Choose one of the following that you would like to write about...
Great Essay Prompts from the University of Chicago
Admissions Department
How did you get caught? (Or not caught,
as the case may be.)
Proposed by Kelly Kennedy, a fourth-year in the College. (2009–2010)
Chicago author Nelson Algren said,
“A writer does well if in his whole life he can tell the story of one street.”
Chicagoans, but not just Chicagoans, have always found something instructive,
and pleasing, and profound in the stories of their block, of Main Street, of
Highway 61, of a farm lane, of the Celestial Highway. Tell us the story of a
street, path, road—real or imagined or metaphorical.
(2008–2009)
UChicago professor W. J. T. Mitchell
entitled his 2005 book What Do Pictures Want? Describe a picture, and
explore what it wants.
Proposed by Anna Andel, a graduate of Bard High School Early College, New
York, NY (2007–2008)
In Jorge Luis Borges’ Labyrinths,
he writes a parable entitled “Borges y yo,” which translates as “Borges and I.”
In it, Borges writes about “the other one,” his counterpart, who shares his
preference for “hourglasses, maps, eighteenth century typography, the taste of
coffee, and the prose of Stevenson,” but is not the same as he. “The other one”
is the famous author; “the other one” is the one “things happen to.” He
concludes this parable with the line, “I do not know which of us has written
this page.” Write a page. Who has written it?
Proposed by Zhuyi Elizabeth Sun, a graduate of Inglemoor High School,
Bothell, WA (2007–2008)
Modern improvisational comedy had
its start with the Compass Players, a group of University of Chicago students
who later formed the Second City comedy troupe. Here is a chance to play along.
Improvise a story, essay, or script that meets all of the following
requirements:
- It must include the line “And yes I said yes I will
Yes” (Ulysses, by James Joyce).
- Its characters may not have superpowers.
- Your work has to mention the University of Chicago, but
please, no accounts of a high school student applying to the
University—this is fiction, not autobiography.
- Your work must include at least four of the following
elements: a paper airplane, a transformation, a shoe, the invisible hand,
two doors, pointillism, a fanciful explanation of the Pythagorean Theorem,
a ventriloquist or ventriloquism, the periodic table of the elements, the
concept of jeong, number two pencils.
(2007–2008)
“Don’t play what’s there, play
what’s not there.”—Miles Davis (1926–91)
Inspired by Jack Reeves, a graduate of Ridgefield High School, Ridgefield,
CT (2006–2007)
The Cartesian coordinate system is a
popular method of representing real numbers and is the bane of eighth graders
everywhere. Since its introduction by Descartes in 1637, this means of visually
characterizing mathematical values has swept the globe, earning a significant
role in branches of mathematics such as algebra, geometry, and calculus.
Describe yourself as a point or series of points on this axial arrangement. If
you are a function, what are you? In which quadrants do you lie? Are x and y
enough for you, or do you warrant some love from the z-axis? Be sure to include
your domain, range, derivative, and asymptotes, should any apply. Your
possibilities are positively and negatively unbounded.
Inspired by Joshua Nalven, a graduate of West Orange High School, West
Orange, NJ (2006–2007)
The instructor said,
Go home and write
a page tonight.
And let that page come out of you—
Then, it will be true.
—“Theme for English B” by Langston Hughes
Perhaps you recognize this poem. If you do, then your mind has probably moved
on to the question the next line poses: “I wonder if it’s that simple?” Saying
who we are is never simple (read the entire poem if you need evidence of that).
Write a truthful page about yourself for us, an audience you do not know—a very
tall order. Hughes begins: “I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem./I
went to school there, then Durham, then here/to this college on the hill above
Harlem./I am the only colored student in my class.” That is, each of us is of a
certain age and of a particular family background. We have lived somewhere and
been schooled. We are each what we feel and see and hear. Begin there and see
what happens.
(2005–2006)
University of Chicago alumna and
renowned author/critic Susan Sontag said, “The only interesting answers are
those that destroy the questions.” We all have heard serious questions, absurd
questions, and seriously absurd questions, some of which cannot be answered
without obliterating the very question. Destroy a question with your answer.
Inspired by Aleksandra Ciric, Oyster Bay High School, Oyster Bay, New York
(2005-2006)
means “mind that does not stick.”
—Zen Master Shoitsu (1202–80)
(2005–2006)
Superstring theory has
revolutionized speculation about the physical world by suggesting that strings
play a pivotal role in the universe. Strings, however, always have explained or
enriched our lives, from Theseus’s escape route from the Labyrinth, to kittens
playing with balls of yarn, to the single hair that held the sword above
Damocles, to the basic awfulness of string cheese, to the Old Norse tradition
that one’s life is a thread woven into a tapestry of fate, to the beautiful
sounds of the finely tuned string of a violin, to the children’s game of cat’s
cradle, to the concept of stringing someone along. Use the power of string to
explain the biggest or the smallest phenomenon.
Inspired by Adam Sobolweski, Pittsford Mendon High School, Pittsford, New
York (2005–2006)
Have you ever walked through the
aisles of a warehouse store like Costco or Sam’s Club and wondered who would
buy a jar of mustard a foot and a half tall? We’ve bought it, but it didn’t
stop us from wondering about other things, like absurd eating contests, impulse
buys, excess, unimagined uses for mustard, storage, preservatives, notions of
bigness…and dozens of other ideas both silly and serious. Write an essay
somehow inspired by super-huge mustard.
Based on a suggestion by Katherine Gold of Cherry Hill High School East,
Cherry Hill, NJ (2004–2005)
People often think of language as a
connector, something that brings people together by helping them share
experiences, feelings, ideas, etc. We, however, are interested in how language
sets people apart. Start with the peculiarities of your own personal
language—the voice you use when speaking most intimately to yourself, the
vocabulary that spills out when you’re startled, or special phrases and gestures
that no one else seems to use or even understand—and tell us how your language
makes you unique. You may want to think about subtle riffs or idiosyncrasies
based on cadence, rhythm, rhyme, or (mis)pronunciation.
Based on a suggestion by Kimberly Traube of La Jolla Country Day School, La
Jolla, CA (2004–2005)
In a book entitled The Mind’s I,
by Douglas Hofstadter, philosopher Daniel C. Dennett posed the following
problem: Suppose you are an astronaut stranded on Mars whose spaceship has
broken down beyond repair. In your disabled craft there is a Teleclone Mark IV
teleporter that can swiftly and painlessly dismantle your body, producing a
molecule-by-molecule blueprint to be beamed to Earth. There, a Teleclone
receiver stocked with the requisite atoms will produce, from the beamed
instructions, you—complete with all your memories, thoughts, feelings, and
opinions. If you activate the Teleclone Mark IV, which astronaut are you—the
one dismantled on Mars or the one produced from a blueprint on Earth? Suppose
further that an improved Teleclone Mark V is developed that can obtain its
blueprint without destroying the original. Are you then two astronauts at once?
If not, which one are you?
To celebrate twenty years of uncommon essay questions, we brought back this
favorite from 1984. (2004–2005)
If you could balance on a tightrope,
over what landscape would you walk? (No net.)
Inspired by Emma Ross, a graduate of West Windsor-Plainsboro High School
North, Plainsboro, NJ (2003–2004)
Albert Einstein once said, “The most
beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all
true art and science.” Propose your own original theory to explain one of the
16 mysteries below. Your theory does not need to be testable or even probable;
however, it should provide some laws, principles, and/or causes to explain the
facts, phenomena, or existence of one of these mysteries. You can make your
theory artistic, scientific, conspiracy-driven, quantum, fanciful, or otherwise
ingenious—but be sure it is your own and gives us an impression of how you
think about the world.
Love, Non-Dairy Creamer, Sleep and
Dreams, Gray, Crop Circles, The Platypus, The Beginning of Everything, Art,
Time Travel, Language, The End of Everything, The Roanoke Colony, Numbers, Mona
Lisa’s Smile, The College Rankings in U.S. News and World Report,
Consciousness
Inspired by Akash Goel, a graduate of Saint Bede Academy, Peru, IL
(2003–2004)
How do you feel about Wednesday?
Inspired by Maximilian Pascual Ortega, a graduate of Maine Township High
School South, Park Ridge, IL (2002–2003)
