On August 1 of every year, most US colleges release prompts for supplemental essays. The main personal statement for the Common Application (aka Common App Essay) is one of the essays you will need to write for college admissions. Many schools include their own school-specific essays, also known as supplemental essays. In this article, we will discuss writing supplemental college essays.
What are Supplemental Essays?
Supplemental essays are additional pieces of writing, in addition to the Coalition App or Common App essay, that give admissions officers the chance to get to know you better. Supplemental essays are additional pieces of writing required by many highly selective universities, and they can be just as revealing and important as your personal statement.
A supplemental essay allows you to tell the admissions committee about something you weren’t able to cover in your main essay. These supplemental essays are usually shorter than the main college essay, but they are equally important.
How Many Supplemental Essays are Required for Each College?
There is no single right answer for this. A few colleges might ask for one supplemental essay, while others may require several.
For example, Wake Forest University in North Carolina had six additional questions for prospective students to respond to on its 2020 undergraduate admissions application.
Supplemental essay prompts come in all shapes and sizes. In some cases, schools let applicants choose from several options.
For instance, the University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill‘s fall 2019-20 application included four prompts – such as “What do you hope will change about the place where you live?” – From which prospective students had to select two. The two most common prompts that are seen are “What do you want to major in?” and “Tell us about a favorite activity.”
12 Tips for Writing Supplemental College Essays
Begin with an Outline
Every applicant has their own way of writing, and it is advisable to create outlines. You must brainstorm the personal qualities, skills, or experiences you would like to convey in your supplemental essays.
Find which of your college choices require supplements
Check the essay list on the International College Counselors website and also on the college websites. From August onward, you will be able to see many questions on your applications as you add a school to your list and fill in your major. There will be prompts you’ll need to answer within the school’s supplemental sections.
Carefully read the essay prompt
Some schools ask the reason why you want to attend their college, while others ask about your interest in a particular program or your major.
Write about yourself
Your essay must present information about yourself that will make the college want you. Tell something positive about yourself.
Do not repeat
If you want to reveal something new about yourself in each essay, you can re-mention an activity, but it must add something that can’t be found elsewhere in your app. Supplemental essays give you a chance to give more information to the admissions committee to further show why you are a good fit for a school. So make sure not to repeat things that have already been covered in your main essay.
Do your homework
When a school wants to know the reason for choosing them, give specific details like courses and programs of interest to you at that school. Make sure everything you mention ties into your goals and interests. You should have a thorough knowledge of the college and what its admissions officers are looking for in their applicants.
Smart recycling of your essays
If two or more colleges have similar questions, don’t hesitate to reuse one of your stories. Do not be careless and paste.
There are no optional essays
Even if a college says the essays are optional, it’s never optional.
Do not exceed the word count
Many schools do not allow you to submit essays that are over the maximum word count, while many others have minimum word counts that you will need to meet.
Keeping track of the essays you need to write
This is critical; be organized so that you do not miss one on the day of submission.
Narrow Your Focus
The biggest mistake applicants make in supplemental essays is choosing a topic that is too broad. It is better to do something small and do it well. There are essays with 600 words, 500 words, and 150–250-word or other very short essays.
Get Professional Help
Take the help of College Admission Counselors who can make it easier for you by guiding you on what to write and how to write the essay.
Most Common Supplemental Essays
Colleges find a hundred different ways to ask a question, but ultimately, the prompt boils down to one of the following common essay themes:
o Why this college?
o Why this major?
o Elaborate on an extracurricular activity or work experience.
o Discuss a community you belong to that has impacted who you are today.
How to Approach Writing the Supplemental College Essays
When the question is “Why this college?”
In your essay, your answer should focus on the qualities and programs specific to that school. Listing or name-dropping will not be enough. Instead, you need to specify why this college is important to you and how this plays out
Why this major?
The most important thing to remember is that admissions officers are not looking for a résumé. This, of course, does not prevent you from discussing your activities and how they ultimately led to a passion for a specific major. Use these activities to tell a story rather than merely list achievements. In order to do this, you need to share your thought processes, as it is the thoughts surrounding an activity more than the activity itself that show the reader your journey to choosing a major.
Don’t ever say that your reason for choosing a major is money-making. Potential, rather than talk about how this major will help you achieve your dreams. If you choose to keep it undeclared, that is absolutely fine. Just be sure to list a couple of potential majors and explain your interest in those. Under no circumstances say you have absolutely no idea, as that will make you look like you don’t care.
Elaborate on an extracurricular activity or work experience
There may be an activity or work experience in your application that you have more to say about or a story behind it that you want to tell. Like – How did you become interested in this extracurricular? What is your role in the activity or work experience? Why do you do it? Have you experienced growth within the activity over time?
Recommended Article: How to Leverage Extracurricular Activities for College Admissions as an Indian Applicant
There are endless angles you can pursue here, but in short, you need to show your motivation behind participating in a certain activity or job. Do not repeat something that’s been said elsewhere. If you have already spotlighted an activity in another essay for a given college, don’t write about the same activity. The goal is to share new information and your breadth of experiences.
Discuss a community you belong to that has impacted who you are today.
The community you belong to has an immense impact on the person you are today. The term ‘’Community” can mean many things, with many possible approaches to this prompt. You may respond with a community you are linked to through culture, sports, or a club.
You can stress your personal growth, or other aspects of who you are as a person, that contribute to belonging to this community. The goal of the essay should be to explain how being part of this group has changed or impacted who you are as a person.
Things you should avoid while writing Supplemental Essays
You should not discriminate against other communities in your response.
Avoid talking broadly about your community, but focus on your place within this community.
Never use your essay as a platform to complain, but you may choose to talk about challenges in a certain community in a refined way. You can talk about how these challenges have shaped you as a person or how you learned to confront these obstacles productively.
Summing Up
Your essays are your opportunity to tell admissions officers how you want to be remembered by them. If your SAT results were not up to the mark, or you got a low grade in an honors paper, you can neither change your grades nor scores. But here the essays are entirely in your control. You have enough scope and freedom to tell your story and what makes you unique.
The aim is to make essay-writing as stress-free as possible. At the end of the day, your essays should leave the reader wanting to have a conversation with you. You need to show that you’re a multifaceted, mature person with an interesting story to tell.
Need help with college essays and/or college applications? Please feel free to reach out to us!
Tanmoy Ray is an experienced admissions consultant and content marketer with a passion for helping students achieve their global education dreams. After completing his Master’s degree in the UK, he worked with leading universities including the University of Oxford (UK), Utrecht University (Netherlands), and the University of New South Wales (Australia). Tanmoy combines his deep expertise in higher education with a talent for crafting student-focused resources that simplify complex admissions processes.