<p>Note that U of C looks for intellectual talent and the potential to learn in a student. They look for thinkers (think of Plato and Socrates) rather than memorizes. There is a reason why they are famous for their nobel prize winners, it is because those people think and use their mind to innovate ideas. I mean look that the oil drop experiment at U of C the professor founded the mass of an electron because of his curiosity and wanted to learn more about the newly discovered facts about atoms. The people at U of C are thinkers and I can’t emphasize them enough. That’s the reason why their essays is more important then grades really, their class is more discussion based than the teacher just talking, why? because this allows students to think rather than just write down notes. I mean it is so similar to Socrates, he would discuss with his students about knowledge. He would ask students questions after questions about the truth. And the students would answer with what they thought and then they would do it vice versa. Students and the teacher would go back and forth with a discussion each day.
So simple to say, there is a reason behind the uniqueness of U of C’s essays, it is because they want to see what kind of interpretation you would take and what reasoning would you put behind your position. They like to see unique essays.</p>