S2E26: How to Master University of Chicago's Unconventional Supplement Essays
IN THIS EPISODE, THOMAS CALEEL delves into an exciting yet perplexing aspect of college applications.
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As we approach the November 1st early decision and early action deadline, we delve into an exciting yet perplexing aspect of college applications - the unique supplements, with a particular focus on the University of Chicago.
Key Highlights
UChicago's Unconventional Approach: UChicago is notorious for its unconventional supplements that challenge applicants to think outside the box. It's often seen as the "fun goes to die" school, but that couldn't be further from the truth. This institution is on the lookout for disruptively creative and intelligent students who can make a difference.
Insight into the Culture: UChicago's supplement questions are a window into the university's culture. They reveal what the school values in a student and the kind of intellectual environment they seek to foster.
Open-Ended Prompts: UChicago's supplement questions are deliberately open-ended. They encourage applicants to take risks and, most importantly, have fun. This might be challenging, especially in a 250-word essay where you need to discuss your desire for a specific kind of learning and how the university fits into that.
Intellectual Curiosity and Creativity: Rather than traditional essays, UChicago seeks to gauge your intellectual curiosity and creativity. How deeply do you love your chosen subject? How does your passion manifest in your writing? It's not about being a comedian; it's about being yourself, expressing your personality, and provoking thought.
Demonstrating Creativity: To succeed at UChicago, applicants must break free from the expected and demonstrate intellectual creativity. An example is an applicant who humorously discussed a "batha Maddix" course due to a printer error, using baths as an analogy for mathematical concepts. This creative approach impressed the admissions committee.
Conclusion
UChicago's essay prompts are a challenge, but there's no definitive "right answer." The admissions team isn't looking for a template response. They want to see how you approach unfamiliar and unconventional questions, revealing your unique thought process. It's a chance to be unapologetically yourself, strip away pretenses, and let your personality shine.
Chicago is about celebrating disruptive thinking, and if that resonates with you, this is your chance to join a community that values intellectual creativity. Explore their past essay questions for inspiration, and remember, your application is an opportunity to speak from the heart. If UChicago's culture aligns with your personality, embrace the challenge and let your unique self shine. Wishing you the best of luck in the coming weeks!
About Thomas
Thomas is a parent and alumnus of the University of Pennsylvania. After earning his MBA at the Wharton School in 2003, he moved to Silicon Valley. For three years, he was director of admissions and financial aid at Wharton School. He worked closely with admissions professionals, students, alumni, and professors to create the best possible MBA class.
Thomas has been an entrepreneur his entire life in the fields of finance, agriculture, wellness, and sporting goods. As the founder of Global Education Opportunities, he works with diverse and underserved communities to help them become successful college students. Thomas started the podcast Admittedly because he is passionate about demystifying the application process for parents and applicants.
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Welcome to the admittedly podcast. I'm your host, Thomas Caleel. And we are nearing crunch time coming up on the November 1, early decision early action deadline. And today I want to talk about a particular school and a particular supplement that I love. It is the bane of many applicants' existence. And I get a lot of questions about this. But it gets to some very core truths about admissions, and about writing essays. Talking about the University of Chicago. Now I know I know many of you are thinking, I've heard that's where fun goes to die.
And I think nothing could be further from the truth. The University of Chicago is a really interesting school, it really looks for people who are disruptive, creative, and disruptively, smart, it looks for students who are going to come in and make a difference. And as I've spoken about before, in my podcasts, when you look at a supplement the essays, and questions that the school arises, is asking you really speak to the culture, it speaks to what they're looking for in a student, and gives you a hint of the environment that they're trying to create.
So let's look at the University of Chicago supplements. And the reason that this supplement in particular drives students crazy is because it's so wildly open-ended, right? And they tell you, and I'm quoting here, take a little risk and have fun. And I can't stress this enough. They are looking for fun answers. And you know, a lot of times I get questions from students saying, Okay, you tell us to have courage you tell us to have fun you tell us to be ourselves in these essays. But it's very hard when you have 250 words to talk about why you want to attend this particular school. Right? And Chicago does have a Why University of Chicago prompt that says how does this satisfy your desire for a particular kind of learning? How does the University of Chicago satisfy that that's your more standard essay for the University of Chicago, you can certainly exercise some creativity there.
But they really want to know is, As you step back, and understand that you are looking at the University of Chicago externally. What excites you what interests you? How do you see yourself achieving your academic goals at the University of Chicago, and so there's some work here, you need to do your research, you need to see your path, you need to look at particular professors, research opportunities, classes, clubs, all those good things. And of course, tell a logical and thoughtful story. University of Chicago has some very creative ways that you can mix and match majors, and minors classes.
So, look at that, and figure out how that works for your particular situation. But really, the question that most people get really hung up on is this, you know, is the open-ended question. This year, very cleverly, they have six questions, they usually have five, but because they encourage you to break rules, they threw the sixth one in. And then as always, the University of Chicago has, much like the common app, it has a prompt that basically says, Look, if you don't like these other questions, make up your own, and then answer it. So they give you all this room to run. And they give you the opportunity to really kind of explore a playful side of yourself. This essay is not the place to be serious. This essay is not the place to write a straight-line essay about how you want to study in Chicago and you've always been interested in mathematics and etc. Okay?
And they will ask you like, things like, you know, cat burglars this year, for example, cat burglars don't steal cats. Rhode Island is not an island, you know, pick two things that don't make sense together and explain how you know, when you put them together. They do make sense. And so what they're looking for here I've talked about this a lot is intellectual curiosity, intellectual creativity, like how deeply you love? A subject? How much are you when you talk about your passion for art or your passion for music, your passion for mathematics or the written word? How does that evidence itself, right? And a lot of you might be thinking, okay, look, I'm not a stand-up comedian. I'm not trained. You know, I don't write for SNL.
And that's fine. It doesn't necessarily have to be humorous. It can be humorous. If that's your style. It can be thoughtful, it can be interesting, but it should be in some ways provocative, it should the reader should read it and say, Wow, that is I can feel this person's personality coming out. In this essay, give you an example. A few years ago, there was a prompt that said Do I I'm paraphrasing here, but basically, due to a printer error, the University of Chicago course catalog came out and the first letter of every course had been changed. Talk about one such course and what it means to you.
So I had a student who was very interested in mathematics was this person's passion. And so they went, and they said, Okay, so when I looked in the Course Guide, I realized that bath thematics B A T H E M A T I C S, was perfect for what I want to study because I love taking baths and the idea of breaking down the temperature, time, volume, tub, depth, tub shape, do we want a bath bomb or bubbles or just a classic straight up old school bath.
And what the student was able to do was break it down in a way that was humorous, but also allowed them to talk about their love of math and physics. And they talked about fluid dynamics and surface tension. And, they were able to demonstrate very clearly that, number one, they were creative, and they could think about something that they loved, like math, and think about it creatively. And in talking about, he was saying, for example, like I'm athletic, so I take up a little more more volume in the water.
So I would need a deeper tub, and we have to calculate using mathematics, we'd have to calculate the optimal amount of water, tub-shaped tub depth, tub length, and then you know, how we're thinking about when we put a bath bomb in? What does that do? How do the bubbles interact with the water? What does that mean? You know, what's the time horizon of a bath bomb? And does that change with water temperature? And so all of these things really demonstrated a keen understanding of the subject, but also a curiosity and a playfulness.
And It answered the question, but it got to the spirit of the question. And that really is something you know, when you look at also MIT, for example, Cal Tech, when you read about the legendary pranks that they pull on, the dorms, pull on each other, the schools pull on each other, right? There's a reason that those stories get airtime. There's a reason they become legends. It's because they're looking for people who aren't just going to come grind in the classroom, grind in the labs, but look around them and say, Okay, how can we have fun with this? Right? How can we prank another school in loving? Sure, that's the right term, but use it in a loving way, and in a funny way, but in a way that demonstrates our mastery of, you know, physics and computer science and mathematics and all the things that we're doing together as a culture and a community in a school.
And so with the University of Chicago, I think you want to look at the fact that they are into disruptive thinking they are into every kind of different approaches to problems and problem-solving that permeates itself throughout the entire course catalog, right? And so Chicago is definitely a place I think a lot of students, when they're putting together their supplements will look very kind of surface level, they'll find a couple of classes, or maybe a professor or two that are doing research in their area of interest, and say, Oh, this is great, you know, Dr. Susan Goodman, is doing cutting edge research on this and and this other professor teaches a class that ties to this.
And so I'm done. And with the University of Chicago, you really have to go in and say, okay, looking at the classes that I want to take right on the surface, they seem like they make sense, but really go in and look at who's teaching them look at the research that they're doing. And you'll see, I think, some very creative approaches, and the way that the Chicago curriculum is structured, is that you can be creative in the way that you kind of package classes together to achieve your learning goals, and get those outcomes that you want.
And that's, you know, also in that second University of Chicago essay, you know, it's not really that kind of strict march through a list of classes and courses and professors. It is a more classic, why, why us essay, but you do want to show some creativity of thought you want to show how you're connecting dots in a way that you know, to just a normal person, they might not understand it, but you're making these creative leaps between you know, I want to my interest is in video games.
So I want to learn computer science, but also I need to learn how to tell a compelling story because the best games are actually they have narrative arcs. They have stories they have characters and so I want to take creative writing classes and I want to take classic literature classes and see what kind of inspiration I can draw from, you know, the great works of literature across time.
And so these are things that, you know, the reason Chicago asks is, it's because it's inculcated into the culture of the school. And if that is not something that resonates with you, if you are not that person, you're not going to be a good fit. Even if you figure out a way to kind of trick your way in when you get there, you're not going to be happy, you're not going to resonate with the other students. And you're not going to embrace this kind of, you know, radical creativity that's happening on a cellular level, at the University of Chicago.
So what I want you to do, as you're frustrated, and kind of pounding your head against the desk for the, for the Chicago essay, the main essay is remember, and I say this all the time, but remember, there is no right answer. They're not comparing your answer to a template, what they're doing is saying, when you're challenged with an unfamiliar situation, when you're put in a situation that is far outside of your comfort zone, what's your thought process? Right?
And for those of you who have been through rigorous interview processes, in tech finance, and marketing, right, you'll notice a very similar trade here, because you're given a question, oftentimes, that is ludicrous. In the context of an interview, how many ping pong balls? Can you fit in a 747? Is there an answer? I'm sure somebody's worked out the actual answer to that. But what they're asking you is not so much can you solve this problem?
But what is your thought process? How do you step back? From a question that is ludicrous, right on its surface? And break it down? And think about okay, you know, what is the what is the volume and area of a ping pong ball? How would we calculate that? Is it in a box or not in a box? Is it in a sleeve of ping pong balls? Are those sleeves and a carton? Are you just pouring ping-pong balls into a 747? How big is a 747? Are you including the upper deck or the lower deck? Does it include the cargo hold? Does it include? Does it need to fly? Or can we fill the gaps in the wings? And the fuel tanks with ping pong balls? Does there need to be you know, does the cockpit count in terms of area or not? And so the way that you approach that the way you break that down is what matters.
And likewise, in this University of Chicago essay, they're looking for that opportunity for you to say, aha, this is my take on this. This is my portmanteau, which is one of the questions this year, right? The other thing that I love about the questions University of Chicago is that they're submitted by students. Right? So these are actual students who are submitting either their own questions, or they're thinking of a question later and sending it into the admissions office and saying, Ooh, look at this, what do you think about this? And again, at the end of the day, you can always make up your own question.
But I do find too, that making up your own question is a little bit of a double-edged sword because it does require creativity on your part. Because if you don't ask a question that challenges you to think, with apologies that Steve Jobs think differently, you are not going to be able to come up with an answer that is unique and creative. So all of the University of Chicago, essay questions over time are available online, go look those up, get some inspiration, and think about something in your own life that you want to talk about. Right?
So what is it that you want to convey about you and your approach to life, and your particular interest, whatever it is, no matter how random or unique it might be? And then right to that, right, this is really your opportunity to have courage, right? To be creative. And to be truly and completely yourself, because with the Common App essay, yes, you want to be yourself but we're also everybody's filtering it through the lens of what do I think a school wants to see? How do I best represent myself in this, and this, the University of Chicago essay is your chance to really strip all that artifice away, and go in and be unapologetically yourself and that is how you are successful in this essay, by not worrying about what other people are thinking by not worrying about what you think you're supposed to say. But really talking speaks from your heart. And for each of you. That's going to look very different.
But that is the secret to success. In this University of Chicago essay. I welcome you to drop questions into our social media on TikTok, or Instagram at the admittedly podcast and wish you all the best of luck. In the coming weeks.
