all ivy league supplemental essays

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8 Strong Ivy League Essay Examples

What’s covered:.

Essay 1: Princeton
Essay 2: Cornell
Essay 3: Yale
Essay 4: Brown
Essay 5: UPenn
Essay 6: Dartmouth
Essay 7: Columbia
Essay 8: Harvard
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The Ivy League consists of eight private institutions on the East Coast, known for having extremely competitive admissions rates. The following schools are in the Ivy League: Princeton, Harvard, Yale, Columbia, UPenn, Cornell, Brown, and Dartmouth.

These schools all have their own supplemental essays, ranging from typical topics like “ Why This College? ” to more unique topics that change from year to year. Because the Ivies are some of the most competitive schools in the country, your essays are crucial for you to showcase aspects of yourself that might not be apparent from other parts of your application.

In this post, we’ll provide a strong essay example for each Ivy and explain what each did well and where they could be improved. Read on to learn more about how to craft a compelling narrative!

Please note: Looking at examples of real essays students have submitted to colleges can be very beneficial to get inspiration for your essays. You should never copy or plagiarize from these examples when writing your own essays. Colleges can tell when an essay isn’t genuine and will not view students favorably if they plagiarized.

Essay #1: Princeton

Prompt: Using a favorite quotation from an essay or book you have read in the last three years as a starting point, tell us about an event or experience that helped you define one of your values or changed how you approach the world. Please write the quotation, title and author at the beginning of your essay. (250-650 words)

“One of the great challenges of our time is that the disparities we face today have more complex causes and point less straightforwardly to solutions.”

– Omar Wasow, assistant professor of politics, Princeton University. This quote is taken from Professor Wasow’s January 2014 speech at the Martin Luther King Day celebration at Princeton University .

The air is crisp and cool, nipping at my ears as I walk under a curtain of darkness that drapes over the sky, starless. It is a Friday night in downtown Corpus Christi, a rare moment of peace in my home city filled with the laughter of strangers and colorful lights of street vendors. But I cannot focus.

My feet stride quickly down the sidewalk, my hand grasps on to the pepper spray my parents gifted me for my sixteenth birthday. My eyes ignore the surrounding city life, focusing instead on a pair of tall figures walking in my direction. I mentally ask myself if they turned with me on the last street corner. I do not remember, so I pick up the pace again. All the while, my mind runs over stories of young women being assaulted, kidnapped, and raped on the street. I remember my mother’s voice reminding me to keep my chin up, back straight, eyes and ears alert.

At a young age, I learned that harassment is a part of daily life for women. I fell victim to period-shaming when I was thirteen, received my first catcall when I was fourteen, and was nonconsensually grabbed by a man soliciting on the street when I was fifteen. For women, assault does not just happen to us— its gory details leave an imprint in our lives, infecting the way we perceive the world. And while movements such as the Women’s March and #MeToo have given victims of sexual violence a voice, harassment still manifests itself in the lives of millions of women across the nation. Symbolic gestures are important in spreading awareness but, upon learning that a surprising number of men are oblivious to the frequent harassment that women experience, I now realize that addressing this complex issue requires a deeper level of activism within our local communities.

Frustrated with incessant cases of harassment against women, I understood at sixteen years old that change necessitates action. During my junior year, I became an intern with a judge whose campaign for office focused on a need for domestic violence reform. This experience enabled me to engage in constructive dialogue with middle and high school students on how to prevent domestic violence. As I listened to young men uneasily admit their ignorance and young women bravely share their experiences in an effort to spread awareness, I learned that breaking down systems of inequity requires changing an entire culture. I once believed that the problem of harassment would dissipate after politicians and celebrities denounce inappropriate behavior to their global audience. But today, I see that effecting large-scale change comes from the “small” lessons we teach at home and in schools. Concerning women’s empowerment, the effects of Hollywood activism do not trickle down enough. Activism must also trickle up and it depends on our willingness to fight complacency.

Finding the solution to the long-lasting problem of violence against women is a work-in-progress, but it is a process that is persistently moving. In my life, for every uncomfortable conversation that I bridge, I make the world a bit more sensitive to the unspoken struggle that it is to be a woman. I am no longer passively waiting for others to let me live in a world where I can stand alone under the expanse of darkness on a city street, utterly alone and at peace. I, too, deserve the night sky.

What the Essay Did Well

There are many positives to this essay. To begin with, launching into the essay with multi sensory imagery in the anecdote was really effective at drawing the reader in. The audiovisual context (laughter, street vendors) keeps the scene alive and fully immerses the reader, while the internal narration illustrates how this student looks at the world. The contrast between the imagery of the external scene and the internal thoughts and feelings fully immerses the reader in the essay and alludes to the overarching theme of things being more complicated than they seem on the outside.

Another good thing this essay did was provide a personal account of this student’s experiences with harassment. This established their authority to speak on the topic and underscores their essay with authenticity. They then “zoom out” to provide relevant background information that supplies additional context for readers who might not be that familiar with the extent of the issue at hand. By relating their personal stories to the large-scale issue at hand, they simultaneously develop a personal connection while demonstrating an understanding of a serious global issue.

What really could’ve made or broken this essay was the quote the student chose. Allowing you to choose any quote, this is an extremely open-ended prompt which gives students the opportunity to write about whatever they choose. This student did an excellent job of picking a quote that isn’t well-known or significant, but fit perfectly into the narrative they were trying to express in this essay. The approach the student likely took with this prompt is figuring out what experience they wanted to discuss and finding a quote that fit, rather than picking a quote first. This approach made for an essay that existed independently from the quote and didn’t rely on it as a crutch.

All together, the essay feels cohesive with every part relating back to the overarching theme of diving deeper than the surface level of things. The student’s vulnerability and personal reflection throughout the essay helps carry the theme through each paragraph. Even the conclusion does a great job of circling back to the anecdote at the beginning, bringing the societal problem the student addressed back down to the personal level to remind the reader the student’s personal stake in the issue.

What Could Be Improved

One potential criticism of this essay could stem from the ratio of background to active work. The author spends a lot of time setting up their personal connection and the global context of the issue; however, their essay could stand to gain from more content centered on their actual actions towards fighting harassment against women. They could discuss another small-scale discussion or project they led or elaborate more on their current inclusion. Dedicating two paragraphs to this rather than one gives admissions officers a better idea of their leadership skills and active role in fighting harassment.

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Essay #2: Cornell

Prompt: Tell us about your interest in engineering or what you hope to achieve with a degree in engineering. Describe what appeals to you about Cornell Engineering and how it specifically relates to your engineering interests or aspirations. (650 words)

Storytime with my grandfather was a terrifying thing. With astounding skill, he would seep blood into our carpet and perforate our walls with bullets from a civil war fought before I was born. But what truly frightened me about storytime was my grandfather, who spoke of massacres gloriously, almost with nostalgia, like the people who had died were not real.

He told the child I was every story he knew about that war but would not tell me about the battle that took his legs.

This was the reason I sat by his stumps each night and listened to stories I hated—because I wanted to know. But it was also because I understood that his storytelling was a kind of exorcism for him. He had not walked since 1970, would never walk again for a country that had not improved, a country spitting on the bloody sacrifices he and his generation had made of their innocence, their limbs, their lives. How does one live with that? My grandfather does not; he has created a different reality for himself where the war was a beautiful, worthy thing, and he lets me into it. The story of his legs did not belong in this reality, so I lusted after it with the brand of hunger I reserved for things I subconsciously knew I would not get.

My grandfather deserved a reality he could cope with enough to admit. I couldn’t reverse the war, couldn’t raise the friends he had lost, but I thought he should walk, that a man deserved to move his feet upon the land he loved.

Although there were indeed prosthetics in Nigerian hospitals, he had no income source whatsoever and could barely even afford a bag of rice to sustain himself.

Day by day, I searched for answers in my introductory science textbook, but to no avail. I carried on this search in high school and made my biology textbook my companion. I studied the body systems in-depth for clues, but I found nothing. One day, I came across Biomechanics, and seeing that it had my answer made me want to study it in college.

Then came another mammoth task of deciding my place of study. I kept searching and researching, without seeming to find any place fit for me until I came across Cornell’s novel 3D printed prosthetic limbs in the “Silicon Review.” Light, flexible, and cost-effective –a miracle, just what grandpa needed. I had found my home, the home of this model – Sibley School of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering.

I intend to channel the research experience I gained from Pioneer Academics into Cornell’s undergraduate research programs at Sibley – specifically, the research on orthopedic biomechanics currently ongoing at the Van der Meulen lab. I hope to work with intellectual, goal-driven scholars at Cornell and develop better and safer models of the 3D prosthetic. Also, Cornell’s Tech Summer Research Experience gives me an opportunity to work with engineers in different disciplines, thus diversifying my abilities and improving my innovation. I hope to work at the Nikolaos Bouklos faculty, where I would learn about the model’s unpredictability and explore ways to stabilize it while receiving guidance from Cornell’s world-class faculty mentors.

My life as a Cornell engineer would not be about theory alone. I intend to gain hands-on experience for medical school from the Hospital for Special Surgery and work with body systems to understand the physical, electrical and chemical connections between limbs and prosthetics – a fantastic opportunity for an outstanding, well-rounded education! I love to play soccer, and I hope to learn from the Big Red and become better while contributing my skills to give our opponents the claw.

Fearless and brave, grandpa has been more than an inspiration to me. I hope to repay him in the best way possible, and a Cornell education is what I need to actualize my dream.

So often, “Why Major?” and “Why School?” essays like Cornell’s include one anecdote showing a student’s interest in a topic and then spend the majority of the essay listing offerings at the school that don’t necessarily connect back to the anecdote. That can not be said for this essay.

The beauty of this essay is how focused it is around one central idea, yet it still has a captivating and heart-wrenching anecdote, an explanation of the student’s passion, and a variety of opportunities they plan to take advantage of. Everything in this essay stems from this student’s selflessness and compassion for their grandfather. The anecdote is extremely pertinent to the piece as a whole because the end goal of their major is to develop a prosthetic to help their grandfather.

An important part of the essay is to discuss resources and opportunities at Cornell, and this student accomplishes that so effectively because every resource they describe relates back to the idea of building and improving prosthetics. From working with prosthetic models in a lab to learning about implementation and the body in a hospital, this student frames every opportunity in the light of helping their grandfather. The reader knows exactly what this student intends to do, and what is motivating each extracurricular choice.

This essay leaves us with such a strong impression of who this student is and what motivates them. Their selflessness and dedication to their family has been a driving force throughout high school and will continue to be one in college. They are determined to persevere and want to use their education to help those around them. By revealing so much of their character in this essay, it demonstrates to admissions officers that this is the student they want on their campus.

In general, this is a very strong response and there is little to change. However, in such a highly-focused essay where every detail connects, this sentences feels very out of place: “ I love to play soccer, and I hope to learn from the Big Red and become better while contributing my skills to give our opponents the claw. “

While the student was likely trying to demonstrate a non-academic passion they will bring to Cornell, haphazardly throwing in a singular sentence without connecting it to anything else disrupts the momentum they have built throughout the essay. This essay was so strong because everything related to the common thread of helping their grandfather, but playing soccer is irrelevant to the other points being made. Since this sentence doesn’t tie into any other part of the essay, it would be better off without it.

This is a good example of not including details for the sake of including them. Admissions officers will see your accomplishments in other parts of the application, so you don’t need to work it into your essay if it doesn’t relate. Especially when the topic of the essay is so strong and focused, throwing in extraneous details will only confuse your readers and diminish the overall impact of your essay.

Essay #3: Yale

Prompt: Yale students, faculty, and alumni engage issues of local, national, and international importance. Discuss an issue that is significant to you and how your college experience could help you address it. (250 words)

A chaotic sense of sickness and filth unfolds in an overcrowded border station in McAllen, Texas. Through soundproof windows, migrants motion that they have not showered in weeks and children wear clothes caked in mucus and tears. The humanitarian crisis at the southern border exists not only in photographs published by mainstream media, but miles from my home in South Texas.

As a daughter of immigrants, I have heard countless stories of migrants being turned away by a country they desperately seek to love. After seeing the abhorrent conditions migrants face upon arriving in the U.S., I began volunteering with Loaves and Fishes, an organization that shelters and provides necessities to undocumented immigrants. This year, my experiences collecting donations and working at pop-up soup kitchens have made me realize that the communities in South Texas promote true American values of freedom and opportunity. The U.S. government, however, must do better.

During my university career, I aspire to learn how our immigration system can be positively reformed by considering the politics and economics that shape policy-making. Particularly, classes such as Institutional Design and Institutional Change will prepare me to effect change in existing institutions by analyzing various methods to bolster the economy.

Additionally, I hope to join the Yale Refugee Project that volunteers at the southern border and prepares asylum cases for court. With the numerous opportunities offered by YRP, I will be part of a generation of activists and lawmakers that builds a more empathetic immigration system.

One of the benefits of this essay is how the student establishes the issue in detail prior to explaining her personal connection to it. The hook uses detailed imagery, typically seen in personal anecdotes, to describe the issue. Describing the issue at hand instead of an experience the student had helps the reader grasp the issue so they know exactly what the student is referring to when she explains her personal connection.

Having already established the issue, it then becomes much easier for the reader to understand the significance to the student without being explicitly told what it is. The combined details of her family’s background and the actions she has taken to address the issue help display her dedication to the issue and passion for solving it. The student never gives the reader an explanation as to why she cares so deeply about this issue, but through her writing, that reveals her internal identity and external actions, it becomes evident.

Another positive aspect was that the essay only discussed two resources at Yale that would be beneficial to the student. For “Why This College” essays, it’s all about quality over quantity. Elaborating on what the specific classes and the Yale Refugee Program will offer her in terms of professional development provides much more insight than if she had listed a bunch of Yale opportunities with no explanation of what made them special to her.

Something this essay was missing was a conclusion to wrap up the essay. It ends by discussing the Yale Refugee Program, but fails to connect back to the student or the larger issue at hand. It’s understandable that she was pressed for space with a limited word count, but the ending felt abrupt. Adding one sentence to the end that shifts focus back to the student or how Yale as a whole would allow her to better the world would make the essay feel complete, leaving the reader satisfied.

There are many ways this student could tie the essay together in the conclusion, but one way would be to connect back to the observation the student made earlier that the “ U.S. government, however, must do better. ” This line isn’t really elaborated on and without a connection to how she plans to fix the mistakes of the current government it feels unnecessary. Saying something along the lines of “ With the tools Yale would give me I could tear down the barriers to immigration and construct new systems to steer federal immigration policy in an inclusive direction ” would provide a satisfying conclusion and an explanation of how this student will use her public policy degree to improve the government.

Essay #4: Brown

Prompt: Brown’s Open Curriculum allows students to explore broadly while also diving deeply into their academic pursuits. Tell us about any academic interests that excite you, and how you might use the Open Curriculum to pursue them while also embracing topics with which you are unfamiliar. (200-250 words)

My mother exclaimed in shock as she saw the title American Murder: The Family Next Door as the latest title on our Netflix watch list. “Why on earth would you want to watch that?” It made no sense to her that I spent free time watching documentaries about the psychopathic tendencies of serial killers.

From listening to neuropsychology podcasts on my long runs to reading Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment , I’ve been eager to explore the intersection between neuroscience, society, and the role they play in human nature. Brown’s Open Curriculum would allow me to double concentrate in Neuroscience and Science, Technology, and Society with a theme in Health and Medicine. Classes like Philosophy of Biology and The Moral Brain would begin to answer my questions about the relationship between neuroscience and human ethics. Perhaps I’ll finally understand why Raskolnikov thought he could get away with his crimes.

As an eight-year Latin scholar and five-time Percy Jackson reader, I hope to take classes in the Brown Classics department. I’m also intrigued by Ancient Greek Philosophy, and I plan to explore classic texts such as Plato’s Symposium in Introduction to Greek Literature. Courses like Hippocratic Medicine would allow me to learn about connections between the Classical world and medicine today.

The brain’s unique composition creates an intricate link between science, history, and modern society that I can only explore at Brown. More importantly, Brown’s diverse environment would introduce me to people with entirely different opinions about Raskolnikov’s motives.

This essay is structured incredibly well. The author uses an anecdote to explain their interests in the opening paragraph. “ My mother exclaimed in shock ,” is the beginning of an opening sentence that draws the reader in, as the reader wants to learn the reason behind the mother’s shock. This opening allows the writer to speak about an interest of theirs, murder documentaries, then tie it to what they’re interested in studying.

When discussing an academic interest, the author does a great job of providing specific examples connected to Brown. This allows the writer to share how they plan to take advantage of Brown’s unique Open Curriculum. They write, “ Classes like Philosophy of Biology and The Moral Brain would begin to answer my questions about the relationship between neuroscience and human ethics .” By sharing specific classes, it’s clear that the author has done some research about Brown and is truly interested in attending.

The writer chooses to spend their last paragraph sharing more interests and how they could pursue these interests at Brown. They did a great job sharing a variety of interests, and they made it fun by writing that they’re a “ five-time Percy Jackson reader. ” Sharing details like this about yourself can help make your essays stand out because you come across as relatable, and your essay becomes more engaging and entertaining for the reader!

While it’s nice that the writer mentions various interests, including both neuroscience and classics, there doesn’t seem to be a strong connection between the two topics. The essay would be better if the author improved the transition between the second and third paragraphs. They could say how it’s not common to be able to study both neuroscience and classics because of how different the subjects are but that Brown’s open curriculum lets you pursue both.

More simply, the writer could share why they want to study both topics. Will they both be relevant for their career goals? Are they just curious about exploring a variety of subjects and classes at Brown? No matter the reason, a connection between their interests and a better transition would strengthen this essay.

Additionally, the essay prompt asks students to talk about both topics that interest them and “embracing topics with which you are unfamiliar.” It’s always important to keep the prompt in mind when outlining or writing it. This student wrote a lot about their interests, but it’s a little unclear how they plan to embrace topics with which they’re unfamiliar. Clarifying which topic in this essay the writer hasn’t studied would improve the response and ensure that it directly answers the prompt.

Essay #5: UPenn

Prompt: 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. (300-450 words)

There’s a certain energy palpable at protests, each chant a powerful reminder that you are not alone in a seemingly futile fight- it’s why I love organizing. At Penn you will be sure to find me advocating for environmental education in local school districts with Eco Reps (gotta start them young), or even marching through the streets of Philly to demand climate action.

Despite my love for grassroots activism, I often feel frustrated in the weeks following a protest as the buzz dies down; despite overwhelming support for change, be it climate action, BLM, gun control, or Indigenous sovereignty, it often feels like our cries fall upon deaf ears.

I believe in order for tangible change to occur, our leaders and policymakers need to reflect the diversity and interests of the public. Penn will equip me to be that leader.

Having the tools to understand both the science and history within issues like public health or climate change is something I believe will be invaluable to study in the Environmental Policy and Application program at Penn. Using the knowledge I gain from classes like Natural Disturbances and Human Disasters , which bridges my interest in the environment with the very tangible effects of human-made and natural disasters, I can be a better informed leader, learning from past mistakes to create preventative solutions for future catastrophes through policy.

Integrated into West Philly, to me, the lack of barriers between campus and the city symbolizes the infinite space for growth and exploration. At Penn, I can study politics while also indulging in the arts at the Arthur Ross Gallery, or how to integrate principles of sustainability in an urban environment. And, of course, being able to admire the beautiful gothic architecture as I sit in class (gotta love that dark academia aesthetic) while also being able to experience the rich culture and diversity of the urban environment of Philadelphia is definitely a plus (I mean, Chinatown and cheesesteaks? Come on!).

UPenn’s emphasis on global education is especially appealing to me; solving the climate crisis cannot and will not fall upon one country; it must be a collective effort. With that comes the need to understand (and learn from) sustainability in other countries, therefore, having the opportunity to take classes like Politics of the Global Environment in the Political Science program will allow me to gain a deeper understanding of the nuances of international policy and approaches to environmental issues in different countries, where they intersect and how they differ.

I believe as global citizens it is crucial to approach learning from a global perspective as opposed to a nationalistic one; I believe UPenn will help me do just that.

This essay does a very nice job of laying out what led this student to pursue politics and what they hope to get out of each opportunity at UPenn. We can see their strong sense of civic duty in the first paragraph when they discuss the excitement of protests, but telling us they feel “ frustrated in the weeks following a protest as the buzz dies down ” helps us understand their need to take things into their own hands.

When discussing different opportunities at Penn, this student chooses depth over breadth—describing why a small number of offerings are important to them and will be beneficial rather than providing a laundry list of items. For example, when they mention a class they are interested in, they elaborate by saying it “ bridges my interest in the environment with the very tangible effects of human-made and natural disasters .” Similarly, they demonstrate their forward-thinking approach when discussing global opportunities by noting their need to “ gain a deeper understanding of the nuances of international policy and approaches to environmental issues in different countries. “

Another positive aspect is how strong this student’s voice is throughout the essay. We see their passion and love for protesting at the beginning, they clearly express their position on representation in politics, and they inject a lot of humor into the paragraph about Philly. Having conviction and making an essay casual yet impactful is a hard balance to strike, but this student does a nice job of that.

Although it’s important to not just focus on academic opportunities, students can sometimes make the mistake of writing about a city, rather than a school, when they discuss extracurriculars. The paragraph about the opportunities awaiting this student in Philly was great for including their personal voice, but it isn’t specific to Penn.

Rather than making art galleries and cheesesteaks the primary focus of the paragraph, the student should have discussed a club or organization that is unique to Penn. Something related to climate justice would fit in nicely with the rest of their essay and would give the author the opportunity to further elaborate on what they hope to accomplish out of the classroom. They can still find a way to work in some humor, but it shouldn’t be the main aspect of the paragraph.

Essay #6: Dartmouth

Prompt: The Hawaiian word mo’olelo is often translated as “story” but it can also refer to history, legend, genealogy, and tradition. Use one of these translations to introduce yourself. (250-300 words)

As a child, darkness meant nightmares, so I would pester my grandmother to tell me stories while the sun was trapped amongst silver hues. My religious grandmother would proceed to tell me about the Supreme Being in Hindu mythology, made of Brahma (the creator), Vishnu (the preserver), and Shiva (the destroyer). Together, these Gods defined the cyclical nature of mortal existence through creation and destruction – life and death.

Although I found this idea interesting, each year in my life brought on a better understanding of these Gods’ purposes – I only had a certain number of years before I faced my life’s “destruction.”

My only answer to living more in my one life was to stuff my head into pages filled with the journeys of fictional characters. I was a member of a motorcycle club, a terminally-ill teenager, and much more than what I could be in my physical life. Authors let me experience hundreds of lives through literature, therefore, inspiring me to create fictional lives of my own.

So, hello! I’m Navya – named after a star shining the night I was born. For most of my life, I’ve struggled with the idea that we each experience life only once before our own lives are destroyed, but books have helped me find a way to live thousands of lives. I am an aspiring author and want to write historical fiction books that cheat the Gods, who said that everything must be destroyed, because my characters will never fade. And all this happened because of my grandmother and her love of Hindu mythology. Mythology sparked a quest for me to find how I could get the most out of my life but my mo’olelo is nowhere near its ending. I have more lives to experience and more lives to write.

This essay beautifully combines this student’s life story with their passion for physical stories. Connecting these two types of stories gives extra depth and nuance to the essay, showing this student’s ability to think creatively. The idea that her life story revolves around fictional stories shines through in sentences like: “ My only answer to living more in my one life was to stuff my head into pages filled with the journeys of fictional characters .”

Our stories aren’t just comprised of the past though, and this essay does a great job of transitioning from the past to the future. Telling the reader “ Authors let me experience hundreds of lives through literature, therefore, inspiring me to create fictional lives of my own ” lets us appreciate how deeply engrained literature is in this student’s personal story. The admissions officers reading this essay walk away knowing exactly what this student hopes to do one day and where the inspiration for that career came from.

The idea of stories are woven throughout this essay, making it exceptionally well-connected. Although the beginning is meant to introduce a sense of fear at mortality this student encountered, it is done so through a story her grandmother told about her culture. Then the student explains the sanctuary and inspiration she found through famous stories, and finally it concludes with her describing the stories she will tell. Combined, all these pieces of mythology and literature form this student’s personal story.

The only real weakness in this essay is the conclusion. While it is well-written and nicely summarizes everything the author has explained, it doesn’t contribute anything new to the essay. The only new pieces of information the reader gains is that the student wants to “ write historical fiction books ” and that her “ mo’olelo is nowhere near its ending .”

To avoid redundancy, the conclusion could have been made stronger if it was simply focused on the future. Discussing this student’s aspirations to be a historical fiction writer—maybe including possible stories or time periods she dreams about—would have made the finale more focused and also have given the same amount of attention to the future of her story as she did the past and present. Then, the essay would chronologically follow this student’s life story from when she was young, to her current passion, to her future goals, allowing the reader to seamlessly see the progression, rather than having it restated for us.

Essay #7: Columbia

Prompt: For applicants to Columbia College, please tell us what from your current and past experiences (either academic or personal) attracts you specifically to the field or fields of study that you noted in the Member Questions section. If you are currently undecided, please write about any field or fields in which you may have an interest at this time. (300 words)

The flickering LED lights began to form into a face of a man when I focused my eyes. The man spoke a ruthless serial killer of the decade who had been arrested in 2004, and my parents shivered at his reaccounting of the case. I curiously tuned in, wondering who he was to speak of such crimes with concrete composure and knowledge. Later, he introduced himself as a profiler named Pyo Chang Won, and I watched the rest of the program by myself without realizing that my parents had left the couch.

After watching the program, I recited the foreign word until it was no longer unfamiliar—”profiler”. I stayed up all-night searching the meaning; my eyes sparkled with the dim light of the monitor as I read the tales of Pyo Chang Won and his Sherlock-like stories. From predicting the future of criminals and knowing the precise vicinity of a killer on the loose, he had saved countless lives; living in communities riddled with crimes in my youth then and even now, I dreamed of working against crimes. However, the traditional path of a lawyer or a police officer only reinforced the three-step cycle of arrest, trial, and jail which continued with no fundamental changes for years; I wanted to work with the psyche of criminals beyond courts and wondered about the inner workings of the mind.

Such admiration and interest led me to invest my time in psychology. Combined with working with the likes of the Victim Witness Agency, I decided to pursue psychology as my major for my undergraduate education. Later on, I want to specialize my research and education on behavioral/forensic psychology and eventually branch out to my childhood dream of becoming a criminal profiler.

A major positive of this essay is how it is focused on one moment in time. This student goes into depth about the night they first fell in love with criminal psychology which allows the reader to feel like they are there watching TV with the student and researching afterwards. Having the essay focus on a snapshot of the student’s life opens the door to include more imagery and delve into the internal monologue of the student, thus creating a more engaging and personable essay.

The student’s genuine fascination for the topic is evident through what they show the reader. They explain that they stayed to finish the show after their parents left, they stayed up all night researching what they just learned, and their eyes sparkled the more they learned about criminal psychology. Providing all these details shows the student’s fascination and passion for this topic without them ever having to explicitly say they were excited about it.

This essay also does a good job of expanding past the requirements of the prompt to explain what they hope to accomplish with their degree. Including their goals reinforced their passion to pursue this field to admissions officers. It also demonstrated that they are a goal-oriented person who wants to make a difference in the world.

One thing that could be improved in this essay is the grammar. There were a few sentences where there were either typos or just clunky sentences that could be tightened up. In order to catch grammatical errors, you should always give your essay to at least one other person to read. CollegeVine offers essay reviews that allows students to receive feedback on the grammar, structure, and content of their essays. It’s always a good idea to have a fresh pair of eyes read your essay to catch mistakes that might go unnoticed by you. Having someone review this essay would have likely helped this student fix their grammatical errors.

Essay #8: Harvard

Prompt: You may wish to include an additional essay if you feel that the college application forms do not provide sufficient opportunity to convey important information about yourself or your accomplishments. You may write on a topic of your choice, or you may choose from one of the following topics: Travel, living, or working experiences in your own or other communities.

A scream in the night.

In the town of Montagu, South Africa, the sun had set hours ago, leaving its place to a deep dark sky. Everything was peaceful and quiet. In a little lodge, a family of four people had just finished eating on a dimly lit terrace. The heat was so intense even the black silence seemed to suffocate – only a few crickets dared to break its density. The mother asked something to her daughter, who stood up, and bypassed the table. That’s when she screamed. An intense, long scream, that reverberated in the little town of Montagu.

How do I know that? It was me.

Me, miserable as I had fallen down the terrace… into a plantation of cacti! I couldn’t move. I felt as if each cactus thorn contained poison that spread through my back, my arms, my entire body. The plants were engulfing me into the darkness. I was suffocating, trying to grasp some of the hot, heavy air. Until I felt her hand. My mom’s.

She and my father organized this trip to South Africa. Valuing experiences more than material wealth, they liked to organize trips to foreign, far away countries. In addition to South Africa, I visited Cuba, Nepal and China. Four countries where landscapes and cities are dissimilar to France’s. Four countries that allowed me to discover numerous communities, recipes and traditions. Four countries where I met animals, plants and humans I had never seen before.

I am a city girl. As a little girl, I was never really fond of flora or fauna. However, during my trips, I was lucky to see animals in freedom and to interact with nature. A baboon broke into my car in South Africa and walked all over me – literally. I held an iguana in Cuba, did a safari in South Africa and talked with a parrot in Nepal. I saw the sun rising on the Machapuchare. I ultimately understood that all I had experienced was thanks to Nature. I realized its preciousness and its urgency to be saved. I gained proximity to the environment that I had always lacked. My blood turned green thanks to travels.

In addition to animal discoveries, travels are encounter engines. From little to aged humans, from all genders, from everywhere, travels allowed me to meet incredible people. The uncanny apparition of a mysterious little girl particularly touched me in Ghorepani, Nepal. I had walked for seven hours that day, and was waiting for dinner, sitting on a bench. She slowly advanced towards me.

“What’s your name?” I asked the white figure in the obscurity.

The little girl stopped moving. Dark curly hair, dark deep eyes, white clothes covered in mud among the deep dark night. Our eyes locked in each other’s, the sound of our breathing floating in the dense silence, everything seemed to be suspended. After what felt like dozens of hours, she looked at me and silently walked away, a star in the ink black sky.

Every person encountered made me grow. Some like the Nepalese little girl simply disrupted me, some opened my eyes on poverty, others opened my eyes on racism. Every person I met had a story to share, a fact to transmit. I visited an orphanage in a township in South Africa. The teacher, a frail and tiny woman, explained that racism was still so profound in the country that black and mixed race people were fighting to death in the neighbourhood. Centuries of abuse towards people of color, for children to pay the price, growing up parentless in the orphanage. The sound of the rain was echoing on the metal houses as the children sang their anthem. Wet furrows appeared as raindrops were racing on every cheek:

‘Let us live and strive for freedom,

In South Africa our land.’

Traveling is ultimately a chance. It is an opportunity to understand the complexity of the world by getting close to it. Traveling allowed me to realize the differences between each country and region. But beyond those dissimilarities, I saw singing, dancing and laughing everywhere in the world. Being away brought me closer to my home and my family and friends, my newspaper team, every community I’m involved in. Traveling represents a learning process. I integrated leadership and diligence in Nepal, watching children and old men transport wood on their back. Speaking foreign languages allowed me to acquire experience and put my theoretical skills to practise. I acquired a lot of adaptability through travels as part of their greatness comes from its unpredictability. Traveling truly enriches the intellect of those who have the chance to do it.

This is overall a delightful, very readable essay. The author starts with a dramatic hook to capture the reader’s attention, and they build on that initial story with vivid imagery like “ I felt as if each cactus thorn contained poison that spread through my back, my arms, my entire body. ” In general, the language is strong throughout the entire essay. Other beautiful gems include, “ The sound of the rain was echoing on the metal houses as the children sang their anthem ” and, “ The uncanny apparition of a mysterious little girl particularly touched me. ” The author has a way with words, and they proudly demonstrate it in their response.

In addition to strong imagery, the author also does a satisfactory job at answering the prompt. The open-ended question not only means that students could answer in a variety of ways, but also that it might be easy to fall into a trap of answering in an unrelated or uninteresting manner. The author here does a good job of directly answering the prompt by providing clear examples of their travels around the world. Their response also goes beyond merely listing experiences; rather, they tell stories and describe some of the notable people they have met along the way. By telling stories and adopting a whimsical tone that evokes the wanderlust of travel, they elevate the impact of their response.

We also learn a fair amount about the author through their stories and personal reflections. We see that they are concerned about social justice through their retelling of the interactions in South Africa. We see them reflecting on the universal joys of singing and dancing: “ But beyond those dissimilarities, I saw singing, dancing and laughing everywhere in the world. ” In the closing paragraph, we learn that they are adaptable and willing to undergo lifelong learning. Thus, another reason this essay shines is because it not only tells us what travels/experiences the author has engaged in, but it provides deeper introspection regarding how they have grown from these experiences.

While the essay is beautiful, and the fast-moving pace matches the feeling of seeing unfamiliar places for the first time, the narrative runs the risk of being too wide-ranging. The introductory story of falling onto a bed of cacti could warrant an entire essay unto itself, yet the author does not return to it anywhere else in their response. They missed an opportunity to bring the response full circle by ruminating on that once more in their conclusion.

Another thing to be careful of is how the privilege inherent in international travel might cause the author to see the life through a certain lens. Although they remark upon how their family prioritizes experiences over material wealth, the fact is that extensive international travel relies on having material wealth to pay for costs like airfare and housing. It is important to demonstrate humility and awareness of privilege when responding to college essay prompts, and this is no exception.

Where to Get Your Essays Edited

At top schools like the Ivies, your essays account for around 25% of your admissions decision after you clear the academic thresholds. Why is this? Most students applying to the Ivy League will have stellar academics and extracurriculars. Your essays are your chance to stand out and humanize your application.

After reading your essays over and over, it can be difficult to judge your writing objectively. That’s why we created our Peer Essay Review tool , where you can get a free review of your essay from another student. Since they don’t know you personally, they can be a more objective judge of whether your personality shines through, and whether you’ve fully answered the prompt.

If you want a college admissions expert to review your essay, advisors on CollegeVine have helped students refine their writing and submit successful applications to top schools. Find the right advisor for you to improve your chances of getting into your dream school!

2024-25 Common App Supplements

IvyWise Live: Standing Out in the Common App and College Essays

In this webinar, IvyWise college admissions counselors walk event attendees through each step of the Common App and share tips on brainstorming essay topics, beginning the first draft, being mindful of word choice and tone, carefully editing the final essay, and using supplemental essays to demonstrate their interest in each college on their list.

Many schools utilize the Common App as their primary application form, and school-specific supplements allow every institution to customize this universal application in order to build a well-rounded first-year class. From asking about a student’s favorite snack to designing their dream seminars, many colleges are getting creative with their supplement questions so that admissions officers can learn as much about applicants as possible.

Common App Supplements for 2024-25

Many colleges and universities announce their supplemental essay prompts in the weeks leading up to the official opening of the Common Application on Aug. 1. The Common App essay prompts are already available for this cycle, allowing students applying to college this fall to get a head start on their personal statement. It’s a good idea to get started on your supplements in the summer before your senior year if you have access to the prompts for the upcoming admissions cycle. It can be hard to keep up with, so we’re posting supplemental essay prompts as they are announced prior to Aug. 1.

Brown University

Three essays are required for all first-year and transfer applicants:

Brown’s Open Curriculum allows students to explore broadly while also diving deeply into their academic pursuits. Tell us about any academic interests that excite you, and how you might pursue them at Brown. (200-250 words)
Students entering Brown often find that making their home on College Hill naturally invites reflection on where they came from. Share how an aspect of your growing up has inspired or challenged you, and what unique contributions this might allow you to make to the Brown community. (200-250 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. (200-250 words)

First-year applicants are also asked to reflect briefly on each of the very short answer questions below. We expect that answers will range from a few words to a few sentences at most.

What three words best describe you? (3 words)
What is your most meaningful extracurricular commitment, and what would you like us to know about it? (100 words)
If you could teach a class on any one thing, whether academic or otherwise, what would it be? (100 words)
In one sentence, Why Brown? (50 words)

Two essays are required for applicants to the PLME in addition to the three essays required of all first-year applicants:

1. Committing to a future career as a physician while in high school requires careful consideration and self-reflection. Explain your personal motivation to pursue a career in medicine, and why the Program in Liberal Medical Education (PLME) will best meet your professional and personal goals. (500 words)

2. Healthcare is constantly changing as it is affected by racial and social inequities, economics, politics, technology, and more. Please respond to one of the following prompts (250 words):

How will you, as a future physician, make a positive impact?
How has your personal background uniquely shaped your perspective on the field of medicine?

One essay is required for applicants to the Brown|RISD Dual Degree Program in addition to the three essays required of all first-year applicants:

The Brown|RISD Dual Degree Program draws on the complementary strengths of Brown University and Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) to provide students with the opportunity to explore and engage with diverse spheres of academic and creative inquiry. The culmination of students’ five-year program is a capstone project that relates and integrates content, approaches, and methods from two distinct learning experiences. Considering your understanding of the academic programs at Brown and RISD, describe how and why the specific blend of RISD’s experimental, immersive combined studio and liberal arts program and Brown’s wide-ranging courses and curricula could constitute an optimal undergraduate education for you. Additionally, how might your academic, artistic and personal experiences contribute to the Dual Degree community and its commitment to interdisciplinary work? (650 word limit)

Dartmouth College

1. Required of all applicants. Please respond in 100 words or fewer:

As you seek admission to Dartmouth’s Class of 2029, what aspects of the college’s academic program, community, and/or campus environment attract your interest? How is Dartmouth a good fit for you?

2. Required of all applicants, please respond to one of the following prompts in 250 words or fewer:

A. There is a Quaker saying: Let your life speak. Describe the environment in which you were raised and the impact it has had on the person you are today.

B. “Be yourself,” Oscar Wilde advised. “Everyone else is taken.” Introduce yourself.

3. Required of all applicants, please respond to one of the following prompts in 250 words or fewer:

A. What excites you?

B. Labor leader and civil rights activist Dolores Huerta recommended a life of purpose. “We must use our lives to make the world a better place to live, not just to acquire things,” she said. “That is what we are put on the earth for.” In what ways do you hope to make—or are you already making—an impact? Why? How?

C. In “Oh, The Places You’ll Go,” Dr. Seuss invites us to “Think and wonder. Wonder and think.” Imagine your anticipated academic major: How does that course of study sync with Dr. Seuss’s advice to you?

D. The social and family interactions of wild chimpanzees have been the focus of Dame Jane Goodall’s research for decades. Her understanding of animal behavior prompted the English primatologist to see a lesson for human communities as well: “Change happens by listening and then starting a dialogue with the people who are doing something you don’t believe is right.” Channel Dame Goodall: Tell us about a moment when you engaged in a difficult conversation or encountered someone with an opinion or perspective that was different from your own. How did you find common ground?

E. Celebrate your nerdy side.

F. “It’s not easy being green…” was the frequent refrain of Kermit the Frog. How has difference been a part of your life, and how have you embraced it as part of your identity, outlook, or sense of purpose?

G. Buddy Teevens ’79 was a legendary and much-beloved coach at Dartmouth. He often told parents: “Your son will be a great football player when it’s football time, a great student when it’s academic time, and a great person all of the time.” If Coach Teevens had said that to you, what would it mean to be “a great person”?

Duke University

The following question is required for all 2024-25 applicants to Duke University:

What is your sense of Duke as a university and a community, and why do you consider it a good match for you? If there’s something in particular about our offerings that attracts you, feel free to share that as well. (250 word limit)

We want to emphasize that the following questions are optional. Feel free to answer one or two if you believe that doing so will add something meaningful that is not already shared elsewhere in your application. Five optional questions are available – a maximum of 2 can be selected.

We believe a wide range of viewpoints, beliefs, and lived experiences are essential to maintaining Duke as a vibrant and meaningful living and learning community. Feel free to share with us anything in this context that might help us better understand you and what you might bring to our community.
Tell us about an experience in the past year or two that reflects your imagination, creativity, or intellect.
We believe there is benefit in sharing or questioning our beliefs or values; who do you agree with on the big important things, or who do you have your most interesting disagreements with? What are you agreeing or disagreeing about?
Duke’s commitment to inclusion and belonging includes sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression. Feel free to share with us more about how your identity in this context has meaning for you as an individual or as a member of a community.
We recognize that not fully “fitting in” a community or place can sometimes be difficult. Duke values the effort, resilience, and independence that may require. Feel free to share with us circumstances where something about you is different and how that’s influenced your experiences or identity.

Emory University

In addition to your Personal Statement, please answer two additional short answer questions, one about your academic interests and one to help us get to know you better. We encourage you to be thoughtful in your responses and not stress about what the “right answer” might be, as there really isn’t one.

ACADEMIC INTERESTS

This question is required. (150 Words Recommended Length)

What academic areas are you interested in exploring at Emory University and why?

GETTING TO KNOW YOU

In addition, answer one of the following questions. (150 Words)

Which book, character, song, monologue, or piece of work (fiction or non-fiction) seems made for you? Why?
Reflect on a personal experience where you intentionally expanded your cultural awareness.
Emory University’s unique mission calls for service to humanity. Share how you might personally contribute to this mission of service to humanity.
Emory University has a strong commitment to building community. Tell us about a community that you have been part of where your participation helped to change or shape the community for the better.

Rice University

1. Please explain why you wish to study in the academic areas you selected. 150 word limit.

2. Based upon your exploration of Rice University, what elements of the Rice experience appeal to you? 150 word limit.

3. Please respond to one of the following prompts to explore how you will contribute to the Rice community:

The Residential College System is at the heart of Rice student life and is heavily influenced by the particular cultural traditions and unique life experiences each student brings. What life experiences and/or unique perspectives are you looking forward to sharing with fellow Owls in the residential college system? 500 word limit.
Rice is strengthened by its diverse community of learning and discovery that produces leaders and change agents across the spectrum of human endeavor. What perspectives shaped by your background, experiences, upbringing, and/or racial identity inspire you to join our community of change agents at Rice? 500 word limit.

University of Chicago

Question 1 (Required): How does the University of Chicago, as you know it now, satisfy your desire for a particular kind of learning, community, and future? Please address with some specificity your own wishes and how they relate to UChicago.

Question 2: Extended Essay (Required; Choose one):

1. We’re all familiar with green-eyed envy or feeling blue, but what about being “caught purple-handed”? Or “tickled orange”? Give an old color-infused expression a new hue and tell us what it represents. – Inspired by Ramsey Bottorff, Class of 2026

2. “Ah, but I was so much older then / I’m younger than that now” – Bob Dylan. In what ways do we become younger as we get older? – Inspired by Joshua Harris, Class of 2016

3. Pluto, the demoted planet. Ophiuchus, the thirteenth Zodiac. Andy Murray, the fourth to tennis’s Big Three. Every grouping has something that doesn’t quite fit in. Tell us about a group and its unofficial member, why (or why not) should it be excluded? – Inspired by Veronica Chang, Class of 2022

4. “Daddy-o”, “Far Out”, “Gnarly”: the list of slang terms goes on and on. Sadly, most of these aren’t so “fly” anymore – “as if!” Name an outdated slang from any decade or language that you’d bring back and explain why you totally “dig it.” – Inspired by Napat Sakdibhornssup, Class of 2028

5. How many piano tuners are there in Chicago? What is the total length of chalk used by UChicago professors in a year? How many pages of books are in the Regenstein Library? These questions are among a class of estimation problems named after University of Chicago physicist Enrico Fermi. Create your own Fermi estimation problem, give it your best answer, and show us how you got there. – Inspired by Malhar Manek, Class of 2028

6. And, as always… the classic choose your own adventure option! In the spirit of adventurous inquiry, choose one of our past prompts (or create a question of your own). Be original, creative, thought provoking. Draw on your best qualities as a writer, thinker, visionary, social critic, sage, citizen of the world, or future citizen of the University of Chicago; take a little risk, and have fun!

University of Richmond

One essay response is required. Choose from the following prompts:

1. You have a platform to create change. What is an action or policy you might propose to address an issue of social injustice in your school or local community, or on a national or global scale?

2. Tell us about a time you learned something unexpected. What did you learn, and what happened next?

3. Richmond welcomes students from various backgrounds, perspectives, and lived experiences. What is at least one way you will contribute to our community that is not already mentioned in your application?

Word Limit : Minimum 350. Maximum 650 words.

University of Texas at Austin

Summer/Fall 2025 Essay

Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you’ve already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your own design. Please keep your essay between 500–650 words (typically two to three paragraphs).

Short Answers

Submit the required short answers to prompts in your admission application. Answers are limited to no more than 40 lines, or about 250–300 words per prompt, typically the length of one paragraph.

Summer/Fall 2025 Prompts

1. Why are you interested in the major you indicated as your first-choice major?

2. Think of all the activities — both in and outside of school — that you have been involved with during high school. Which one are you most proud of and why? ( Guidance for student s: This can include an extracurricular activity, a club/organization, volunteer activity, work or a family responsibility.)

Optional Short Answer

Please share background on events or special circumstances that you feel may have impacted your high school academic performance.

Villanova University

For the Villanova-specific essay, we hope to gain a deeper understanding of your thoughts, experiences, and opinions. Choose one of the five topics below and submit a written response in about 250 words.

1. St. Augustine states that well-being is “not concerned with myself alone, but with my neighbor’s good as well.” How have you advocated for equity and justice in your communities?

2. What is a lesson in life that you have learned that you would want to share with others at Villanova?  

3. “Villanova” means “new home.” Why do you want to call Villanova your new home?

4. As an Augustinian community, we value recognizing individuals for their true selves. Please share with us a time when you were misjudged based on your identity or background.

5. At Villanova, we often say “each of us strengthens all of us.” Please detail a time when someone has borrowed some of your strength in their time of need.

Wake Forest University

Our supplemental questions remain optional, but we hope that these prompts provide space for you to share with us what makes you, you.

List five books you’ve read that have intrigued you.
Tell us what piques your intellectual curiosity or has helped you understand the world’s complexity. This can include a work you’ve read, a project you’ve completed for a class, and even co-curricular activities in which you have been involved (limit 150 words).
Dr. Maya Angelou, renowned author, poet, civil-rights activist, and former Wake Forest University Reynolds Professor of American Studies, inspired others to celebrate their identities and to honor each person’s dignity. Choose one of Dr. Angelou’s powerful quotes. How does this quote relate to your lived experience or reflect how you plan to contribute to the Wake Forest community? (limit 300 words)
Give us your Top Ten List. (The choice of theme is yours.) (limit: 100 characters per line)

IvyWise also confirmed with Wake Forest admissions that the “Why Wake?” question will be included: Why have you decided to apply to Wake Forest? Share with us anything that has made you interested in our institution. (150 words max)

Yale University

Short Answer Questions

Applicants submitting the Coalition Application , Common Application , or QuestBridge Application will respond to the following short answer questions:

Students at Yale have time to explore their academic interests before committing to one or more major fields of study. Many students either modify their original academic direction or change their minds entirely. As of this moment, what academic areas seem to fit your interests or goals most comfortably? Please indicate up to three from the list provided.
Tell us about a topic or idea that excites you and is related to one or more academic areas you selected above. Why are you drawn to it? (200 words or fewer)
What is it about Yale that has led you to apply? (125 words or fewer)

Applicants submitting the Coalition Application or Common Application will also respond to the following short answer questions, in no more than 200 characters (approximately 35 words):

What inspires you?
If you could teach any college course, write a book, or create an original piece of art of any kind, what would it be?
Other than a family member, who is someone who has had a significant influence on you? What has been the impact of their influence?
What is something about you that is not included anywhere else in your application?

Applicants submitting the Coalition Application or Common Application will respond to one of the following prompts in 400 words or fewer.

1. Reflect on a time you discussed an issue important to you with someone holding an opposing view. Why did you find the experience meaningful?

2. Reflect on your membership in a community to which you feel connected. Why is this community meaningful to you? You may define community however you like.

3. Reflect on an element of your personal experience that you feel will enrich your college. How has it shaped you?

While answering additional essay questions might seem challenging, the supplements give students the chance to show a different side of themselves to the admissions office, as well as emphasizing their demonstrated interest . Since supplements are an important component of the college admissions process, we always recommend students begin working on these essays early to save themselves the stress of working down to the wire. If you’re getting ready to apply to college and looking for guidance on writing supplements, our team of admissions experts is here to help.

Ivy League Essay Examples

Ivy League colleges like Harvard, Yale, and Princeton are notoriously competitive. By reading Ivy League essay examples, students can prepare for the application process.

The best sample Ivy League essays highlight their writers’ strengths, allowing them to stand out in a highly qualified applicant pool. After all, Harvard’s acceptance rate is just 4% , and thousands of applicants have the same grades and scores. In order to ace your Ivy League application, you’ll need to write nuanced, exploratory, introspective essays.

In this article, we’ll go over some Ivy League essay examples. We’ll show you some sample Ivy League essays and explain the strengths of Ivy League essays that worked. After reading this guide to Ivy League essay examples, you should feel more confident about writing essays like these college essay examples for Ivy League schools.

Read on in our Ivy League essay examples guide to discover:

What is the ivy league, what do ivy league schools look for in essays.

How to use these Ivy League essay examples
Specific Ivy League essay examples for Harvard, Brown, Cornell, Yale, Dartmouth, and Princeton
The importance of college essays to Ivy League admissions
What Ivy League schools look for in essays
How Ivy League schools evaluate essays
More Ivy League resources from CollegeAdvisor
Our top five tips for standout essays

Before we dive into our Ivy League essay examples, let’s zoom out: what is the Ivy League?

Before digging into Ivy League essay examples, let’s review what the “Ivy League” actually is.

The Ivy League is a collection of prestigious northeastern colleges: Princeton, Harvard, Yale, UPenn, Dartmouth, Brown, Cornell, and Columbia. Originally grouped based on an athletic conference, the prestige of the Ivy League has overtaken its athletic reputation.

Many students wish to attend Ivy League schools based on the name recognition they will get in the job market. Of course, a world-class education from stellar faculty and lifelong alumni connections is another draw.

Since Ivy League schools receive thousands of incredible applications, it’s crucial to do everything you can to differentiate yourself. One of the best ways to do that is through your college essays.

To understand how our Ivy League essay examples became Ivy League essays that worked, let’s learn what Ivy League schools look for.

Through these Ivy League essay examples, you’ll better understand how to write essays that impress Ivy League admissions officers. But what exactly do Ivy League schools look for in these essays?

Like any good college essay, your Ivy League essays should tell your story . Unlike test scores, GPA, or even recommendations, essays allow you to talk directly to the admissions committee and tell them who you are. In these Ivy League essay examples, you’ll notice that the authors highlight their personal lives, experiences, fears, and perspectives.

You’ll also notice that these Ivy League essay examples are written beautifully. They employ structurally sound storytelling, perfect grammar and spelling, and rhetorical devices like imagery, metaphor, and simile. We hope you’ve been paying attention in English class!

No school will give you direct guidance on what you should write, because only you can answer that question. But some schools like Harvard often release essays that worked to help inspire your own writing.

Before we share some college essay examples for Ivy League schools, let’s briefly talk about how you should use these Ivy League essay examples in your own admissions journey.

Using these Ivy Leagues Essay Examples

How can you best use these Ivy League essay examples in order to write stellar essays? Though you can’t copy these ideas verbatim, these college essay examples for Ivy League schools should help inspire your own writing process .

In these Ivy League essay examples, real students have put the big ideas of storytelling and personal voice into practice. You’ll be able to see the difference in writing styles between the Common App essay and supplemental essays. In other words, a “personal statement” that you’ll submit to every school, versus short-answer questions that ask you to reflect on school-specific prompts.

As you read these Ivy League essay examples, keep in mind that these examples are from past application cycles. This means these college essay examples for Ivy League schools won’t necessarily line up with this year’s prompts. After reading our Ivy League essay examples, check the schools’ websites for updated prompts before you start brainstorming.

Harvard Essay Examples

For the first of our Ivy League essay examples, let’s take a look at some Harvard essay examples. The Harvard application historically includes an optional supplemental essay that is almost completely open-ended. You can find past Harvard essay examples here , and you’ll notice that there are some specified prompts. As stated above, make sure to check Harvard’s website for the updated Harvard application questions.

Now, let’s kick off our Ivy League college essay examples with one of many successful Harvard essay examples.

Harvard Extended Essay Example

At about eight o’ clock in the evening, our family steps outside. The cold air brushes our faces as I push myself up to a standing position from my wheelchair. Before standing, I have already turned on my best K-pop playlist on my phone, consisting of songs from my favorite group, BTS.

As I try to maintain my balance with my hands on the black, metal walker, I sing along to the rapping of Rap Monster, BTS’s leader, having memorized all the lyrics. Finally, when I feel ready, I take my first step, using my hip to pull my right leg forward. My bright green shoes that have been with me for the past four years drag along the dark asphalt, causing the forming holes in the front of the shoes to grow even bigger.

Asked about my day, I tell my parents about the idea that my Physics teacher presented to us in class comparing the spine to an electrical cord. Excitedly, I start to talk about the nervous system and the developments that are being made in relation to the field of neuro-regeneration, especially the potentials of regenerating neural connections by electrically stimulating the spine.

Talking and laughing, we finally reach the bottom of the neighborhood and turn to go back up to the house. The upward incline proves to be difficult to overcome, stealing my breath. But holding a competition with my sister to see who can remember the most lyrics to our favorite songs, I forget that I’m even tired.

While walking, my mom gets a call from my grandmother. Asking to talk to me, I can hear the excitement overflowing in her voice when I tell her that I will be applying to colleges this year. She says, “So finally, you’re going to Harvard.” My ninety-year old grandmother living in Korea believes that Harvard is the only college in the United States.

Finally, we arrive back at our house, with sweat running down my body. As I sit down, I feel relief quickly rush down my arms.

I exercise approximately two hours daily, riding a stationary bike, standing, or walking with my walker. In the few months after my injury, I despised exercising, seeing it only as a mere grasp towards empty goals. However, discovering research about new developments in neuroregeneration, and new growing ideas such as neuroplasticity, my therapy started to become not a continuous reach at impossible goals but a way to keep my legs healthy for possible ones.

While continuing to exercise, I aspire to contribute to the research being done in the field of neuroregeneration and to reach a deeper understanding of the functions of the nervous system so that one day, everyone can hold hope despite neurological damage. Through my therapy and experiences, I have learned that even a small amount of knowledge has the potential to drastically alter one’s view of their surroundings, and the amazing possibilities for future exploration offers abounding excitement.

Why this essay worked

Like other Harvard essay examples, this essay provides the Harvard admissions committee with a deeper look into the writer’s perspective and personality. This author chose a theme not uncommon among Harvard essay examples: overcoming adversity. Many colleges provide an opportunity in their supplements for students to reflect on instances where they have overcome adversity. Harvard essay examples like these provide a unique view into a student’s values and accomplishments.

From other parts of this student’s Harvard application, you might not know that they are recovering from an injury. Through their essay, this author shows the Harvard admissions committee a part of themselves that heavily influences their daily life. Additionally, they highlight how it has shaped them into the person they are today.

Structurally, this essay follows a tried and true outline for strong essays: start with an anecdote to draw the reader into your world. Then as you continue, zoom out to reflect on how the anecdote represents your values or goals. This student concluded by tying their personal experiences to their future academic goals. Finally, they emphasize the power of learning to inspire hope. You’ll encounter this structure in other Harvard essay examples, and other Ivy League essay examples in general.

Next in our collection of college essay examples for Ivy League schools, we’ll move to some Brown essay examples.

Brown Essay Examples

For our Brown essay example, we’ll cover another common supplemental prompt: Why are you pursuing your intended major? If you want to read more Brown essay examples to prepare for your Brown application, check out our Brown-specific guide.

Why are you drawn to the area(s) of study you indicated in our Member Section, earlier in this application? If you are “undecided” or not sure which Brown concentrations match your interests, consider describing more generally the academic topics or modes of thought that engage you currently. (150 word limit)

To many, mathematics is little more than calculating how much flour Mrs. Smith needs to bake her famous apple pie. I felt this same way until I got to calculus. There, I was examining the fundamentals of change, infinity, and nothingness daily.

During one discussion with my teacher, he expressed his belief that the Fibonacci sequence was a proportion of divine handiwork. I’d never considered any application of mathematics outside of hard sciences. As I sat at my kitchen table that night calculating the instantaneous velocity at time t, I understood that mathematics, despite a well-defined set of laws, contains the philosophical ambiguity I find so stimulating.

Though finding the volume of a sphere may not fit the traditional idea of aesthetics, it serves the same purpose — as a study of structure and order. This intersection between mathematics and philosophy is one I hope to continue to explore.

In other Brown essay examples and other college essay examples for Ivy League schools, word count can enormously influence an essay. In just 150 words, the author had to explain not one but two intended areas of study and make an impact.

For some students, a low word count can actually be a blessing. It forces you to pick out only the most important and evocative sentences. In this essay, the student tells us a full story with only a few sentences. Short word counts are an exercise in clarity.

With some prompts, you have a bit more wiggle room, but a straightforward question like this requires a straightforward answer . This can be tricky to do without sacrificing detail and structure. The authors of successful Brown example essays answer the question clearly without compromising on form.

In this essay, the author explains why they want to study math and philosophy, and their interest in their intersection. The student also uses good storytelling tactics, like putting the reader into their shoes by using anecdotes to communicate. Phrases like “ During one discussion with my teacher ,” and “ As I sat at my kitchen table that night” pull us into these scenes alongside the writer.

In strong Brown essay examples, the author sets forth a strong example answer to the “why major” question. For a breakdown of the other prompts on the Brown application, read our guide to Brown’s supplemental essays .

Now, let’s move on to the next of our college essay examples for Ivy League schools: Cornell essay examples.

Cornell Arts and Sciences: Why us essay examples

Continuing with college essay examples for Ivy Leagues, we’ll go over some Cornell essay examples– specifically some “why Cornell” essay examples. “Why school” questions are very common, and these “why Cornell” essay examples can provide guidance when you’re writing your own. While reading these Cornell essay examples, ask yourself: why is Cornell the best fit for this student to pursue their interests?

Why Cornell Essay Example

Describe two or three of your current intellectual interests and why they are exciting to you. why will cornell’s college of arts and sciences be the right environment in which to pursue your interests (please limit your response to 650 words.).

My happiness can be graphed on quadrants with two axes of biology and psychology. The closer to the origin in the center, the happier I am.

The day before winter break, my AP Biology teacher wrote me the most adorable greeting card; as a dual-enrolled student completing a special curriculum and serving as her assistant grading piles of paperwork, it wasn’t special treatment at all! But what made my day was the bacteriophage. The top of the card included a little cartoon, “a dreidle with spider legs” one friend dryly commented. I ran around showing it to all who cared to listen. I was tickled by my teacher’s representation of a dangerous virus that hijacks a bacteria’s ability to reproduce itself.

Moreover, I loved the card because it shows that my biology teacher understands my joy in learning about unusual diseases. My current personal fascination is kuru — caused by prions, mysterious misfolded proteins that produce degenerating nervous tissue and end in certain death. Scary, I know. Kuru folds into its realm fascinating symptoms, crazy laughter and slowing movement. It is also anthropologically significant: given that it was historically respectful to consume one’s relatives in parts of Papua New Guinea, the gender practices of this ritual adversely affected women and children. It is that nexus of biology and culture that fascinates me.

Magazine subscriptions became my gateway to my eventual academic study of psychology. Reader’s Digest, with its articles on happiness (diminishing marginal utility!) and the dangers of energy drinks (poor teenage brains!), evolved into an obsession: hours at the library flipping through Psychology Today. Between those glossy covers were hours of entertainment: stories of narcissists and psychopaths, of test-taking mindsets between pessimism and optimism, giving me a view beyond the you-like-pink-so-you-must-be-bubbly world of American Girl. That interest survives in my free time reading and my choice of an eventual major.

Taking AP Psychology allowed me to bring my private reading into classroom discussion. I loved talking about the ethics and design of psychological studies. I had read about the Asch conformity tests, had seen the videos of the experiment. When my teacher set up the experiment with three classmates as subjects and the rest of us as confederates, two subjects did not conform; I still wonder why our ratio of nonconformity was lower than Asch had found. Could it be a trait of the magnet population and experience or the fact that we weren’t great liars?

Cornell’s Biology and Society major combines interdisciplinary studies from the sciences and humanities. In viewing biological concerns from a sociocultural perspective, it connects my love of disease and psychology and addresses a subset I find to be necessary – the ethical aspects.

In particular, neuroethics appeals to me in speaking to child abuse; having encountered situations of reportable child abuse multiple times during my work with Teen Line, a crisis hotline at which I volunteer, I am particularly interested to learn more about the aftermath. What happens after I’ve called Child Protective Services? Those of us at Teen Line never know the end result. Would the child be placed in foster care or with a relative? Would the child, whose life began in endangerment, thrive in a loving environment? We never know.

But what I can learn is how abuse has affected the child neurologically, how it may manifest in adulthood, and perhaps even what can be done to counter it. The idea that abnormal reactions derive from social contexts can be expanded by studying biochemistry; research about the lack of a neurotransmitter uptake or the presence of potential genetic markers may explain the seeming irrationality behind mental disorders and may, hopefully, lessen the social stigma.

In this example of our ”why Cornell” essay examples, the student illustrates why a niche major at Cornell is a perfect fit for them. Although many colleges would have Psychology or Biology majors, “Biology and Society” is a specific major unique to Cornell. This essay makes clear that the student’s passions lie at the intersection of biology and society. In doing so, they show that Cornell is the only college that could allow them to pursue their passion.

Out of other “why Cornell” essay examples you might explore, this essay in particular showcases a more conversational and casual writing style. The fun parentheticals and quirky turns of phrase like “ you-like-pink-so-you-must-be-bubbly” better convey this author’s personality than a more formal style. Reading various “why Cornell” essay examples will show that strong essays don’t require a particular style. On the contrary, what’s most important is that you represent who you are.

Word limit and content

Since this essay has a 650-word limit, the writer had a lot of room to go into the specifics of their passion. This works well for this student, letting them show not only their personal interest in these topics, but also their specific knowledge of psychological and biological concepts.

Now that you’ve read two college essay examples for Ivy League schools that focus on similar topics, let’s think. How do the Cornell essay examples and the Brown essay examples show different ways of talking about the same topic? If you were the writer of this Cornell essay, how would you adapt it to the 150-word limit for Brown? When you’re working on your own Brown application or Cornell application, these are some of the essay-writing challenges you’ll face.

For our next college essay examples for Ivy League schools, we’ll cover some Yale essay examples.

Yale Essay Examples

Yale essay example, please reflect on something you would like us to know about you that we might not learn from the rest of your application, or on something about which you would like to say more. you may write about anything—from personal experiences or goals to interests or intellectual pursuits. (please answer in 500 words or fewer)..

“She’s in the hospital.”

I sputtered into the receiver, speechless at my grandmother’s words. The previous week, she explained that my mother had been acting strangely. At first, I wasn’t concerned. I didn’t consider putting plasticware in the toaster oven or raving about hackers online a cause for alarm. But her behavior only escalated from there.

One night, at the height of Florida summer, my grandmother awoke covered in sweat to find the air conditioning had been turned off. When asked, my mother confessed, insisting that the circulated air had been poisoned by some spiteful coworkers. The following day, she was found slumped over the edge of a balcony, seconds from taking the leap.

Despite all of this, I couldn’t believe that there could be anything wrong with my mother. I couldn’t believe it when I got a call shortly afterward informing me of her diagnosis: schizoaffective disorder.

In the days following the news, I felt a growing darkness within me. While my mother endured emergency evaluations at the local hospital, I was consumed by self-pity and anger. I couldn’t decide who to blame — the doctors who diagnosed her or the heavens who allowed the woman that raised me to disappear. I was shaken at the loss of the woman who tangoed with me in the kitchen and cheered me on at recitals.

My world had lost any semblance of sense within a few weeks; the rug had been pulled out from underneath me. But I began to see that this event wasn’t the terror that it seemed to be. I had to accept change. Fate hadn’t wronged me. My mother’s diagnosis, though painful, was just another happening, another day, and another moment, not something I could expect the earth to atone for.

My mother reading to me every night as a young child is a miracle. All of those days spent swaddled in a comforter watching television together are a miracle. And while these things didn’t last forever, they also will never fade. No matter what my mother’s mental state is, my memories with her will remain timeless. I can tenderly recall her patience as she cleaned the spilled milk off of the kitchen floor, or the gentle humming in my ear as she rocked me to sleep. It is these memories that will live on forever, not the illness befalling her.

One loss doesn’t destroy all of the beauty that’s been had, and I know that I’ll never lose the tenderness of my life’s small miracles. I refuse to believe that the radiance of my world will ever be lost because one aspect of it doesn’t go as planned. I will never escape change or circumstance, but I know that they are nothing to fear.

As we’ve noted for other college essay examples for Ivy League schools, essays can tell something new in your story. This essay focuses on sharing a part of the student’s identity that the admissions committee wouldn’t otherwise know. In this one of our Yale essay examples, the student recounts struggling with their mother’s diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder.

The above example of our Yale essay examples is a very moving and well-written piece. We are dropped into the moment the writer gets a call from their grandmother about their mother’s hospitalization. From there, the student backtracks to give the reader more detail.

Many strong Yale essay examples, and college essay examples for Ivy Leagues in general, involve self-reflection and vulnerability. This essay is a beautiful example of this. The second half of this essay is spent reflecting on the myriad ways this diagnosis affected the author’s perspective. While it first inspired hurt and anger, it then changed the way they view the world.

Writing about personal growth or change is a common topic for college applications. Though this is a beautiful story showing the student’s gratitude and maturity, remember that not all Ivy League essays that worked are like this. Indeed, many applicants may not wish to write about personally traumatic events—you are not obligated to write your trauma. Any story that tells the admissions committee more about you, especially one that demonstrates change growth, is a great start.

Next, we’re going to look at some Dartmouth essay examples and key points of “why Dartmouth” essays that worked. If you want more example essays for Dartmouth, read our complete guide .

Dartmouth Essay Examples

Why dartmouth essay that worked, what attracts you to dartmouth (100 words).

I always had a keen interest in numbers, probability, and finance. Early on, I could quickly calculate sales tax, analyze probabilities, and visualize complex mathematical models. After taking AP classes in economics and statistics, I became intrigued with mathematical representations for economic markets and statistical models.

This sparked my desire to pursue an actuarial career to utilize my talents in quantitative reasoning. The Major in Mathematical Data Science will provide me the skills to apply abstract mathematical and statistical theories to the concrete world. I will also have the opportunity to stimulate my academic intrigue through an intensive research project.

This one of our Dartmouth essay examples is one of the “why Dartmouth” essays that worked. A key feature of “why school” essays is mentioning specific facts about the school in question. In this case, this writer shows the Dartmouth admissions committee that they have done their research and care about Dartmouth.

Like many “why Dartmouth” essays that worked, this essay focuses mostly on academic goals—sensible, given the very low word limit. We learn a lot about the writer’s academic interests quickly and concisely. Then, we see what they would do at Dartmouth specifically to pursue these goals.

The next of our Dartmouth essay examples is more broad, and gives the writer more room to get creative–pun intended!

Dartmouth Essay Example

Talk about a creative moment in your life. (300 words) .

Music has always been a big part of my life. Early on, my musical inclination was engendered in me through my family. My father was an accomplished “Timbalero” in his high school salsa band. While my mother still plays her extensive library of 80’s arena rock albums during long car rides.

My family’s love for music is even more pronounced during family gatherings; salsa music rumbles the floor and vibrant dancing fills the living room. Surrounded by various types of music made it second nature for me to learn an instrument. Ever since I picked up the guitar in the second grade, I have been surrounded by creative impulses that have driven me to write my own songs. Melodies constantly play in my head and are not silenced until I release them through the strings of my guitar. However, my greatest piece of music drew inspiration from the children’s TV show Adventure Time, a light-hearted show about a boy and his dog seeking adventure.

One silent episode where two characters trek a post-apocalyptic landscape prompted me to pick up my guitar and play what came to my head. In sixth grade, this story was the most tragic and complex that I was ever exposed to. Naturally, I had to create something that mimicked its artistry. My efforts would materialize into my song titled, “Remains.” It begins with an exchange of ominous chords that mirrors the depravity of the scenery depicted in that episode. Then, the guitars lift out of their sluggish state and usher in a series of chords that float between tones of desolation and hope.

Finally, the song culminates with an epic power-rock portion before returning to the desolate chords that started the song. Hence, my most intricate piece of music would be inspired by a children’s TV show.

In the second of our Dartmouth essay examples, the student uses descriptive imagery to walk us through one of their creative passions: music. The “creative moment in their life” was being inspired by a children’s TV show to create their “most intricate piece of music.” Ivy League essays that worked directly answer the prompt while highlighting unique traits of the writer.

But first, we learn about why the student loves music in the first place. Music is in their blood and is a big part of their upbringing and culture. Remember, other components of your Dartmouth application can only show so much. Essays give the Dartmouth admissions committee a window into your personality and values that the Dartmouth application wouldn’t otherwise show. This student weaves in scenes from their upbringing into an essay about creativity, and uses vivid images to do so.

Moving from the Dartmouth admissions committee to Princeton admissions, let’s continue with our college essay examples for Ivy League schools. Namely, let’s read Princeton essay examples.

Princeton Essay Examples

In the next group of Ivy League essays that worked, we’ll feature more college essay examples for Ivy League schools. These Princeton essay examples are varied, including a classic “why major” prompt, as well as an extracurricular activities essay example. For more sample Ivy League essays from Princeton, check out this guide .

Princeton Essay Example

If you are interested in pursuing a b.s.e. (bachelor of science in engineering) degree, please write a 300-500 word essay describing why you are interested in studying engineering, any experiences in or exposure to engineering you have had, and how you think the programs in engineering offered at princeton suit your particular interests. (independent work, community, junior papers, senior thesis, incredibly easy to change course of study).

“Some of you may wonder ‘When will I ever use derivatives in real life?’ Welcome to when.” My physics teacher described engineering as the “when” math and physics were applied to real problems. That is what is so attractive about engineering; it gives me the ability to apply intriguing concepts to fascinating projects

During the Chain Reaction Contraption competition, my team and I created a Rube Goldberg machine to complete a certain task. I found a love for the hands-on, creative portion of mechanical engineering. The ability to step away from the calculator and notebook and get my hands dirty is the most enjoyable aspect of this profession. I also enjoyed how engineering combines creative freedom and mathematical certainty. In creation of each step, I could design whatever I desired and had a large degree of flexibility. Afterwards, I would complete the calculations and see how math and physics concepts applied to a real-life problem. Finally, I would build the step, getting to experience a “hands-on” area of engineering. While I participated in other engineering activities in high school, this experience solidified my passion for engineering.

However, other engineering activities also provided important experiences that contributed to my desire to pursue engineering. In my engineering design class, I enjoyed using computer programs like Autodesk Inventor and AutoCAD to create my designs. In FTC Robotics, I discovered that in addition to building the robot, I also loved the programming aspect.

Reflecting on these experiences with engineering, particularly mechanical engineering, I am certain engineering is the best path for me. As sure as I am about pursuing engineering, I am even more certain Princeton Engineering is the best fit for me.

One thing I appreciate about Princeton is the emphasis placed on independent work. I learn best through independent learning, and Princeton already has this area built into its curriculum. Through Junior papers and the Senior thesis, I will be able to conduct original research or undertake a significant engineering project. My favorite classes in high school are those that culminated in independent final projects. The process of thinking through ideas and finding the best solution provides an outlet for my curiosity and allows me to immerse myself in a subject.

However, while I am an independent worker and learner, I also enjoy working in groups and being part of a strong community. Every undergraduate student at Princeton I have spoke to, mentions how supportive and tight-knot the Princeton community is. Students consistently bring out the best in one another and push those around them to reach their goals. Coming from a hometown with this kind of atmosphere, Princeton’s community would feel comfortable.

Lastly, Princeton’s strong Hispanic community would also provide another source of support and social connection for me. In my school, I do not have a large Hispanic base. As a result, this ethnic community attracts me to Princeton because I would love to be apart of a group with individuals like myself.

The first of our Princeton essay examples is for a specialized program, the Bachelor of Science in Engineering. With 500 words to work with, this writer was able to go into detail. In addition to their interest in engineering, they outlined the engineering experience they already have and how it motivates them to keep learning.

Remember, especially for schools without a “why school?” essay, you should explain both your interest in the subject and in the institution. The Princeton admissions team will be looking to make sure that you have done your research on the school’s offerings.

Like other sample Ivy League essays, this essay mentions aspects of Princeton’s learning environment that the writer would benefit from. Typical of successful Ivy League essay examples, the writer doesn’t just praise Princeton’s engineering program—they highlight specifics of the program, like independent research opportunities and community values.

For the next one of our college essays that worked, you’ll read a brief essay on a student’s summer vacations.

Another Princeton Essay Example

Please tell us how you have spent the last two summers (or vacations between school years), including any jobs you have held. (about 150 words).

Cross-country and marching band dominated my daily schedule. Cross-country practices were six days weekly, all summer. Marching Band consisted of two band camp weeks with six to ten hours daily.

For work, I worked about 15 hours weekly at Scally’s Driving Range one summer and Panda Express the next.

Prior to Junior year, I went to programs to explore possible career interests: Medical Career Seminar, where I learned about the medical field, shadowed doctors, and volunteered at hospitals, and Washington Week, where I met with congressmen, FBI agents, and visited sites in D.C.

Before Senior year, I was accepted to University of Michigan’s Summer College Engineering Exposure Program (SCEEP) and MIT Online Science, Technology, Engineering Community (MOSTEC). In SCEEP, my team solved a design challenge and presented the solution to university staff. In MOSTEC, I took Neuroscience and Science Writing and presented my Neuroscience project during conference week at MIT.

As with some of our other Ivy League college essay examples, this student used very few words to great effect. They answered the question thoroughly and with detail while getting all of their main points across. It’s easy to see that they were very busy with a wide range of activities.

With such a small space for answers and so much information to convey, it’s okay not to include anecdotes or flowery language. However, for applicants who did the same thing for both summers, this space could include more descriptions and anecdotes about that experience. This way, they could tell more of a story rather than just listing information. Use the space according to your experiences and the story you wish to tell.

Our next example of college essays that worked is also quite short and is about a popular topic: extracurriculars .

Princeton Extracurricular Activity Essay Example

Please briefly elaborate on one of your extracurricular activities or work experiences that was particularly meaningful to you. (about 150 words).

Gasping for air, I do not dare to move as the last chord resonates through the parking lot where the marching band rehearses. Check and adjust. Did I make my final spot, or am I off, possibly costing the band points if I’m off in a show? Standby. Bringing my flute down, I relax and glance around me, ensuring my section had adjusted as well.

Reflecting on my last four years in the organization, I am grateful for the experience. Marching band combined two favorite pastimes, athleticism and music, and introduced me to my closest friends and role models.

Ten hour rehearsals at band camp and returning home from a band competition in Canton, Ohio at 3 a.m. after a 6 a.m. departure the previous day seemed more like pleasure than work. In marching band, exhaustion is nonexistent and passion is enduring.

In Ivy League college essay examples about only one extracurricular or activity, you have space to go into more detail. This student used an anecdote in the first paragraph to show the reader how much marching band means to them.

In the third of our Princeton college essays that worked, this student did a lot of “showing, not telling.” Instead of simply saying they are nervous when they finish a piece, they describe how it feels. Gasping for air, hearing the chord resonate, questioning whether they had gotten it right—these vivid details are crucial. This puts the members of the Princeton admissions team in the place of the student as they read the essay.

For our next Ivy League essay example, we’ll read another long-form, Common App-style essay.

This Princeton essay example comes from the prompts listed below:

Princeton Essay Prompts

In addition to the essay you have written for the common application, please write an essay of about 500 words (no more than 650 words and no fewer than 250 words). using one of the themes below as a starting point, write about a person, event, or experience that helped you define one of your values or in some way changed how you approach the world. please do not repeat, in full or in part, the essay you wrote for the common application., 1. tell us about a person who has influenced you in a significant way., 2.“one of the great challenges of our time is that the disparities we face today have more complex causes and point less straightforwardly to solutions.” omar wasow, assistant professor of politics, princeton university. this quote is taken from professor wasow’s january 2014 speech at the martin luther king day celebration at princeton university., 3. “culture is what presents us with the kinds of valuable things that can fill a life. and insofar as we can recognize the value in those things and make them part of our lives, our lives are meaningful.” gideon rosen, stuart professor of philosophy and chair, department of philosophy, princeton university. , 4. using a favorite quotation from an essay or book you have read in the last three years as a starting point, tell us about an event or experience that helped you define one of your values or changed how you approach the world. please write the quotation, title and author at the beginning of your essay..

Sitting around the table at Denny’s, the waitress asks my grandfather about our family’s heritage. He smiles, knowing he won’t be giving the simple answer expected. He explains he is a Spaniard and his wife is German. My other grandfather and my parents are Venezuelan. That grandfather’s wife is from Martinique. My brothers and I are American and the only ones who live in their home country.

For the last few generations, my ancestors have rarely resided in the same country into adulthood. As a result, their unique experiences have created open-minded individuals with widespread impact.

In contrast to the mobility of my ancestors, I live in a stagnant town, in which many live in the same place where they grew up. The lack of exposure to different people and experiences means much of my community is afraid of change and resistant to new ideas.

Witnessing two different lifestyles from my family and community, I know I want to live my family’s lifestyle. As an individual, I hope to embrace change and always be growing in my understanding of the world. Rather than confining myself to preconceived notions, I aspire to take part in my family’s culture and allow my experiences to shape my beliefs and perspectives.

My family’s culture of open-mindedness has inspired me to bring the idea of encouraging change and progress to society through technology. Using my talents, I will contribute to the advancement of society and bring a new perspective to the field while respecting other viewpoints. Lack of progress creates an aversion to change and the inability to improve lives. Because I have seen these effects of stagnancy on a community and its individuals, I wish to help create a world that is constantly changing – for the better.

In some college essays that worked, the writer focuses on culture, its impact on their life, and what it means to them. This writer takes a unique view on “culture”: not just heritage, but an overall attitude of open-mindedness and receptiveness to change.

Open-mindedness, intellectual curiosity, and diversity are strong essay topics commonly seen in college essays that worked. This is because they enable applicants to provide their own perspective on a core value of the institution.

Now that we’re finished with the Princeton essays, we’ve reached the end of our analysis of sample Ivy League essays. Before we conclude the guide, we’ll give some final tips on college essays that worked and how to write your own!

How important are college essays in the Ivy League?

Now that we’ve read strong Ivy League college essay examples, you might wonder: how important are college essays in the Ivy League?

College essays are an incredibly important part of your application. Most colleges look at applications “holistically,” which means that they are taking every part of your application into account. In other words, your grades, test scores, extracurriculars, letters of recommendation, and essays are all important. For Ivy League schools, you could argue that essays are even more important than for other universities. Since Ivies get incredibly high numbers of applicants, many of them have the strongest grades and the highest test scores. A stellar essay could distinguish you from other students.

As seen in these Ivy League essay examples, students who were honest, clear, introspective, and evocative wrote the strongest essays. College essay examples for Ivy League schools cover a wide range of subjects, and for good reason. There are endless topics that could serve as the foundation for Ivy League essay examples that worked.

What else do Ivy League schools look for in essays?

These Ivy League essay examples should have given you a peek into what Ivy League schools are looking for in essays. From reading these essays, what stands out to you the most? Is it the vulnerability shown by students? The artful language? The nuanced weaving together of anecdotes, personal reflection, and goals for the future? As demonstrated by these Ivy League essay examples, Ivy League schools are looking for a combination of these factors.

How do Ivy League schools evaluate essays?

Sure, these Ivy League essay examples have provided a roadmap for how to write a great essay for your Harvard application. But how can you be sure that the admissions committee will see the merit of your work?

Ivy League schools review applications holistically, so they evaluate essays along with other materials to understand who you are. Just like your grades, the essay shows a part of your personality and your background. Ideally, your essays will have given the admissions committee a deeper look into several aspects of you. If written thoughtfully, essays should enhance your status as an applicant and highlight your potential in and out of the classroom.

More Ivy League Resources from CollegeAdvisor

If after reading this guide on Ivy League essay examples you’re looking for more resources on how to optimize your chances with Ivy League schools, check out our other guides!

For general advice on acing Ivy League applications, check out this article . If you’re still wondering how Ivy League schools evaluate essays within the application, read this article on Harvard’s rating system . We also have many webinars about Ivy League schools, like this one comparing different Ivies.

Ivy League Essay Examples – 5 Tips for Standout Essays

Before you submit that Yale or Dartmouth application, let’s go over 5 tips for standout essays. The Ivy League college essay examples that we have gone over exemplify these goals. Try and apply these tips from college essays that worked into your own writing!

5 Tips for writing Ivy League essays

1. stay true to your voice.

The admissions committee wants to get to know you. Don’t just write what you think they want to hear or a narrative if it isn’t genuine.

2. Tell us something we don’t know

You should use your essays as a way to show the admissions officers something they can’t see elsewhere in your application.

3. Show, don’t tell

Work anecdotes and strong imagery into your writing to make the reader feel as if they’re along for the ride with you. Remember, however, that very short essays may not have room for narrative writing.

4. Answer the question

Different questions need different answers, and the word count can drastically change the structure of your essay. Include detail, but be concise—there’s no need to include flowery sentences that don’t add new information. Focus on addressing the prompt.

5. Use correct spelling and grammar

Reading the essay out loud will help you catch any grammar mistakes or typos while editing . Don’t be afraid to ask a parent or counselor to read the essay over for you.

If you want more tips on essay writing, check out these videos from CollegeBoard, and these brainstorming tips . And if you missed UPenn in this lineup, check out our article going over some UPenn essay examples !

Ivy League Essay Examples – Final Thoughts

Now that you’ve read these sample Ivy League essays, we hope that you feel more prepared to take on writing your own Ivy League application essays. Remember, every one of these Ivy League essay examples began with a student staring at a blank page.

We believe that you can write an essay that will impress Brown or Harvard admissions. Now, go write!

This essay examples article was written by advisor, Rachel Kahn . Looking for more admissions support? Click here to schedule a free meeting with one of our Admissions Specialists. During your meeting, our team will discuss your profile and help you find targeted ways to increase your admissions odds at top schools. We’ll also answer any questions and discuss how CollegeAdvisor.com can support you in the college application process.

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How To Write Great Ivy League Essays (With Examples)

Introduction

College admissions are a tiresome process. The decision-making processes of hyper-selective Ivy League schools can seem mostly cloudy to applicants.

You may have heard about the Common App Essay, and supplemental college application essays provide the opportunity for students to display some of the harder-to-summarize, technical aspects of their application. Through such essays, students give a chance to admissions officers to display a sense of their personality, likings that fall outside the scope of their resume, or moments that matter to them.

When nearing the personal statement and supplemental essays for hyper-selective schools, parents and students often wonder what Ivy League schools are be looking for.

This article will discuss successful Ivy League essays’ qualities and offer step-by-step guidance to help you produce such work.

Let’s start by identifying what makes Ivy League applications and expectations qualitatively different from the others. There’s a type of trickle-down effect that we can see from Ivy League schools to liberal arts schools, so preparing your child for top schools’ applications can train them to apply to mid-tier schools as well.

But, mainly, we notice that the most selective colleges ask for students to demonstrate strong passion, leadership, competence, initiative, and memorability.

Admissions committees evaluate these essays as part of a holistic narrative of a student—a good essay doesn’t guarantee admission. Admissions—especially at Ivy League schools—is a complicated, multi-faceted, and ever-changing process. What might make one essay perfect in any given year might not apply to essays in upcoming years.

Keeping that in mind, we’ve collected successful Ivy League essays from applicants who were accepted into one or more Ivy League or Ivy+ institutions (such as Stanford, MIT, UChicago). By properly going through these essays, we’ve compiled a list of strategies for writing essay competition in a highly selective applicant pool.

Ivy League essay prompts

Supplemental prompts change a little bit every year. But we’ve systemized a list of the prompts from Ivy League schools from the 2018-2019 Common App. Between all of these questions and the Personal Statement, you will easily find several routes into demonstrating your best qualities.

Keeping that in mind, we’ve first listed all of the prompts for the Ivy League schools.

( Note: Cornell University is excluded from this list because their prompts vary by program. )

Princeton University essay prompt

In addition to the essay you have written for the Common Application, please write an essay of about 500 words (no more than 650 words and no fewer than 250 words). Using one of the themes below as a starting point, write about a person, event, or experience that helped you define one of your values or in some way changed how you approach the world. Please do not repeat the essay you wrote for the Common Application in whole or in part.

1. Tell us about a person who has influenced you in a significant way.

2.“One of the great challenges of our time is that the disparities we face today have more complex causes and point less straightforwardly to solutions.” Omar Wasow, assistant professor of politics, Princeton University. This quote is taken from Professor Wasow’s January 2014 speech at the Martin Luther King Day celebration at Princeton University.

3. “Culture is what presents us with the kinds of valuable things that can fill a life. And insofar as we can recognize the value in those things and make them part of our lives, our lives are meaningful.” Gideon Rosen, Stuart Professor of Philosophy and Chair, Department of Philosophy, Princeton University.

4. Using a favorite quotation from an essay or book you have read in the last three years as a starting point, tell us about an event or experience that helped you define one of your values or changed how you approach the world. Please write the quotation, title, and author at the beginning of your essay.

Harvard University essay prompt

You may wish to include an additional essay if you feel that the college application forms do not provide sufficient opportunity to convey important information about yourself or your accomplishments. You may write on a topic of your choice, or you may choose from one of the following topics:

Unusual circumstances in your life
Travel, living, or working experiences in your own or other communities
What you would want your future college roommate to know about you
An intellectual experience (course, project, book, discussion, paper, poetry, or research topic in engineering, mathematics, science, or other modes of inquiry) that has meant the most to you
How you hope to use your college education
A list of books you have read during the past twelve months
The Harvard College Honor code declares that we “hold honesty as the foundation of our community.” As you consider entering this community committed to honesty, please reflect on a time when you or someone you observed had to choose whether to act with integrity and honesty.
The mission of Harvard College is to educate our students to be citizens and citizen-leaders for society. What would you do to contribute to the lives of your classmates in advancing this mission?
Each year, many students admitted to Harvard defer their admission for one year or take time off during college. If you decided in the future to choose either option, what would you like to do?
Harvard has long recognized the importance of student body diversity of all kinds. We welcome you to write about distinctive aspects of your background, personal development, or the intellectual interests you might bring to your Harvard classmates.

Columbia University essay prompt

List a few words or phrases that describe your ideal college community. (150 words or less)

List the titles of the required readings from courses during the school year or summer that you enjoyed most in the past year. (150 words or less)

List the titles of the books you read for pleasure that you enjoyed most in the past year. (150 words or less)

List the titles of the print, electronic publications, and websites you read regularly. (150 words or less)

List the titles of the films, concerts, shows, exhibits, lectures, and other entertainments you enjoyed most in the past year. (150 words or less)

Please tell us what you value most about Columbia and why. (300 words or less)

MIT essay prompt

We know you lead a busy life, full of activities, many of which are required of you. Tell us about something you do simply for the pleasure of it. (100 words or fewer)

Although you may not yet know what you want to major in, which department or program at MIT appeals to you and why? (100 words or fewer)

At MIT, we bring people together to better the lives of others. MIT students work to improve their communities differently, from tackling the world’s biggest challenges to being good friends. Describe one way in which you have contributed to your community, whether in your family, the classroom, your neighborhood, etc. (200-250 words)

Describe the world you come from; for example, your family, clubs, school, community, city, or town. How has that world shaped your dreams and aspirations? (200-250 words)

Tell us about the most significant challenge you’ve faced or something important that didn’t go according to plan. How did you manage the situation? (200-250 words)

University of Chicago essay prompt

Choose one of the six extended essay options and upload a one- or two-page response.

1. In 2015, the city of Melbourne, Australia, created a ''tree-mail'' service, in which all of the trees in the city received an email address so that residents could report any tree-related issues. As an unexpected result, people began to email their favorite trees sweet and occasionally humorous letters. Imagine this has been expanded to any object (tree or otherwise) in the world, and share with us the letter you'd send to your favorite.

Inspired by Hannah Lu, Class of 2020

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

Inspired by Chandani Latey, AB'93

3. The word floccinaucinihilipilification is the act or habit of describing or regarding something as unimportant or of having no value. It originated in the mid-18th century from the Latin words ''floccu,'' ''naucum,'' ''nihilum,'' and ''pilus'' - all words meaning ''of little use.'' Coin your word using parts from any language you choose, tell us its meaning, and describe the plausible (if only to you) scenarios in which it would be most appropriately used.

Inspired by Ben Zhang, Class of 2022

4. Lost your keys? Alohomora. Noisy roommate? Quietus. Feel the need to shatter windows for some reason? Finestra. Create your spell, charm, jinx, or other means for magical mayhem. How is it enacted? Is there an incantation? Does it involve a potion or other magical object? If so, what's in it, or what is it? What does it do?

Inspired by Emma Sorkin, Class of 2021

5. Imagine you’ve struck a deal with the Dean of Admissions himself, Dean Nondorf. It goes as follows: you’re guaranteed admission to the University of Chicago regardless of any circumstances that arise. This bond is grounded on the condition that you’ll obtain a blank, 8.5 x 11 piece of paper, and draw, write, sketch, shade, stencil, paint, etc., anything and everything you want on it; your only limitations will be the boundaries of both sides on the single page. Now the catch… your submission will always be the first thing anyone you meet for the first time will see for the rest of your life. Whether it’s at a job interview, a blind date, arrival at your first Humanities class, before you even say, “Hey,” they’ll already have seen your page and formulated that first impression. Show us your page. What’s on it, and why? If your piece is essentially or exclusively visual, please make sure to share a creator's accompanying statement of at least 300 words, which we will happily allow to be on its own, separate page. PS: This is a creative thought experiment, so please note: selecting this essay prompt does not guarantee your admission to UChicago or forgive poor grades, criminal mischief, or any other “circumstances” that “may” “arise.”

Inspired by Amandeep Singh Ahluwalia, Class of 2022

6. In the spirit of adventurous inquiry, pose your question or choose one of our past prompts. Be original, creative, thought-provoking. Draw on your best qualities as a writer, thinker, visionary, social critic, sage, a citizen of the world, or future citizen of the University of Chicago; take a little risk, and have fun. You can find our past prompts here.

How does the University of Chicago, as you know it now, satisfy your desire for a particular kind of learning, community, and future? Please address with some specificity your wishes and how they relate to UChicago.

Yale University essay prompt

What is it about Yale that has led you to apply? (125 words or fewer)

Please respond in no more than 200 characters (approximately 35 words) to each of the following questions:

1. What inspires you?

2. Yale’s residential colleges regularly host conversations with guests representing a wide range of experiences and accomplishments. What person, past or present, would you invite to speak? What question would you ask?

3. You are teaching a Yale course. What is it called?

4. Most first-year Yale students live in suites of four to six people. What do you hope to add to your suitemates' experience? What do you wish they will add to yours?

Please choose two of the following topics and respond to each in 250 words or fewer.

1. Think about an idea or topic that has been intellectually exciting for you. Why are you drawn to it?

2. Reflect on your engagement with the community to which you belong. How do you feel you have contributed to this community?

3. Yale students, faculty, and alumni engage local, national, and international issues. Discuss an issue that is significant to you and how your college experience might help you address it.

Stanford University essay prompt

What is the most significant challenge that society faces today? (50-word limit)
How did you spend your last two summers? (50-word limit)
What historical moment or event do you wish you could have witnessed? (50-word limit)
What five words best describe you?
When the choice is yours, what do you read, listen to, or watch? (50-word limit)
Name one thing you are looking forward to experiencing at Stanford. (50-word limit)
Imagine you had an extra hour in the day — how would you spend that time? (50-word limit).
The Stanford community is curious and driven to learn in and out of the classroom. Reflect on an idea or experience that makes you genuinely excited about learning. (100 to 250 words)
Virtually all of Stanford's undergraduates live on campus. Write a note to your future roommate that reveals something about you or that will help your roommate – and us – know you better. (100 to 250 words)
Tell us about something meaningful to you and why. (100 to 250 words)

University of Pennsylvania essay prompt

How will you explore your intellectual and academic interests at the University of Pennsylvania? Please answer this question given the specific undergraduate school to which you are applying. (400-650 words)

Dartmouth University essay prompt

While arguing a Dartmouth-related case before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1818, Daniel Webster, Class of 1801, delivered this memorable line: “It is, Sir…a small college. And yet, some love it!” As you seek admission to the Class of 2023, what aspects of the College’s program, community, or campus environment attract your interest?

Choose one of the following prompts and respond in 250-300 words:

“I have no special talent,” Albert Einstein once observed. “I am only passionately curious.” Celebrate your curiosity.
The Hawaiian word mo’olelo is often translated as “story,” but it can also refer to history, legend, genealogy, and tradition. Use one of these translations to introduce yourself.
“You can’t use up creativity,” Maya Angelou mused. “The more you use, the more you have.” Share a creative moment or impulse—in any form—that inspired creativity in your life.
In the aftermath of World War II, Dartmouth President John Sloane Dickey, Class of 1929, proclaimed, “The world’s troubles are your troubles…and there is nothing wrong with the world that better human beings cannot fix.” Which of the world’s “troubles” inspires you to act? How might your course of study at Dartmouth prepare you to address it?
In The Bingo Palace, author Louise Erdrich, Class of 1976, writes, “…no one gets wise enough to understand the heart of another, though it is the task of our life to try.” Discuss.
Emmy and Grammy winner Donald Glover is a 21st century Renaissance man—an actor, comedian, writer, director, producer, singer, songwriter, rapper, and DJ. And yet, the versatile storyteller and performer recently told an interviewer, “The thing I imagine myself being in the future doesn’t exist yet.” Can you relate?

Brown University essay prompt

Why are you drawn to the area(s) of study you indicated earlier in this application? (You may share with us a skill or concept that you found challenging and rewarding to learn or any experiences beyond course work that may have broadened your interest.) (250-word limit)

What do you hope to experience at Brown through the Open Curriculum, and what do you wish to contribute to the Brown community? (250-word limit)

What do all of the prompts mentioned above have in common?

Remember the qualities we talked about above? Intense passion, leadership, competence, initiative, and memorability! Every one of these prompts is, in some way, planned to get you reflecting on something original and enthusiastic manner.

After doing the close-reading of the Ivy+ prompts, we can notice a few key things.

Whether it’s Yale asking about something you are “intellectually excited” about, or Brown speaking about something to reflect on the particularities of the Open Curriculum, or Stanford extracting a note to a roommate, these schools want you to detail their most particular obsessions, and to be able to speak about them in a way that shows intelligence and unique way of thinking.

They want to be sure that you will share your passions with your classmates, roommates, etc.

Yet again, these are the things any university school would love to see in your Common App PS. But the Ivy+ colleges’ questions are mainly to test such qualities.

What follows is advice that can apply to both the PS and the supplementals, given the wide range of topics one can address across each type of essay.

How to pick an Ivy League essay topic

Successful students write about what interests them. The topic shouldn’t be something weird or reflects the student’s central academic and extracurricular activities. It should be about something the student can write about with belief, excitement, and specificity.

We’ve four examples of students who pulled off successful admissions cycles to Ivy+ schools. Let’s see how they chose their subject matter.

Our first example student is Angela. Angela is passionate about the environment, though she’s also involved in activities like playing basketball, and she is also part of the French club. When choosing a topic for supplemental essays, one might expect Angela to select something related to her interest or that in some way reflects on her academic prowess in the humanities.

Instead, in one of her supplemental essays, Angela chooses to write about a topic that may at first seem unrelated to her application. She decided to write about one of her favorite teachers, who significantly impacted her life.

Our second example student is Jenna. She’s interested in politics and history. For her supplemental essays, she decided to write about her love for the musical. Hamilton .

In each essay, the students’ genuine interest in the subject shines through. By way of their interests, we learn, indirectly, more about each student herself.

In other words, it’s not so much the topic but the voice and tone in which these students write about their chosen subject that will give an admissions committee insight into their personalities and characters. In the next section of this post, we’ll break down how Angela and Jenna use tone, voice, and detail to communicate something about themselves while writing about Hamilton or a favorite teacher.

Our third student, Simon, his grades and test scores are high in math, science, and history. In extracurricular he has achieved in a mock trial but has also succeeded in art competitions. One of his supplemental essays for Princeton asked that he respond to a quotation of his choosing.

Like Angela and Maria, Simon didn’t pick anything they used to do regularly: he introspected and chose something that had genuinely piqued his curiosity in the things he’d studied in the past few years. In response to the quotation, the resulting essay is associative and spontaneous rather than a rehash of Simon’s impressive resume.

Let’s look at another example of a student name Rhea, who is the opposite of Simon. Rather than being “well-rounded,” Rhea is what the Harvard Admissions website might call “well-lopsided.” She loves writing and reading and has shown interest through her involvement with her school’s slam poetry team and national writing competitions. Besides that, she struggles in subjects like math. Rhea’s supplemental essay for Yale underlines the quality that makes her “well-lopsided”—she writes about it with pure intensity.

In short, you should try to choose a topic you’re excited to talk about. What could you talk about with your friends endlessly for hours? How you spend your free time? Who’s the person in your life in your everyday life that has influenced or changed you? Are there moments in your life that have made you feel part of something larger?

How to decide on an essay structure

Once you have chosen a topic that you’re interested in, the next step is to decide the proper structure for the essay. An Ivy League-quality essay is not just about five paragraphs. An Ivy+ quality essay takes narrative and storytelling thoughtfully. It must read like beautiful fiction.

If you are genuinely passionate about your subject matter, an organic design can emerge—indicating that they weren’t just following a static set of building blocks. While we can’t backpedal engineer passion, we can give you some advice regarding storytelling brain rather than their resume-summary brain.

Let’s start with Jenna’s Hamilton essay and her supplemental essay about her favorite teacher. The first design element that makes these essays successful is the opening.

Strategy 1: A “Hook”

Jenna starts her essay with a hook that 1) draws the reader in and 2) forms her voice and enthusiasm instantly. Here’s the opening to her Hamilton essay:

A coal scuttle. A woman on stage, crying, singing, and burning a series of old-looking papers the tea color. All this: a way to tell the audience about someone history has forgotten. This is what happens at one of the emotional climaxes of my favorite musical: Eliza Hamilton, spurned by her husband, removes herself from the historical narrative by burning their letters. I saw Hamilton when my father won a lottery for tickets on a visit to New York City. A drama nerd, I was thrilled to get a chance to see the Pulitzer- and Tony-winning production. I didn’t know how much it would affect how I thought about the past and the present.

For comparison, let’s look at Angela’s opening to the essay about her favorite teacher:

“ Uncertainty could be my guiding light .” – U2

“ Do or do not. There is no try .” – Yoda.

“ Life’s what you make it, so let’s make it rock. ” – Hannah Montana.

A broad group of unconnected aphorisms? Not at all. More like drops of inspirational “Zachary-isms” splashing the drab cinderblock walls with colorful insights.

Observe that these essays open with a focus on something beyond the student: they start by stealing the reader’s attention. They also start small. Rather than declaring what the essay is “about,” Angela and Jenna focus on the specific images to draw the reader in.

It can be unsettling to sit in front of a blank page, trying to convey a big idea. The subject of Jenna’s essay is Hamilton. The idea she communicates in the rest of the essay is that she’s into drama. As a way to take the spotlight and settle for your best self, this musical showed her how through entertainment, she could communicate big ideas about history and politics while inspiring present-day audiences to remember that they’re living through history all the time. She put an essay that subtly links back to her favorite interests while not always keep talking about them too directly.

Observe, that she initiates the essay not by instantly making her love for Hamilton into a metaphor. Instead, she starts with a concrete detail—the climax of the show.

If you are stuck—say you’re trying to write an essay about how your desire for antique shopping taught you to listen to different people, brainstorm specific details about the things they like and are enthusiastic about. What do they know, particularly, about this thing? Jenna knows about the type of prop used onstage because she geeked out and asked around when she dreamt of putting on her version of the show at her high school.

Starting small and going big is a great idea. Also, a successful essay opening can also begin to big. Simon’s essay, which is written in response to a Machiavelli quotation he chose, begins with the following.

The cosmos call to me. Whether in a city, where only the brightest stars break through the noise, or away from all distractions, where their number can overwhelm, I welcome the perspective the heavens bestow. Even though I try to tame the sky with books or a telescope, it never ceases to make me feel powerless.

Establishing your essay with the cosmos is about as big as you can get. But a critical similarity between Simon’s opening and Angela’s is that he still uses a particular image, provided with curiosity and joy. It communicates to admissions committees: this guy knows what they’re talking about, and they’re talking about it from a place of intellectual vitality.

Strategy 2: Establish Larger Significance

So, you started your essay. You finally settled on a topic that excites you. You’ve written an attention-grabbing hook that uses specific knowledge, a sensory image, or fs the essay’s perspective. What next?

Yes, the essay is about the student’s selected topic, but it’s about the student. The next section of the essay, after the hook, should fulfill two things. First, it should exhibit the student’s voice. Second, it should show that the student has thought about why this thing might grab their interest.

Let’s begin with that first goal, establishing voice.

Jenna’s voice comes even in her hook, but her voice becomes even more vital as the essay goes ahead past the hook into the second paragraph.

What defines a unique student voice in an admissions essay? It’s things like word choice, word repetition, and when the student writes more formally vs. more informally.

Sometimes students writes using a formal SAT-word-strewn language in order to impress an admissions committee. On the contrary, ideally, using informal language can humanize the candidate and give the essay a voice. Here’s an example, from Jenna’s Hamilton essay:

Okay, okay. Musical theater can be hammy and campy. I should have learned to love history in school, right? But every year, my class began with the same old recitations about documents that seemed ancient. It wasn’t until I watched Eliza Hamilton rendered with such humanity onstage that I connected to what I later learned was called “historiography,” or how we write history .

Jenna’s voice easily blends the informal—phrases like “Okay, okay” and “right?”—with specific formal language—words like “rendered” and “historiography.” She displays a grasp of vocabulary without coming across as stiff or like a know-it-all.

Repetition can also be a good idea in structuring an essay and establishing voice. Let’s return to Rhea, our “well-lopsided” aspiring writer. One of her supplemental essays for Yale takes as its subject the realization that she uses the written word to understand herself and learn about her family history. The essay begins on a broad, personal note, with an organizing topic sentence in the second paragraph:

When I reflect on my life, everything ties back into the power of the written word.

As the essay goes ahead, it opens up—Rhea links the personal importance of writing to something larger. Thi happens through repetition:

Words make me who I am. The terms of my grandparents told me how lucky I am to be growing up in America, instead of Nazi-occupied Poland or Stalinist Russia, like they did.

In both Jenna and Rhea’s essays, repetition and “opening up” to a larger topic are vital in establishing voice and great significance—both of which will help admissions committees gain a better sense of the students.

How to write Ivy League essay

Now that we’ve done a deep dive into structure—hook, voice, more considerable significance, takeaway—we’ll get into the nitty-gritty of what makes successful Ivy League essays not only structurally compelling but also fascinating and richly textured.

Tip 1: Mention lots of detail

Essays that are successful in the Ivy League stock often use very precise details to impress the essay. You should avoid cliché and generalizations as you write essay.

Let’s look back at Angela’s essay about her favorite teacher. Here’s how she presents him:

The rays beating onto his back seem to infuse him with an enthusiastic energy which he passes on to his drowsy students. The well-worn spine of The Brothers Karamazov is plopped in one open hand, complete with the ubiquitous highlighted passages and illegible margin notes. The other madly gesticulates.

Observe that Angela sets the scene here. We can see the teacher she’s describing: the sun rays, the tired high school students. Instead of saying “a book” she mentions a a specific title. She zooms in to show not just details, but telling details.

We know that this is an lively and dedicated teacher from the description of his gesticulation and the description of the marginalia. Not only do these details tell us something about the teacher: by saying us what Angela see and admires about the teacher, we learn more about Angela. She’s the kind of person who admires devotion to one’s work.

Tip 2: Go with the a humble tone

Essays are not the place to brag. You are in the Ivy League pool, and the non-qualitative parts of the application—the Common App, the resume, etc.—will give the admissions committee idea about your accomplishments.

On the contrary, the essay is a good place to acknowledge faults, contradictions, and uncertainty.

Take Rhea. She writes:

Words are the thread that ties me to the people and events around me. Words help me understand a universe that is at once united and divided. Words remind me that I am at once minusculeseesThese. Insignificant, and at the same time, an essential link in the chain of history.

In the last paragraph of the essay, Rhea ends by introspecting on her own insignificance, which can be a counterpart to an application geared to show an admissions committee how she stands out from the crowd. This ending suggests modesty, humility and perspective, as well as a contradiction. Writing is essential to her in part because she’s good at it, but also because it reminds her that the world is much bigger than herself.

Tip 3: Switch up your word choice

Simon and Jenna’s essays seldom repeat keywords—unless, as in Jenna’s, the repetition is helpful to establish voice. Don’t reach for formal words, but do try to use language that’s firm and particular.

Remember that, as former Princeton Dean of Admissions Janet Lavin Rapelye writes, your essay not only communicates something about you, but also should showcase your writing skills: “Your ability to write well is critical to our decision because your writing reflects your thinking. No matter what question is asked on a college application, admission officers see how well you convey your ideas and express yourself in writing. It is our window to your world .”

Tip 4: make your message simple and clear

You have to avoid bragging in these essays, but it’s essential that you are clear and confident in the subject matter and the message you’re conveying. We’ve touched on the “takeaways” as a practical structural element of a successful essay. It can also be helpful to pepper these “takeaways” throughout the essay.

Here’s an example line from Rhea’s essay: “ Words have whispered to me my whole life. They have been my comfort, my refuge, my outlet, my joy. ”

At first glance, this might seem like an generalization. But this clarity and communicates vital information to an admissions committee: this person is serious about their interests.

Tip 5: Add a title

In the full-length essays mentioned below, some successful essays have a title. This suggests that you have put extra effort into highlighting the essay’s central idea, and you consider it a complete, polished piece of writing.

Tip 6: Try to read interesting people’s college essays

The students we’re highlighting in this post are great writers in part because they’ve been genuinely occupied with the narrative for many years. Check out a few essays by genuinely great writers. Not writers of college essays, but the great ones

Try James Baldwin’s ‘ Letter from A Region in My Mind ’ or ‘Notes of a Native Son,’ Joan Didion’s ‘Goodbye to All That ’ or ‘ Notes from a Native Daughter ,’ Nora Ephron’s ‘ A Few Words About Breasts ,’ Annie Dillard’s ‘Total Eclipse,’ or any number of essays by David Foster Wallace, Zadie Smith, John McPhee, David Sedaris, Meghan Daum, Maggie Nelson, or Anne Fadiman.

Ivy League essay example

Check out successful college essay examples on our site.

Here’s Jenna’s essay on her favorite teacher:

Mr. Zachary’s Opus

“Uncertainty could be my guiding light.” – U2

“Do or do not. There is no try.” – Yoda.

“Life’s what you make it, so let’s make it rock.” – Hannah Montana.

An eclectic group of unrelated aphorisms? Not at all. I like to think of them as drops of inspirational “Zachary-isms” splashing the drab cinderblock walls with colorful insights. To call room 134 a “classroom” is an understatement. I prefer to think of it as a sanctuary where students are free to disagree, take risks, and derive their own sense of meaning.

Room 134? Hardly. It’s an extension of Mr. Zachary himself.

Each English class with “Zac Attack” is a unique experience. He sits on the windowsill digging his elbows into his knees, a panorama of hazy trees stretched behind him in the early morning sunlight. The rays beating onto his back seem to infuse him with an enthusiastic energy which he passes on to his drowsy students. The well-worn spine of Great Expectations is plopped in one open hand, complete with the ubiquitous highlighted passages and illegible margin notes. The other madly gesticulates through the air as he conveys the literary beauty of the passage he’s reading aloud to his awakening audience. He reads faster and faster, gradually increasing the intensity in his voice until suddenly he stops—catching us all by surprise with his silence. A smile spreads across his face as he watches the words he’s just spoken permeate our thawing brains. That is Mr. Zachary in his pure, unadulterated genius.

He finds subtle ways to sneak in references to his proud Irish-Catholic roots. One day, he recited all of Yeats’ “Second Coming” from memory. I could almost see the “widening gyre” behind his dancing eyes. Remarkably, he never intimidates with his boundless knowledge. To be honest, most of the ti, I forget he’s my teacher. I’m genuinely convinced Mr. Zachary is a kid stuck in an adult’s body. He’s the only teacher I know who will walk you to the cafeteria if a conversation spills over into the lunch period. He’s the only teacher I know who conducts class from a beach chair on Fridays. He the only teacher I know who has snappier wisecracks than the class clown. Mr. Zachary is half-Yeats, half-Bono—the perfect Irish combination of intellect with that classic “cool dude” persona.

His passion is contagious. Never before have I felt so liberated sitting in front of a blank computer screen. One of Mr. Zachary’s “inviolate rules” is to write for yourself, not for a grade. He’s taught me to catch the thoughts in my head and crystallize them on paper. He’s taught me to harness the therapeutic power of words flying across the page. He’s taught me to be unafraid of words—to love words. He’s helped me find the writer in myself. He’s a sage, a muse, a bard, a mentor, and a savant. More importantly, he’s my friend.

No one totally figures how you out what the Ivy League wants.

But here’s a summary of the strategies we’ve learned based on over a decade of working with successful Ivy League applicants. We’ve also mentioned the ways your begin outlining and prewriting for an Ivy League essay that impresses the admissions committee.

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Free Resources

The 9 Types of Supplemental Essays and How to Write Them

Sasha Chada
July 27, 2020

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Alongside the personal statement, colleges want all kinds of essay questions answered, from the benign “What do you want to Major in?” to the more outlandish “What’s so odd about odd numbers?” Unfortunately, many applicants struggle with doing more work than is necessary for these essays, trying to write 10, 20, or even 30 different supplemental essays.

There is a better way. In fact, we’ll let you in on a secret: there are actually only nine* types of supplemental essays, and once you can recognize and understand these prompts, writing them becomes a much easier task.

*Terms and conditions may apply.

The nine types of supplemental essay prompts are:

Why Us?

Why Major?

Leadership, extracurricular.

“Quotation”

Short answer.

~Zany~

Here we’ll describe each kind of prompt, how to recognize it, and how to go about answering it.

Example: Northwestern Essay Prompt

“Other parts of your application give us a sense of how you might contribute to Northwestern. But we also want to consider how Northwestern will contribute to your interests and goals. In 300 words or less, help us understand what aspects of Northwestern appeal most to you, and how you’ll make use of specific resources and opportunities here.”

This is the most common supplemental question asked by universities. Everyone wants to feel special, and admissions departments are no different. The point of this essay isn’t just to tell the college how great they are (they presumably already know that), but to explain why you would be a great fit for this particular college.

To illustrate your compatibility, first determine what makes a college a good fit for you, beginning with academics. What specific programs do they offer? What majors? Are there specific faculty members with which you might want to work? What research opportunities does the school provide?

After you determine the answers to these questions, you have the first piece of the essay, and can then add in the second: how does the school fill your specific needs?

In effect, you want the reader to be able to clearly understand the following formulation: “I want to major in X, so program Y at your school is great for me because …”

The “great fit for me, because ” is key: MIT knows they have a great engineering program, so if you want to study engineering, it’d be a great place for you. The point of this essay is to be specific about why that program, in particular, would be a great fit for you because of your unique interests, talents, and abilities. The more specific you are when writing this essay, the more likely the school will agree with your assessment.

You can – and should – also mention non-academic factors, but they should not be the core of the essay. Berkeley and Brown both have strong programs, but are very different schools; Brown is a small, private college with no core curriculum in the Ivy League, while Berkely is on the opposite coast, a large public institution, with a strong athletic tradition; there are myriad factors to consider outside of academics. You do not have to mention all of them, but again, determine what matters to you, and describe how the school fills those desires.

That said, you do not have to write different “Why Us” essays for all your schools . Why? Because, most schools have similar programs or opportunities that overlap; thus, you can simply find each school-specific opportunities and fill them in accordingly. The important factor in a “Why Us” is the specific reason that the program or opportunity is a fit for you and the reason why such an opportunity is a good fit for you is unlikely to be different across the board for most schools. This is especially true if the programs and opportunities between schools are similar.

Example: UT Austin Essay Prompt

“Why are you interested in the major you indicated as your first-choice major?”

Not every school will ask this question, but it is one of the most common prompts, especially since some schools factor in a student’s desired major when making admissions decisions. The key to this essay is to avoid cliché and banality, while also not lying or doctoring your own personal experiences.

Which of these is more compelling:

“I want to major in business because I want to work in finance and be rich.”

“My mom worked in finance, and when I was young, we bonded while she explained her job to me when working at home. I want to follow in my mother’s footsteps and help other people manage their own finances, so they can thrive financially.”

Neither of these is a full essay, but each represents a central theme, which an essay may be built around. While there is nothing wrong with desiring wealth or success, there is also nothing terribly interesting or unique about them. Who doesn’t want an Olympic size pool of cash that they can swim in Scrooge McDuck style? Wanting to be rich for the sake of wealth alone is boring, and the last thing a college essay should be is dull.

This essay requires introspection. What led you to desire what you want to do? What were the formative events that caused you to want to enter a certain field, or study a particular topic?

The strongest ‘Why Major’ essays give a unique answer that could only be written by the applicant, clearly demonstrating to the reader an utterly personal reason for the choice of prospective major.

Example: Yale Essay Prompt

“Reflect on your membership in a community. Why is your involvement important to you? How has it shaped you? You may define community however you like.”

This essay comes in many guises, but can be spotted by the word “community” appearing somewhere in the question. This is an essay you need to only write once, and then edit to meet specific word counts or details as prompts require.

So, what counts as a community anyway? Basically, any grouping of people you are a member of can be considered a community.

Any group where you can say: “There is an us, and I am part of that.” This may seem incredibly broad, and that’s because it is. The point of this essay is to tell admissions officers something about you they wouldn’t otherwise know.

For a community essay, describe how you impacted a community, and how it impacted you. Did founding a chess club, for example, teach you the joy of mentoring others to success? Or, perhaps, did being a part of a minority group give you a unique perspective that allowed you to make a difference in the world around you?

This essay should describe your growth as an individual through your contributions to the greater whole, and how you improved the group as well. Admissions officers are trying to build a community in their admitted class, and want to be sure you will be a strong part of that community.

Example: University of California Essay Prompt

“Describe an example of your leadership experience in which you have positively influenced others, helped resolve disputes, or contributed to group efforts over time.”

Leadership is a difficult quality to define; thus, some students find this essay prompt surprisingly difficult. What you should understand, though, is that there are two kinds of leadership, and demonstrating either will meet the requirements for this essay.

The types of leadership are de jure and de facto . These are fancy legal terms, and therefore in Latin, because terms in Latin make you seem more serious and important.

De Jure leadership is officially recognized and sanctioned leadership. For example, president of a club, member of student council, or Eagle Scout are all examples of de jure leadership. These all lead to an easy time writing an essay, because these positions all require skill at leadership and provide valuable experience in such. Each essay should talk about a concrete experience; a time where you truly made a difference based on the actions you took in a position of leadership. The difference may be small, but it should still be an observable impact.

De Facto leadership is leadership that arises out of a non-officially sanctioned role. People can display leadership even when they haven’t been officially put in charge of a situation. For instance, maybe you organized your friends to put together an apology when things went wrong in class, or maybe you independently organized a neighborhood soccer game or cookout to raise money for a local charity.

Whatever kind of leadership you exhibit, your essay should focus on a concrete event. First, determine for yourself what happened. What was the background? What were the stakes? What did you do specifically? What outcome did your involvement bring? This essay is meant to highlight one of your accomplishments by showing what precisely you have done. Avoid generalities, and give enough details to paint a vivid picture without overwhelming the reader.

Example: Rice University Essay Prompt

“Rice is lauded for creating a collaborative atmosphere that enhances the quality of life for all members of our campus community. The Residential College System is heavily influenced by the unique life experiences and cultural traditions each student brings. What personal perspectives would you contribute to life at Rice?”

This essay asks students about diversity, and how they might fit into or contribute to a diverse community. Like the leadership essay, many students struggle with this essay, because they define diversity narrowly for themselves. It is important first to realize that diversity can mean many things in the context of college admissions. Diversity comes not just from ethnicity, but from nationality, socio-economic position, geographic location, intellectual positions, religious identity, and personal circumstances of all stripes.

Let’s break it down further. Ethnic and racial diversity are the first things anyone thinks of when diversity is mentioned, but some students worry that they don’t fit into any “valid” category to count as diverse here. However schools are also looking for a diverse set of backgrounds, experiences, and worldviews in their student population, and so more types of diversity are considered and accepted.

Nationality may not apply to all students, but for non-american students, or 1st or 2nd generation immigrants, nationality can be a major part of their identity, and this can contribute to the diversity of backgrounds and experiences on campus.

Socio-economic position describes how well off a family is, how much they struggled, or not, for resources. This too can cause a wide variety of experiences, some of which may be quite rare on college campuses, and thus count as diversity of experience.

Geographic location can be used as a factor of diversity at times, for instance students from Montana are quite rare compared to Texans or Californians, and so their backgrounds and experiences count as diversity for schools.

Once you have determined what form of diversity applies to you, think about how your lived experience has shaped you: how you view the world, react to it, and operate within a broader picture because of who you are. This essay is meant to describe how you are unique, and how your unique experiences and viewpoints will contribute to the campus community as a whole.

In many instances, this essay may also overlap with the community essay, which is closely related to the topic of ‘diversity’ in many ways.

Example: Apply California Essay Prompt

“Every person has a creative side, and it can be expressed in many ways: problem-solving, original and innovative thinking, and artistically, to name a few. Describe how you express your creative side.”

These essays ask you specifically about an extracurricular you have participated in. While your personal statement and other essays can and should draw from the experiences you had in extracurriculars , this essay focuses exclusively on one.

As with the rest of the essays, the college wants to learn something about you, so the extracurricular should be used as a lens through which one of your facets is displayed.

This essay is less common, and here there is a bonus: essays written for other topics may be easily modified to fit these prompts. Leadership and community essays, if they discuss an activity you participated in, will fit this prompt very well with only minor editing. In this way, you get two great essays that say something important about you for the price of one.

NOTE: Don’t do this if the same school asks for both – that’ll just make you look lazy.

As a final note, if you already talked about an extracurricular in your personal statement or another supplemental essay, then avoid using it again, unless you have something truly unique to say about it for another essay. Speaking about multiple different extracurriculars across different essays provides greater depth to your application, and tells colleges things they would otherwise not know about you.

“Quotation”

Example: university of virginia essay prompt.

“Rita Dove, UVA English professor and former U.S. Poet Laureate, once said in an interview that ‘…there are times in life when, instead of complaining, you do something about your complaints.’ Describe a time when, instead of complaining, you took action for the greater good.”

These essays ask students to interact with and respond to a quote. The quote in question will (usually) relate to the school, its mission, or its values in some way. The goal of this essay is to use the quote as a lens to discuss yourself and your possible ties to the school community.

This essay, like all supplemental essays, should say something about you in particular. Through your discussion of and interaction with the quote, bring some aspect of yourself to light. Good topics to use? Leadership, Community, and Extracurricular essays are usually good prompts to cross apply here. While editing will be required to more clearly fit these pieces to the specific quote, tying in previously written work will vastly decrease your overall workload.

The ultimate goal is to be lazy in a smart way. Working properly, precisely, and surgically will give greater returns for less overall effort. It is better to spend your time crafting a great essay that can do double, triple, or even quadruple duty than it is to use the same amount of time to quickly cobble together four totally different essays.

Example: Wake Forest Essay Prompts

“List five books you have read that intrigued you. (Spaces have been left for you to include each book’s title and author and mark whether the selection was required or not required.)”

“ Give us your top ten list.”

“As part of my high-school English curriculum, I was required to read _________. I would have liked to replace it with______. The required book I was most surprised I enjoyed was ________.”

These questions are more varied, and can cover any number of topics. When answering these questions, look first at the available word count, as this will shape how you should go about answering the question. A question asking you for your favorite book, and giving 50 words of space, probably wants more than the title alone.

While these questions won’t have the same space for details as other questions, a little effort can go a long way. If asked for your favorite book, don’t merely say what, but why, and take a sentence or two to explain what this book means to you specifically.

If you are asked for a list of books you’ve read over the past year, you may either use the whole word space for titles (which is respectable if you are being honest) or use the space to describe a few of the books you’ve read. This approach is recommended if you haven’t done much reading outside of school.

These questions seek to fill out details, and get a fuller sense of the applicant as a person and scholar. Oblige them by offering insight into your life and how you think about and react to the world.

Example: University of Chicago Essay Prompt

“Cats have nine lives, Pac-Man has 3 lives, and radioactive isotopes have half-lives. How many lives does something else—conceptual or actual—have, and why?”

“Student self-governance, which encourages student investment and initiative, is a hallmark of the UVA culture. In her fourth year at UVA, Laura Nelson was inspired to create Flash Seminars, one-time classes which facilitate high-energy discussion about thought-provoking topics outside of traditional coursework. If you created a Flash Seminar, what idea would you explore and why?” (UVA essay prompt)

These are the rarest form of question, but are some of the most difficult to answer. The primary perpetrators of such questions are Stanford and UChicago, both of whom pride themselves on occasionally preposterous prompts.

The trick with these prompts is to lean in, and embrace the weirdness. Many of these schools have a strong culture of idiosyncratic thinkers, which these prompts target by forcing applicants to think outside the box. Each of these prompts must be approached on their own, and most will not be able to overlap with other prompts.

Still, the same general guidelines apply; the essay should tell the college something they don’t already know about you, and give them deeper insight into how you think and approach problems.

Final Thoughts

This list will cover most types of essay, but some schools will have their own eccentricities, or oddball questions they throw at you. In that event, remember the core lesson: supplemental essays serve to tell the school more about you; information they could not learn in any other way. These are the nine most common types of supplemental essay questions, and while they will not cover every situation, they will leave you well prepared for whatever form of essay a college asks you to write.

At Ivy Scholars, we have a well developed system to cross apply essays, ensuring that the fewest number of unique essays need to be written. Use your time wisely to craft the best essays, not the largest amount of essays. “Work smarter, not harder” is a cliché, but it is an approach that could mean the difference between acceptance and rejection.

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How to Write Ivy League Application Essays

While all colleges hope that applicants will demonstrate passion, leadership, initiative, and intelligence in their application essays, the colleges and universities in the Ivy League as well as the Seven Sister schools and other top-tier colleges expect to see evidence of intellectual enthusiasm and curiosity as well. In other words, no matter whether a supplemental prompt asks you to reflect on part of the college’s curriculum (as does Brown’s) or asks you to write a note to a potential roommate (as does Stanford’s), Ivy League and other elite colleges want to know that your intelligence and intellectual curiosity drive you.

Above all, Ivy League supplemental essays must reveal your intellectual vitality

To help you write an admission-winning supplemental essays, we’ve compiled seven essential strategies that will help ensure your success. While reading these, you might want to refer to the supplemental prompts distributed by the Ivy League colleges and a few other top-tier universities that we’ve reproduced below (taken from last year’s Common App). As you review these prompts, please keep in mind that each year some of the Ivy League and other college supplemental prompts change a bit. Please also note that we have not reproduced the prompts from Cornell University as their supplemental essay prompts are determined by program.

2024-2025 Supplemental Essay Questions

Post author By Top Tier Admissions
Post date July 29, 2024
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WHY SUPPLEMENTAL ESSAYS MATTER

While your GPA, test scores, and extracurricular activities paint a picture of your academic and social achievements, supplemental essays offer a platform to express your individuality. Admissions officers use these essays to understand who you are, what motivates you, and how you might contribute to their campus community.

Through your responses, you have the chance to demonstrate your writing skills, critical thinking, and genuine interest in the institutions to which you are applying. A well-written supplemental essay can tip the scales in your favor, providing context to your application and making a memorable impression.

2024-2024 SUPPLEMENTAL ESSAY QUESTIONS: A SNEAK PEEK

We are still seeing the effects of last year’s Supreme Court decision to overturn the legality of race-conscious admissions . Many colleges have reacted by using school-specific supplements to give students the opportunity to write about their lived experience, which may include their racial background.

To get you started, we’ve gathered a few examples of this year’s supplemental essay prompts from various top tier institutions with some ideas about how you might approach them:

University of Chicago:

“Daddy-o”, “Far Out”, “Gnarly”: the list of slang terms goes on and on. Sadly, most of these aren’t so “fly” anymore – “as if!” Name an outdated slang from any decade or language that you’d bring back and explain why you totally “dig it.”
Known for their quirky prompts, UChicago encourages creativity and out-of-the-box thinking. This prompt challenges you to think metaphorically and philosophically about language and history. Your response could explore themes of individuality, belonging, or the search for identity in a complex world.

Dartmouth College:

There is a Quaker saying: Let your life speak. Describe the environment in which you were raised and the impact it has had on the person you are today.
Dartmouth’s prompt emphasizes storytelling and cultural heritage. Whether you choose to write about a personal story, a family tradition, or a historical narrative, this essay provides an opportunity to highlight your background and the experiences that have shaped you.

Yale University:

What is it about Yale that has led you to apply? (125 words or fewer)
This is a classic “Why Us?” essay, which requires thorough research and a personal connection to the institution. Articulate your passion for Yale, detailing specific programs, faculty, or opportunities that align with your academic and career goals.

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THE VARIOUS APPLICATION PLATFORMS

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Note: Some schools, like Georgetown University and MIT , use their own application. The University of California also uses their own application for all nine campuses.

We’ve provided a deep dive into both the Georgetown and MIT applications and offer customized guidance in their completion. For the UC network, we’ve gone a step further and created our official “Mysteries of the UC App,” exclusive to our Top Tier family! If you’re interested in Georgetown, MIT, UCLA , UC Berkeley or any of the remaining UC campuses, we can help with a step-by-step walkthrough of each!

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2024-2025 SUPPLEMENTAL ESSAY QUESTIONS

We are compiling the 2024-2025 supplemental essay questions for you on our College Application Essay Prompts page and we’ll continue to update all supplements as they are released. In the comments, feel free to note any schools you’d like to see included.

Grades and scores are king in determining your range of schools. But keep in mind: once you’re in-range of a school, the authenticity, content and quality of your college essays MATTERS !

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Your chance of acceptance, your chancing factors, extracurriculars, ivy league supplemental essays.

Hey guys, I'm working on my college applications and I was wondering if anyone has any advice on how to approach the supplemental essays for Ivy League schools? I'm struggling to come up with unique content.

It's essential to tailor your supplemental essays to each Ivy League school you're applying to, as they each value different aspects of their community and educational philosophy. Here are some general strategies to help you create unique and engaging responses:

1. Research each school: Learn about the particular characteristics, values, and opportunities that make each Ivy distinct. These might include their academic programs, resources, clubs, research opportunities, and campus traditions. Look for aspects that genuinely resonate with you and could enhance your educational journey and personal growth.

2. Connect with your interests and goals: Show how you would contribute to the school's community or academic programs by discussing your passions, background, and future aspirations. Describe how your experiences align with the values and opportunities at the specific school.

3. Be personal and authentic: Your essays should provide insight into your personality, values, and motivations. Share stories or experiences that showcase your unique qualities or how you've been shaped by your circumstances. Avoid cliches and generic statements when addressing themes like overcoming obstacles, academic accomplishments, or extracurricular involvements.

4. Answer the prompt directly: Be sure to thoughtfully respond to the specific question being asked. This might require you to reflect on your intellectual curiosity, personal growth, or values. Make sure that your essay doesn't veer off-topic and that it addresses the prompt thoroughly.

5. Show your enthusiasm: Conveying enthusiasm about attending a specific Ivy League school can help demonstrate your genuine interest. Share your excitement for what you hope to gain from the school and how you plan to contribute to its community.

6. Edit and revise: Don't underestimate the importance of editing and revising your essays. Refine your content, structure, and flow to improve communication. Ask trusted individuals (teachers, friends, and family) to review your essays and provide feedback.

Remember, while it's essential to demonstrate your interest in each Ivy League school, your supplemental essays should also complement your Common Application essay. Make sure each piece of your application presents a unique aspect of your story.

Good luck with your applications!

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Ivy League Admission Tips: Completing the Common Application

The Common Application , also known as the Common App, will be your best friend during the college application process. This online tool offers a standardized application, including one set of essay questions, that is accepted by more than 700 colleges and universities. If you are applying to multiple colleges, the Common App will save you time and effort.

The Common App goes live on August 1 of each year for applications for the following school year. Although your application deadlines may be in the fall or early winter, it’s best to get started on the process early. Here are some Ivy League admission tips that will ensure that the process goes smoothly.

Preparing to Complete the Common Application

Get started as soon as possible. You’ll need time to gather what you need and start thinking about and drafting your answers to the questions and essay prompts. Our successful students spend 20 to 30 hours on their applications and write five or more drafts of their essays.
Request a copy of your most recent high school transcript and your SAT/ACT scores. You want to make sure the information you enter is accurate. Did you take AP or honors courses that offer additional grade points? If so, report your weighted GPA.
Make a list of extracurricular activities, awards, community service/volunteer work, and jobs.
Ask your high school guidance counselor to write you a letter of recommendation. It is best to send your request formally by email or letter and allow your counselor plenty of time.
Sign up for a Common App account and create a secure password. Familiarize yourself with the website, and make sure to browse the questions and answers on the Student Solutions Center page section.
Make sure that the colleges you want to apply to accept the Common App. Many colleges participate, but some private schools and state colleges and universities do not. Check the list on the Common App website .
Check the requirements for the schools on your list. Make sure that you can satisfy them and that you have gathered the necessary materials. Some schools require supplemental essays in addition to the standard essays in the App.

Filling in the Blanks

Read and follow all the directions. If you skip a mandatory question or do not include all the required supplements, your application may be rejected. Also, pay attention to limits on the word count or the number of extracurricular activities.
Report your best individual test scores. If you are not satisfied with your scores, see if there is time to retake the tests.
List the courses you are planning to take in your senior year. If you make significant changes to your academic course schedule, be sure to notify the colleges you applied to.
In the “Writing” section, you will be asked to write about one of your extracurricular activities. If you’ve already mentioned an activity in your main essay, select a different activity to discuss here.
The “Additional Information” section lets colleges know if you have any special circumstances such as health needs, special education needs, or accommodations. Don’t use this space to squeeze in a work sample, for instance.
If you have disciplinary action on your record, don’t try to hide it. If another source informs the college that you were disciplined, they could reverse their decision to accept you. You could ask a supportive teacher or counselor to help you write an honest explanation of how you learned from the experience.
A college application is an opportunity to show your target schools who you are. Work on presenting a different aspect of yourself in each question (while staying on topic). Also, consider answering the optional questions.
Remember that each school is unique. Be sure to tailor your responses to show why you are applying to that particular school.

By now, you’ve invested much time and hard work in this process, so you want to make sure a simple mistake doesn’t trip you up.

Make sure that the application is complete and that you have followed all directions. Admissions committees may not consider incomplete applications.
Reread your application a few days after completing it and check for spelling errors, grammar mistakes, and typos. Then, ask someone else to proofread your application.

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August 31, 2023

Can a Good Essay Get You Into an Ivy League School?

A fountain flows beside rocks outside a science center at Harvard University.

Many students (and their parents) wonder what role the essays play in the admissions process to the eight Ivy League universities . Some believe the essays play an insignificant role, that it’s mainly about a student’s GPA and test scores. Others believe the essays play a critical role, that great essays can be the difference-maker between an acceptance and a rejection. So who’s right and who’s wrong?

The Role of Essays in the Ivy League Admissions Process

Top grades and scores are the table stakes.

That’s an easy one. Essays are crucial in the highly selective college admissions process, including the eight Ivy League institutions. Think about it: If admission were simply about boasting perfect or near-perfect grades and scores, Ivy League schools would have incoming classes with over five students in every available seat. It’s not just about the grades and scores — it’s not the case in 2023, and it wasn’t the case in 1993. Top grades and scores are mere table stakes in the process.

Ivy League Schools Seek Singularly Talented Students

For generations now, through their holistic admissions process, Ivy League schools have sifted through students with top grades in the most rigorous classes and top scores to identify singularly talented students or students who excel in one area that will interest the college.

It could be a sport for which an applicant is being recruited. It could be astrophysics research. It could be poetry. But what the Ivy League schools most certainly are not seeking is well-rounded students . Instead, admissions officers at these institutions seek to admit singularly talented students who, together, form a well-rounded class. As such, the student who plays three sports (none good enough to be recruited), a musical instrument, and conducts science research does not impress the gatekeepers in the holistic admissions process.

The Essays Are Prime Real Estate to Showcase a Singular Hook

And because these schools seek to admit singularly talented students, the activities and admissions essays serve as prime real estate to articulate how a student will contribute to the campus community. After all, the essays can compel an admissions officer to want to go to bat for a student. Likewise, the essays can lead an admissions officer to yawn or roll their eyes and quickly move on to the next student up for admission.

So, are essays critical in the Ivy League admissions process? You bet they are! The essays are a chance for applicants to show their humanity, showcase how they hope to leave their mark on the world, and demonstrate how they think through the prism of their experience and background. As such, while top grades in rigorous coursework, the quality of a student’s high school, test scores, and other factors play critical roles in the Ivy League admissions process, essays are monumentally critical.

2023-2024 Ivy League Admissions Essays

What better way of demonstrating the critical role that essays play in the Ivy League admissions process than highlighting how many essays each of the eight Ivy League schools ask its applicants? In addition to The Common Application ’s Personal Statement, the eight Ivy League schools pose the following number of essay prompts to applicants to the Class of 2028:


	3 x 200-250-word essays, 1 x 3-word essay, 2 x 100-word essays, and 1 x 50-word essay
	1 x 100-word essay and 4 x 150-word essays
	1 x 350-word essay and one of the following: 1 x 650-word essay, 1 x 250-word essay, and 1 x 100 word essay (CALS), 1 x 650-word essay (CAAP), 1 x 650-word essay (A&S), 1 x 650-word essay (Brooks), 1 x 650-word essay (Johnson), 2 x 250-word essays (COE), 1 x 650-word essay (CHE), 1 x 650-word essay (ILR)
	1 x 100-word essay, 2 x 250-word essays
	5 x 200-word essays
	3 x 250-word essays, 1 x 500-word essay, 3 x 50-word essays, and graded paper
	3 x 200-word essays, and dual-degree essays as follows: 1 x 650-word essay (DMD), 1 x 650-word essay (Huntsman), 1 x 650-word essay (Life Sciences and Management), 1 x 650-word essay an 1 x 250-word essay (Jerome Fisher), 1 x 650-word essay (Singh), 1 x 650-word essay (NHCM), short answers (Bio-Dental), 1 x 650-word essay (Energy Research)
	1 x 400-word essay, 1 x 200-word essay, 1 x 125-word essay, 4 x 35-word short answers

Ivy League Admissions Essays FAQs

Is the personal statement more important than the supplemental admissions essays at the ivies.

While the Personal Statement is submitted to every Common Application-subscribing institution, each Ivy League school requires applicants to write additional essays, which are as crucial as the Personal Statement. If, for instance, a student writes a Personal Statement that wows and then fills their Why Dartmouth essay with a mix of professor name drops and class names, they’re doubtful to earn admission to Dartmouth because the student failed to demonstrate their interest in Dartmouth adequately. The Ivy League schools present supplemental essay prompts for a reason. They matter big time .

What are the most common supplemental essay prompts for applicants to the Ivies during the 2023-2024 admissions cycle?

The most common supplemental admissions essay prompts this year are the “ Why College ,” “Why Major,” and “Which Community” essay prompts. As an example, for applicants to the Class of 2028, among the Ivies, only Harvard doesn’t ask applicants “Why Harvard.”

Wondering why? Harvard knows you want to attend. It’s Harvard. But every other university — including all seven of the remaining Ivies — wants to see that you genuinely wish to attend and that you want to attend for the right reasons .

Do the Ivies have more supplemental essays in the 2023-2024 admissions cycle than in past cycles?

Yes, some of the Ivies have increased their essay counts this year — likely in response to the Supreme Court’s decision to outlaw Affirmative Action .

In the majority opinion, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts wrote , “Nothing in this opinion should be construed as prohibiting universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise.”

It’s thus no surprise that these schools would rely even more heavily on essays in the wake of the decision.

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How to Get Into an Ivy League School

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If you are hoping to attend one of the Ivy League schools, you're going to need more than good grades. Seven of the eight Ivies have made the list of the most selective colleges in the country , and acceptance rates range from 6% for Harvard University to 15% for Cornell University. Applicants who are admitted have earned excellent grades in challenging classes, demonstrated meaningful involvement in extracurricular activities, revealed leadership skills, and crafted winning essays. All Ivy League schools should be considered reach schools .

A successful Ivy League application is not the result of a little effort at application time. It is the culmination of years of hard work. The tips and strategies below can help make sure your Ivy League application is as strong as possible.

Develop the Foundation for Ivy League Success Early

The Ivy League universities (and all universities for that matter) will consider your accomplishments in 9th through 12th grades only. The admissions folks will not be interested in that literary award you got in 7th grade or the fact that you were on the varsity track team in 8th grade. That said, successful Ivy League applicants build the foundation for an impressive high school record long before high school.

On the academic front, if you can get into an accelerated math track while in middle school, this will set you up to complete calculus before you graduate from high school. Also, start a foreign language as early as possible in your school district, and stick with it. This will put you on track to take an Advanced Placement language class in high school, or to take a dual enrollment language class through a local college. Strength in a foreign language and completing math through calculus are both important features of the majority of winning Ivy League applications. You can get admitted without these accomplishments, but your chances will be diminished.

It's not too early to begin college preparation in middle school — this can help you understand the numerous ways in which a strong middle school strategy can help set you up for Ivy League success.

When it comes to extracurricular activities in middle school, use them to find your passion so that you begin ninth grade with focus and determination. If you discover in middle school that drama, not soccer, is what you truly want to be doing in your after school hours, great. You're now in a position to develop depth and demonstrate leadership on the drama front when you're in high school. This is hard to do if you discover your love of theater in your junior year.

Craft Your High School Curriculum Thoughtfully

The most important piece of your Ivy League application is your high school transcript. In general, you'll need to take the most challenging classes available to you if you are going to convince the admissions folks that you are prepared to succeed in your college coursework. If you have a choice between AP Calculus or business statistics, take AP Calculus. If Calculus BC is an option for you, it will be more impressive than Calculus AB . If you are debating whether or not you should take a foreign language in your senior year, do so (this advice assumes that you feel you are capable of succeeding in these courses).

You should also be realistic on the academic front. The Ivies don't, in fact, expect you to take seven AP courses in your junior year, and trying to do too much is likely to backfire by causing burn out and/or low grades. Focus on core academic areas — English, math, science, language — and make sure you excel in these areas. Courses such as AP Psychology, AP Statistics, or AP Music Theory are fine if your school offers them, but they don't carry the same weight as AP Literature and AB Biology.

Also, keep in mind that the Ivies recognize that some students have more academic opportunities than others. Only a small fraction of high schools offer a challenging International Baccalaureate (IB) curriculum. Only larger, well-funded high schools can offer a wide breadth of Advanced Placement courses . Not all high schools make it easy to take dual enrollment courses at a local college. If you're from a small rural school without many academic opportunities, the admissions officers at the Ivy League schools take your situation into consideration, and measures such as your SAT/ACT scores and letters of recommendation will be even more important for evaluating your college readiness.

Earn High Grades

You are likely wondering which is more important: high grades or challenging courses ? The reality for Ivy League admissions is that you need both. The Ivies will be looking for lots of "A" grades in the most challenging courses available to you. Also, keep in mind that the applicant pool for all of the Ivy League schools is so strong that the admissions offices are often not interested in weighted GPAs . Weighted GPAs play an important and legitimate role in determining your class rank, but the reality is that when admissions committees are comparing students from around the world, they will consider whether or not that "A" in AP World History is a true "A" or if it is "B" that was weighted up to an "A."

Realize that you don't need straight "A" grades to get into the Ivy League, but every "B" on your transcript is lessening your chance of admission. Most successful Ivy League applicants have unweighted GPAs that are up in the 3.7 range or higher (3.9 or 4.0 is more common).

The pressure to earn straight "A" grades can sometimes cause applicants to make bad decisions when applying to highly competitive colleges. You should not write a supplemental essay explaining why you got a B+ in one course in your sophomore year. There are, however, a few situations in which you should explain a bad grade . Also, keep in mind that some students with less-than-stellar grades get admitted. This can be because they have an exceptional talent, come from a school or country with different grading standards, or have legitimate circumstances that made earning "A" grades extremely challenging.

Focus on Depth and Achievement in Your Extracurricular Activities

There are hundreds of endeavors that count as extracurricular activities , and the reality is that any of them can make your application shine if you have demonstrated true depth and passion in your chosen activity.

In general, think of extracurriculars in terms of depth, not breadth. A student who acts a minor role in a play one year, plays JV tennis one spring, joins yearbook another year, and then joins Academic All-Stars senior year is going to look like a dabbler with no clear passion or area of expertise (these activities are all good things, but they don't make for a winning combination on an Ivy League application). On the flip side, consider a student who plays euphonium in County Band in 9th grade, Area All-State in 10th grade, All-State in 11th grade, and who also played in the school symphonic band, concert band, marching band, and pep band for all four years of high school. This is a student who clearly loves playing her instrument and will bring that interest and passion to the campus community.

Show That You Are a Good Community Member

The admissions folks are looking for students to join their community, so they clearly want to enroll students who care about the community. One way to demonstrate this is through community service. Realize, however, that there is no magic number here — an applicant with 1,000 hours of community service may not have an advantage over a student with 300 hours. Instead, make sure you are doing community service that is meaningful to you and that truly makes a difference in your community. You may even want to write one of your supplemental essays about one of your service projects.

Earn High SAT or ACT Scores

None of the Ivy League schools are test-optional, and SAT and ACT scores still carry a bit of weight in the admissions process. Because the Ivies draw from such a diverse pool of students from around the world, standardized tests truly are one of the few tools the schools can use to compare students. That said, the admissions folks do recognize that financially advantaged students have an advantage with the SAT and ACT, and that one thing these tests tend to predict is a family's income.

To get a sense of what SAT and/or ACT scores you're going to need to get into an Ivy League school, check out these graphs of GPA, SAT and ACT data for students who were accepted, waitlisted, and rejected:

The numbers are rather sobering: the great majority of admitted students are scoring in the top one or two percentiles on the SAT or ACT. At the same time, you'll see that there are some outlying data points, and a few students do get in with less-than-ideal scores.

Write a Winning Personal Statement

Chances are you're applying to the Ivy League using the Common Application , so you'll have five options for your personal statement. It's a good idea to research your Common Application essay options , and understand that your essay is extremely crucial. An essay that is riddled with errors or focuses on a trivial or cliché topic could land your application in the rejection pile. At the same time, realize that your essay doesn't need to focus on something extraordinary. You don't need to have solved global warming or saved a bus full of 1st-graders to have an effective focus for your essay. More important than what you write about is that you focus on something important to you and that your essay is thoughtful and self-reflective.

Put Significant Effort Into Your Supplemental Essays

All of the Ivy League schools require school-specific supplemental essays in addition to the main Common Application essay. Don't underestimate the importance of these essays. For one, these supplemental essays, much more than the common essay, demonstrate why you are interested in a specific Ivy League school. The admissions officers at Yale, for example, aren't just looking for strong students. They are looking for strong students who are truly passionate about Yale and have specific reasons for wanting to attend Yale. If your supplemental essay responses are generic and could be used for multiple schools, you haven't approached the challenge effectively. Do your research and be specific. The supplemental essays are one of the best tools for demonstrating your interest in a specific university.

Ace Your Ivy League Interview

You're likely to interview with an alum of the Ivy League school to which you are applying. In truth, the interview isn't the most important part of your application, but it can make a difference. If you stumble to answer questions about your interests and your reasons for applying, this can certainly damage your application. You'll also want to make sure that you are polite and personable during your interview. In general, Ivy League interviews are friendly exchanges, and your interviewer wants to see you do well. A little preparation, however, can help. Be sure to think about the most common interview questions , and work to avoid typical interview mistakes .

Apply Early Action or Early Decision

Harvard, Princeton, and Yale all have a single-choice early action program . Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, and Penn have early decision programs . All of these programs allow you to apply to just a single school through the early program. Early decision has additional restrictions in that if you are admitted, you are obligated to attend. You should not apply early decision if you are not 100% positive that a specific Ivy League school is your top choice. With early action, however, it's fine to apply early if there's a chance you will later change your mind.

If you're on target for Ivy League admission (grades, SAT/ACT, interview, essays, extracurriculars), applying early is the best tool you have for improving your chances significantly. According to early and regular admit rates for the Ivy League schools, you are four times more likely to get into Harvard by applying early than applying with the regular applicant pool.

Factors That You Can't Control

If you start early and prepare accordingly, there are many aspects of the application process you can work to your favor. There are, however, a couple factors in the Ivy League admissions process that are outside of your control. It's great if these factors work in your favor, but if they don't, don't fret — the majority of accepted students do not have these advantages.

First is legacy status . If you have a parent or sibling who attended the Ivy League school to which you are applying, this can work to your advantage. Colleges tend to like legacies for a couple reasons: they will be familiar with the school and are likely to accept an offer of admission (this helps with the university's yield ); also, family loyalty can be an important factor when it comes to alumni donations.

You also can't control how you fit into the university's efforts to enroll a diverse class of students. Other factors being equal, an applicant from Montana or Nepal is going to have an advantage over an applicant from New Jersey. Similarly, a strong student from an under-represented group will have an advantage over a student from a majority group. This may seem unfair, and it's certainly an issue that has been debated in the courts, but most selective private universities operate under the idea that the undergraduate experience is enriched significantly when the students come from a wide range of geographical, ethnic, religious, and philosophical backgrounds.

A Final Word

Before you embark on the application process, Ivy League applicants should ask themselves, "Why the Ivy League?" Perhaps not surprisingly, many times the answer is often far from satisfactory: family pressure, peer pressure, or just the prestige factor. Keep in mind that there is nothing magical about the eight Ivy League schools. Of the thousands of colleges in the world, the one that best matches your personality, academic interests, and professional aspirations is very likely not one of the eight Ivies.

Every year you'll see the news headlines heralding that one student who got into all eight Ivies. The news channels love to celebrate these students, and the accomplishment is certainly impressive. At the same time, a student who would thrive in the bustling urban environment of Columbia would probably not enjoy the rural location of Cornell. The Ivies are remarkably different, and all eight are not going to be a great match for a single applicant.

Also keep in mind that there are hundreds of colleges that deliver exceptional educations (in many cases better undergraduate educations) than the Ivies, and many of these schools will be much more accessible. They may also be more affordable since the Ivies do not offer any merit-based financial aid (although they do have excellent need-based aid).

In short, make sure you truly do have good reasons for wanting to attend an Ivy League school, and recognize that failure to get into one is not failure: you are likely to thrive at the college you do choose to attend.

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NYU Supplemental Essay 2023-2024

By Eric Eng

When it comes to applying to the top schools in the country, your application is vitally important. In order to give yourself the best chance of gaining admission, you need to make sure all aspects of your application are top-notch. In this post, we’re going to do a deep dive into how to write NYU supplemental essays and everything you need to keep in mind as you write.

NYU uses the common app, and this means that you will be asked to answer essay questions contained in the common app. But like many top schools, NYU also requires that you complete a short essay regarding diversity. The NYU supplemental essay 2022-2023 allow applicants a certain amount of freedom when choosing their supplemental essay topic, but we’re going to look at each essay prompt and discuss the best way to respond to each topic.

So, let’s start by looking at the supplemental essay prompt, and then we will discuss how to approach it.

For the 2022-2023 admission year, NYU requires only one 250-word supplemental essay. This is in addition to the essay you will write as part of the common app . While the prompt may seem straightforward at first, it can be a challenging prompt for a lot of students. Let’s take a look at the NYU supplemental essay 2022 and then discuss how best to approach it.

NYU was founded on the belief that a student’s identity should not dictate the ability for them to access higher education. That sense of opportunity for all students, of all backgrounds, remains a part of who we are today and a critical part of what makes us a world class university. Our community embraces diversity, in all its forms, as a cornerstone of the NYU experience. We would like to better understand how your experiences would help us to shape and grow our diverse community. Please respond in 250 words or less.

As you can see, the NYU supplemental essay word limit allows you a certain amount of freedom, but it’s still quite restrictive.

How to write the NYU supplemental essay?

If you are applying to a number of schools, there’s a good chance you’ve seen this prompt of something like it before. Diversity has become one of the highest priorities for universities over the last couple of decades, and more and more schools want to know how diversity has played a part in your life, and how it will play a part in your life at NYU.

If you look closely at the NYU supplemental essay 2022, you will see that it has several different parts, and each of these parts needs to be considered individually. Let’s look at the first part of the prompt.

This is an important point because, traditionally, a college education was only available to people from privileged background. NYU, on the other hand, is asserting that one of the founding principles was that identity should not be a barrier to a college education. When you are considering your response to this prompt, keep in mind this principle because there’s a good chance it will come up as you craft your answer. The second part of the prompt asks you to reflect on your own experiences.

Our community embraces diversity, in all its forms, as a cornerstone of the NYU experience. We would like to better understand how your experiences would help us to shape and grow our diverse community. Please respond in 250 words or less.

Many applicants get stuck at this point because they look back at their backgrounds and they don’t see a lot of diversity in the conventional sense. That’s ok, because we all come from different backgrounds, and chances are, yours is different as well.

When you start considering this part of the prompt, consider the different people you’ve interacted with in your life and what you have learned from them. The NYU supplemental essay 2022-2023 asks you to reflect on your life, and which aspects of your life would benefit the greater NYU community.

Because NYU is an entirely urban campus, students are able to take advantage of one of the world’s most diverse cities. If you don’t come from a particularly diverse background, you can talk about how you are looking forward to experiencing the diversity inherent in life in New York City.

You can also look at the diversity in your life more broadly. If you didn’t come from a racially or ethnically diverse background, there’s still a good chance that you’ve had experiences that have shaped your values. If you grew up in a rural community, you likely have a different worldview than students who grew up in a major city. If that sounds like you, spend time reflecting on how your rural upbringing gave you a set of values that is important to you.

Beyond the obvious aspects of diversity, NYU is trying to assemble a student body that has different experiences to share. They want students who actively seek out new experiences and people who have different life experience from their own.

Because you will be encountering a diverse student body and community at NYU, you should try to focus on how you will take advantage of these opportunities in addition to what you bring to the equation. New York City is famously a melting pot, and NYU is no different. Your goal here is to show the admissions department that you will be a valuable asset to the NYU community.

At AdmissionSight, our goal is to help you with every step of the college admissions process. The NYU supplemental essays 2022 can seem daunting at first, but our experience and expertise will help you navigate the entire process with confidence. Hopefully, this guide to the NYU supplemental essays 2022-2023 has been helpful, but if you want more information about how AdmissionSight can help you realize your dreams, set up your free consultation today.

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Guide to the 2024-25 Coalition Application Essay Prompts

What do the 2024-25 Coalition Application essay prompts really mean, and how should you approach them? CEA's Chief Advisor, Stacey Brook, is here to break it all down.

Stacey Brook, Founder and Chief Advisor

Nine years ago, applicants around the world became the first to experiment with a brand new college application platform. Intended to be a full-service competitor to the Common App, the Coalition Application provided students with a fresh, new interface and, of course, a new set of essay prompts to grapple with. It still remains to be seen whether or not the Coalition App—whose participating schools include the University of Chicago, University of Maryland, and most of the Ivy League—will truly challenge the Common App’s long-term dominance in the admissions space, but what we do know is that the prompts the Coalition presented to previous applicants were quite similar in nature to those from the Common App each year .

We here at CEA believe that a worthy subject for a personal essay can be backed into just about any prompt for the Coalition App ( just as with the Common App ). Still, we thought it would be valuable to break down each one, highlighting what these questions are really asking and how to use them as inspiration for an effective and memorable college essay that really hits home with admissions. So take a peek at the advice below. It’s never too early to begin mining for those stories that will show admissions what you’re made of.

Prompt #1: Tell a story from your life, describing an experience that either demonstrates your character or helped to shape it.

As a launch point for an application essay, Prompt #1 leaves your options wide open. It should be a good fit for any tale you have to tell that “demonstrates your character,” which should be a base requirement of any personal statement you submit, regardless of the prompt you’re responding to. How do you define yourself? What characteristics form the foundation of your personality? Are you generous and thoughtful? Are you gutsy? Resilient? Funny? Think about some of the most memorable moments in your life—the stories that come up over and over again, the moments that make you feel most proud. Maybe your talkative approach to a science fair, and the warm reaction it elicited from the judges and even your competitors, made you realize the value of being unabashedly gregarious. Perhaps a particularly boring summer in your childhood inspired you to create a role-playing game that involved all the kids in the neighborhood. What do these stories say about you and the lens through which you see the world? One last thing to note in choosing this prompt is that, while it is broad in its overall inquiry, it does specifically ask you to describe an experience, so if the idea you have in your head is character-related but not tied to a specific event or occurrence, you might want to save it for a different prompt. (Don’t worry—more great options are coming.)

Prompt #2: What interests or excites you? How does it shape who you are now or who you might become in the future?

What floats your boat? You could argue that college is largely about the pursuit of knowledge, so you can imagine why it would be quite appealing for an admissions officer to better understand what makes you tick. This prompt is an invitation to offer admissions a peek into your brain: what you find compelling, how your interests fit into your identity, and how your curiosity might impact your future. The answer to this prompt should also reveal something to admissions about the breadth or depth of your interests. For example, if you’re interested in studying astrophysics, you might choose to discuss a concept that shows how far your exploration of the sciences truly reaches. How consumed are you by this passion you are choosing to pursue academically? What lengths have you gone to in order to acquire new information about or experiences related to that topic? And how does this passion spill into your daily life or long-term goals? What about the process of learning is rewarding to you? Whether you are devouring the classics on your Kindle or nerding out over the perfect cheese for calzone-making, your attachment to a subject may inspire admissions to want to learn more about it…and you.

Prompt #3: Describe a time when you had a positive impact on others. What were the challenges? What were the rewards?

We all love making a positive difference in the lives of others, no matter how big or small, and admissions wants to hear about a time when you went out of your way to make an impact. Your thoughts may immediately head in the direction of community service and volunteer work, and while a story about those experiences could make for a wonderful essay, it can be hard to stand out with a straightforward description of a service effort. Instead, we recommend isolating a specific element/moment of your service to focus on or reflecting on a time when you felt proud, accomplished, or humbled by extending yourself. Maybe you took the newest hire under your wing at the diner where you work. How did you balance your own responsibilities with supervising the apprentice? Did you struggle to articulate your method at first? How did you set them up for success and how did the experience make you feel? Maybe you auditioned for the school musical, despite having two left feet, and inspired your peers to take risks and get outside their comfort zones. How did they express their gratitude? How did it feel to be on stage in front of your peers? Why did that feel important to you? Remember that authenticity is key, and a strong essay in response to this prompt will demonstrate humility, generosity, and leadership skills.

Prompt #4: Has there been a time when an idea or belief of yours was questioned? How did you respond? What did you learn?

While the Common Application’s prompt #3 asks applicants to address a time when they questioned a belief or idea, your readers are interested in learning about a time when you were the one to have your beliefs questioned. This prompt sets the stage for applicants to thoughtfully reflect on their worldview and demonstrate an openness to the ideas and perspectives of others. If you choose to respond to this prompt, you’ll want to be sure that you’re not presenting something so polarizing you’re likely to alienate your reader. That being said, a strong response to this prompt could make for a distinct, memorable essay that is revelatory and deeply personal. For example, maybe you were raised with traditional beliefs in your faith community—how did attending a summer program in a big city expose you to new perspectives and worldviews? If you can clearly articulate your ability to reflect, hear different points of view, and grow and develop as you live and learn, you’ll likely stand out from the pack.

Prompt #5: What success have you achieved or obstacle have you faced? What advice would you give a sibling or friend going through a similar experience?

The Coalition Application is really giving you a long leash in regards to what you’d like to address here. If you decide to go the accomplishment route, be careful to avoid telling a self-aggrandizing story. Instead, you might want to focus on the hard work it took to earn the award or achievement or the tenacity and perseverance it required of you to see it through. The most important things to keep in mind when searching for these moments are the elements of growth, understanding, and transformation. The accomplishment you discuss should be something that helped you understand the world around you through a different, more mature lens.

If you opt to write about an obstacle you’ve faced, your essay should be predominantly filled with your response, outlook, and demeanor when presented with one of life’s many hurdles, rather than a detailed account of the hurdle itself. Applicants should aim to showcase qualities like resilience, determination, and humility. The obstacles you choose to explore can vary widely in nature; they can be as serious as being tormented by bullies or as ingrained as growing up in a single-parent household. While the possibilities are endless, students should be careful not to choose challenges that may seem trite (the inability to achieve an A on an exam and/or secure tickets to that Billie Eilish concert) or that illustrate a lapse in good judgment (that time a TikTok trend resulted in a trip to the ER).

Finally, regardless of whether you write about an obstacle or achievement, admissions wants to know what advice you’d give to a sibling or friend going through a similar experience. In other words, they want to see you reflect and reveal what you learned from dealing with struggles or triumphs. Your reflection on what you have learned and how you have grown will be a source of great insight for admissions, and you’ll want to make sure your essay highlights the intangible qualities that don’t show up anywhere else on an application.

Prompt #6: Submit an essay on a topic of your choice.

For many students, this catch-all prompt is a gift. Obviously, any essay you write will meet the requirement of this prompt, so if you have already begun brainstorming with the Common App topics in mind, fear not; this Coalition prompt has you covered. That said, if you are approaching the personal statement for the first time, trying to find a place to begin, the topic of your choice may not be the place you want to start. Having a wide-open runway for topic selection can be debilitating for some, so if your creativity flourishes under stricter parameters, by all means, use one of the other awesome prompts to guide your inspiration. No matter what, the thing that matters most is not the prompt you respond to, but instead the story you are trying to tell and what it will communicate to admissions.

Whichever Coalition prompt you decide to respond to, and whatever you discuss, your essay should reveal qualities and experiences that cannot be gleaned from your test scores, activity résumé, or any other element of your existing application. This is where an admissions officer gets to know what it would be like to have a conversation with you. It is, at least as far as we know, still one of the only opportunities the Coalition offers you to speak to admissions in your own voice. Take that opportunity and make the most of it.

The Unique Burial of a Child of Early Scythian Time at the Cemetery of Saryg-Bulun (Tuva)

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Pages: 379-406

In 1988, the Tuvan Archaeological Expedition (led by M. E.вЂЇKilunovskaya and V. A.вЂЇSemenov) discovered a unique burial of the early Iron Age at Saryg-Bulun in Central Tuva. There are two burial mounds of the Aldy-Bel culture dated by 7th century BC. Within the barrows, which adjoined one another, forming a figure-of-eight, there were discovered 7 burials, from which a representative collection of artifacts was recovered. Burial 5 was the most unique, it was found in a coffin made of a larch trunk, with a tightly closed lid. Due to the preservative properties of larch and lack of air access, the coffin contained a well-preserved mummy of a child with an accompanying set of grave goods. The interred individual retained the skin on his face and had a leather headdress painted with red pigment and a coat, sewn from jerboa fur. The coat was belted with a leather belt with bronze ornaments and buckles. Besides that, a leather quiver with arrows with the shafts decorated with painted ornaments, fully preserved battle pick and a bow were buried in the coffin. Unexpectedly, the full-genomic analysis, showed that the individual was female. This fact opens a new aspect in the study of the social history of the Scythian society and perhaps brings us back to the myth of the Amazons, discussed by Herodotus. Of course, this discovery is unique in its preservation for the Scythian culture of Tuva and requires careful study and conservation.

Keywords: Tuva, Early Iron Age, early Scythian period, Aldy-Bel culture, barrow, burial in the coffin, mummy, full genome sequencing, aDNA

Information about authors: Marina Kilunovskaya (Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation). Candidate of Historical Sciences. Institute for the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Dvortsovaya Emb., 18, Saint Petersburg, 191186, Russian Federation E-mail: [email protected] Vladimir Semenov (Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation). Candidate of Historical Sciences. Institute for the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Dvortsovaya Emb., 18, Saint Petersburg, 191186, Russian Federation E-mail: [email protected] Varvara Busova (Moscow, Russian Federation). (Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation). Institute for the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Dvortsovaya Emb., 18, Saint Petersburg, 191186, Russian Federation E-mail: [email protected] Kharis Mustafin (Moscow, Russian Federation). Candidate of Technical Sciences. Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. Institutsky Lane, 9, Dolgoprudny, 141701, Moscow Oblast, Russian Federation E-mail: [email protected] Irina Alborova (Moscow, Russian Federation). Candidate of Biological Sciences. Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. Institutsky Lane, 9, Dolgoprudny, 141701, Moscow Oblast, Russian Federation E-mail: [email protected] Alina Matzvai (Moscow, Russian Federation). Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. Institutsky Lane, 9, Dolgoprudny, 141701, Moscow Oblast, Russian Federation E-mail: [email protected]

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Guest Essay

The Mystery of JD Vance Is Unraveling

Senator JD Vance holds his hand over his heart as he greets supporters in the crowd at the Republican National Convention.

By Thomas B. Edsall

Mr. Edsall contributes a weekly column from Washington, D.C., on politics, demographics and inequality.

JD Vance embodies the pros and cons of political competition in a divided America. He helps, and he hurts.

GZero Media broke this out neatly in a piece it posted on his “pluses and minuses” during the Republican National Convention:

Vance strengthens Donald Trump’s “champion of the working man” message — a Republican rebranding away from its strongly pro-business past. We also saw that emphasis in the striking first-night convention speech from Sean O’Brien, president of the Teamsters, a labor union with 1.3 million members, who accused business and corporate lobbyists of “waging a war against American workers.” That’s not a speech you would have heard at any Republican National Convention of the past century. Vance’s reputation as defender of the globalization-battered working class can help Trump in the electorally crucial Midwest industrial belt states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan. But Vance is also an absolutist on restricting abortion, the Republican’s biggest current weakness, according to polls. He has adopted Trump’s line that abortion rules should be left to the states, but his voting record is striking. He favors banning abortions, even if the mother is a victim of rape or incest , as well as laws that allow police to track women who have crossed state lines for an abortion. He has opposed legislation that would protect in vitro fertilization. A poll earlier this month showed that 61 percent of U.S. adults want their state to allow abortion for any reason, and 62 percent support protections for access to IVF.

During the 2022 Ohio Republican Senate primary race, the Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio warned Vance that many Republican voters hold “the perception that he is anti-Trump” because, up until that time, he had been willing to describe the 2020 contest only as “unfair.”

“I think the election was stolen from Trump,” Vance declared in a Republican Senate debate two months later.

In an interview with The Youngstown Vindicator, an Ohio newspaper, Vance contended that there was extensive fraud in 2020, including a “big tech” conspiracy directed by Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Facebook.

Vance told The Vindicator that Zuckerberg spent $420 million “buying up local boards of elections in battleground states of mostly Democratic areas” to “tilt” the vote in Biden’s favor.

Vance didn’t stop there. “We have a fake country right now,” he said. “If a billionaire can go and buy up votes in our biggest geographies and tilt an election, transform who can be president, it’s really, really dangerous stuff.”

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