<p>Hi everyone, I just have a few questions about what admisions officers dont want to see. One of hte UChicago essays is to describe a raod, real or imaginary. Currently I am having troulbe picking a topic, if anyone could pm me ideas that would be great. The main point though is will the admission officers not like my essay if all I do is tell the story of a road? For example lets take a 500 year old gravel road or something. will it like bad if I simply describe it? What else do I need to include?</p>
<p>Similarly, another prompt is to talk about talking ideas and smashing them together to get new ideas like with the LHC at CERN. I like particle physics so I wantto do something on this but Im afraid my idea is more of simply describing the smashing process. Im guessing they wont look favorably on this?</p>
<p>It should be a personal essay. In other words, if you're going to tell a story about the Yellow Brick Road or something, forget it if it doesn't have any relevance to you. So no, don't just describe it. Why would they read an essay about the smashing process when there are textbooks that do that?</p>
<p>If you have a strong idea of what you want and what you think it will sound like, like if you have a lead, go with it. As long as you're concise and revealing, I doubt it will be a problem.
Pick an aspect of the road, or something about it that speaks to you.
It should not be term paper-esque, but more like a personal account.</p>
<p>It does not suggest anywhere on the UChicago admissions website that the essay should be personal; you can write it about anything, but it should probably demonstrate creativity and writing talent.</p>
<p>Perhaps you could try describing the road to fit your personality or write the essay as a road's narrative. Perhaps the road is "watching" what people do, and you could be one of the ppl it's watching? (sry..that's kind of freaky i guess)</p>