The most selective universities and colleges of the United States have just released next year's prompts for the supplemental application essays. With wide-ranging topics and a variety of requirements, these prompts will surely delight applicants looking to spend several months laboring over essays someone will glance over for two minutes and then most likely reject. [Editor's notes included.] Enjoy!
At Yale, we have many people doing many different things. We have many people doing the same thing. We also have lots of people doing other things. Reflect on this prompt and tell us what things you intend to bring to our wonderful campus. Limit: 50 words or 500 characters.
Describe a particularly acrimonious argument you had with someone that went absolutely nowhere. At least 523 words, maximum.
Tell us about your life as it relates to Columbia. Strict limit: 17 words.
We seek to enroll a class at Harvard that is diverse and creative, yet not too creative. Please write an essay about one way in which you have thought inside the box of being-outside-the-box. If this doesn't resonate with you, please rethink your life decisions. Between 500 and 650 words. [Yes, this is basically asking you to write a second personal essay. Who said life at Harvard would be easy?]
Be yourself. As long as it's the right kind of self. 63 words.
Please write a thoughtful essay on a surprising encounter with a unique person of Hispanic or Indigenous descent you've recently had during a representative community work or volunteer day or an interesting extracurricular activity. Required length: at least 400 words but no more than 401. [No one else knows what all those adjectives are useful for either.]
Write an essay about the hardships you've faced in your high school years while assuring us that you can afford a $80,000 per year tuition. Try not to think about the hardships this tuition will almost certainly cause you in college. 200 words, but only because we're feeling lenient.
Please write an essay that shows how politically correct you are. Use as many clichés as possible. 21 to 412 words but must be an even number.
Write a letter explaining why you and Brown University are a match made in heaven. Woo us but don't hit on us. [Figure it out.] Whatever length feels right as long as it's between 483 and 507 words and about three paragraphs.
What does community mean to you as you hope to leave behind your own community for Princeton's? Reflect, relate, relax - but don't judge. Try not to remember that you'll almost certainly be rejected no matter what you write. Length: about two paragraphs, if they're good ones. Otherwise, strict limit of five sentences.
At Cornell, we seek to build a class who will think along conventional lines and mostly agree with us on controversial issues. Therefore, write a 761-word essay about justice, inclusivity, diversity, adversity, university, perversity etc. [Whoops, looks like someone got a little carried away.]
MIT: Write a letter to someone you know that tells one thing you've always wanted to say to them but never actually dared to. Send it off. Then prove you did it and give us a copy. We'll probably still reject you but at least your life will be more interesting.
At Bryant, we greatly value giving back to the community. At the same time, we run a business, not a charity. Tell us how you intend to make money with a degree from Bryant while also paying back an alarmingly vague amount of student debt. Be specific. 79 words.
Relate, reconsider, reduce, reuse, recycle, reconvene, reimagine, redo, regurgitate. 500 words.
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| Liv Quicksilver |
