5 Tips for College Application Supplemental Essays

With the shining star of many college applications being the Common Application essay or main college essay, many students are surprised to see the volume of work needed to draft responses for the supplemental questions. After joyously adding a list of colleges to the Common Application — surprise– now you have many more hours of writing on your plate (or to do)! As I always repeat to my students, the entire application should focus on a core student narrative that, when each piece of the application is combined, tells a clear story. Toward this goal, here are 5 tips to writing exceptional supplemental essays:
#1: Answer the question! Many students are surprised when I review their essays and gently tell them they did not actually answer the prompt or address it directly enough.
#2: Don’t recycle! Well, recycle your plastic and paper, but not their words. This prompt is a chance to add new information that will give the admission officer more insight into the applicant.
#3: Show your work! Just like in math class, the student should show his or her work, i.e., having reviewed the admissions page, department page, and other associated online information about the college. Work this information into a response where appropriate to show time investment into the process, and the college itself.
#4: Tell a story! Whether you visited the college or can answer creatively, do so. Never force the story or use words like amazing (unless it was) or changed me forever (unless it did), but instead tell non-fiction accounts of experiences that led you to this school at this time, for a particular purpose.
#5: Count words! When writing the essay prompts in Google docs (saved to the cloud for safekeeping), use functions like “count words” to ensure you honor the word count recommended by the prompt. Although admission officers are not 5 year olds asking “are we there yet?” on their drive through thousands of applications, there is a beauty in brevity, particularly when effectively responding to prompts with care and attention.