Webinar Transcript: Supplemental Essays 101

Anthony Su (he/him): Thank you everyone for joining today. I think this is going to be a good session today – the last topic in our essay series, where we'll be discussing the supplements: how to tackle them, [and] how to get started.

Joining me today are Heather and Kate – to give the presentation. Heather, do you mind introducing yourself, and then Kate?

Heather Vaughan (she/her): Yeah, thanks Anthony!

Hi everyone. Thank you so much for joining us. My name is Heather. I serve as an educational consultant here at ILUMIN, and I'm also the lead of the essay team.

I am excited to share what I've learned from my years of supporting students with essays, and I look forward to hearing your questions!

Kate Schultz: And I'm Kate. I am an essay specialist with ILUMIN. I've been with ILUMIN for a few months. Prior to that I have worked in higher education in student-facing roles – so I've supported students in writing in various other staff roles.

I'm excited to help you all figure out what the college applications process is about!

Anthony Su: Perfect. Heather, Kate, I'll leave it to you. See you at Q&A.

Agenda

Heather Vaughan: All right, go ahead, Kate.

Kate Schultz: Thank you.

On the agenda for today we have several things that we'll be going over. First off, 1) what are supplemental essays? What are these aspects of the application, and 2) how important are they? 3) Which schools require them? Some of them are optional – so 4) in those cases, should you write one? If so, 5) what should you write about?

We'll also go over 6) some common prompts, and some sample essays – so you can get a sense of how other students have crafted theirs, and how you might go about it as well.

What are supplemental essays?

Heather Vaughan: All right. Starting with the basics: what are supplemental essays?

These are essays that are separate from your main Common Application personal statement – or your main personal statement on whatever application platform you're using to apply to college. They are submitted as part of the application. When you submit, a supplemental essay will be reviewed alongside the rest of the application.

They are specific to each university. When we look (a little bit later) at some of the prompts, you'll see that they are specific to the school that is asking for them.

Sometimes they're optional and sometimes they're required. We'll talk (in a few minutes) about how to approach optional essays.

The word counts can vary significantly. Some supplemental essays can be as short as 100 words, and some can even be “short answers” that might even be like a hundred characters. Some can also be really long – they can be unlimited, or up to 650 words! The approach is going to vary a lot based on how long the essay is, as well as what the prompt is.

And, finally, they are reviewed alongside your main personal statement. You should always be mindful that – when you're working on a supplemental essay – it should complement what you're sharing in your main personal statement – and should not overlap significantly, [nor should it] contradict it!

So that's the 101 of what they are.

How important are they?

Kate Schultz: Now, how important are supplemental essays? Well, we are doing a webinar about them – so they are important! They give the reader a sense of who you are as a person, what kinds of things are important to you, and what you have accomplished.

Like Heather was saying, a lot of the times the questions are specific to the school. That is going to reveal something about what's important to the school. You can look at what questions they're asking to get a sense of what the school values.

(Some of the) schools whose applications include supplemental essays

Kate Schultz: Some of the schools whose applications include supplemental essays are – for instance – Stanford, University of Virginia, Brown, Northwestern, Harvard… Many schools! This is not a complete list. But you can see that they can be very common in applications.

What if they’re optional?

Heather Vaughan: All right – coming back to this question of, “What if they're optional???”

There are some schools that will have optional essays that you definitely should write! If you look at the prompt, and it's something that you definitely can write, do it! It shows the reader that you're putting effort into the application.

This goes for a range of prompts, but if it's like, “This is optional, but tell us about an extracurricular that you've been involved in…” definitely do that! Almost every single student will have something to write about for that.

That being said, there are other supplemental essays that may not apply to you. If you do not have an answer to the question, or it doesn't apply to you, it's okay not to write it. You don't need to force it.

An example of this might be a supplemental essay related to COVID. Everyone was impacted by COVID… but a supplemental essay might be asking, “Were you impacted in a significant or unique way by distance learning?” For example, no access to internet. For example, unstable housing situation. If your distance learning experience was difficult, but not particularly unique, you don't need to answer that.

Similarly some universities may ask questions about a particular identity that doesn't apply to you. If that's the case, then you don't need to do that.

But in the situations where the supplemental essay prompts can apply to everyone, it is highly, highly recommended that you do them!

Common types of supplemental essays

Kate Schultz: Now for some common types of supplemental essays:

Why us?

Kate Schultz: Some of the questions you may be asked include things like, “Why us?” The school is going to want to know why you have chosen to apply to them. They want to know that they are more than just a school on your checklist.

What attracts you to them? Why do you think you'd be a good fit?

Why major?

Kate Schultz: Another common question is, “Why have you chosen the major that you have chosen?” Why are you interested in it? What are your plans – currently – to do with your major once you are in the real world?

Activity

Kate Schultz: They may also ask about an activity you have done in school: any extracurricular, or something that has been very important to you.

List/short answer

Kate Schultz: And sometimes they'll be a brief series of short answer questions: maybe a list, or just some brief responses that will allow them to get to know who you are.

Kate Schultz: The first two are, by far, the most common types of supplemental essays: “Why us?” and “Why major?” You may be thinking, “What if I don't have a major yet?” That's okay. We will get to that later on. But the first two here are very common for the supplemental essays!

Why Us?

Heather Vaughan: All right. Like Kate said, those two are very common. So those are the two that we're going to primarily focus on today.

I wanted to show a couple of different examples of what this supplemental essay prompt can look like. I'm just going to go ahead and read the first one out loud:

Describe the unique qualities that attract you to the specific undergraduate college or school to which you are applying at the University of Michigan. How would that curriculum support your interests?

[Help us understand how you might engage specific resources, opportunities, and/or communities here. We are curious about what these specifics are, as well as how they might enrich your time at Northwestern and beyond.

Why are you interested in attending Columbia University? We encourage you to consider the aspects that you find unique and compelling about Columbia.]

I'd love it if folks could just pop in the chat and tell us what words jump out at them as being important. In this prompt, what words jump out at you as being most relevant – that a student who's going to write an essay about this should be paying attention to?

Let's see what folks have to say.

I see the word “curriculum.” I definitely agree with that. A couple others that I noticed were “unique qualities.” Yeah, I see someone say “unique.” “Specific.”

Another one that jumps out at me is – I guess from some of the other prompts – “resources, opportunities, and/or communities.”

Great. Thanks y'all for putting your notes in the chat!

We're totally on the same page about what words are jumping out at us. When I'm working with students to help them begin approaching an essay that they're going to write, this is exactly what we do: we take a look at what the prompt is asking. Even though all three of these essay prompts fall under the category of the “Why us?” essay, each of them is asking slightly different things. We want to make sure that, when we're writing the essay, we are very particularly addressing the question that the specific prompt is asking!

I want to go ahead and move on to the next slide – and talk a bit about some ideas of how to best approach a “Why us?” essay like the ones that we just saw.

The first thing I want to highlight is specifics, specific, specifics! It is super important for your answer to those questions to be very specific – not only to you but, of course, to the school as well. So do your research on the school to show your authentic interest!

What does it mean to “do your research on the school”? You can start by taking a look at their website, and learning more about the particular opportunities, offerings, the way that the school is involved in the community, the clubs, the student life… Anything that interests you is fair game!

Moving on, you also want to show how your experiences have led you to want to attend this school. It's not enough to simply say this school is amazing because of X, Y, and Z. You need to draw a very obvious connection from you to the school. The way that I like to say it is to “connect the dots for the reader.” Illustrate how your unique experiences connect to what the school offers – and show them that you're a great match.

Additionally, you want to state your goals, and how the school's resources will support them. This looks a little bit towards the future: thinking about your goals as an undergraduate, but also your goals after college. What do you want to do with your degree, and how will this school support you in getting towards those goals?

And then, finally, show that you and the school are a uniquely beautiful match. The best-case scenario is that an admission reader takes a look at your essay and says, “Wow, this student has to come here. It's the perfect place for them!” That's really what you're going for.

Just to reiterate once more, it's really important to mold your answer to the question. You want to make sure that even if you may be writing similar “Why Us?” essays for different schools, you are tailoring your answer specifically to what the school is asking for. Because, again, that reveals their priorities – and it reveals exactly what they're looking for.

These are a couple of ways that you can effectively approach the “Why us?” essay.

Example “Why us?”: Why Rice?

Heather Vaughan: Moving on, we're going to take a look at an example, and I'll throw it over to Kate.

Kate Schultz: Okay. Here is one sample essay – to help give you a sense of how you might approach a supplemental essay. I'm just going to read through this, and then we'll talk a little bit about what's working, and what could possibly be improved.

This student is applying to Rice, and they write:

[The prompt is: “Based upon your exploration of Rice University, what elements of the Rice experience appeal to you?” (150 word limit.) This is not displayed on the slide, so the audience have no idea.]

Community is central to Rice, as demonstrated through its Residential College System. Beyond friendly “jack” competitions, Rice also fosters a school-wide community through its culture of care.

Rice's small classes would make seeking help from professors and connecting with classmates easy. Through Professor Shrivastava's Large-scale Machine Learning class, I’d learn from robotics and healthcare-related datasets. As rice provides its students with ample opportunities, I hope to research alongside Professor Shrivastava on scalable and sustainable deep learning.

Located in the heart of Houston, Rice would allow me to pursue experiential learning. Through the D2K Lab, I’d take advantage of Rice's proximity to the Texas Children's Hospital. More specifically, I hope to develop a machine learning algorithm to detect impending cardiac arrests in babies.

While Rice would provide me with small communities, its emphasis on experiential learning would simultaneously prepare me to go out and make a difference in the real world.

Okay. Let's talk about some strengths and weaknesses of this essay. You can go ahead and put your comments into the chat, and we'll talk about that.

If you want to pop to the next slide, there are a couple of questions that we can take a look at. First, why are the student and the college a good match? What does the school have that the student is interested in?

Here we go: “Rice opportunities match the student’s career goals.” Exactly. The student states specifically what their career goals are, and how Rice could support them in achieving [those goals].

We've got, “Small class as a good fit. Student has done research on the professor and the lab.” Yes, definitely. The student has definitely familiarized themselves with the program.

Okay, “The location provides the student with opportunities that match their goals.” Great, yeah. These are definitely some strengths of the essay.

Can any of you think of a couple things where maybe the essay could be improved or tweaked?

One thing, speaking to the comment about technicality, I think (as we've said) the student has done a very good job of researching the school. But they also would want to bring themselves into the essay.

They do talk about what they want to do but – in that first paragraph – they don't mention that community is important to them. They're saying that they know community is important to Rice. But why is that what they have chosen to focus on? How is it important to them? That could be elaborated a little bit.

I do want to mention the comment about talking about a specific professor. That's actually a good thing to do – because it shows that the student has familiarized themselves with the specific program, and the faculty they would be working with. That is a great question. In this particular instance, it is good to be as specific as possible, because it shows that they have done their research.

So good. Great responses. You're engaging with this really well.

I think we're ready for the next slide.

Why major?

Heather Vaughan: All right. We've gone over “Why us?” – and now we're going to spend a couple of minutes talking about “Why major?”

I want to just take a moment or two to look at a couple of these prompts, and then we'll do what we did for the last example, and talk about some key tips of how to approach a “Why major?” essay. Again, I'm just going to read one of these out loud. Be paying attention to which words jump out at you – and what, in particular, you would pay attention to in these essay prompts.

So I'll read the second one:

[Students at Yale have plenty of time to explore their academic interests before committing to one or more major fields of study. As of this moment, what academic areas seem to fit your interests or goals most comfortably? Why do these areas appeal to you?]

How did you discover your intellectual and academic interests, and how will you explore them at the University of Pennsylvania? Please respond considering the specific undergraduate school you have selected.

[Briefly discuss your reasons for pursuing the major you have selected. (Purdue)]

Clearly they're asking you to be specific. They're asking you to talk about the past, and they're also asking you to talk about the future. We'll pop over to the next slide and take a look at some ways to approach this essay.

Kate, do you want to jump in and take us through?

Kate Schultz:

Okay, so should you [face] the “Why major?” essay,  here are some ways that you can go about it.

First, you'll want to (obviously) clearly state what your intended major is.

And then show the reader your journey of becoming interested in this subject. When did that first spark of interest ignite – and how have you developed that over the years?

To get into this mindset, you can brainstorm key moments and experiences, and what you learned from those. Sharing moments from when you are young is fine; some of the time that is when these interests are originally sparked. But you do want to focus on (mostly) what you have done to foster this interest in high school. That's recent. That shows that you have been active in pursuing this interest of yours. It's fine to mention if your interest in writing or science or whatnot developed when you were very young, but then show how this has further moved along in your high school years.

And then you'll also want to share what you hope to accomplish in the future with your major. Yes, you're focusing on it in college. You want to study it in college. To what end? What do you eventually want to do? How do you want to use your education in your major to contribute to the community?

Now… as we mentioned, it's okay if you haven't decided yet on a major. What you would want to do in that case – if you do choose to write about a major when you are undecided – is think about what subjects you are interested in. What academic areas do you feel passion for – or have you felt passion for, in your last couple of years of high school? And follow the same guidelines for that.

What are some of the pieces of those academic subjects – or a specific academic subject – that you're interested in? What aspects of it excite you, or do you feel passionate about? And explore that. Maybe there are ways that you have explored that interest in high school, even if you're not sure of your major yet.

Still show that there is some level of spark or interest in a particular subject – even if you don't know what your major is yet.

Example “Why major?”: Carnegie Mellon University

Heather Vaughan: All right. We're going to take a quick look at another example – this time of a “Why major?” essay. I'm going to go ahead and read this one out loud, and I'd love for folks to share their thoughts about the strengths and weaknesses once we get through it. We've got a couple of questions on the next slide. So let's get into it!

[Carnegie Mellon’s prompt is: “​​Most students choose their intended major or area of study based on a passion or inspiration that’s developed over time. What passion or inspiration led you to choose your area of study?” (300 words.)]

I consider joining my middle school's Mathcounts team a turning point in my mathematics journey. Up until joining, I was accustomed to math classes that spoon-fed theorems for memorization, so I was thoroughly unprepared for the high schoolers constantly prompting, “Why does this solution work?” and “What is another approach?” I love that they challenged us to really understand the concepts, and I often spent hours after meetings discussing solutions with my brother.

While Mathcounts ended in middle school, my math competition career did not. As an underclassman, I thoroughly studied algebra, geometry, and more exotic topics like number theory and combinatorics to prepare for contests like the American Mathematics Competition series or team-based competitions like the Berkeley Math Tournament. I solidified my foundations in math through a fast-paced contest style.

Joining Mathcounts forever changed my relationship with mathematics, even outside the contest realm. I joined Euler’s Circle for higher math, where every problem required a proof to justify the answer. Through proof writing, I grew to love the strong logic behind the intrinsic properties of math. Whether I am lecturing generating functions at math club or tutoring pre-calculus to middle schoolers, I apply my knowledge of proof-writing to justify the build-up of mathematical reasoning. My passion for math led me to the Program in Mathematics for Young Scientists, where I became confident that I wanted to continue pursuing mathematics in college.

My experiences at the Mathcounts club will forever resonate with me, giving me an appreciation for the strong logic that holds the intrinsic properties of mathematics together. This appreciation motivates me to further explore higher mathematics and its applications in related fields like computational linguistics and machine learning, where mathematics is core to model optimization.

Okay, there's our “Why major?” essay. Let's pop over to the next slide and take a look at a couple of questions.

Did the student clearly state their intended major? How did they show what experiences strengthened their passion? Did they look towards their future studies and goals? And, finally, what were some general strengths and weaknesses of the essay?

I'd love to just hear from some folks in the chat. What did you think about this essay? What did the student do well? What could they have improved? And did they follow the parameters that we suggested?

Okay, “took a while to state intended major.” That's a great point. If we're just reading this for the first time, we notice that they don't clearly state, “I want to major in math.” And that's really important – because you can't assume that that's already indicated somewhere else on the application.

Another good point: “Not much about how CMU would support the goals with specific classes.” That's a good point. In some situations, it can be really advantageous in a “Why major?” essay to talk about specific classes. Depending on the school.

If you are also writing a “Why us?” essay, the “Why us?” essay should focus primarily on the future: like the classes that you might want to take at the school related to your major. And the “Why major?” essay should focus primarily on the way that your interest in that major has formed. So it depends on the context. But it's a great point: they could have mentioned more specific classes.

What else? “Strong indication of interest, and things student has done to pursue interest in school.” Yeah, that's a great point. This student mentions many examples of ways that they've explored their interest in mathematics.

A couple other things I thought the student did well: they got really specific about aspects of mathematics that they love! I'm not a person who's an expert in math, but I was able to follow it – because their language was clear enough. I might not be able to tell you exactly what “computational linguistics” is, but I understand what the student is talking about in context.

All right. Any other thoughts? Take a moment to throw them in the chat.

“Had good intro story.” Yeah, agreed. I think that that experience in middle school is very relevant to the student, and it's relevant to the essay as well.

All right, wonderful. Let's go ahead and move on to a few final tips from Kate.

A few final tps

Kate Schultz: Yeah, some things to consider about supplemental essays.

Once you have brainstormed and crafted an essay that you feel works well, like Heather said, you can adjust that essay for applications for different schools. You don't need to reinvent the wheel if two different schools are asking the same question – as long as you tweak certain things to make sure that your essay matches with each school! You can reuse the “meat” of the essay – if you will – the major points of the essay. That will help make the process a little bit easier for you.

Now, again, you'll want to remember not to overlap with the main personal statement! Really show the school who you are in a broad context. A great way to do that is by writing about different aspects of yourself. So definitely choose a supplemental essay prompt that doesn't overlap with the personal statement.

Remember that specificity and uniqueness are important. Again, get specific about how you and the school are a good match, or what experiences you have had that reinforce your passions. As specific as you possibly can – in order to show your genuine interest, and match with the school.

As far as what we mean by “uniqueness”… we're all different. We're all unique, right? But how are your experiences unique? There may be something that you have done that is uncommon: a club that your school had that another school might not have had. Again, choose things that are a little bit surprising – things that people might not hear about every day.

And remember to be clear [and spell it out]. Make sure that you are giving all the details – so that the reader of your essay understands, specifically, what you're saying. Specificity is always better than being too broad or too general. You can't go wrong if you are as specific as possible.

Heather Vaughan: I'll just jump in with a quick note about that as well. Many admissions [offices] at universities that receive a lot of applications will hire seasonal readers to support them with the admissions reading process. That's a role that I've had in the past. What that means is sometimes those readers are not even full-time staff at the university!

When you're writing a “Why us?” essay, for example, make sure that the admissions reader knows what specific opportunities you're referencing. Don't necessarily use acronyms they may not be familiar with. (Even if it is a full-time staff member, that doesn't mean that they're aware of every single biology opportunity or math opportunity that the school offers!)

Similarly, if you're sharing about your past experiences, like Kate said, it's important to “connect the dots” for the reader – so that they understand your journey, and that they're not left wondering, “What is that organization? I've never heard of it!”

And one last thing: if you're using a similar essay for different schools, make sure to proofread and take out any school-specific details if you are reusing an essay! I cannot tell you how many times I have [had] students give me an essay for review that has the wrong name of the school! I have even seen that in my job as an admission reader. It is so embarrassing! Don't do that. Please proofread. That's super important.

That's the last thing. We'll send it over to Anthony for our last couple of notes

How can ILUMIN help?

Anthony Su: Sure. And we'll move on to Q&A right after this as well. But, definitely, you still have a lot of time to work on the essay process – you can work with one of our consultants here at ILUMIN. And I'll launch a poll in a minute, as well, to talk about a free consultation – because we are doing 30-minute trial sessions to help students see how a consultant might be able to help them through this process of brainstorming, working on a second draft, and continuing this – and making sure that your essays are going to be top-notch by the time you're applying!

You can always check out our website to put in a free consultation request as well, if you have any additional questions.

Q&A

(Contact us at essays@ilumineducation.com)

Anthony Su: We can move on to Q&A. I want to start with this one; I think this is the most relevant one. Coming back to that math [essay], the question was basically, “How would the essay differ for someone who is interested in biology, with a desire to pursue medical school?”

Not a lot of medical-related volunteering or activities are available until you're 18, or there's kind of an age restriction. Similarly with another major that's a little bit harder to explore – like astronomy. There are not many courses on that. You'd have to really go out of your way to find the extracurriculars there!

How would you approach that?

Heather Vaughan: Yeah, it's a great question. I'll go ahead and share a couple thoughts, and then Kate, I’d love it if you want to chime in with anything.

So yeah, thank you for asking this question. We obviously can't share an example for every single major, but this is a great point – because, like Anthony said, everyone is going to have different access to the things they're interested in. Whether it's biology or another major where a student may not have had access to a ton of extracurricular activities, the way that I would start – if I'm supporting a student with this essay – is just asking them, literally, “Tell me what made you interested in this.”

Even if it's a subject – let's stick with biology – where maybe they weren't able to have medical-related activities in high school, I would hope that, because the student is interested in biology… First of all, I would ask them what classes they may have taken. Maybe their school didn't offer AP biology, but maybe they will take biology and chemistry – and they can talk about how, even outside of their core biology class, they still found connections to biology within chem, or within another subject. So I would ask them about that, and have them brainstorm how have you explored that interest in the classroom

And then I would also ask them, “What ways have you explored this outside of the classroom?” My hope is that a student interested in biology maybe [has] read a book or two. Or maybe they like to watch YouTube videos about surgery. Or maybe they have a family member who works in medicine, and they constantly grill them at the dinner table about their medical experiences! Those are all completely valid experiences to share.

The supplemental essay for major does not have to be a reiteration of your résumé. It's really a story about how you came to love the thing that you want to study. It's a case-by-case basis, but I would just really say: share the actual story, and find the most compelling details within that.

Kate, anything to add?

Kate Schultz: I second everything that Heather mentioned – especially looking at where that interest developed. Maybe you had a speaker come into a class in your high school – someone who was a doctor or medical professional – and they talked about their day. They talked about their job. And that sparked something in you: there was something specific in what they talked about that really spoke to you. Maybe there was an observation that you did. Volunteering. Just like Heather said, what is it that made you develop that interest?

And then, also, how would you foster that in college as well. You can make part of the essay about how the college you're applying to would give you the opportunity to learn what you would like to learn about that interest of yours.

Anthony Su: Let me add a follow-up, because I think this might be a question that other people have. “Is it important that the item that you write about for your major essay is impressive for the particular major?” You can go back to that math essay – it seems like this student has been able to do some pretty advanced math, and been able to challenge themselves, looking at topics like combinatorics, number theory, machine learning… Things like that, right?

How important is it that you're – the word coming to mind is “flaunting” – but bragging a little bit. How important is that, compared to saying, “I'm at the beginning of this journey, but I would love to continue. And here's how I see your school fitting in this.”

Heather Vaughan: It's a good question. I have a thought on that: which is that it's not essential for this to be a reiteration of your résumé. In fact, the supplemental essay can be a place where you can tell a story that maybe doesn't fit in your activities list!

When I look at this example: of course, the Program in Mathematics for Young Scientists. That’s almost certainly going to show up on the student's activities list. And so the reader already has some context about the student's involvement in that. But for a student who's passionate about creative writing, the book that they read when they were in middle school that changed their life isn't going to show up on their activities list. The fact that they read a book that really inspired them is not necessarily an act that is particularly impressive, but it's really important to that student's journey – and so that makes it a great thing to include in this essay.

I don't think that you have to think about it in terms of how “impressive” the specific steps of your essay are. I think that the most important thing is passion and enthusiasm.

Kate Schultz: Yeah, definitely. Like Heather was saying earlier, everyone has had different access to opportunities. And the readers know that a student from a very small town is going to have a different type of educational history than a student from a big city. So showing that genuine passion is really the most important aspect of that.

Anthony Su: Next question: tying to topics and what to write about – since we have some discussion of the potential to talk about earlier-in-life stories, maybe like middle school, compared to when we're typically just trying to talk about high school. Are there any particular topics that you would want to avoid? Do you see these particular types of essays that are maybe too cliché or overused?

Heather Vaughan: I'll quickly say that, in any essay, it's a good idea to have your experiences primarily focus on the recent past.

In this example, again, this student talks about middle school, but then most of their essay talks about high school. This is a place where it's appropriate to talk about a childhood experience, or an experience when you were younger… but you should definitely avoid having the bulk of the essay talk about that.

Other than that, really just the same parameters: that of appropriateness that you would consider for any part of your college application. Don't talk about anything that casts you in a poor light, or that you wouldn't be comfortable sharing with an admissions officer. Really keep it relevant to the prompt.

Those are my thoughts. Kate?

Kate Schultz: I would agree with that. It's good to show recent experiences that you have had to show that this is a developing interest. Yes, it was sparked when you were young, possibly – but you are still continuing on the journey of exploring this, and you want to continue.

There's nothing wrong with mentioning a formative experience, or an important experience from your childhood related to the interest. But, like Heather said, have the bulk of the story center on recent aspects of your journey in this interest.

Anthony Su: A couple more questions trickling in. We can talk about this one: writing about career goals. This question is asking, “If you had a Common App [personal statement] that's already talked about your interest in a major or career, how would you write the ‘Why major?’ supplement without being repetitive?”

Kate Schultz: This would be one area where it would be great to share the knowledge of the school's specifics that you know of. If you talked about your career goals quite a bit in another essay, then use the supplemental essay to talk about why the school is a good match – why you and the school would be a good match. Show that you have done some research on that school's program, and that there are specific things about that school that draw you to it. Focus on that in the supplemental essay if you have already spent a large portion of another essay discussing your goals.

And you can certainly mention or refer back to your goals in the supplemental essay. But that way – if you make the bulk of it about the school itself, and how it would support you – then you're still showing what your goals are, but you're not regurgitating information that you may have already used!

Heather Vaughan: Agreed. Nothing wrong with a tiny bit of overlap!

Anthony Su: And then a question – two questions – about word count and things like that. How would you suggest writing something with a very short limit on words? I think some schools do have 100-word and 50-word essays – to try to get students to answer pretty succinctly!

Is there a particular way you would approach that?

Heather Vaughan: I have some thoughts on that. This is difficult – and I find that my students really struggle with it.

For a very short word limit, I would say start with the same brainstorming process. It's still a good idea to get all of your ideas out. And then, essentially, you're prioritizing.

I find that outlining is really, really effective for any kind of essay – including a super short essay! It might sound kind of counter-intuitive – because if it's so short, do you need an outline? But I find that just thinking about it big-picture, and thinking, “Okay, what do I want to include in this essay? Point one: I'm gonna talk about how this interest started. Point two: I'm gonna talk about this involvement. And point three: I'm going to talk about what I want to do in the future.” It gives you a structure to follow.

When I'm editing essays that are super short, and helping students with that, I help them highlight the specific point – even the specific words that do the best job of communicating their point to the reader. Many students have a hard time with this: they'll have a lot of extra words. We're really just cutting down – and thinking, [for] every word, every phrase, every sentence in this essay: is it moving toward your main message? Is it contributing to answering the prompt’s question?

In summary, I would recommend doing the same brainstorming process, making a rough outline, and then (if it's too long) going through and literally asking – [for] every single word, every single phrase, every single sentence – is this contributing towards my main message?

Kate Schultz: And I would add, don't try to edit too much in your head. Write down all the ideas that you have – and then you can look at that list, and look at that information, and get a sense of what to pare down from there. But it's really helpful to get your ideas down – so that then you can see them, and get an idea of, “Oh! This idea is actually stronger than this! It would be better for me to focus on this.”

I have seen a lot of students think that a first draft has to be perfect – but they're called “drafts” for a reason! Don't worry about getting all your thoughts down in the early stages of writing. The most important thing is that you have information to work with. And then, like Heather said, you can go back over it and look at what could be taken out, and what is the strongest information.

Anthony Su: Yeah, definitely for those shorter essays you will have to be very picky about the words you're using [and] the phrases you're using.

Related question around length: is there an ideal length for each supplemental essay? I think it's fundamentally going to depend on the limit for the word count, right? Just as close as you can get – or at least 80% of that number, right?

Heather Vaughan: Quick note on that: some essays will have an unlimited word count! For those, I encourage students to aim for about 500. Anything longer than that is typically not necessary to answer the question.

But yeah, with limits you want to try to use all that space.

Anthony Su: A question related to the “Why major” essays. And this was, I think, just an opinion. But is it helpful to talk about the career center of a particular school, and how they place students in that particular field or career path? Would that be a good approach to tackling a “Why major?” essay?

Heather Vaughan: That's a great thing to include. Yeah.

Anthony Su: A helpful thing to research, and be able to provide that information as well.

Should a student put some focus on “Why us?” and “Why major?” in the personal statement? And how can that differ from the supplemental essay?

In general, since a personal statement goes to all schools, you definitely don't want to be writing about a specific school. And we tend to also say, because you have to write a “Why major?” essay, don't write your personal statement around a major if you have other stories to talk about. But Heather, do you have any thoughts on that?

Heather Vaughan: That's a good approach.

When it comes to deciding what you want to write about for your personal statement, it's a good idea to think about different things you might share. And it's totally fine to talk about your interest in your major. And then, for a “Why major?” essay, if you find that you've already shared some detail in your personal statement, find other things to focus on – so that they can complement but not overlap!

Anthony Su: Last two questions – and I think they're sort of related. This question just asked, “How do you make yourself stand out from the crowd using supplemental essays?” I think that's a really good question – but I think, also, there's a lot more range with the much more complex supplemental essays.

The “Why us?” and “Why major?” – a lot of them will look relatively similar. But if you have those like, “Write a letter to your roommate,” from Stanford, or I think Caltech has, “Tell me something unethical you've done,” or something like that. There's a little bit more variance there.

Also just a general question of, “How would you recommend a student tackle a more complex topic like that?”

Heather Vaughan: Yeah, I also see a question about how to discuss a societal issue, right?

Anthony Su: These two are kind of linked, I think.

Heather Vaughan: Yeah, we can address those together. I'll think about it for a moment – because I have a few thoughts. But Kate, anything you want to jump in and share to help us get started?

Kate Schultz: I know we've talked a lot about specificity, but that's what makes people remember you! The details of who you are, of what you think, of the school – how you'd be a good match. Being specific, again, is a way to make the readers remember you – and by [them] remembering you, then you are going to stand out.

So that would probably be one of my recommendations for what one of the most important things is to stand out.

Heather Vaughan: Yeah. I'll just add on to that a bit.

Yes, specifics. In addition, I think that – depending on the word count of a supplemental essay, if you have some room to do so – I think telling stories is great. Not just saying, “I love bio because I love my bio class,” but telling a story about a really meaningful experience you had in the classroom, or outside of the classroom.

It's similar to how you make someone remember you when you meet them in person. If you tell them about you, and you're really authentic, and you give detail and texture and descriptive words… that can really help!

And then coming back to the question about the societal issue: I do think that it's a completely valid thought to ask, “How can I do this without sounding cliché?”

Many supplemental essays will ask you to address an issue that's important to you. I think the number one thing that you want to think about when approaching that essay is: choose something that you care about. Choose something that you care about! Do not worry about what you think the reader wants to hear.

All of us have things that we care about. If you're someone who thinks, “I care about this issue, but it's not that big of an issue…” Maybe you're not passionate about mass incarceration. Maybe you're passionate about something that's a little bit more local, or a little bit less hard-hitting. That's okay – because it's authentic to you.

I would never tell a student to write about something that they didn't know a lot about, [or] that they didn't care about, because it's not going to make a strong essay. Talk to us about something that's important to you. And bonus if you've already been involved in some way working on that issue, big or small – or if you see yourself working on that issue in the future!

Anthony Su: I do want to make sure everyone knows the obscure prompts that can come up. So we'll take a look at a couple of the University of Chicago supplements – just so people can brace themselves for the weird things that come up. 

Prompts are like, “What advice would a wisdom tooth have?” [Or] you're talking about a colony on Mars, and presenting humanity [to Martians]. [Or] Nobel prizes – and what would be a particular [new] category that you would create?

Why would an admissions office ask these questions, right? I think the real thought is they want to get at how you think and reason! So keep in mind that for some of these more complicated prompts – they want to hear, if you're going to write to your roommate, what are things that are going to be important to you? And think that you would want to communicate to someone you're going to live with, right? It's a more complex thing than just, “Write a letter to someone you'll meet.”

Just an additional layer of thought on the supplements – and the things that come up.

Last question – we're running out of time – but this is also a real, logistical question: “How much time should we realistically invest in the supplemental essays, along with Common App? We're looking at almost 25 essays already!”

There's definitely a logistical perspective also, helping with a college list – of potentially pulling it back from how many schools we're applying to. But also any additional thoughts, Kate, Heather, on the number of supplements?

Kate Schultz: Yeah, definitely. Like we were saying, this is why you can… I don't want to say “reuse,” because it's not going to be the exact, word-for-word, same essay. But this is why it's a great idea to use an essay for one school for another – while still tailoring it to the other school.

There is still going to be some editing, from essay to essay – based on the school. But you can reuse the bulk of the content of your essay for one school for another school – while changing the specific details – to save yourself some time and some energy.

Heather Vaughan: Yeah, I'll add on quickly a couple of logistical tips. The way that I approach this with my students is: the first thing is you want to know what your college list is. And then I would recommend that you create a spreadsheet with all of the schools, and then each supplemental essay prompt that you're going to have to write about.

For some schools you'll get to choose – and so you should write out those options. (All this really takes is a little bit of time: looking at the schools’ websites, or looking at the Common App, and just putting it all in one place.) Once you've got that, I would say it's a good idea to strategically (when you have the option to choose prompts) see if you can choose prompts that are similar to one another – so you can use the same essay for multiple schools.

And then how do you get started on the essays? I highly recommend doing a brainstorm: taking a look at all of those things you're gonna have to write about, and start brainstorming topics that you might write about for different essays – things that you want to make sure that the admissions readers know about you, that your Common App personal statement has not already communicated to them.

Let's say I wrote my Common App personal statement about my relationship with my family, and the places I've traveled with my family. Maybe, in my supplemental essays, I want to make sure that I also talk about my passion for a particular subject. And for the schools that don't offer a “Why major?” essay, I'm gonna see if I can write about my love of biology in a more abstract prompt.

So you're doing the brainstorming… and then, once it comes time to actually write each essay, you already have some brainstorming that you've done. So I would say try to outline a draft, and then do at least one round of edits – either with yourself or with another person – like if you're working with someone from ILUMIN.

But a couple of hours, I think, you can anticipate to work on each essay – and that can go down if you're overlapping a bit more.

Anthony Su: And yeah, this is for the thought of, “How much time, or how many drafts?” Common App is anywhere from four to eight drafts – just depending. It's a different number for each student, and depending on how they write.

But your supplemental essays are not less important than your Common App essay, because they are shorter, and because the prompts may be more specific, or they might be a little bit easier to tackle. It might take less time – but it does not mean it should take less thought going into it!

Heather Vaughan: Great way to put it.

Anthony Su: Thanks.

All right, I think we got all the questions today – which I'm very proud of! And definitely, of course, if you have any additional questions [or] thoughts, you can definitely reach out to us for our free consultations online, and you can definitely email us for our essays. I'll put the email in here as well: essays@ilumineducation.com.

Okay. Thanks, everyone!

Heather Vaughan: Thank you so much, everyone!

Kate Schultz: Thank you!

Anthony Su: I appreciate everyone joining us, and stay tuned – we'll still be putting out more content and things like that as well. All right, good night! Bye.