Unusual College Essay Prompts
I’m so glad I graduated last year. I would answer these questions, but not if my acceptance was on the line..
University of Chicago 2010 essay questions
Essay Option 1 Find x.
Essay Option 2 Dog and Cat. Coffee and Tea. Great Gatsby and Catcher in the Rye. Everyone knows there are two types of people in the world. What are they?
Essay Option 3 Salt, governments, beliefs, and celebrity couples are a few examples of things that can be dissolved. You’ve just been granted the power to dissolve anything: physical, metaphorical, abstract, concrete… you name it. What do you dissolve, and what solvent do you use?
Essay Option 4 “Honesty is the best policy, but honesty won’t get your friend free birthday cake at the diner.” —Overheard in the city of Chicago Does society require constant honesty? Why is it (or why is it not) problematic to shift the truth in one’s favor, even if the lie is seemingly harmless to others? If we can be “conveniently honest,” what other virtues might we take more lightly?
Essay Option 5 In the spirit of adventurous inquiry, pose a question of your own. If your prompt is original and thoughtful, then you should have little trouble writing a great essay. Draw on your best qualities as a writer, thinker, visionary, social critic, sage, citizen of the world, or future citizen of the University of Chicago; take a little risk, and have fun.
Yale University asked applicants to write essays, plus the following questions, to be answered in 25 words or less:
1. What would you do with a free afternoon tomorrow?
2. Recall a compliment you received that you especially value. What was it? From whom did it come?
3. If you could witness one moment in history, what would it be and why?
4. What do you wish you were better at being or doing?
5. If you were choosing students to form a Yale class, what question would you ask here that we have not?
University of Dallas: Along with three conventional questions, including “What influenced you most to apply to the University of Dallas?” the school also asks: “Tell us your favorite joke or humorous anecdote.
California Institute of Technology: Limiting yourself to the space provided, please answer the following questions. Don’t overanalyze. These aren’t trick questions and there are no wrong answers. We are interested in learning more about your personality, values, and interests. We really are looking for short answers, not essays. Sometimes a few words will do, other times you may need as much as a paragraph.
Brown University asked applicants to respond to one of the following in no more than 500 words:
A. What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given, and why?
B. French novelist Anatole France wrote: “An education isn’t how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It’s being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don’t.” What don’t you know?
Bard College: Choose one of the following essay options:
*One hundred years ago, in 1912, the Austrian writer and social critic Karl Kraus, famous for his provocative aphorisms, wrote “Civilization ends, since barbarians erupt from it.” Write a short commentary on what you think this might mean from your perspective 100 years later, and whether it makes any sense.
*The Roman philosopher Seneca, writing in the first century, wrote a set of letters of advice to a young friend. In the 23rd letter he wrote, “Make this your business: learn how to feel joy…true joy, believe me, is a serious thing.” Write a short response to these thoughts, indicating if you wish, the extent to which you may have come to realize that Seneca was right.
Williams College: A required personal statement in no more than 300 words: Imagine looking through a window at any environment that is particularly significant to you. Reflect on the scene, paying close attention to the relation between what you are seeing and why it is meaningful to you.