Dear University of Chicago,

You may ask me exactly why I am applying to your college. Well, to tell you the truth, I am applying because your college reminds me of my childhood, living in a household full of screaming people from the Old World. When I first came over to this country, I had trouble finding bathrooms and used to make somewhat lewd gestures usually involving had motions at my private parts to indicate that I needed to use the facilities. Over time, things gradually became better outside the home and worse inside the home.

People call Asians and African-Americans all sorts of dirty things, but nobody takes in mind that the Eastern Europeans are known primarily for their intake of vodka. Six-year-olds used to call me a “lush” or a “rum bum” when I passed them in the halls. The teachers forced me to walk in straight lines after recess. I was afraid.

At home, my father wrote mathematics novels, about the subtleties of numbers interweaving. You’d think that with about ten numbers (zero through nine, really, rearranged chronically, repeatedly, desperately), one would finally just give up. His personal favorite thing to talk about were the radicals, the duality of the numbers coming together to form their square, little shards fitting together and twirling over each other to make something round and whole. Anyway, his discoveries and thoughts about these things were published in magazines, which was how I will be able to manage part of your education, but not all of it.

Have you ever heard of “Florence Sexingale”? Please don’t be ashamed if you have, or have even read some of “her” novels. In fact, they aren’t “her” novels at all; they’re actually my father’s. I usually don’t tell people this, because it’s kind of a family secret, and if found out not nearly so many lonely housewives would buy his books. Anyway, all the mathematics, as my mother tells me, stresses my father’s “logical, man side” and he has to release the rest of it or else he will go insane (and perhaps begin interior decorating, if you get my drift), so he writes these novels to maintain balance.

My mother’s one of those women who barges into your room when you change and yells at you to hurry it on up. Most of the time she’s going out to get her nails done and volunteer at the school, but when she’s at home, she’s inspiring my father’s works (more the romance novels than the radicals). She dyes her hair a shade of bright red that is quite unbecoming to someone with her skin tone, yet somehow attracts the attention of many men (and women).

This is why I simply must attend your university.

There seems to be quite the strict foundation there that I need to continue my work. I, for one, am more interested in inverse relationships of functions, and about sap (not smut), but I think that to follow my parents’ footsteps and become a more interesting and dedicated person, I must attend your university. I must try to immerse myself in the culture so I can expand as a person.

Please consider me.