10 Opening Lines from Stanford Admission Essays

These are fun to read from a counselor that I enjoy following on Twitter (Lynn O'Shaughnessy)

10 Opening Lines from Stanford Admission Essays

  1. I change my name each time I place an order at Starbucks.
  2. When I was in the eighth grade I couldn't read.
  3. While traveling through the daily path of life, have you ever stumbled upon a hidden pocket of the universe?
  4. I have old hands.
  5. I was paralyzed from the waist down. I would try to move my leg or even shift an ankle but I never got a response. This was the first time thoughts of death ever cross my mind.
  6. I almost didn't live through September 11th, 2001.
  7. The spaghetti burbled and slushed around the pan, and as I stirred it, the noises it gave off began to sound increasingly like bodily functions.
  8. I have been surfing Lake Michigan since I was 3 years old.
  9. I stand on the riverbank surveying this rippled range like some riparian cowboy -instead of chaps, I wear vinyl, thigh-high waders and a lasso of measuring tape and twine is slung over my arm.
  10. I had never seen anyone get so excited about mitochondria.

Lynn O'Shaughnessy is author of The College Solution, an Amazon bestseller, and she also writes her own college blog at The College Solution.

University of Chicago's new 2013 Essay Questions

"Provocative." "Comical." "Engaging." "Fun!"

These are all words that students have used to describe our uniquely UChicago essay questions. (Yes, this is our attempt to make applying to college “fun.” Or at least a little less stressful.)

Rolling out the maroon carpet to grant you an exclusive sneak peek at this year’s essay questions. This should give you plenty of time to ponder, play, and procrastinate before the application process commences this fall.

The complete UChicago supplement and financial aid details will be available when the Common Application goes live on August 1.

“A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.” –Oscar Wilde.

Othello and Iago. Dorothy and the Wicked Witch. Autobots and Decepticons. History and art are full of heroes and their enemies. Tell us about the relationship between you and your arch-nemesis (either real or imagined).

Inspired by Martin Krzywy, admitted student Class of 2016.
 

Heisenberg claims that you cannot know both the position and momentum of an electron with total certainty. Choose two other concepts that cannot be known simultaneously and discuss the implications. (Do not consider yourself limited to the field of Physics).

Inspired by Doran Bennett, AB’07.
 

Susan Sontag, AB’51, wrote that “Silence remains, inescapably, a form of speech.” Write about an issue or a situation when you remained silent, and explain how silence may speak in ways that you did or did not intend.  The Aesthetics of Silence, 1967.

Anonymous submission.
 

“...I [was] eager to escape backward again, to be off to invent a past for the present." –The Rose Rabbi by Daniel Stern

Present: pres·ent

1. Something that is offered, presented, or given as a gift.

Let’s stick with this definition. Unusual presents, accidental presents, metaphorical presents, re-gifted presents, etc. — pick any present you have ever received and invent a past for it.

Inspired by Jennifer Qin, AB’16
 

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.
 

So where is Waldo, really?

Inspired by Robin Ye, AB’16.