Webinar Transcript: Strengthening Supplemental Essays (2026)
Anna Lu
(This is a transcript of a webinar from September 2026, a recording of which you can find on our YouTube channel.)
Anna Lu: Thanks to everybody for joining us today. This webinar will be on Strengthening the Supplemental Essays, as you can see.
You probably know all about the Common App Personal Statement, and if you're applying to the University of California, you know about the UC PIQs … But many, if not most, colleges will also require their own school-specific supplemental essays. That's been changing a lot throughout the years, and there's all different kinds of prompts, and it can be really stressful to figure out exactly what every school wants.
And even though they're supplementals, it does not mean they're any less important. So, we're gonna definitely cover all we can today to really address how to get to the heart of these essays.
I'm joined today by Kyra and Ellie, and I'll let them introduce themselves, and I'll let them take it away. But also, at the very last 15 minutes-ish of this webinar, we will reserve just for questions. So throughout the webinar, if you have any questions, feel free to pop it into the little Q&A box in the webinar, and we'll just take some time at the end to really address it and get to all of them.
So, thank you so much for joining us, and I'll turn it over to Kyra and Ellie.
Kyra Jee (she/her): That's perfect, Anna, thank you for the introduction. And hello, everyone! Welcome to tonight's webinar on how to strengthen your supplemental essays.
Depending on how many schools you are applying for, you might be writing five, ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five of these essays this fall. So today, we would like to break them down, balance them out, and give you some actionable first steps that you can take when brainstorming.
My name is Kyra, and I am Director of Essay Services here at ILUMIN Education, and with me today is longtime member of ILUMIN’s essay specialist team, and the former Assistant Director of Undergraduate Admissions at GW, Ellie.
Ellie Frank (they/them): Hello! Thank you so much, Kyra. As mentioned, I have had the pleasure of working on both sides of the admissions desk, and I really, really enjoy bringing that to my current work with students, and I think that that experience helps me know a little bit about these supplemental essays—at least I would hope.
So, these colleges are not asking you to write supplemental essays to make the application process harder for you. Readers are using these essays to get to know a little bit more about who you are beyond just your grades and your scores. And when I was assistant director, I saw a lot of applicants miss the opportunities presented to them by these supplemental essays.
I think, especially in today's world, with, like, the rise of the use of AI in the application process, many applicants think that these essays are just, you know, boxes to check off, or items to complete when they're doing their applications.
But in reality, these are chances, these are opportunities for applicants to distinguish themselves, and to demonstrate to the reader their creative thinking abilities, and so I am particularly passionate about what a strong supplemental essay can add to an application, and excited to chat with you all today.
Thank you, Kyra.
Agenda
How can my Supplemental Essay strengthen my college apps?
How many Supplemental Essays do I need to write?
What do I write about in my Supplemental Essays?
What should I do first?!
Kyra Jee: Let's take a look at our agenda for today. So, we will be discussing how you can take advantage of these chances, as Ellie describes them, to highlight what makes your application unique.
We will be discussing what admission readers are looking for, and how to spot those key words across any prompt from any school—and we'll talk about how ILUMIN can help you, in particular, craft these top-notch supplemental essays for your own college list.
We are also currently, in the month of September, running a discount on our hourly essay consulting, so stay tuned for the code if you are a senior who's hoping to get started ASAP on getting your essays ready for 11/1!
Okay, Ellie, will you kick things off with our next slide? What are admission readers looking for?
What are admissions readers looking for in my Supplemental Essays?
Ultimately, readers want to see Fit to Major & Fit to Campus!
In addition to the Common App Personal Statement, many colleges will ask you to answer one or more Supplemental Essays.
Though each prompt is “school-specific,” they follow similar themes → meaning you can use similar topics across various schools.
Expand on your resume with richly detailed anecdotes that show readers who you are beyond your “stats.”
Ellie Frank: Absolutely, I can do that.
So, ultimately, college admissions readers are looking for what we call “fit to major” and “fit to campus.”
For those of you who might have watched our webinar on how to get started on the Common App Personal Statement, you might remember that most of your profile actually stays the same from school to school. So your Personal Common App Statement stays the same; your courses and grades stay the same; in most cases, whether or not you choose to submit your SAT or ACT scores also stays the same.
So these school-specific supplemental essays are your chance to explain, “I'm not just a great applicant for any school, I'm the perfect applicant for your specific campus.”
So, back to our slides. Most colleges will ask you to answer one or more supplemental essays, but even though each one is technically unique to that particular school, they ask for similar characteristics. They follow similar patterns. That means if you plan ahead, you can actually recycle some of your essays across different schools.
And when thinking about recycling those different essays, remember, this is where you can expand on your resume with richly detailed anecdotes that show readers who you are beyond just your statistics.
How many Supplemental Essays will I write?
Some colleges, like Boston University or NYU, require only one essay.
Others, like Duke or Purdue, ask for two or three essays.
Still others, like Yale or Stanford, ask for six to eight essays each!
Some essays are optional but encouraged, or are only required if you are applying to specific programs.
Maximum word limits typically range from 50 to 500 words each!
You can find prompts in the Common App Portal or on each college’s website.
Kyra Jee: Here's a few more quick facts before we get into the different types of supplemental essays. Some colleges, like Boston University or NYU, require only one essay from you. Others, like Duke or Purdue, might ask you for two or three. Others, like Yale and Stanford and MIT, might ask you for 6, 7, 8 different essays each.
So, that's an awful lot of essays, and they do kind of build up a workload over time. Just to give you an example—some of you might have heard me say this before, but—one of my seniors this year is applying to 12 schools, plus the UCs. She's writing about 20 different essays with me, right?
So… what that means is that it's good to plan ahead and build out your time in a given month ahead of your deadlines.
Now, some of these essays are not required, they are optional; but I always say, if they're relevant to you, you should think about answering them. There are some that are only relevant for specific programs.
So, an example of a specific program might be the 450-word essay that applicants to UW Seattle's Honors Program would be asked to write. So, to apply to UW at all, all they need is your Common App, but if you're interested in being considered for the Honors Program, that's that one more essay.
Purdue's Honors Program has 4 extra Essays that you might be writing. Brown's PLME [Program in Liberal Medical Education] application kind of doubles the amount of work that you're doing. So if you haven't done so already, a little bit of research into what exactly lies ahead of you will help you bracket out your time.
Maximum word limits for these essays typically range from 50 to 500 words each. Probably more common is, like, 250 to 300 words.
You can find all of the prompts for your schools in the Common App portal, or on each college's specific website, and today, Ellie and I will be showing a few of those essays to you today.
So, what are the different types of Supplemental Essay prompts?
Kyra Jee: So… what are the different types of supplemental essay prompts?
What are the different “types” of prompt?
We’ve broken essays prompts down into five key “types” that are in high demand.
Why Us - What makes you a great fit for this specific school?
Why Major - Can you show curiosity, dedication, AND talent for this field?
Unique Contributions - How will you fit into our campus community?
Worldview - How do you react to new ideas or opposing perspectives?
Creative Thinking - What else should we know about you as an applicant?
Psst! The most important, and most commonly asked-for prompts, are always Why Us and Why Major. Worldview prompts are currently surging in popularity. Creative Thinking sounds like a blank canvas, but should always be used to fill a “gap” that’s otherwise missing in your story.
Ellie Frank: What are the different types of prompts? Well, we've broken them down into 5 key types that you'll find widely across all of your different schools.
Number one: “Why Us?” What makes you a great fit for this specific school?
Number two, “Why Major?” Can you show curiosity, dedication, and talent for the field that you're applying to?
Number three, “Unique Contributions.” How will you uniquely fit into and contribute to our campus community?
Number four, “Worldview.” How do you react to new ideas or opposing perspectives?
And number five, “Creative Thinking.” What else should we know about you as an applicant?
The most important and commonly-asked-for prompts are the first two, the “Why Us” and “Why Major”; you'll find those at most of the schools you're applying to. Worldview prompts are currently surging in popularity, so you'll find them at more and more schools. And creative thinking might sound kind of like a blank canvas, but it's a great way to kind of fill in a gap that's in your application, where you want to tell a little bit more about your story and who you are.
So that leads us to our next big takeaway. Kyra?
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.
Before you start writing, make a list of every prompt, for every school, and figure out what “type” of question(s) they’re asking.
Kyra Jee: Yes. Okay, reduce, reuse, recycle.
This is one of the very first activities that we do with our ILUMIN students once the college list has been finalized. Before you start writing, make a list of every prompt for every school with all the word counts and all the deadlines, and figure out what type of questions they are asking you. Let me show you an example of this on the next slide.
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!
Here’s an example of what your list might look like:
UIUC: Why Major 150, Career Goals 150, Why Alternate Major 150
Purdue: Why Major 250, Why Us 250, Why Alternate Major 250
USC: Why Us / Why Major 250, Expanding your Worldview 250, 10 Quick Takes
Michigan: Unique Contributions 300, Why Us / Why Major 550
Then, when you see that most of the Virginia Tech and U. of Maryland essays are about Creative Thinking, you can start by asking, ”Where can I recycle my favorite anecdotes first?”
Kyra Jee: So, here is a snippet of what your reduce, reuse, recycle list of Supplemental Essays might look like. We have here a hypothetical student, an engineering student, who's applying to schools like UIUC; Purdue; USC; Michigan; Virginia Tech; University of Maryland, College Park.
So, for this student of mine, we can say—and actually, this one's kind of hypothetical and kind of very, very real—but I would sit down with my student, and we would translate every single one of the prompts they are writing into one of those key types.
We color-coded it here, so do you see the patterns?
We can start off by writing a very strong UIUC “Why major?” essay—we get right to the heart of it in just 150 words—and then, once it's solid and reliable and catchy and compelling, we can just recycle it into the start of a 250-word “Why major?” essay for Purdue.
So, for my senior that I mentioned, writing 20 essays for 12 schools—I mean, in actuality, it's more like 7 or 8 unique essays we're writing, and then we're treating them more like a sourdough starter that will help kick off the other parts of her other school's applications. That one “Why major?” essay can be used now for UIUC, Purdue, USC, and Michigan.
Kind of like magic, one essay becomes four.
So, of course, I'm also helping her to do very specific research into each of those campuses, trying to figure out what makes each of those programs unique to each other, and kind of drawing these connections between her own past experiences in high school to what kind of student she'll be on each of those campuses.
But the hardest part, which is just getting started with a good idea for a “Why major?” essay—we've just made that so much easier, right?
So, once you have blocked out where you can reduce, reuse, recycle your anecdotes, it also gives you the opportunity to, kind of, not start from scratch every time you have unusual prompts.
So, if you were to take a look at the four essays for Virginia Tech, or the six essays for the University of Maryland, College Park, and you're thinking, “Wow, these all are really open-ended prompts about, like, creative thinking. They don't automatically fit into “Why Major” or “Why Us”—well, that's okay. You can do that for them. You can ask, “Where can I recycle my favorite anecdotes, my favorite experiences from my resume, my favorite moments from the high school experience, and use them to kickstart my essays for other schools?”
Okay, so Ellie gave you a quick rundown of all of those prompts, but brace yourselves, because we are about to go through them all one by one, with examples and a lot of details. Okay, we ready?
1. Why Us
Translation:
Besides prestige, what do you know about our campus, curriculum, and philosophy?
What activities, classes, and research do you see yourself doing here? → Help us envision your impact on our campus.
What should I do first?
Make two lists: your reasons to apply, and the key personality traits you’ve demonstrated in high school. Where do they overlap?
Let’s look at some examples!
“Why are you interested in attending Columbia University? We encourage you to consider the aspect(s) that you find unique and compelling about Columbia.” (150)
“What about being a student at BU most excites you?” (Boston University, 300)
Ellie Frank: Awesome. So the first type we're looking at today is the “Why Us”, the classic. Let's look at two examples to start.
First, from Columbia. “Why are you interested in attending Columbia University? We encourage you to consider the aspects that you find unique and compelling about Columbia.” 150 words.
And then from Boston University: “What about being a student at BU most excites you?” 300 words.
Now, let's translate that. So they're asking: “Besides prestige”—you know, Columbia's prestigious, BU's prestigious—”besides prestige, what do you know about our campus, curriculum, and philosophy? And also, what activities, classes, and research do you see yourself doing here?” What they're really saying is, “Help us envision your impact on our campus.”
For those of you seniors, I can almost guarantee that you'll be writing a handful of these “Why Us” essays, so what should you do first?
Well, the first thing my students and I do together is we make two lists. Number one, there's specific reasons for applying to that campus—you know, you've visited the websites, you've talked to the college reps that have been to your high school, and they've come up with one or two core… one or two or three things they're really excited about with the school. And then they make a second list of their core characteristics and activities and personality traits that they've demonstrated in high school.
And they think to themselves, where do these overlap? My love for this institution and the cool things I've done—how can I connect them? So, for example, if you love the open curriculum at Amherst College for the incredible and interdisciplinary flexibility, then you might want to draw attention to the classes you've chosen to take, both in and out of school, that have helped you create a really dynamic high school education.
So, when you're writing these essays, think to yourselves: Where do your reasons to apply and the characteristics that you can demonstrate overlap?
When you're describing why you want to apply, it's important not to just state what opportunities the school has—they already know their opportunities, right, they're super excited about them—but how you personally are going to take advantage of them as a student on their campus.
2. Why Major
Translation:
Can you demonstrate curiosity, dedication, AND talent for this field?
Elaborate on how major-related extracurriculars (clubs, research, classes) have impacted your future education & career goals.
What should I do first?
Draw a connection between your past experiences and future career goals. What steps have you already taken to challenge yourself?
Let’s look at some examples!
“Why are you interested in the major you indicated as your first-choice?” (U-T Austin, 300)
“Explain, in detail, an experience you’ve had in the past 3 to 4 years related to your first-choice major.” (UIUC, 150)
Kyra Jee: Good. The second type of prompt we'll share with you today is another classic, the “Why Major.”
Here are a couple of examples. We have one from UT Austin, and then from UIUC.
“In 300 words, can you explain why [you are] interested in the major you indicated as your first choice?” And, here we go: ”Can you explain in detail an experience you've had in the past 3 to 4 years related to your first choice major?”
So this is what we mean by saying that every prompt is technically unique, but really, they all fall into the buckets of these “Why Us,” “Why Major,” et cetera, et cetera categories that we're going to go through together today. Pretty straightforward.
But even though the question is as straightforward as can be—”Why are you interested in this subject?” Here's the thing that most students miss when they're first drafting a “Why Major” essay: Can you demonstrate curiosity, and dedication, and talent to your major all at once?
So, what I mean by that is that it's not enough to just be curious. Readers want to know how that curiosity motivated you to explore. An example of this might be, you know, like, “I realized I wanted to be an engineer from [the] 7th grade, and I loved the process of putting things together with my hands.”
It's like, good! Excellent first catalyst for middle school you, but hopefully you've had some success in that field, and you have demonstrated dedication to that field after 7th grade.
So, your anecdotes should really be coming from your high school years, and it's not so much about the origin story, it's about: How did that first origin story spark then lead you into your dedication, and your talent, and your success, and how you've chosen to spend your time?
Another way that I think students can sometimes miss an opportunity with a “Why Major” prompt is that they will be tempted to answer this question in ideas only, and they'll forget to talk about their activities
So, a student might say to me, “I want to be a doctor because I want to help people.” Or, again, engineering—“I want to be an engineer so I can solve real-world problems.” And I say, “Good! But so does everybody else in your major, right?” That's just an idea. It's a little bit intangible. So how can you make that answer more concrete? What steps have you already taken to challenge yourself?
So instead of just, “I want to help people,” maybe you can write me something more like,
“When I realized I wanted to become a doctor, I began searching for opportunities to learn more about healthcare. So, [in the] summer before senior year, I worked as a lifeguard at my local community center, where I got certified in first aid, in CPR, and AED training.” Real example.
So, talking more specifically about how your extracurriculars have led you to your interest in this field will help you not only show off all of the great work that you've poured your heart and soul into for 4 years, but it will also help you set yourself apart from the crowd by kind of describing more of what's on your activities list, with a little bit more heart. Yeah.
The Activities List will already provide a BRIEF overview of your resume.
Use Why Major essays to enrich, not repeat. Go into detail about what skills and lessons you learned along the way.
Ellie Frank: We're gonna say it again, too, because it's so important, what Kyra just mentioned about talking about your activities list with heart—but you're also going to want to be really specific about how those actions and experiences in high school have led you to this major.
So remember, the activity list will already provide a brief overview of your resume. You're going to use the “Why Major” essays to enrich, not repeat. Go into detail about what skills and lessons you learned along the way, just like the example Kyra just shared.
Why Us / Why Major
Let’s look at some examples!
“Describe the unique qualities that attract you to the specific undergraduate College or School [at the University of Michigan]. How would that curriculum support your interests?” (550)
“Describe how you plan to pursue your academic interests and why you want to explore them at USC specifically. Please feel free to address your first- and second-choice major selections.” (250)
Sometimes, prompt “types” overlap with each other.
That’s okay!
Approach these using the same strategies we normally recommend for Why Us and Why Major.
Kyra Jee: Good. Okay.
So, we've introduced you to the first two types of supplemental essays, “Why Us” and “Why Major,” but sometimes prompt types overlap with each other, and you will just have to answer both questions in your essay, which is okay.
This example over here on the right of my slide is just like that. It's from the University of Michigan—Ann Arbor. This is actually a shortened version of the prompt—it's quite a long prompt—but the main question here asks you to: “Describe the unique qualities that attract you to the specific undergraduate college or school at the University of Michigan for which you are applying. How would that curriculum support your interests?”
Here's another example from USC. Again, they're just combining that “Why Us” and “Why Major” into one essay. “Describe how you plan to pursue your academic interests, and why you want to explore them at USC specifically. Please feel free to address your first and or second choice major selections.”
So, just take a look over there at that University of Michigan prompt. 550 words is the maximum for that essay. That's almost as long as your Common App Personal Statement is, but it's so long because they are asking you to do your research into their campus, into their curriculum, and to make a connection between your past resume experiences and, you know, your potential experiences as a future Wolverine.
That's why it's so important to do your reduce, reuse, recycle activity—probably right now, if you haven't done it yet—so that way you can look back and see, “Do I already have a ‘Why Us’ and a ‘Why Major’ essay I can weave together to get me started on a combined ‘Why Us/Why Major’ essay?
3. Community & Unique Contributions
There are two ways to translate these prompts!
Has an aspect of your identity (including but not limited to your upbringing, culture, religion, gender, sexuality, health, or family) or an important experience had a significant impact on your worldview?
How have you positively impacted your community?
What should I do first?
When answering these prompts, think critically about the communities that have shaped you. How do your identities, important life experiences, or upbringing influence how you relate to others?
Let’s look at some examples!
“Please describe what aspects of your life experiences, interests, and character would help you make a distinctive contribution as an undergraduate to Stanford University.” (250)
“What aspects of your background (your identity, your school setting, your community, your household, etc.) have most shaped how you see yourself engaging in Northwestern’s community, be it academically, extracurricularly, culturally, politically, socially, or otherwise?” (Northwestern, 300)
Ellie Frank: So, now we're gonna move into the third type of prompt, a little bit different—we call this the “Community and Unique Contributions” prompt. Let's take a look at some examples, first from Stanford, and then from Northwestern.
So, first up: “Please describe what aspects of your life experiences, interests, and character would help you make a distinctive contribution as an undergrad to Stanford University.” 250 words.
And then from Northwestern: “What aspects of your background, so your identity, your school setting, your community, your household, et cetera have most shaped how you would see yourself engaging in Northwestern's community, be it academically, extracurricularly, culturally, politically, socially, or otherwise?” 300 words.
I think it's really important to note that these prompts are looking to find out how you could make positive and unique contributions to their campus/their community.
So two ways you could translate these. The first: “Has an aspect of your identity, including but not limited to your upbringing, your culture, religion, gender, sexuality, health, or family, or an important experience you've had had a significant impact on your worldview?” Another could be: “How have you positively impacted your community?”
So, what should you do first when approaching these prompts? They can be kind of difficult.
Well, think critically about how the communities you've been in have shaped you. You know, how do your different identities, important life experiences, or upbringing influence how you relate to others and the world around you?
Kyra Jee: I want to add one… I want to add one thing here at the end. Look at how massive those prompts are, and look at how many examples they try to provide you with, right?
Stanford is asking for your life experiences, or your interests, or your character. Northwestern is interested in your background, or your identity, or school setting, or community, or household, academically, extracurricularly, culturally. They give you a ton of options.
So, what does that tell us? It tells us that they're not looking for any one, lock it in, there's only one right answer for this prompt. It is a myth that these top schools are looking for someone who is … what we might call a spike in every single direction. They're trying to make a class full of—or rather, I should say, what's a better way to put that?
I think it's a myth to say that schools are really looking for everyone to be generalists, good at everything. The truth is that schools are looking for students with a spike, that can put forward some unique aspect of the way they think, and the way that they are approaching their future major and career. And so that way, these schools can have a class that does cover all those things, because their individual students are coming at it from different angles.
So maybe the way that you approach one of these prompts [could be that] you have something really important you want to say about … your heritage or your relationship to your culture, and that's really important, you want to talk about it—excellent place to do this. Or if you don't want to talk about that, but you do have a community that you feel you are a part of by choice, and that is something that you are very proud of and want to talk about—also a great place to do it.
There's no wrong way to write a community or unique contributions essay, as long as you are looking at how [you have] positively impacted the people around you.
Ellie Frank: I totally agree. And, like, how have you shown your authentic self, and how has your authentic self been created?
Just so sorry, Kyra, slight aside: One of my favorite essays I ever read for this Stanford prompt was a student talking about their leadership in the competitive ping pong community. And it was really amazing, talking about, like, how did that community impact them? How did they impact it?
So there's no one right answer for any of these prompts. It's more about how you're writing it and what you're letting the reader see about you as an applicant.
Okay, awesome, on to the next one.
4. Worldview
Translation:
In college, you’ll be faced with new ideas that challenge your worldview. Can you navigate complex conversations with respect, empathy, and open-mindedness?
What should I do first?
Take a moment for self-reflection.
When has your worldview been challenged?
When have you challenged someone else’s?
How has that influenced how you relate to others?
Let’s look at some examples!
“Describe a time when you disagreed with someone you know about something important to you. Did you change your mind or reach common ground?” (USC, 250)
“We are looking for students who want to be bridge builders [...] Tell us about a time you encountered a perspective different from your own. What did you learn—about yourself, the other person, or the world?” (NYU, 300)
Kyra Jee: Alright, so the fourth type of prompt is about expanding your worldview. As some of you audience watchers might know, there are some colleges that keep their prompts pretty much the same from year to year, while others like to mix it up. And there were a lot of colleges this year that introduced prompts about expanding your worldview—very with the times.
So let's look at some examples, first from USC, and then from NYU.
We have, “Describe a time when you disagreed with someone you know about something important to you. Did you change your mind or reach common ground?”
And then NYU's bridge builder prompt: “We are looking for students who want to be bridge builders. Tell us about a time you encountered a perspective different from your own. What did you learn about yourself, the other person, or the world?”
So, let's translate that. In college, hopefully, you will be faced with new ideas that challenge your worldview. What colleges really want to know is, when you're faced with those ideas, can you navigate complex challenges and complex conversations with respect, with empathy, with open-mindedness?
Now, you might have a resume-related experience that will help you answer this question in a concrete way. So, for example, a poli-sci student who spent their summer advocating for a social justice issue they find very meaningful to them—well, they might be able to describe a time that is very major-related.
But the truth is that usually, expanding your worldview has very little to do with their resume at all. Sometimes it's a hard conversation at the dinner table, or with your best friend, or with a favorite relative.
So, if you are looking at those prompts, “Describe a time when you disagreed with someone,” and you're like, “Okay, I know exactly what I want to write about, and I remember exactly what this case was,” then you're off to a good start.
But if you're looking at these prompts and you're thinking, “I don't quite know if I have one that's jumping to mind,” well, that's okay. Because this essay is not really about the exact topic you are dialoguing about. Rather, colleges are asking you, again, “Can you have a respectful and productive discussion about difficult things? Can you show compassion and a willingness to learn when engaging with people who think differently from you?”
So, you can sit down with this prompt and take a little bit of time to do some self-reflection. Try and make yourself a little bit of a list. When has your worldview been rocked by a conversation or meeting somebody new? When have you challenged someone else's worldview in the classroom, or at home, or just in the world? And from those experiences, how have those things influenced the way that you relate to other people?
5. Creative Thinking
Translation:
What drives you? What brings you joy? What questions do you have about the world around you? Why do you think those questions are worth pursuing?
How does your thought process work? Not just WHAT you believe but the WAY you think. Can you demonstrate your problem-solving, creativity, and critical thinking skills in writing?
Let’s look at some examples!
“Consider your application as a whole. What do you personally want to emphasize about your application for the admission committee’s consideration? Highlight something that’s important to you or something you haven’t had a chance to share.” (CMU, 300)
“If you could teach any college course, write a book, or create an original piece of art of any kind, what would it be?” (Yale, 200 characters, which is about 35 words)
“Brown students care deeply about their work and the world around them. Students find contentment, satisfaction, and meaning in daily interactions and major discoveries. Whether big or small, mundane or spectacular, tell us about something that brings you joy.” (150)
“Describe a goal that you have set and the steps you will take to achieve it. What made you set this goal for yourself? What is your timeline to achieve this goal? Who do you seek encouragement or guidance from and how do they support your progress as you work on this goal?” (Virginia Tech, 120)
Ellie Frank: Alright, y'all, we are almost at the end. Thank you so much for your time tonight. But let's dive into our last type of prompt, creative thinking.
So, these prompts don't quite fit into one of our first four categories, but don't worry, we have some strategies for working with them, too.
And these are actually my favorite prompts to work with students on, because I think that they are some of the most interesting, in my opinion. And I say that both as a writer and a reader. I really loved reading these when I was working in admissions. They were so fun.
So, we have some examples here; let me jump into a couple of them.
First, from Yale: “If you could teach any college course, write a book, or create an original piece of art of any kind, what would it be?”
And then we have four examples here, but I'm just gonna read two of them. The second one is from Virginia Tech. “Describe a goal that you have set, and the steps you will take to achieve it. What made you set this goal for yourself? What is your timeline to achieve this goal? Who do you seek encouragement or guidance from, and how do they support your progress as you work on this goal?”
So these prompts are trying to learn a bit more about you. How do you think? What is your problem-solving process? What, beyond academics and work, brings you joy, curiosity, delight?
And again, these are some of my favorite prompts because they are giving the reader a peek behind the curtain. They're letting them know more about the person who is the applicant, and not just the student who is the applicant. So it's really giving that great full picture.
Let's translate these a little bit.
What drives you? What brings you joy? What questions do you have about the world around you, and why do you think those questions are worth pursuing? These are also asking, how does your thought process work? So not just what do you believe, but the way that you think, you know? Can you demonstrate your problem solving, your creativity, and your critical thinking skills in writing? Because that is something you'll be asked to do in college as well, so this is kind of like a test run.
But these are super fun, even if they can seem a little scary because they're open-ended—remember, translate them down. How does your thought process work?
Okay, I'll hand it back to you, Kyra.
Bonus! 6. Quick Takes
Let’s look at some examples!
from Stanford, 50 words each:
What is the most significant challenge that society faces today?
How did you spend your last two summers?
from Princeton, 50 words each:
What brings you joy?
What song represents the soundtrack of your life at this moment?
from MIT, 50 words each:
Who is someone you admire, whether you know them personally or look up to them from afar? Tell us why.
MIT values both “generalists” with varied interests and “specialists” who focus deeply on one or a few passions. Which do you think best describes you, and why?
While most Supplemental Essay prompts have a word limit ranging from 250 to 500 words, Quick Takes are designed for extreme brevity: 100 words, 50 words, or even
100 characters only!
What should I do first?
Take risks.
Be opinionated.
Think outside the box.
Use incredible amounts of detail. The more precise, the better.
Kyra Jee: Now, we told you we only had 5 different types of essays, but just kidding, one more slide. Welcome to the Quick Takes! We are being very thorough tonight.
So, while most of the supplemental essay prompts—and you saw this as we went through our samples—most of them have a word limit that ranges from, like, 250 or 300 to 500 words. Quick Takes are designed for extreme brevity. These are the essays that might be only 100 words long, or 50 words long, or even 100 characters.
So, let's take a look at some examples. I've got a bunch on screen from Stanford, Princeton, and MIT. I'm not going to read all six of them to you, but I'll read a couple.
We've got here from Stanford, “What is the most significant challenge that society faces today?” Princeton wants to know, “What song represents the soundtrack of your life at the moment?” MIT wants to know, “Who is someone you admire, whether you know them personally or look up to them from afar, and tell us why?”
So, how on earth do we take advantage of such limited space? Take risks, and be very, very detailed.
I can't tell you how many students have brought me a first draft for this Stanford prompt of “What's the most significant challenge that society faces?” where the drafts just say, “Prejudice,” or, “People aren't willing to compromise anymore.”
Yes, those are challenges. They are important challenges, but they are very, very vague. Can you tell me why those things matter to you? Can you tell me why those problems have impacted your life, or how they might impact what kind of academic research or academic endeavors you want to pursue through higher education?
One of the most memorable answers, on the other hand, to this prompt that I've ever seen was from a biology student—like a pre-med biology student. They didn't just say climate change, or carbon footprint, or environmentalism. With their 50 words, they talked about the incredible waste that is generated every day by single-use plastics in lab settings, like with pipettes. It's very interesting.
And it just showed … this level of observation and care for even the tiniest minutiae in their, you know, impressive, intensive research experience—they were also thinking about the little things.
And your essays should say the same thing, too. So yes, take risks, be opinionated, and use incredible amounts of detail. The more precise, the better. And I would honestly say that “take risks, be opinionated, and use a lot of detail” are probably true for every other type of prompt that we've looked at together as well.
Ellie Frank: I totally agree, Kyra. I love that example, too, of the pipettes. That's… it's one of those that sticks in your mind. It really helps that student distinguish themselves, right?
And so, this brings us to our last big takeaway of the evening.
Prompts are opportunities, not obstacles. Make sure your application includes everything you need it to.
Ellie Frank: Prompts are opportunities, not obstacles. Make sure your application includes everything you need it to. And this is a good place for you to be able to add in any other little details that you may want to show off to the reader, right?
These essays are your chance to stand out from the crowd, so take full advantage. Share those unique experiences, share those aspects of your authentic self, share those really interesting little thoughts, such as … we need less pipettes in the lab setting. That helps you stick in the reader's mind, and helps them learn if you might be a good fit for their campus setting.
These are your chance to let the reader get to know you, so take that advantage.
Kyra Jee: Well put.
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Kyra Jee: Well… now that you've had a chance to shake hands with all of the different types of supplemental essay prompts and their strategies, sounds to me like your next step is applying these big takeaways to your own writing, so that you can feel very confident and prepared to submit your own college application essays this fall for my seniors.
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Kyra Jee: And that's everything that we have to share with you for our webinar today. Anna, how much time do we have for questions?
Anna Lu: We have a lot of time for questions. Again, if you have any questions, feel free to drop them in the Q&A box, but in the meantime, we'll get started with what we have.
So, someone asks, specifically regarding, you know, the word limit that we're often faced with with the supplemental essays. The USC “Why Us/Why Major,” for example, is just 250 words, as are a lot of other supplemental essays. Do you have any tips on how to write this kind of essay if the word count is so low?
Ellie Frank: I can jump in and say… great question.
There's a few, like, small grammatical tips [I can give], like, use the active voice, not the passive voice, right? But most of it is being as effective as you can with the examples that you choose.
So, a lot of y'all will have very impressive activities lists. You don't necessarily need to mention every single thing you've done that even tangentially relates to your “Why Major” or “Why Us.” It's more impactful, in my opinion, to pick a few really strong examples that you can concretely tie to examples from the school, or to the major, and that you can give those little personal details that really show that you've done the work in high school, and you're able to pick what's meaningful to you—but also, I think, just being effective with how you're listing things, and how you're putting things in. Start with a longer draft, and then you—or I think ideally someone else, because it's easier to have someone else read it, but—you edit it down to get that really tight 250 [word count].
Kyra Jee: I couldn't have said it better myself. I like all of those—the short grammatical suggestions, starting with your most punchy examples instead of feeling the panic of trying to fit everything in there, and always start with a longer draft before you whittle it back down.
Anna Lu: I suppose an extension of that question could be: Any advice on how to tackle those quick ticks that you addressed earlier, where you have an extremely limited amount of space to answer those questions?
Kyra Jee: I love the quick takes so much, because they're very silly, is the truth. I think that… so for the schools that we… let's take the 100-character example. We're just hanging out with USC for another question here.
So, USC—you'll have one or two 250-word essays to really try to get across the bulk of your intellectual curiosity and vibrancy, to get across your willingness to compromise and your open-minded perspective about the world.
Those 100-character, 10-word answers—they are not something to lose sleep over. You do not have to, like, architect them to the tiniest decimal every single time. I would say, again, take risks and be opinionated in coming up with not worrying about a safe answer to something like, you know, “What's the theme song of your life?”
The theme song of your life is not going to break your application. But it might give us a little bit more, like, color or texture to your personality, and tell us a bit more about your effervescence as a person, or your intensity.
So I would say be your… be your quirkiest, weirdest self. Don't worry about playing it safe.
Anna Lu: Have you ever seen anyone answer those questions in bullet points?
Kyra Jee: I have. I have.
I would say my only caveat for taking risks is if the prompt [says to] only provide one word at a time, [then] only provide one word at a time. So, the first three quick takes for USC are what are three words that describe you? You know, just give them one word each.
But other than that, I think, yeah, they don't have to be complete sentences either. That is also true for your activities list. Treat it more like a resume. Verbs first, and the rest will follow.
Anna Lu: All right. Well, with that—last call for questions, I'll give everyone another minute, but otherwise, I'm just going to assume that you had an extremely thorough presentation.
Oh, okay, one last person. “What would be a good example to approach Stanford's ‘What did you do in the past two summers?’ prompt? Is it better to be really comprehensive and show the spectrum of activities, or just focus on a couple and elaborate on the impact of those?
Ellie Frank: What do you think, Kyra?
Kyra Jee: [laughs] With that summer essay, I would say remember what you are already providing to Stanford across your other application aspects. So, if all you can do in 50 words is just restate identical text to what's in your activities list, it's a missed opportunity! So instead, I would really, like, sit down and try to think about another dimension of who you are outside of what you've already provided.
So, for an actual concrete example, I would… I once had a student—another biomed student, a lot of those [applying] to Stanford—another pre-med bio student who had some really extensive research experience, and we were trying to say, like, “Okay, should we use these 50-word essays to just, like, really, really drive home the research?”
And what we ultimately ended up strategizing on was, like, “No, no, you have 250 words to talk about what major and what, you know, topics of academic curiosity interest you; write me about something else that brought you joy over this summer, something that you didn't have to do, but something that you found engaging.”
And she said… she ended up writing me an essay about teaching her mother—or her grandmother teaching her Korean, and then her teaching her grandmother a little bit of K-pop dancing over the summer, and that it was just a really meaningful and fun way to reconnect with her grandmother after, you know, kind of growing up and growing distant.
And so we did have some deeper themes, you know—we could talk about culture, and we could talk about reconnecting with your roots—but also we were talking about K-pop in an essay to Stanford, and it worked great. So I would say focus on what brings you joy, and then again, get as specific as you possibly can.
Ellie Frank: And to jump off there, too, I think something that's important to know when writing these essays is, how do they work not just in a vacuum, but how do they work together? Because Stanford has multiple different supplements, and you don't want to be talking about the same thing for every single one, right? So, that's something that, like, I'll do with my students, is I'll be like, “Okay, so, like, we're gonna game plan the essays, we're gonna look at all the ‘Why Major’ essays you have, but you know what? For the Stanford ‘Why Major,’ if you're talking about robotics in your ‘significant challenge that society faces,’ let's also add in a different example from your resume or high school experience to that ‘Why Major’ essay, and we'll shuffle it around a bit, because you don't want every single supplement to be talking about the exact same thing. I promise you, you've done so much in four years. way more than you even think you know. You're gonna have a lot to talk about, and you want to make sure that you're being as effective as possible when using the space that's available to you. And these supplements are a great space for that.”
Anna Lu: All right, thank you so much.
And with that, I think we're gonna be able to log off a little bit early today, but thanks so much to everyone for joining us. Please feel free to reach out. We have that lovely coupon code that you can apply if you would like to talk more one-on-one with any of our specialists about your very specific essays.
This has all been pretty general advice, and as any good college essay should be, it should be very unique to you. So, if you would like some help with that, you can certainly reach out.
Any last words, Kyra? Ellie?
Kyra Jee: We've been very excited to have you with us, and we hope to get to know you and your essays one-on-one.
Thanks so much.
Anna Lu: Thank you so much, everybody.
This will be uploaded to YouTube if you miss anything, but thank you so much. Hope to see you join us at future webinars. Bye-bye!