As summer nears its end, rising Seniors everywhere are likely turning their attention from their Personal Statement and Activity List to the supplemental essay prompts unique to each college they’re applying to.
What most students don’t appreciate, is that these are often valued more critically than their Personal Statement. Why? This is the one place each college gets to ask your students about the things THEY value. You can tell a lot about what a school is looking for, by the prompts they craft. I will cover the BIG 3 common essay types below to give you a sense of how your student should be approaching each.
If there’s a prompt your child is grappling with that I missed, please email and I’ll happily offer suggestions.
The WHY MAJOR Essay:
- Here the college is looking to hear not only what your child wants to major in, but what sparked their passion, and how they have spent time building learning or experiences that will help them take full advantage of the resources on campus.
- A good essay will read like a mini-movie of the ‘aha’ moments in your child’s life showing connections to their intended study area.
- A great essay will paint a picture of the ways they’ll get involved on campus AND the impact they hope to make one day (schools aren’t just recruiting students, they’re recruiting future alumni they want to be proud of).
- Here’s an example: Why Major Example – Neuroscience
The WHY THIS COLLEGE Essay
- If you’re working with me, you know I sound like a broken record on the subject of Demonstrated Interest (showing a college, that you’ll enroll if invited).
- This supplemental essay is the college’s last chance to see how seriously you may be considering them based on the depth of understanding of their programs.
- HEADLINE: Do your research! Don’t feed the school back superficial things like their rankings, their sports, their campus highlights or their weather.
- Be specific. If this essay could be copy-pasted into any other school’s prompt, it’s not doing its job. The most credible essays go well beyond the home page on a school’s website.
- Dig deep for professor names, course numbers, and research studies, and then craft a compelling case for why you are excited and would be a good fit for these programs.
- Pay close attention to this prompt – some schools want a pure academic lean while others ask more broadly about academics and student life in which case you’ll want to include specific clubs or student organizations.
- Here’s a short example using Tufts (200 word limit): Why Tufts Essay Example
The COMMUNITY or IDENTITY Essay
- Many schools in the last few years have added a Community prompt, and it seems to trip students up. Partly because many schools write the question vaguely.
- In this prompt, colleges are asking students to reflect on a community, or identity that has shaped them, and to share about their role within that community.
- Where students don’t quite deliver, is that they fail to read between the lines and then translate their past community contributions to painting a picture of the future and the type of student they’ll be on campus.
- Context: many schools added this prompt after the 2023 Supreme Court decision to eliminate race as a variable in college admissions. This prompt is an invitation to discuss identity if that is an important part of your story.
- However, race is only ONE of the many ways to consider community. Your child is likely a part of several communities; family, faith, sports, talents, extracurriculars, camp, heritage, etc.
- For this prompt I like students to name all of the communities they are a part of, and consider how their role in each might help them storytell what type of contribution they’ll make to a campus community. Choosing 1, 2 or 3 stories (remember, show don’t tell!) depending on word count, will help admissions officers understand you as a citizen in your world.
- Hitting this prompt out of the park includes connecting lived experiences to the opportunities they’ll uniquely find on that campus.
- Here’s an example crafted about a theater community: Community Essay Example
These three essays cover the majority of supplemental prompts, which means that once your child has the playbook, they can reuse portions of their storytelling to make their supplemental essay writing far more efficient.
Other schools love to showcase their quirky culture through their prompts (U Chicago and UVM, we’re looking at you!). When your child is asked about their favorite ice cream flavor, playlist, or pizza toppings . . . encourage them to be creative but not miss an opportunity to make a personal and reflective connection. Perhaps pineapple and pepperoni represent the duality of their sweet nature but fierce loyalty. Maybe they rage to Eminem on the way to a soccer match, but win or lose, they vibe out to Comfortably Numb on the way home. Colleges want to get to know your child in these prompts more than they want to be impressed.
A last word about the coming weeks:
They may feel like they’re in the home stretch, but most students have no idea how much work the supplemental essays involve. Encourage them to stay on top of deadlines by dedicating weekly work time (30mins daily, 2 hours/twice a week, whatever works best!) and check in on their progress. If you can, help them appreciate that after three years of hard work in the classroom, hundreds of potential hours on passions, service, and extra-curriculars, that putting time into crafting thoughtful essays in these final weeks is the best way to set them up for success in this process. Together, we’ll get them to the finish line!
If there’s a prompt that your student is scratching their head around, and this blog didn’t cover it, please reach out! (krsneyd@gmail.com).
Resource: All sample essays from the “College Essay Guy” website.
