UChicago Uncommon Essay DILEMMA!

Hi guys,

I am writing my UChicago uncommon essay and I decided to choose the prompt from last year: "Due to a series of clerical errors, there is exactly one typo (an extra letter, a removed letter, or an altered letter) in the name of every department at the University of Chicago. Oops! Describe your new intended major. Why are you interested in it and what courses or areas of focus within it might you want to explore? Potential options include Commuter Science, Bromance Languages and Literatures, Pundamentals: Issues and Texts, Ant History… a full list of unmodified majors ready for your editor’s eye is available here.

I’ve written most of the essay and I really like what I wrote in terms of the creativity and everything like that, but I am starting to doubt that maybe it wasn’t the best idea tochoose this prompt. This is mainly because it’s definitely a more creative prompt, and doesn’t have much of a personal narrative. I am afraid this may hurt me in the admissions process because the admissions officers may not be able to learn more about myself - they would just be learning about a major I made up…

Please respond!!

Also if there are any other UChicago admits or others who wrote this essay, please PM me!! I am super surious as to how others may have tackled this prompt and how I can perhaps make mine better.

My son used that prompt last year - and was accepted. The essay shouldn’t be entirely about the major, but also about you and why this major would be important to you…If I can remember my son’s essay, he discussed the major and how/why that major would be a good fit for him…

This essay, along with your CA essay and your “why UChicago” essay should give them an idea of who you are and why you would be a good addition to the 2023 class.

This prompt is a very clever way for UC to get a different sense of your interests and your ability to think out of the box. These are obviously not serious majors, and if you treat and write about them as such without some tongue in cheek, I believe you would be missing the point. If you chose a “major” and related courses and areas of focus that highlight an area(s) of personal interest and curiosity (and probably not related to your real intended major), then you have done what UC is looking for.

bump!

@BKSquared Hmmm, yes I completely understand what you are saying. Issue is that I am not super invested in the fake major that I have made up - the subject from which I derived it that is. I wrote about my interest and I don’t think it SOUNDS in-genuine, but I’m not passionate about it if thats what you mean. I think I’ve deffo been creative, but I feel as though my essay lacks personal connections - as least those that aren’t 100% true.

@BKSquared Also, what sort of tone would you recommend for the essay? Of course it is supposed to be kind of quirky and silly, but I don’t want to send in a blog-post kind of essay. I would like to make it academic…but I have been having trouble getting a structure which I really like…

Thanks a bunch! Feel free to PM me?

@caymusjordan Thanks! I definitely think I my Why UChicago essay shows off myself and who I am as an individual!

As for this one, the same issue applies. My passionate interests are not the fields I talked about in the essay, but I deffo see what you’re saying. Maybe I can try and incorporate it somehow…relate it to the fields I am actually interested in??? It’s a possibility… I have a lot of paths I can take at this point while I edit this essay lmao

My daughter was accepted using that prompt. She really just had fun with it. It was witty, clever and funny, but definitely not about “revealing” something about herself (except that she is witty, clever and funny - LOL).

You can rewrite this stuff. I wrote 5 or 6 awful essays, sometimes spending hours on them, and wrote the essay I eventually submitted with minimal edits in half an hour, not because I thought it was a fantastic concept but because I’d promised my reader a draft by a certain time.

If your first draft is bad, that’s fine. If your second draft is bad, that’s fine. And so on. If you’ve rejected 20 drafts before you even finish writing them, that might be a concern. But you have two months to the ED deadline.

Even if you write a good essay, you probably won’t love it, because it’s easy to pick apart your own writing. Ask any author what percentage of their ideas/rough sketches turn into published works. Or, if you’re feeling mischievous, ask them to read something they wrote 20 years ago.

I’ll second the clever witty approach with an undercurrent of a message within. She wrote from the prompt “don’t play what’s there, play what’s not there.”

My son used that prompt and was accepted. In his essay he did not reveal anything about himself other than his sense of humor and his mastery of the subject. He described the whole curriculum, including the assigned readings which were “re-worked” but recognizable titles of the actual books in a specific area.