Supplemental essays are requested by colleges, in addition to the common application essay, to gain more detailed insight into an applicant’s personality, interests, and “fit” with the specific institution and its community. A main focus in writing this essay includes explaining why you’re interested in the school or major and how you will contribute to that college community.
Why: Colleges use the supplemental essays to assess a student’s interest and “fit” with the college.
How: Students need to tailor the essay to each school and demonstrate their interest in that specific institution.
Recommendations:
- Research the school (s): Do a deep dive into a specific school and the available majors to learn about their unique programs, courses, or faculty that interest you.
- Align your experiences and goals directly to the college’s opportunities and explain how these specific aspects align with your goals and personal interests.
- Be authentic and allow the colleges to see your human side and get to know the “human” behind the application.
COMMON SUPPLEMENTAL PROMPTS
- The “Why Us” Essay: To demonstrate, through specific details and examples, your interest or why you’re a great match for a particular school. This essay is an important way to demonstrate interest in a particular college, and is the most popular essay prompt.
- The Activity Essay: Share a preferred non-academic activity to reveal your passions, personal growth, and potential contributions to a college community. Use specific examples and anecdotes to demonstrate qualities like leadership, initiative, and commitment, to provide a more complete picture of who you are beyond your grades and test scores.
- The Community Essay:With this essay, a student is asked to share more about a community where they are actively participating. Present specific anecdotes and examples to demonstrate how you would contribute to the campus community.
- The “Fit” Essay: Explain why you are a good candidate and why you are interested in a specific major. Share personal experiences, skills, and passions and connect them to what the institution offers with their programs or campus culture.
The experts at Team Tutor share tips on what to include in the college essays: https://www.teamtutor.com/what-do-colleges-look-for-in-a-students-application-essay/
Writing a supplemental essay allows a student the opportunity to demonstrate their personality and interests, and present why they are a good fit for that particular college. This essay gives a student the chance to showcase what makes them unique, by sharing personal information about their background, with a focus on academic or extracurricular interests. Each college a student applies to wants to know as much about the applicants as possible to determine if they are college ready and a good fit for their school.
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