How to Write the University of Chicago Creative Essays with Real Sample Sarah O'Neill Chester County, PA, Supreme Editing

 Sarah O'Neill Chester County, PA, Supreme Editing

University of Chicago Application: The Unfiltered Guide

What UChicago Wants: The University of Chicago is less about the standard “here’s why I’m amazing” pitch and more about “here’s my quirky, totally honest story.” They want to know you — your passions, the weird and wonderful activities that make your weekends unique, and why you dove into certain opportunities. Translation: drop the gloss and bring on the genuine.

Their World-Changing Mission: UChicago is obsessed with asking impossible questions, diving deep into transformative research, and creating a hub of brainy people who, together, make serious waves.

Writing Tips from UChicago Admissions: The admissions team says your Common App personal statement should vibe with everyone, so keep it classy yet “you.” Give them the real stuff — how you think, what drives you, and what quirks make you unforgettable. Sure, they’ll assess if you can write and think, but they’re equally interested in who you are and what makes you, well, you. When you hit their supplemental questions, think of them as blank canvases: whether you go all in with deep thoughts or wild imagination, it’s a chance to showcase your tastes and ambitions.

What Admitted Students Have in Common: What I have seen is that admitted students had killer introductions that hooked the reader, guiding them through a personal story that had real impact and fresh insights. These essays packed in moments of deep self-reflection and, crucially, a sense that the student was eager to keep growing and discovering.

Sample Supplemental Essay (for inspiration): Prompt: “Tell us why you’re leaving your current college and why UChicago will fulfill your desire for a particular kind of learning, community, and future.” (500 words)

Sample Response:
_”Everyone wants to connect their life to something eternal,” said Andrew Mellon. That eternal thing for me? Math. UChicago’s math programs — Research Experience for Undergraduates, the Directed Reading Program, and the Paris Mathematics Program (math + French? Yes, please!) — offer me an infinite world of math and a new global perspective. At WashU, I’ve maxed out the math curriculum. Here, I’m a sophomore who could technically earn a math degree, but I crave deeper dives into abstract algebra and extended sequences in analysis. Gauss learned Russian at sixty-two; I’m looking to UChicago to start my own international mathematical journey.

At WashU, my seminars keep me on my toes, but UChicago’s seminar scene takes it to a whole new level. With weekly Colloquia, the Math Department Calendar reads like my intellectual dream itinerary. And yet, math is only part of the appeal — I also have a thing for humanities and the Spiritual Life Program, which gives me a space to explore faith and equity as someone who’s experienced racial bias firsthand. Reddit users say UChicago classes “change lives,” and I’m beyond ready to make my life one of them.

UChicago’s motto, Crescat scientia; vita excolatur (“Let knowledge grow, so life may be enriched”), speaks to the challenges I seek. I’m a math nerd, yes, but also someone who finds ‘eternal’ in a vibrant community that celebrates both logic and creativity. In short, UChicago? You’re my forever.”_

So there you have it: UChicago wants the real you — intellectual, whimsical, and everything in between.

CREATIVE ESSAY SAMPLES (1 ADMITTED ED)

Supplemental Application Essay Admitted by University of Chicago

Cats have nine lives, Pac-Man has 3 lives, and radioactive isotopes have half-lives. How many lives does something else — conceptual or actual — have, and why?

— Inspired by Kedrick Shin, Class of 2019

Life is a mystery. Some believe in life after death, others in reincarnation, and then there are those, like me, who believe in a single life. That was, however, until I encountered the Turritopsis dohrnii, better known as the immortal jellyfish. This jellyfish technically has an infinite amount of lives. Shocking right? A simple jellyfish has beaten centuries of research in the race to immortality.

The Turritopsis Dohrnii is hardly known to us as “intellectual” and capable of higher thought, so it seems unlikely that it can teach us anything meaningful. However, it’s immortality demonstrates just how special life is. Not all of us can live on forever, especially sea and land creatures alike. If life is truly that special, we should strive to let these animals enjoy their lives, unaffected by our waste products. At some point we were all taught to treat others the way we want to be treated: the golden rule, if you will. How would you feel if your life cycle were restarted all because you died in another man’s garbage? This jellyfish’s potentially abrupt ending to one life encourages us to rethink the lessons of our past.

How is their immortality achieved you may ask? Well, in short, this jellyfish hits the reset button and reverts itself back into a previous developmental stage.

The Turritopsis Dohrnii is actually quite similar to other jellyfish species. However, its unique ability to harness an incredibly rare process, known as transdifferentiation, allows it to reverse-age. This process enables an already specialized adult cell to become specialized in something completely different. When this combines with the Turritopsis Dohrnii’s ability to sense when it’s near starvation or even imminent danger, it allows the jellyfish to achieve its immortality.

If the Turritpsis Dohrnii senses mortal danger, it will use

transdifferentiation to revert back to its earlier developmental phase, where it was a simple planula. This is achieved in a fashion much similar to stem cells. In this process, the Turritopsis Dohrnii turns all of its cells as a

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jellyfish into use in different areas as a planula. This tubular shaped creature will form a colony on the seafloor, and begin to give birth to hundreds of genetically identical jellyfish. This will, in essence, allow the previous jellyfish’s exact genetic information to live on, giving the creature immortality.

Not only does this process give it immortality, but it presents the condition for which we humans can better reduce our harmful waste: recycling it. Just like the jellyfish’s repurposed cells, we can also repurpose our waste for better uses, thereby reducing the ocean’s pollution and giving these creatures the opportunity to make use of their immortality. This is one truly special jellyfish. Its unique cellular processes hold both the key to reducing waste and immortality.

Not only does the jellyfish move me to be a greener person, its path to immortality rings familiar to me. Just like how transdifferentiation remodels certain cells, I’ve learned to repurpose skills and traits from different disciplines and hobbies to make myself more adaptive and reactive to my environment. For example, my biggest takeaway from ten years of playing chess that still remains with me today is always thinking ten steps ahead. It might not appear to do much, but it actually puts me in a better position to face the challenges of today and tomorrow. In a similar fashion, from playing football, I’ve learned to play on my toes, rather than to sit on my heels. Translated into life off of the field, this trait prompts me to always be prepared and ready to take advantage of an opportunity that may come my way, whether that be a tackle on the field, a chance to dig deeper into a subject, or to even encourage us all to take on a greener lifestyle in a college admissions essay.

This incredible jellyfish is indicative of the phoenix’s life cycle: rising from the ashes of its previous life. If a jellyfish can quite nearly rise from “the dead,” I can rise from my past failures in being eco-friendly and strive to appreciate what little of mother nature we have remaining. It is our duty to safeguard our wildlife and correct previous wrongs now, before it’s too late. In the same manner that the Turritopsis Dohrnii gets a new opportunity at life after near death, society’s ignorance regarding environmental pollution shouldn’t define how we move forward with new opportunities to better conserve our planet.

Sarah O’Neill Chester County Supreme Editing