Some of the details might come off as overt sexual innuendos (“gooey sap” “pour a little on me”), but idk if they were meant to be. Not that I was offended or anything; just wanted to say that I see where you’re coming from. :)</p>
<p>“If a student knows his/her strength is factual, academic writing, not creative writing, s/he would avoid certain prompts like the plague. That does not mean s/he’s not quite intelligent, does not enjoy an intellectual atmosphere, and or can’t conduct himself/herself Chicago-style in discussions or academic arguments. Would a mailing containing that love letter essay scare those students away? Possibly. Maybe northstarmom is correct and that’s the desired effect, but it seems to me that then you’d have a very homogeneous student body.”</p>
<p>Sorry I didn’t read 9 pages (oh horror the 100 page plus threads here I avoid,) but if there is any school who gives good, and multiple prompts, it is Chicago. If you have any background and imagination, you will be good as gold to do the Chi prompts as an exercise in essay writing. </p>
<p>Don’t fool yourself or get distracted about what other people should or should not write. You can write about ice cream. or costco. or anything. if you are so lucky as to get as original as this writer did, consider yourself a contender.</p>
<p>My kid used her U Chi essay prompt for everything, since the prompt got her an idea for a totally original essay. unique, original, personal.</p>
<p>I think she tried harder than this writer, but…she did rewrite for each school.</p>
<p>I think some people here are making the mistake of believing that Uof C is using this as a template example. That’s not what this is. Their prompts clearly indicate that the style one chooses is up to the writer. It is equally clear that not all admitted students write essays that look like this. They clearly place value on original thought, unique point of view, good expression of personal experience, etc. One can certainly incorporate such things in many different styles of writing. </p>
<p>I take them at their word. I think they just felt this one was particularly clever and decided to share it. I don’t think it’s intended to signal anything beyond that.</p>
<p>Look, I’m old now and understand better than when young that formality, formula, and taking oneself too seriously is really a turnoff in life and business.</p>
<p>Most of the opportunities in life come down to a choice between two or more equally qualified people, with the more creative and likeable of those people getting the nod.</p>
<p>Hooray DunninLA! Future freshmen, read and re-read DunninLAs words, they’re wise. I’m pretty confident that U of Chi wants a healthy dollop of wise-irony in its freshman class; it only gets to select fewer than a thousand of you.
My son loved their recruitment style (which is actually a strong reflection of the environment) so much he always lamented that U of Chi was like “that one girl who you think “what-if” about even though you have a girlfriend…” In his case, he chose a program that was a perfect fit, and was not available at U-o-Chi.
Given the tone of how the school chooses to communicate about itself, I’m not sure how any of the foregoing posters feel the letter was inappropriate. Sounds like sour grapes to me. Kudos to Rohnan for putting himself out there. Nice job!</p>
<p>I don’t see why this one is considered “Chicago-style”. For one, this essay has nothing to do with any of the Chicago’s own essay questions. The student opted for “your own topic” which is the same thing as that in Common Application. The student could have written similar “love letter” for other schools too and I bet other schools’ adcom would likely embrace it also. The only difference is UChicago sent it out to other applicants (to show off? or as many of you suggested, to let applicants know they can be creative?) while other schools didn’t. </p>
<p>It kinda annoys me that some of you seem to suggest that other schools’ adcom are not as open-minded and that applicants to other top schools aren’t as creative and risk-taking. Also, this essay is likely one of the best essays, if not the best, UChicago received. So this is in no way representative of the level of creatitivty typical UChicago applicants have or whom Chicago look for. I am sure other top schools could accept and “look for” this student too. If any of you think otherwise, I guess they succeeded in the marketing.</p>
<p>the point is this is the applicant’s own topic. there’s nothing “chicago-style” about this essay. actually, even if it were for one of the chicago’s own essay quesstion, it still wouldn’t be “chicago-style”. there’s really no such thing. other schools could have received similar essays. uchicgao isn’t the only school that would receive a “love letter” like this and uchicago applicants are not the only ones that can write such essays. this is not representative of most other essays chicago received and i bet most of them were much more mundane.</p>
<p>^ Check out the ‘Post your Essays’ thread on the Chicago forum. It’s horribly daunting (for me, atleast), but it seems a vast majority of Chicago’s essays do work on a wildly creative vien.</p>
<p>^just checked. the OP of that thread is now at JHU. The second poster got into Brown and is probably at Harvard (location = Cambridge). i don’t think i need to go further to show this is exactly what i was talking about. maybe the student of this love letter is actually working on other applications now. who knows? i found it presumptuous that the admission director would just claim this student would matriculate (even if the student told him, he could still change his mind). the thing is it was unnecessary to even mention that if the whole point was to let students know they could be creative about their essays. that’s what made me suspect maybe this was a bit for marketing also.</p>
<p>one more thing: essays posted on CC are likely more self-selected and not representative of the average. people tend to be more willing to show their essays if they think theirs are great.</p>