Transfer Essay Sample Admitted to UChicago

 By Sarah O'Neill Coatesville Supreme Editing

Please tell us why you are planning to leave (or have already left) your current college or university, and how the University of Chicago will satisfy your desire for a particular kind of learning, community, and future. Please address with some specificity your own wishes and how they relate to UChicago. (500)

Andrew Mellon said that everyone wants to connect their lives to something eternal. He’s right. I often ask, “What could I do forever?”. The answer is math, and UChicago has programs like Research Experience for Undergraduates and Directed Reading Program that would add to my eternal quest to use math in real life. In the Paris Mathematics Program, math people are required to take French. I recall the mathematician I admire most – Carl F. Gauss – and how he taught himself Russian at sixty-two. I, too, want to see the other side of the world starting with math learning. UChicago’s program shapes young mathematicians into global ones. At WashU, we don’t have this. 

Currently, I take three of the highest-level math courses for undergraduates and could earn a math degree in my sophomore year. However, I seek more modern mathematics. UChicago’s courses are expanded into sequence and more choices for undergraduates. Abstract Linear Algebra, for instance, is a three-quarter sequence in analysis. At WashU, we also take independent studies, but I would prefer some lectures to learn exactly what they need to know. l am also amazed that proofs are integrated into UChicago’s basic Calculus class. Everything in higher mathematics is based on them. There is so much more to prove, and UChicago is where I can do it. 

On Reddit, UChicago students define classes as “ones that change lives.” I am ready for this necessary change like taking political science with Prof. Mearsheimer and by joining the Spiritual Life Program. The spiritual life program sets up weekly sessions for students to share current world issues, and to pose life questions and faith reflections. I noticed the “Interfaith Dialogue” event, which encourages us to share faith commitments to support each other towards an equitable society. As an international student who experienced racial bias, I would join this program because it celebrates holidays that are unique to different cultures. 

Although I’m a math nerd, I am drawn to humanities and social studies. They are in the category of my UChicago “eternal.” Also, on the Math Department Calendar there are multiple seminars and Colloquia each week. At WashU, I am currently taking an Honors Seminar in Mathematics, designed for Freiwald scholars, and we have seminar discussions so I am confident that attending UChicago will provide a space for cutting-edge conversations with mathematicians so I can start thinking about my own research.

I was also lucky to have visited UChicago last October for a tour. Our leader was also in charge of the application reading process, which made me feel jealous because the prompts are so entertaining that I can just imagine the responses. In this way, I think UChicago is a very creative community! Like their motto says, “Crescat scientia; vita excolatur”, I seek more challenges under a math umbrella, but also seek to stretch it out into other areas of my intellectual and social life. As a person who wants to connect with something eternal, UChicago is where I can find it. 

Question 2: Extended Essay (Required; Choose one) [Around 650 words] Essay Option 2

What advice would a wisdom tooth have?

–Inspired by Melody Dias, Class of 202

I have memories of family dinners as a child when the aroma of warmth and chicken fried rice filled up the room and my family caught up on each other’s day. But one evening when I was eleven years old, this sanctity was threatened when my dad stopped eating because he had a “slight pain” in his mouth. It was way back, he said, in his wisdom tooth. Naturally, I grew concerned. “Dad, go to the dentist.” My mom agreed. Just get it pulled! Why did he want to be in pain? But dad said that he googled wisdom tooth pain, and it said it would go away on its own. Fearing its escalation, I forecasted the worst case scenario. 

Later that night, although my dad tried to switch topics, I couldn’t. That’s when he lowered his brows and said, “Wenbo, please stop talking about the wisdom tooth.” I was convinced that it would get worse. As I think back on my youth, I never thought that enduring pain could get better on its own. Do things get worse before they get better? I didn’t know how to answer this question because, frankly, I never had to endure any type of pain. For instance, long ago - before the days of my dad’s crumby tooth - anytime I scraped a knee, failed a test, or made a blunder, my parents remedied it with their “ouchless” band aids. 

Then, as a growing teenager, I experienced real pain for the first time: a language barrier. The language barrier is one of the biggest pains I have experienced thus far, actually. Like I said in my valedictorian speech, “Perhaps you hear my accent. When I first arrived in the US four years ago, my English was not so great, and without the English department’s help, this Chinese kid would not have managed to prosper. I feel sorry for Ms. Lambe and the others who had to continually correct the grammar for “International Jerry”. Like my dad’s tooth, this barrier caused me great pain. Number one, I spoke with a Chinese accent that was hardly discernible at times, and my reading pace was slower than everyone else’s, I could not understand local slan, and it felt insurmountable for socializing. Freshman year, I struggled with Twain’s Huckleberry Finn because of a regionalist dialect I had no idea about. 

At the time, I was also living with a very nice host family, and we’d go to dinner on Friday nights. For most people, going out should be fun. However, it was a nightmare for me because I could not understand the menu. I remember that I ordered ghost pepper fried calamari and steak tartare. They were fancy names and definitely not in my mind’s dictionary. But, slipping my phone out, I took notes exasperatingly on every unfamiliar word on the menu which then became my habit in school where I spent extra time studying definitions and synonyms, and memorizing them. By doing so, my vocabulary improved significantly by sophomore year. I also set up meetings with my English teachers. At the end of that year, I earned the highest grade in English class. The teacher wrote: “Jerry, your work ethic is incredible. You are one of the most diligent students I have seen in the past twenty-six years of teaching.” At that moment, “International Jerry” faced what needed to change. Although my language barrier was rather painful, a new vigor sprouted in its place to learn all I could and my natural anxieties gradually melted away. I gained friendships and excelled in school. 

You know, my dad never did get that tooth pulled, but it eventually stopped hurting. I am not encouraging anyone to keep a decaying tooth, but I do know that it is okay to endure some pain to have a fulfilling experience later. Eckart Tolle writes that suffering can be a necessary factor towards fulfillment, and I couldn't agree more.  

I used to think that if you ignore a problem, it comes back to haunt you. Like a toothache, if you don’t find the root of the pain, it is doomed to get worse. I never considered fighting through it. But my dad knew better - about life…and about toothaches. rch or observing if a person is in need, I can be meaningfully involved in my surroundings simply by noticing the small stuff. 

Sarah ONeill Supreme Editing