Category: Yale Application Essays

How to Write the Yale Supplemental Essays for 2019-2020: Part II, the 250-Word Essays on an Intellectual Interest and on an Issue of Local, National or International Interest

wordguild

Who should read this post: Anybody who wants to write a successful Yale supplemental essay, of the 250-word variety. In addition o analyzing prompts today, I have spliced in an example of a problem essay at the end of the post, on a problem that few applicants write about, but more should be writing about.

With that, we turn to . . .

How to Write the Yale Supplemental 250-Word Essay Prompt One

Applicants submitting the Coalition Application or Common Application will respond to the prompt below in 250 words or fewer:

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

Ah, the Intellectual essay, once again. This is an application essay topic you find from Stanford to . . . well, Yale. And Brown. And U Chicago, in various forms. I write about it every year.

For this particular example, you obviously don’t have much space. On the other hand, if you plan to apply to Stanford, that’s okay–their intellectual experience essay is also 250 words.

Unpacking the prompt, notice it’s essentially two-part:

  1. defining that intellectually exciting area and
  2. showing why you are drawn to it.

If you are heading for some STEM area and have experience, like research, or building a robotic device, that’s the obvious topic for you. It’s perfectly okay for an essay to expand upon a specific area that you also discuss in your activities–just don’t splice the activities paragraph into this essay. Build around the idea.

Notice that my examples in the last paragraph are not from the classroom per se. That’s my next tip. If you are only able to talk about what happened in a class, you are not showing much motivation outside of the “required reading.”

You could be really passionate about literature and write this essay as you apply to go into a language-based major in the humanities, and you’d still want to do more than talk about that inspirational experience reading MacBeth’s final, great soliloquy in your English class. Plugging that experience in would be fine, but for this essay we’d want you to be doing non-assigned reading as well.

An essay about being inspired about ideas, whether the subject is dark matter, and how incredible it is that most of the universe is made up of something that cannot be perceived directly, or the poetry of Czeslaw Milosz, and how he uses words to capture in ineffable beauty and terror of life, in such a way that it’s impossible to actually explain in prose—the key is to show your reader the fascination that you, yourself, feel about this topic. That is, if you want a good essay.

If your strength is doing emphasize that by describing yourself doing, in relation to the topic of your prompt. If your strength is writing, focus on creating a description of your topic that has an impact. And think carefully about your topic. If you write well enough, even something that seems lightweight can work. The key is to choose something that ties into your potential areas of study in college.

An Example of an Intellectual Interest Approach for the Humanities

By way of example, if you are interested in writing or graphic arts, even a pop form like the comic book is legit. The Pulitzer-Prize winning author Michael Chabon showed this (wonderfully) in an essay he wrote for the New Yorker, years back. Specifically, he described how his religion teacher had dismissed comic books as bad, trashy and encouraging an unhealthy tendency to escape reality.

Chabon recounts how his younger self responded by building an intellectual defense, from the heart and from the mind, of comic books and more specifically, of comic-book superheroes. The cape the hero wears occupies a prime position in this defense. Here is a key quote from that essay:

It was not about escape, I wanted to tell Mr. Spector, thus unwittingly plagiarizing in advance the well-known formula of a (fictitious) pioneer and theorist of superhero comics, Sam Clay. It was about transformation.

Chabon then explains how he was transformed by comic books. Of course this essay is thousands of words long, and a 250-word essay might be a single paragraph in a piece of long-for journalism or essay writing. But as an example that expands your potential topics, it’s worth looking at, so here is a link to it:

Secret Skin

Returning to our STEM subjects, try to start with some interesting statement on your area of interest and then explain the ways you have engaged with it, with an emphasis on things you have done, when possible, or start with an anecdote showing you engaged in that area, and again show your long-term involvement with it. If you have a deep personal motivation, such as your interest in the genetics of cancer beginning with the illness of a family member, say that (this kind of experience is not uncommon in those pursuing medicine, in my experience). If you are interested in medicine because your parents told you to be, make up a better reason.

Here are the next two Yale topics:

Applicants submitting the Common Application will also select ONE of the two prompts below and respond in 250 words or fewer:

  • Reflect on your engagement with a community to which you belong. How has this engagement affected you?
  • 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.

If you are working with the Coalition portal, you will write the same essay, with the same two prompts to choose from.

The “community” essay and the issue of importance essay are subjects I have written about before. Just search my tags and subject areas by typing in “concern” and “problem” and scan the posts that pop up. But let me end this by offering my own, 500-word draft on a problem. I know that the prompt here only allows 250 words–I just typed this thing up last week after observing a problem, and you are not supposed to be copying somebody else’s work anyhow–this is just meant to be an example of an approach.

Example of an Essay on a Problem of Local, National and International Importance

Racing to Where?

I am a fan of the Tour de France.  Being a fan of the Tour could be comparable to being an NFL fan, if being an NFL fan meant watching football for three or more hours every day for three weeks.  With two rest days. 

The Tour this year was 3,365 kilometers long.  The total time of the winning rider in this year’s tour was Egan Bernal.  To win this year, he spent 82 hours and 57 minutes on the saddle.

I admit that I did fast forward some of it,  but I saw everything that mattered, from Brussels to Paris.  But the tour was supposed to be even longer than those 3,365 kilometers.  Specifically, it was to be 3,420 kilometers long.  And I saw why it was cut short.   

It was cut short because, during Stage 20, while the riders were laboring over the top of one of the most famous passes in Tour lore, the Col d’Iseran, on the highest paved road in the Alps, a freak hailstorm was flooding the next valley.  A mixture of ice, rain and snow coated the pavement over a thousand meters below the pass and sent landslides of mud and glacial melt across the course, which in one case sent a French man out clad incongruously in shorts, sandals and a raincoat, to guide a bulldozer trying to clear a foot of ice and water off the pavement.

Freakish weather is not all that freakish in the Alps—it snows in the high mountains any month of the year—but this hail-ice-snow-rain storm had an assist:  the glaciers above and around the road have been melting for decades, and the weeks before the tour arrived saw a record-setting heat wave settle over Europe.  In effect, the storm just hosed the already-melting surface of the glacier onto the pavement. 

This is our new abnormal.

The result for the Tour began as its director, Christian Prudhomme, from the red car that leads the riders to the start of each stage, and from which he monitors the race as it proceeds each day, called Stage 20 to a halt.  The effects continued as the next and  final stage in the Alps was cut short. This is without precedent.

That storm altered the course of the Tour.  It determined that Egan Bernal, the great climber, would clinch the tour as its most important stages, foreshortened, ended as two climbs.  That image of a freak storm below the riders, as a glacier which has been receding and collapsing for years coughed up a thick gruel across the course, captures where we are today. 

And it told me that I could never watch the Tour again without looking at climate change. 

That same dome of heat that softened up those glaciers also seared crops, saw parts of Germany declare a drinking water shortage, and killed thousands.  As I write this, it is parked over Greenland, setting a new record for glacial melt.

For me, climate change isn’t about writing an argument on cause and effect, or the future.  It’s about doing something, now. So I ride my bike, walk whenever possible.  And I write. 

That is what my future will be about—doing what I can–and writing to convince others to do what they can. 

I have yet to have a client this year write an issue of concern essay on Climate Change. Given the impact that this will have on the future of the planet’s seventeen-year-old humans, I do not understand this.

Let me know if you need help with your essays–I do still have some space for new clients as of early August, 2019–Contact Me.

How to Write the Yale University Supplemental Essays for 2019-2020–The Short Answers and the Application Portals

wordguild

This is Part 1 of 3 on Yale for 2019-2020. Who should read this post–Anybody applying to Yale. Topics covered–the supplemental short responses, with examples for how to write them. I will separate the Yale Engineering Prompt and the 250-word essays to discuss in Parts 2 and 3, but if you are eager to start that Engineering essay, it’s very similar to other “Why Engineering” Essays, like the one at Princeton, which I discussed in the post linked here: How to Write the Princeton Engineering Essay. Take a look at that for some ideas on developing a successful engineering essay, and I will return to a specific discussion on it later.

After discussing the Yale short responses, I will review the portals that you may use to apply to Yale as I wrap up this post. Read on for the short answer prompts, with advice for answering them, and some examples:

How to Start Successful Yale Short Responses

We begin with the prompts:

Yale Short Responses for 2019-2020

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

  • Students at Yale have plenty of 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.
  • Why do these areas appeal to you? (100 words or fewer)
  • What is it about Yale that has led you to apply? (125 words or fewer)

My first recommendation would be to look at these two relatively short responses as two parts of one essay. They total 225 words together, and they are specifically focused on what you want do with your Yale education and “Why Yale” in general, and if you think about relatig them like you think about relating the subtopics of an essay–without using transition words to start the second one, please–that will help create some synergy between this duo.

Your responses should connect with who you are–your interests, what drives you, and what in Yale in particular makes you want to study there. And you should not want to study there for simple prestige and money, even if those are somewhere in the back–or front–of your mind. That’s fair enough, but these are not convincing reasons to admit you . . . emphasize others.

Your research in the list of majors should set both sides of this discussion up, by reading and clicking and then choosing the three academic areas. I have already written about the very similar challenges in prepping for the Brown supplemental essay for this year, so have a look at my Brown Supplemental prompt discussion, here: Brown Supplemental Essays for 2019 and 2020. It pulls together several similar essay challenges.

You will notice some real similarities in your approach to these Yale short responses and the Brown supplement. Though Yale is seeking only two paragraphs for this Why Yale part of the supplement, they are important paragraphs, and you will want to go beyond just the majors to look at classes, and to look beyond classes to who teaches them and to look at what professors of interest you discover there do outside of the classroom as well as in it, such as research that intrigues you. Look for blogs by profs as well, and speeches or other Youtube fare.

Speaking of which, notice this page, which opens up undergraduate research opportunities: Undergraduate Research Fellowships for Science and Engineering. Lest we slight you literary types, for a humanities example, Yale has a department of Comparative Literature (not just Ye Olde English Department for Yale! ) which features a senior essay, that being a research project and paper that generally requires multilingual reading and writing a thesis on your findings–as described here: Comparative Lit Senior Paper.

Why Do All of This Work?

All of this research by you, now, is aimed at a few sentences in two short responses. Seem like a lot of work? I agree, but this is Yale, People. You want to increase that Demonstrated Interest.

But as noted in my post on Brown, they do not want a book report on their university; you blend your own interests and passions into what they offer, convincingly, and hopefully suggest where you want to go with that–changing the world for the better or building cool stuff or exploring the connections of literature and culture . . . whatever is your higher calling.

And I would not spend much time on Yale’s “societies”; in particular, please just do not discuss how cool you think Skull and Bones is; this is a bad focus for a Yale application, in my experience.

It’s about learning, People, and changing the world for the better. At least until these essay are done.

Next up: the even shorter Yale supplemental responses. I call this kind of supplement the “Haiku responses.” Or I call them . . .

The Yale Supplement Blurbs

Applicants applying with the QuestBridge Application will complete the questions above via the Yale QuestBridge Questionnaire, available on the Yale Admissions Status Portal after an application has been received.

Applicants submitting the Coalition Application or Common Application will also respond to the following short answer questions, in 35 words or fewer:

  • What inspires you?
  • 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?
  • You are teaching a Yale course. What is it called?
  • Most first-year Yale students live in suites of four to six students. What do you hope to add to your suitemates’ experience? What do you hope they will add to yours?

That 35-word count makes it hard to offer specific advice, so I am going to write some examples. Before I do, here is the advice I can offer: You are presenting a public self here, so it’s not just about what you can say that is authentic; you also want to say things that look good on an application. Note that authenticity and looking good are not necessarily separate categories.

It’s the same kind of thinking that you make using social media–what to say and how to say it is situational. True also in college applications. So what inspires you in posting on Instagram may not be what inspires you here, but it should still be an authentic response in the terms defined by this writing situation.

And now, as the simplest way to suggest what you might do, let me just offer a couple of examples that represent me–

What inspires me:

I am inspired by what is well-made, whether it be a beautifully crafted sentence, a cleverly constructed device, or a work of art that shows craft and inspiration.  Our hands and minds at their best.

35 words, on their own. With the theme at the end. Fragments are fair game in this short response, as shown by my zen-like ending line.

What person would I invite:

With some trepidation, I would invite James Joyce.  Famously diffident with those he did not know, I’d ply him with drink and get him singing in his wonderful tenor, trade jokes—then we’d talk Ulysses.

Again, that’s 35 words. Note the haiku thing I mentioned—the unstated is as important as the stated. Note the dangling modifier, as well–grammar rules are bent when it is necessary, as here. If you cannot see it, its my use of I’d ply him after a modifier that references Joyce, not me. 35 words forces some choices and the dangling modifier allows me to skip some words by dropping a restatement of Joyce’s name.

If you have no idea who he is, Joyce wrote Ulysses, and it is a novel I love. If an app reader knows something about it , I don’t need to explain, and if they don’t know much, they will still recognize the name. This might seem pretentious for you, which is why all of these responses are personal. But perhaps the style of my responses helps you. Take note of how I say it as much as what I say.

As for my proposed course:

Course Title: Your Future according to Climate Change. Bill McKibben and Greta Thunborg would be my co-instructors. The first requirement of the course would be using transport for a week that required no fossil fuels. 

As for what to share with roommates:

Ideas.  I want to talk ideas, argue ideas, shape ideas.  I want to burn the midnight oil rethinking the world, wandering campus and town, talking.  Then I want to act to make those ideas real.

As I wrap up this portion of my Yale analysis for 2019, a plug for my services: If you are struggling with ideas and need help with essay development and editing, Contact Me for rates and to get on my editing schedule. I still have some slots open as we roll into August, but things will fill up quickly. NB.

And now–the Common App versus the Coalition App, versus. . . .

A Short Introduction to College Application Portals

For those of you needing an introduction to application portals–which is how you actually apply to college–here you go:

Before I talk about the short responses, I will give an overview of the ways you can apply to Yale, as well as many other colleges. The Yale prompts for 2019-2020 begin by referencing the application portals you may use for Yale, which are the Common Application, the Coalition Application and the Questbridge Application.

The Common App is the McDonald’s of application portals–it’s everywhere, used by many people; the Coalition Application is its competitor. The schools accepting both application portals do not privilege one over the other; the basic idea of the Coalition App was to make it slightly easier to deal with applying through a (slightly) easier architecture to navigate. However, both the Common App and the Coalition App are free to use, so you set up your account and fill in information without paying anything up front. The application fees come when you actually submit to specific colleges, with the average for a college app this year at about $75 per school.

Having tried the Coalition App out, I can say it is slightly easier to navigate and takes slightly less time. It also posted some of the prompts earlier than the Common App, which is just about to go live as I am writing this on July 31st, 2019. Here is the Coalition App Portal: Coalition for College Application, and for a shortcut, here are the colleges accepting the Coalition Application: Coalition for College Members. The third option for Yale, the Questbridge Portal, is for a specific cohort of students who are registered with Questbridge; these are students who face significant financial and personal struggles while also being very high academic performers–if you qualified, you’d probably already know about it, but if your family makes less than 65 k per year, take a look: Questbridge. And, of course, here is the Common Application Portal, which appears to have just gone live as I have been working on this post and put this link in. The Application Year has now kicked off in earnest.

I do have clients choosing to use the Coalition App this year because they like the essay options a bit better, and others using a third vehicle for Applications, the Universal Application, which has only a few colleges onboard as of now, but those are significant colleges. Here it is: Universal Application.

Yes, the Universal Application features fewer than a dozen colleges, which makes the name “Universal” an oxymoron, but I would check all of the portals out before a making full commitment to the Common App. For example, if your target schools are all on the Coalition and you see variations on the supplemental essays that seem better to you, use it. If not, not. If you just want the three Ivies on the Universal App, you like its writing requirements, and plan only on non-Common App targets like the University of California campuses beyond that, the Universal App makes sense.

As for why the Coalition is there–well the Common App was becoming so large it was almost like dealing with, hmm, Google, and the colleges were nervous about giving so much power to one portal. Then the Common App did a bad job on a reboot some years back and the portal basically did not function properly for weeks; major colleges had to extend their application deadlines. That created a pretty angry client base of colleges.

So that’s your portals. Come on back for my posts on the Yale 250-word essays, which I will write in the first week of August, and for the Yale Engineering essay.

Example Post from 2015-2016 Essay Analysis–Yale Application Essay Topics for 2015-2016: A.K.A. Tell Us Something About Yourself That is Not on Your Application

wordguild

Keep in Mind that this post was written for the class of 2020 application–if you are graduating high school in 2017, you will be applying for the class of 2021.  While some or even most of the information below may be true when you apply, I won’t know for sure until July or August, 2016, at which time my Yale post will update.

The Yale essay is ready for you.  Are you ready for the Yale essay?

For most of you the answer will be, I am not ready.  The reason is simple:  most of you will need to have a pretty good grip on the rest of your application–and will need to have written a more-or-less decent draft of your Common Application main essay–before you will know what to write for this Yale essay.  For this year’s Common Application Essay Prompts, see   Application Prompts for 2015-2016.

For the Yale topic and more on writing for the Yale prompt this year, including a roughed-out example essay, continue below:

Yale Essay Topic
Please note that the Yale freshman application will be available on the Common Application website sometime in August. (Note from WordGuild:  The Common App goes offline July 23rd and erases all accounts on the site at that time; when it goes live again on or just before August 1st, you can open an account and upload essays.  My advice:  start essays early and upload late, to give yourself plenty of time.)

The Yale-specific questions will include one additional required essay for all applicants, and one optional essay for prospective computer science and engineering majors. The essay prompts for the 2015-2016 Yale Essay Questions are as follows:

Yale’s essay question is required for all freshman applicants:

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).

Yale Essay Prompt Analysis and Advice:

As you can see, it’s tough to say what they might not learn from the rest of your application before you have at least roughed out the rest of your application–remember that you are creating a kind of holograph of yourself composed of basic data (G.P.A., SAT/ACT scores), a list of activities and some short descriptions, accompanied by odds and ends like letters of recommendation–and your essays, which can make or break your application.  I talk about this at more length in this post–how college applications are evaluated.

To add a metaphor, you should look at each part of your application as being a chapter or entry in a book about you.  So write your Common App essay, complete your activities list/descriptions, then write this essay with an eye on filling in the blanks and/or pulling things together.  You want to humanize yourself and, if possible, reveal a passion or strong interest that may help your application.  And when you do write this essay, do NOT simply repeat your activities–but also do not assume that you cannot slide them in somewhere.  Think of this essay as  either  . . .

A Network or a Walkabout

There are two basic ways to approach this question–one is The Walkabout, in which you present a stand-alone activity that you think is interesting enough or humanizing enough to merit a solo, one-off focus.  More about that in a few moments.

The other way is to write a Network Essay–use an interesting or important activity to connect disparate parts of your resume, or to remind the reader of some aspects of you that you think are important (or persuasive as admissions factors). Let’s say you are into math and physics in school, with some connected activities including a robotics team, while outside of school, you like to go fishing and camping  (which you likely cannot do too often as you are an oversubscribed high school student trying to get into college, but let’s say for the purposes of an example essay that you go fishing one or two times a year and are into math and physics and the robotics team).

These do not seem to be connected, but this is a matter of focus–that is the key to and the purpose of a Network Essay.  For example:  Fishing involves physics in a number of ways, starting with putting a lure or a fly where you want it, and getting its parameters right (depth of bait, etc).  This is applied physics and the use of empirical knowledge (How to cast to get the lure to point x, how deep the fish are . . .).  So you might start the essay with a focus on fishing and camping, then use it as a network to connect this unknown part of you to the other parts of you that are clear in the application.  The person described above might do the following, for example, to get this Yale essay started:

Network Essay Example–The Fishing Physics Fan

Whenever I can, I like to pack up the car and disappear for a few days.  I like to cut the electronic tether, escape the ping of texts and pong of e-mail, and go to any one of several locations I cannot disclose. 

I cannot disclose these locations specifically because they are the best places to catch fish in the (pick a region).  And fisherman may tell a lot of tall tales about the one that got away, but no real fisherman ever gives away his Secret Spot to Catch Fish.  And I am a true fisherman.

This might seem an odd thing for a person who spends most of his other free time sitting at a computer coding so that an x can do y (examples not included in this example essay intro) or fiddling with a robot’s arm so it manages to do a instead of b (examples not included in this example essay intro)  but in a way it all fits together–fishing is all about physics and trial and error.  Trying to get a lure to that spot by the sunken log across the mouth of the stream is a matter of telemetry, a problem with many factors–the wind, the current, how deep the water there is . . . (You would expand somewhat here, using concrete detail.)

When I am out in nature fishing, I am really living in the moment in a way that I do not in my daily life at home, but nature  is also really a collection of things we call physics.  Take the lightning storm that was approaching Twin Lakes (sorry, can’t tell you which Twin Lakes) the last time I was there . . . . (Again, you would expand here, but notice how I am tying fishing to  your other interests, to physics . . .)

And then you might end the essay by literally and figuratively coming home (refreshed and refocused) to your more formal experiments in applied physics).

Notice how I am introducing other activities or interests beyond fishing, but they are put into this essay as context for the fishing focus, while simultaneously reminding the reader of specifics in terms of interests and knowledge from your activities sheet and from your academic life.  So the essay emphasizes one thing but shows others by connecting them.  This is what I mean by the network essay–it focuses on something new, on an activity that is either not in or only mentioned in the rest of your application but in the essay on this activity, you touch on other things that it does not hurt to remind the reader about.  All your many features are somehow included.

Here’s why this network approach can be useful:  It does not hurt to remind the reader about some other aspects of your resume or activities because, on average, the app reader will spend about 3 minutes reading each of your app essays–sometimes less–and this rapid reading will come after the app reader has scanned your activities, and is meanwhile thinking about your GPA, etc, and figuring out how to boil it all down to a single number, appended by some comments.

And the app reader is doing this at some point in a day in which he or she has read dozens of other applications and multiple dozens of essays if your application comes up late in the day.  So things will tend to get blurry as the app reader takes notes and assesses you, and the artful reminder of things you want them to remember can help your evaluator–and so help you.  Thus, the network essay which uses an interesting aspect of yourself to connect other, known aspects of your application in an interesting way can be an ideal add to your application.

Oh, and if you think something like fishing (or whatever it is that you do) is not an interesting topic, it depends on what you say about it.  And how you say it.  Contact me if you have something you like to do but think it will look boring in your essay, and I will help you develop your words and do so in a way that works with the rest of your app.

The Walkabout Essay

A walkabout was a rite of passage for a young Australian native, a time spent wandering the bush alone and surviving independently–the word has taken on other meanings, but the walkabout was originally a personal journey for the experience to be had on the journey.  It was also seen as something necessary and transformative, shaping the person who experienced it and propelling him into adulthood.

If you have an activity that is like this, a stand-alone that is also an important part of who you are, something that you do for its own sake,  then you can write a Walkabout Essay exploring this activity.

As an example, are you into math, programming and classical Indian Dance?  The closest you could come to a network essay with these would be to say they are all possible areas of creative expression.

But classical dance is embodied, is a way of knowing that is shown by doing in a way that is not true of math and programming, for your physical self is fully engaged, and it might best be explored as such, as a unique activity that humanizes and adds an interesting dimension to you–and that really offers little connection to your other, more purely mental activities.  Though you may still mention some other activities with the excuse of showing how different this activity is (and so reminding the app reader, however briefly, of those other aspects of yourself.)

The Key to the Walkabout Essay:  Become a Knowledgeable and Interesting Guide

So some level of networking/connection is always a good idea, but the Walkabout essay will really focus on the glories of the activity in the essay.  Classical Indian dance, as an example, embodies much of traditional Indian culture: its gestures are symbolic, and it is influenced by or on a continuum with other specifically Indian activities, like what we now call Hatha Yoga, as well as traditional Indian martial arts–if you become a guide, showing things like this in some detail to the app reader, and so showing your passion, you will have a good  essay–you want your app reader to have that look of surprise and interest that comes when someone learns something interesting, as you reveal the philosophy and history of the dance through some well-chosen examples, while inserting close description about the people and dances you have done and perhaps an amusing anecdote or two.    Inform without lecturing, show by examples and close description instead of simply telling.

And finally–if you are “Saying something more” about an activity or concern that is already on your application/activities, my advice here still applies.

That’s it for now. Get started on your Common App essay while thinking about this essay.  And contact me if you would like some professional editing.  N.B:  Sooner is better than later as things really pick up from August 1st on.

LADIES AND GENTLEMAN, START YOUR ESSAYS: THE 2013-2014 PROMPTS ARE OUT EARLY

wordguild

Or at least some of them are out early.  

This post will introduce some of the essay prompts for Ivy League and elite universities this year.  We are off to an earlier than usual start for this year’s prompts, probably due to the increased number of early applicants; many of the important schools are not, however, posting yet, but I will introduce some of those that are online now, below, with a quick overview and a few of the new prompts themselves spliced in below that.  Keep in mind that this post is being written on July 1st, and the application scene will change rapidly over the next two to three weeks as many of the colleges get their sites up to date.  Some will not put up prompts until the beginning of August, speaking of which . . . 

The Common App is planning to open for business on August 1st.  If you visit the Common Application site before August, you will find last year’s downloads and pdf’s.  However,  the Common App’s new essay prompts have been released as a “beta.”  Unlike beta software,  these Common App prompts will not be modified and you can start working with them.  This split presentation, with both an out-of-date website and an early release of up-to-date essay prompts can be a bit confusing, but it’s their way of helping applicants start the essays early while not opening up the website itself until they are ready for business.  

I have the Common App essay prompts for 2013-2014 here:  Common Application:  What’s New for 2013-2014.  Then read on below in this post for information on U Chicago, Yale and others, including the complete U Chicago, Yale and UC  essay prompts for this year.  

As a threshold matter, let’s establish our position in the calendar: if you are a rising Senior, you are going to be applying for the 2013-2014 cycle, as a prospective member of the Class of 2018.  I say this because of the volume of page views I am getting in recent weeks on my posts about last year’s  application essays; last year was the 2012-2013 application cycle.  I know, it should seem obvious, but it can get confusing as old posts linger on and many universities have the old prompts listed under “2013.”  It’s also true that some of these old prompts are going to still be in use this year–I have one example below, with the U.C. system–but most will be changed, so be sure that you are working with the right prompts before investing any time and effort.  And no, I do not believe in practicing with old prompts.  This is not the SAT.

So now let’s turn to this year’s prompts: U Chicago got an early jump on some of its Ivy League competitors, having posted its prompts before June even ended, but  Yale has also posted its essay prompts and UPenn has, um, publicized its prompts. Harvard, Columbia, Brown, and  other Ivies are  still stuck in last year as of this post on July 1.  Princeton is with the rest of the Ivies who are not yet up to speed, but I expect to see information on their new essays in the next couple of weeks, given their history.

Let’s start with  UPenn.  The Quakers had this year’s Common App prompts up, but directly below this, Penn still had last year’s supplementary essay . . . The Ben Franklin prompt.  (Yep, that’s their mascot:  a Quaker; and yes, the Ben Franklin prompt is from last year.)  But wait, Penn Admissions Dean Furda put the new prompt up on Penn’s Insider’s blog . . .   Confusing, Penn.   To clear up the confusion, see below in this blogpost for this year’s UPenn admissions essay.

And Penn is not the only school with a blog by the admissions office that is more up to speed than their official admissions portal.  This has to do mostly with the rise of the Common App itself and with the move to electronic submissions.  The Common App effectively sets the date that admissions start for its colleges, and there is a disconnect between this date and when students try to start working on applications–the Common App itself advises starting early on the essays it requires, both in its prompts and in the supplements that the universities post on the Common App site, but August 1st is not really very early, given that more and more students use early applications and some students will be done with apps as of October 1.  In steps the blogs and insider pages for many universities, to fill that gap and help you get going before August–which is what Penn offers, but they should also take down the Ben Franklin prompt.    

Over on the left coast, the University of California is using the same prompts as last year, so you can get started on those now.  I will also copy their prompts into this post, below, and I wrote about these prompts last year.  The Stanford prompts and short writing responses are not yet up–you have to go through the Common Application website to get their supplement,  but I will be perusing their admissions blog and will put up their prompts as soon as I see them.  In the meantime, I’d get working on the Common App prompts and any others I post below that interest you.

As for the Common App itself:   forget about registering and setting up your account on the Common App website before August 1st; they will delete any accounts that were set up before they go live on August 1st.  I would suggest that you  visit the Common App to check out the site format and to search for information on the schools, which will include variables that each school considers when it evaluates applicants.  Go here to search for application information, by school:  https://www.commonapp.org/SearchEngine/SimpleSearch.aspx

( I repeat, do not register.  Yet.)

In my upcoming posts, I will begin addressing and evaluating specific application prompts, with advice on what to do and what not to do, but be warned:  I offer in full only some posts on specific prompts here, on the CollegeAppJungle.  Full access to all of my analysis and posts, including my advice on individual essay prompts, is only available by subscribing to my private blog or by retaining me to edit your work or to help you with a full package, including college application advising.  I offer quite a bit of general advice as a public service, but this is also a business.  Business requires payment, which is a point that has become somewhat obscured in the age of the “free” download.

If you want access to my private blog, or you want to inquire about editing services and college advising,  e-mail  me with either “college advising/editing” or “subscription” as a heading and send it to this e-mail address; I will send you an invoice and grant access to my private blog after you give me a payment:

wordguild@gmail.com

And now, here is a look at some of the prompts that are already up for this year, including U Chicago, Yale and the University of California (Expect to see me start writing about how to approach the U Chicago later prompts this week):

U Penn Essay Prompts for 2013-2014Penn Supplement Essay Prompt for entry Fall 2014:

“The Admissions Committee would like to learn why you are a good fit for your undergraduate school choice (College of Arts and Sciences; School of Nursing; The Wharton School; Penn Engineering). Please tell us about specific academic, service, and/or research opportunities at the University of Pennsylvania that resonate with your background, interests, and goals.” 400-650 words

Clearly, Dear Reader, UPenn expects you to know something about their programs; get started on your research . . . before writing. 

University of Chicago Essay Prompts for 2013-2014

The University of Chicago has long been renowned for its provocative essay questions. We think of them as an opportunity for students to tell us about themselves, their tastes, and their ambitions. They can be approached with utter seriousness, complete fancy, or something in between.

Each year we email newly admitted and current College students and ask them for essay topics. We receive several hundred responses, many of which are eloquent, intriguing, or downright wacky.

As you can see by the attributions, some of the questions below were inspired by submissions by your peers.

2013-14 essay questions:

ESSAY OPTION 1.

Winston Churchill believed “a joke is a very serious thing.” From Off-Off Campus’s improvisations to the Shady Dealer humor magazine to the renowned Latke-Hamantash debate, we take humor very seriously here at The University of Chicago (and we have since 1959, when our alums helped found the renowned comedy theater The Second City).

Tell us your favorite joke and try to explain the joke without ruining it.

Inspired by Chelsea Fine, Class of 2016

ESSAY OPTION 2.

In a famous quote by José Ortega y Gasset, the Spanish philosopher proclaims, “Yo soy yo y mi circunstancia” (1914). José Quintans, master of the Biological Sciences Collegiate Division at the University of Chicago, sees it another way: “Yo soy yo y mi microbioma” (2012).

You are you and your..?

Inspired by Maria Viteri, Class of 2016

ESSAY OPTION 3.

“This is what history consists of. It’s the sum total of all the things they aren’t telling us.” — Don DeLillo, Libra.

What is history, who are “they,” and what aren’t they telling us?

Inspired by Amy Estersohn, Class of 2010

ESSAY OPTION 4.

The mantis shrimp can perceive both polarized light and multispectral images; they have the most complex eyes in the animal kingdom. Human eyes have color receptors for three colors (red, green, and blue); the mantis shrimp has receptors for sixteen types of color, enabling them to see a spectrum far beyond the capacity of the human brain.

Seriously, how cool is the mantis shrimp: mantisshrimp.uchicago.edu

What might they be able to see that we cannot? What are we missing?

Inspired by Tess Moran, Class of 2016

ESSAY OPTION 5.

How are apples and oranges supposed to be compared? Possible answers involve, but are not limited to, statistics, chemistry, physics, linguistics, and philosophy.

Inspired by Florence Chan, Class of 2015

ESSAY OPTION 6.

In the spirit of adventurous inquiry, pose a question of your own. If your prompt is original and thoughtful, then you should have little trouble writing a great essay. 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

Yale University Application Essay Prompts for 2013-2014

Yale Writing Supplement – Essay Topic

Please note that the Yale freshman application will be available on the Common Application website sometime in August. The Yale-specific questions will include one additional required essay for all applicants, and one optional essay for prospective engineering majors. The essay prompts for the 2013-2014 Yale Writing Supplement are as follows:

Yale Writing Supplement required for all freshman applicants:

  • In this second essay, 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 interests to intellectual pursuits.We ask that you limit your essay to fewer than 500 words. Before you begin, we encourage you to go to http://admissions.yale.edu/essay, where you will find helpful advice.

Optional essay for prospective engineering majors:

  • If you selected one of the engineering majors, please write a brief third essay telling us what has led you to an interest in this field of study, what experiences (if any) you have had in engineering, and what it is about Yale’s engineering program that appeals to you.

University of California Application Essay Prompts for 2013-2014

As you respond to the essay prompts, think about the admissions and scholarship officers who will read your statement and what you want them to understand about you. While your personal statement is only one of many factors we consider when making our admission decision, it helps provide context for the rest of your application.

Directions

All applicants must respond to two essay prompts — the general prompt and either the freshman or transfer prompt, depending on your status.

  • Responses to your two prompts must be a maximum of 1,000 words total.
  • Allocate the word count as you wish. If you choose to respond to one prompt at greater length, we suggest your shorter answer be no less than 250 words.

The essay prompts

Freshman applicant prompt

Describe the world you come from — for example, your family, community or school — and tell us how your world has shaped your dreams and aspirations.

Transfer applicant prompt

What is your intended major? Discuss how your interest in the subject developed and describe any experience you have had in the field — such as volunteer work, internships and employment, participation in student organizations and activities — and what you have gained from your involvement.

Prompt for all applicants

Tell us about a personal quality, talent, accomplishment, contribution or experience that is important to you. What about this quality or accomplishment makes you proud and how does it relate to the person you are?

That’s it, for now.  Get a notebook and start scribbling ideas.  I recommend doing some writing every day, as ideas occur to you and also just to record where you are at or just what you are doing.  This will give you a large repository of information to fall back on as you begin to write your essays.  You would be–or may be–amazed to discover how easy it is to forget a good idea if you do not write it down promptly.