Essay Questions

Source: https://collegeadmissions.uchicago.edu/apply/essay/ Parent: https://collegeadmissions.uchicago.edu/apply/application/

\ The University of Chicago has long been renowned for our provocative essay questions. We think of them as an opportunity for students to tell us about themselves, their tastes, and their ambitions. They can be approached with utter seriousness, complete fancy, or something in between.\ \ Each year we email newly admitted and current College students and ask them for essay topics. We receive several hundred responses, many of which are eloquent, intriguing, or downright wacky.\ \ As you can see from the attributions, the questions below were inspired by submissions from UChicago students and alumni.

Introducing the 2025-2026 essay prompts.

Question 1 (Required)

How does the University of Chicago, as you know it now, 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.

Question 2: Extended Essay (Required; Choose one)

In an ideal world where inter-species telepathic communication exists, which species would you choose to have a conversation with, and what would you want to learn from them? Would you ask beavers for architectural advice? Octopuses about cognition? Pigeons about navigation? Ants about governance? Make your case—both for the species and the question.

Inspired by Yvan Sugira, Class of 2029

If you could uninvent one thing, what would it be — and what would unravel as a result?

Inspired by Eitan Fischer, Class of 2027

"Left" can mean remaining or departed. "Dust" can mean to add fine particles or to remove them. "Fast" can mean moving quickly or fixed firmly in place. These contronyms—words that are their own antonyms—somehow hold opposing meanings in perfect tension. Explore a contronym: a role, identity, or experience in your life that has contained its own opposite.

Inspired by Kristin Yi, Class of 2029

The penny is on its way out—too small to matter, too costly to keep. But not everything small should disappear. What’s one object the world is phasing out that you think we can’t afford to lose, and why?

Ella Somaiya, Class of 2028

From Michelin Tires creating the Michelin Guide, to the audio equipment company Audio-Technica becoming one of the world’s largest manufacturers of sushi robots, brand identity can turn out to be a lot more flexible than we think. Choose an existing brand, company, or institution and propose an unexpected but strangely logical new product or service for them to launch. Why is this unlikely extension exactly what the world (or the brand) needs right now?

Inspired by Julia Nieberg, Class of 2029

Statistically speaking, ice cream doesn’t cause shark attacks, pet spending doesn’t drive the number of lawyers in California, and margarine consumption isn’t responsible for Maine’s divorce rate—at least, not according to conventional wisdom. But what if the statisticians got it wrong? Choose your favorite spurious correlation and make the case for why it might actually reveal a deeper, causative truth.

Inspired by Adam DiMascio, Class of 2025

And, as always… the classic choose your own adventure option! In the spirit of adventurous inquiry, choose one of our past prompts (or create a question of your own). Be original, creative, thought provoking. 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!

Past Essay Prompts

Get inspired by some classic essay prompts from the past.

Shake it Up!

Find x.

Benjamin Nuzzo, an admitted student from Eton College, UK

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?

an anonymous alumna, AB'06

What can actually be divided by zero?

Mai Vu, Class of 2024

Who does Sally sell her seashells to? How much wood can a woodchuck really chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? Pick a favorite tongue twister (either originally in English or translated from another language) and consider a resolution to its conundrum using the method of your choice. Math, philosophy, linguistics... it's all up to you (or your woodchuck).

Blessing Nnate, Class of 2024

Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures. Jessamyn West

Elizabeth Mansfield, Class of 2020

What's so odd about odd numbers?

Mario Rosasco, AB'09

Have you ever walked through the aisles of a warehouse store like Costco or Sam's Club and wondered who would buy a jar of mustard a foot and a half tall? Write an essay somehow inspired by super-huge mustard.

Katherine Gold

So where is Waldo, really?

Robin Ye, AB'16

The mantis shrimp can perceive both polarized light and multispectral images; they have the most complex eyes in the animal kingdom. Human eyes have color receptors for three colors (red, green, and blue); the mantis shrimp has receptors for sixteen types of color, enabling them to see a spectrum far beyond the capacity of the human brain. Seriously, how cool is the mantis shrimp: mantisshrimp.uchicago.edu What might they be able to see that we cannot? What are we missing?

Tess Moran, AB'16

Alice falls down the rabbit hole. Milo drives through the tollbooth. Dorothy is swept up in the tornado. Neo takes the red pill. Don't tell us about another world you've imagined, heard about, or created. Rather, tell us about its portal. Sure, some people think of the University of Chicago as a portal to their future, but please choose another portal to write about.

Raphael Hallerman, Class of 2020

Mind that does not stick.

Zen Master Shoitsu (1202–80)

Susan Sontag, AB'51, wrote that [s]ilence 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 Suggestion

Cats have nine lives, Pac-Man has three lives, and radioactive isotopes have half-lives. How many lives does something else have, and why?

Kendrick Shin, Class of 2019

Pluto, the demoted planet. Ophiuchus, the thirteenth Zodiac. Andy Murray, the fourth to tennis's Big Three. Every grouping has something that doesn’t quite fit in. Tell us about a group and its unofficial member, why (or why not) should it be excluded?

Veronica Chang, Class of 2022

"Do you feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?" - Eleanor Roosevelt. Misattribute a famous quote and explore the implications of doing so.

Chris Davey, AB'13

You're on a voyage in the thirteenth century, sailing across the tempestuous seas. What if, suddenly, you fell off the edge of the Earth?

Chandani Latey, AB'93

…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.

Jennifer Qin, AB'16

"Ah, but I was so much older then. I'm younger than that now” — Bob Dylan. In what ways do we become younger as we get older?

Joshua Harris, Class of 2016

We're all familiar with green-eyed envy or feeling blue, but what about being "caught purple-handed"? Or "tickled orange"? Give an old color-infused expression a new hue and tell us what it represents.

Ramsey Bottorff, Class of 2026

Chicago author Nelson Algren said, A writer does well if in his whole life he can tell the story of one street. Tell us the story of a street, path, road—real or imagined or metaphorical.

Anonymous Suggestion

Create your own spell, charm, jinx, or other means for magical mayhem.

Emma Sorkin, Class of 2021

Vestigiality refers to genetically determined structures or attributes that have apparently lost most or all of their ancestral function, but have been retained during the process of evolution. In humans, for instance, the appendix is thought to be a vestigial structure. Describe something vestigial (real or imagined) and provide an explanation for its existence.

Tiffany Kim, Class of 2020

People often think of language as a connector... tell us how your language makes you unique.

Kimberly Traube

How are apples and oranges supposed to be compared? Possible answers involve, but are not limited to, statistics, chemistry, physics, linguistics, and philosophy.

Florence Chan, AB'15

In French, there is no difference between conscience and consciousness. In Japanese, there is a word that specifically refers to the splittable wooden chopsticks you get at restaurants. The German word fremdschämen encapsulates the feeling you get when you're embarrassed on behalf of someone else. All of these require explanation in order to properly communicate their meaning, and are, to varying degrees, untranslatable. Choose a word, tell us what it means, and then explain why it cannot (or should not) be translated from its original language.

Emily Driscoll, Class of 2018

Due to a series of clerical errors, there is exactly one typo (an extra letter, a removed letter, or an altered letter) in the name of every department at the University of Chicago. Oops! Describe your new intended major. Why are you interested in it and what courses or areas of focus within it might you want to explore? Potential options include Commuter Science, Bromance Languages and Literatures, Pundamentals: Issues and Texts, Ant History... a full list of unmodified majors ready for your editor's eye is available here.

Josh Kaufman, AB'18

In 2015, the city of Melbourne, Australia created a 'tree-mail' service... share with us the letter you'd send to your favorite.

Hannah Lu, Class of 2020

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).

Doran Bennett, AB'07

Superstring theory has revolutionized speculation about the physical world by suggesting that strings play a pivotal role in the universe. Use the power of string to explain the biggest or the smallest phenomenon.

Adam Sobolweski

Vlog, Labradoodle, and Fauxmage. Language is filled with portmanteaus. Create a new portmanteau and explain why those two things are a patch (perfect match).

Garrett Chalfin, Class of 2027

Don't play what's there, play what's not there.—Miles Davis (1926–91)

Jack Reeves

Exponents and square roots, pencils and erasers, beta decay and electron capture. Name two things that undo each other and explain why both are necessary.

Emmett Cho, Class of 2027

How many piano tuners are there in Chicago? What is the total length of chalk used by UChicago professors in a year? How many pages of books are in the Regenstein Library? These questions are among a class of estimation problems named after University of Chicago physicist Enrico Fermi. Create your own Fermi estimation problem, give it your best answer, and show us how you got there.

Malhar Manek, Class of 2028

Little pigs, French hens, a family of bears. Blind mice, musketeers, the Fates. Parts of an atom, laws of thought, a guideline for composition. Omne trium perfectum? Create your own group of threes, and describe why and how they fit together.

Zilin Cui, Class of 2018

The seven liberal arts in antiquity consisted of the Quadrivium — astronomy, mathematics, geometry, and music — and the Trivium — rhetoric, grammar, and logic. Describe your own take on the Quadrivium or the Trivium. What do you think is essential for everyone to know?

Peter Wang, Class of 2022

"Daddy-o", "Far Out", "Gnarly": the list of slang terms goes on and on. Sadly, most of these are't so "fly" anymore – "as if!" Name an outdated slang from any decade or language that you'd bring back and explain why you totally "dig it."

Napat Sakdibhornssup, Class of 2028

Joan of Arkansas. Queen Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Babe Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Mash up a historical figure with a new time period, environment, location, or occupation, and tell us their story.

Drew Donaldson, AB'16

A hot dog might be a sandwich, and cereal might be a soup, but is a ______ a ______?

Arya Muralidharan, Class of 2021 (and dozens of others)

The ball is in your court—a penny for your thoughts, but say it, don't spray it. So long as you don't bite off more than you can chew, beat around the bush, or cut corners, writing this essay should be a piece of cake. Create your own idiom, and tell us its origin—you know, the whole nine yards. PS: A picture is worth a thousand words.

April Bell, AB'17, and Maya Shaked, Class of 2018

University of Chicago alumna and renowned author/critic Susan Sontag said, The only interesting answers are those that destroy the questions. Destroy a question with your answer.

Aleksandra Ciric

UChicago professor W. J. T. Mitchell entitled his 2005 book "What Do Pictures Want?" Describe a picture, and explore what it wants.

Anna Andel

Subway maps, evolutionary trees, Lewis diagrams. Each of these schematics tells the relationships and stories of their component parts. Reimagine a map, diagram, or chart. If your work is largely or exclusively visual, please include a cartographer's key of at least 300 words to help us best understand your creation.

Maximilian Site, Class of 2020

Where have all the flowers gone? Pete Seeger. Pick a question from a song title or lyric and give it your best answer.

Ryan Murphy, AB'21

How did you get caught? (Or not caught, as the case may be.)

Kelly Kennedy, AB'10

The word floccinaucinihilipilification... Coin your own word...

Ben Zhang, Class of 2022

You are on an expedition to found a colony on Mars, when from a nearby crater, a group of Martians suddenly emerges. They seem eager to communicate, but they're the impatient kind and demand you represent the human race in one song, image, memory, proof, or other idea. What do you share with them to show that humanity is worth their time?

Alexander Hastings, Class of 2023, and Olivia Okun-Dubitsky, Class of 2026

If there's a limited amount of matter in the universe... Explain this using any method of analysis you wish.

Yoonseo Lee, Class of 2023

Engineer George de Mestral got frustrated with burrs stuck to his dog's fur and applied the same mechanic to create Velcro. Scientist Percy Lebaron Spencer found a melted chocolate bar in his magnetron lab and discovered microwave cooking. Dye-works owner Jean Baptiste Jolly found his tablecloth clean after a kerosene lamp was knocked over on it, consequently shaping the future of dry cleaning. Describe a creative or interesting solution, and then find the problem that it solves.

Steve Berkowitz, AB'19, and Neeharika Venuturupalli, Class of 2024

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).

Martin Krzywy, AB'16