<p>Hello, fellow students applying to U of C this fall!
I just would like to know which ones you are writing for the extended essay. i know that U o C essays have the most philosophical reach (so i guess they're much harder to write than many other schools' essays). </p>
<p>I am writing the 1st one: "At present you need to live the question."Rainer Maria Rilke, translated from the German by Joan M. Burnham. And if anybody else is writing this, i would like to know how you guys are approaching this question.</p>
<p>plus, for the optional essay, writing about your favotie media, how long is yours? mine is about 500 words... is that too short? too long? i cannot decide....</p>
<p>feel free to post any comments on the essays!</p>
<p>i'm going to do the the one that asks you to tell the story of a road. does anyone know if we're actually allowed to write a short story, or if it has to be essayish?</p>
<p>my optional essay is 230 words but i've seen people with essays that are a lot longer.</p>
<p>insubvert, my friend wrote on that one also, and he made up a story of his life living on that road. very humorous... so i dont think it HAS TO be like a formal essay..</p>
<p>I sent my application off about two weeks ago. After agonizing over the topics they offered, I decided to write my own:</p>
<p>"Prior to 1983, the Roman Catholic Church included two lawyers in its canonization process: one called the advocatus dei--God’s advocate, and one called the advocatus diaboli--the Devil’s advocate. The advocatus dei’s job was the defend the prospective saint’s canonization, citing the saint’s good works and dedication to God. The advocatus diaboli opposed this lawyer and argued against the canonization, discrediting the saint’s holiness, seeking out flaws in the saint’s character, and bringing to light every reason the saint should not be a saint. </p>
<p>You stand for admission to the University of Chicago. Your teacher recommendations, school record, interview, and earlier essays are your advocatus dei. Now provide the other side of the story. Be your own Devil’s advocate."</p>
<p>A little risky, perhaps, but I figure I'm too average not to take risks.</p>
<p>orual, really nice prompt. very cool. hopefully you weren't too hard on yourself.</p>
<p>i wrote on the, "at present you need to live the question," and basically talked about how i'm not worried about not having an exact plan of what I want to do with the rest of my life.</p>
<p>wow orual. i really like that prompt... how did you come up with that?
MBP, that is similar to how i wrote mine, but i dont know if i want to stick with this and develop it further or change to a different topic because i feel im not exactly showing my character through the essay... hmm</p>
<p>I think I was just really sick of writing about how wonderful I am, so I decided to shake things up a little. I don't think I was too hard on myself, but I think it'll either be "Wow, you've got guts. You're in," or "Wow, you're crazy/don't really care about getting in." Hopefully the latter. I really do like UChicago.</p>
<p>yeah, that occured to me after I looked at what I posted. But it's the other way around in Latin, so that must have been what I was thinking. (Okay, not really, but it's an excuse...) That's what I get for posting quickly and then walking away.</p>
<h1>3: Totally made it up...but it turned out really well. I didn't want to describe my street, because I felt it would be too easy and straightforward. So....I made one up. haha.</h1>
<p>It was more centered around the people who lived on the street (Camus, Hawking, a few others) and how they've affected me blah blah blah.</p>
<p>I think I'm writing on "Why did the chicken cross the road?" It'll be about how I grew up and stopped being such a chicken. The answer is, of course, that the University of Chicago was on the other side. I can't tell if it's a good idea or not.</p>
<p>i'm doing the Powers of Ten prompt-- zoom in and out on an object, etc.-- and I wrote it about a notebook. The thing is, I'm not really sure I'm allowed to pick an object. What do you guys think? It's kind of stretching the "subject of interest" category.</p>
<p>Earilmadith-- that sounds REALLY interesting! Go for it!</p>
<p>I'm also unconvinced that these prompts have any rules to them within whatever they suggest. And if you feel that the prompts given don't inspire you, you can a) write your own prompt, or b) write your own essay and create a prompt from it.</p>