Highly influenced by the school’s Jesuit history and globally-focused core curriculum, the Santa Clara University supplemental essay prompts ask applicants to consider how ethics and morals can be applied in a secular educational setting. Although the school is by no means dominated by religion, its guiding principles stem from values like charity, compassion, warmth, and connection. Below you’ll find our tips for how to write the Santa Clara University supplementals, as well as some example essays to give you a sense of what you can do to stand out in your application.
Want to get an even better sense of what Santa Clara is looking for? You’ll find an extensive, by-the-numbers look at its offerings, from enrollment and tuition statistics to student life and financial aid information, on its Common Data Set. For deep insights into how this private liberal arts college envisions student success (and how it wants to grow and evolve), read through its most recent self-study report—a simple way to get a strong idea of what Santa Clara values.
What are the Santa Clara University supplemental essay prompts?
Santa Clara University Supplemental Essay Prompt #1
At Santa Clara University, we value our diverse and inclusive community. Our campus learning environment is enriched by the lived experiences of people from different backgrounds. What people, places, events, or circumstances have shaped the individual you are today and how you could contribute to our community? (150- 300 words)
Santa Clara University Supplemental Essay Prompt #2
At Santa Clara University, we push our students to be creative, be challenged, and be the solution. Think about an ethical dilemma that you care about that our society is currently facing. This can be something happening in your local community or more globally. How can an SCU education help you prepare for and address this challenge? (150- 300 words)
Santa Clara University Supplemental Essay Prompt #3
Why are you interested in pursuing the [Division or Major] selected above? (50 words). (Important note: This is tucked into the Academic Section of Santa Clara's Common App page.)
How to Write Each Supplemental Essay Prompt for Santa Clara University
how to write Santa Clara Supplemental Essay Prompt #1
At Santa Clara University, we value our diverse and inclusive community. Our campus learning environment is enriched by the lived experiences of people from different backgrounds. What people, places, events, or circumstances have shaped the individual you are today and how you could contribute to our community? (150- 300 words)
Some schools want to know how, based on your experiences, you’d contribute to their campuses. The key here is to a) share some experiences you’ve already been a part of and what you’ve learned from them, then b) connect these experiences to particular opportunities available on their campus.
Help the admission officer reading your application visualize you at their school.
For a fuller “How will you contribute” guide + examples with analysis, check out that link, but here’s the short version.
Essentially, a way to think of this kind of prompt is that it’s a combo of “community/identity/background” and “why us” prompts: use some of your response to show how you’ve become who you are, and then show how those experiences shape what you will bring to the college through linking to specific opportunities/groups/details. Connect your unique upbringing, in a very broad sense of the word, with what the school offers and how you will make a great team.
STEP 1: BRAINSTORM (ALL ABOUT YOU).
Do the “If You Really, Really Knew Me” Exercise. Yup, the same one mentioned above.
STEP 2: RESEARCH THE COLLEGE (LEARN ALL ABOUT THEM).
Make a copy of the “Why us” Essay Chart 2.0, research the school you’re writing your essay for, and fill in the first two columns. (This is the same chart mentioned above.)
Once you’ve done these exercises, you’ll have a better sense of:
YOU: A bunch of different talents/skills/identities/qualities that you’ll bring to a college campus, and
THEM: A variety of programs/courses/clubs/affinity groups that your college offers.
STEP 3: CONNECT YOU… TO THEM (I.E., THE COLLEGE YOU’RE APPLYING TO).
Make connections between what the school offers and what you’re interested in.
Example:
I embody both a young Muslim woman passionate about civil liberty and a global citizen whose identity transcends her nationality. After witnessing migrant workers in the Middle East left at sunrise in desert mountains with only a broom and a single meal to last the day, I found my calling as an advocate.
At Fordham, I want to pursue these human rights questions in courses like Professor Durkin’s Development and Globalization, where I can delve into discussions about reproductive rights, genocide prevention, and prison reform. By joining the Humanitarian Student Union, I can work alongside my peers to directly engage with social justice issues. And as an Indian classical dance enthusiast, I look forward to joining Fordham Falak.
And some day, in addition to being a world voyager, I will become the first hijabi United
States Ambassador to the United Nations, a journey I embarked on at Fordham. (148 words)
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Tips + Analysis
Show them how you will engage. The prompt wants you to think about who you are and, based on that, what perspective and actions you will contribute to the diverse community the college hopes to build. Dig into your background and experiences to find moments that allow you to connect to details at the school that offer avenues for engagement and contribution. This writer does a nice job of being clear, specific, and detailed with both her background/identity and how that will shape who she will be and how she will engage with the college community.
Let them know you work well with others. Remember all the times you heard you needed to learn how to work as part of a group? Well, here’s your chance to make those lessons count. In essence, readers want to learn the ways in which you’ll contribute to their school community, and this student addresses this question head-on (“I can work alongside my peers to directly engage with social justice issues”). This concise but impactful statement lets the college know she plans to use the strength that comes from collaboration to further her advocacy work. Who wouldn’t appreciate that in a prospective student?
Demonstrate impact. Many students might worry that they had an impact on only one person, or that the impact on their community wasn’t important enough. To that, we say: Give yourself more credit. If you can say you made an impact—big or small, one person or one nation—then you made an impact. Embrace it. And, by all means, write about it. This student begins to explore what she’ll do with her Fordham education—engage with social justice issues and be the first hijabi U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations—but we would’ve loved to have seen her also state the impact she’ll make on her issues of interest and in her communities.
And here’s another example essay, written for other schools’ versions of this prompt. Though note that ideally, you’d spend a bit more of your word count on the “how will you contribute” elements than the essay below does.
Example:
A large aspect of my identity is my low-income family of eight. As one of the eldest siblings, I was expected to financially contribute as soon as I could work. The majority of my summers were spent shelving products, filing papers, and answering customers’ questions. I quickly discovered the difficulty in earning a paycheck and appreciated my parents more. My family has been my rock—ever since we faced homelessness. Homelessness allowed me to understand my family’s financial situation, but most importantly, it resulted in bonding emotionally. At that moment, family was the one thing I knew I could call home.
Over time, the comforting feeling of my family began to disappear. As my parents are devoted missionaries and pastors, I regularly hear their conservative perspectives of Christianity. Throughout my life, I’ve shared similar personal values with my family, denying my bisexuality up until last year. This identity realization impacted me emotionally and physically. I was afraid to come out to anyone, worried that my faith would be questioned and I’d be treated differently. I felt powerless and miserable; mental struggles sometimes limited my motivation. One day, I sought professional help and found solace with my school counselor. After spending endless nights contemplating coming out, I told my close friends. I found acceptance from some and learned who were my real friends, the support system that I’m grateful for. My true identity hasn’t changed. Rather, coming out allowed me to be more open-minded, inclusive, and taught me to value conversations where I can bring a fresh perspective.
Above all, I’ve learned that my experiences shape me into the multifaceted person I am today. They propel me to openly contribute to my Entry, the Gender and Sexuality Resource Center, and most importantly, the everyday interactions with my Williams peers and faculty members. (300 words)
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how to write Santa Clara Supplemental Essay Prompt #2
At Santa Clara University, we push our students to be creative, be challenged, and be the solution. Think about an ethical dilemma that you care about that our society is currently facing. This can be something happening in your local community or more globally. How can an SCU education help you prepare for and address this challenge? (150- 300 words)
SCU’s “Why us?” essay has a bit of a twist. Instead of asking you to consider how SCU will help you in your major or future career, this prompt is asking you to think a little more altruistically. What ethical dilemma makes you pause, makes you think, or makes you search for a solution?
Through your response, SCU is trying to find the answers to two questions:
Do your values align with ours?
Are you the kind of student who cares about their community and is ready to take action to improve it?
As you tackle this essay, consider shifting your main focus away from SCU’s course catalog and toward its Student Organization Directory and other on-campus resources to see what specific opportunities SCU offers to resolve your challenge.
This is a new prompt for SCU this year, so we can’t share a specific example with you. But we’ve still got you covered. This essay, written for Northwestern’s “Why us?” prompt, addresses SCU’s prompt well, with just a few key changes (which we’ll explore below).
Here’s an essay written for Northwestern’s old “Why us?” prompt that addresses SCU’s prompt well, with just a few key changes (which we’ll explore below).
Example:
In the words of Will, who spent six years inside the California Youth Authority: “It doesn’t make sense to take a kid out of the community to show him how to live in the community”. Confining 60,500 youth like Will every night, our dysfunctional juvenile justice system lies at an insidious intersection of racism, poverty, and unequal educational opportunity.
As the sole school of its kind in the nation, Northwestern’s School of Education and Social Policy (SESP) will help me navigate this web of issues. As a Social Policy major, I’ll learn to develop policies targeting the school-to-prison pipeline or youth homelessness. Practical experience is paramount in understanding how institutions impact individuals, and vice versa. SESP provides this through research and the practicum internship, while Summer and Chicago Field Studies offer even more ways to get involved with criminal and social justice organizations. Specifically, I want to work with Ascend Justice to advocate for those affected by the child welfare system.
Northwestern also nurtures my fascination with math. By participating in MMSS, I’ll merge my love for numbers and analysis with my ardent interest in the social sciences, building an intensive foundation in mathematical models to understand concepts that drive decision-making and collective action. Or through MENU, I’ll explore exciting advanced mathematical topics, like geometric topology and combinatorics.
SESP’s flexible coursework and the quarter system let me dive deeper into other academic interests: linking policy in times of political transformation to environmental studies, taking classes in psychopathology to better understand the criminalization of mental illness, and pairing French with philosophy in “Les Formes du Mal.”
Northwestern gives me the profound and focused education I seek, while fostering all my AND’s, providing me with the tools and perspective I need to strive toward my goals.
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Tips + Analysis
Identify a challenge you connect with. You may be tempted to select women’s rights or global warming as the challenge you care most about, but is it really? Don’t be tempted to pick an ethical dilemma based only on its attention-grabbing headlines or its trending hashtags. #JustSayNo. Instead, identify an issue—big or small, local or global—that hits you in the feels and makes you want to stand up and take action now. This student does just that in the first half of the essay: passionately outlining the shortcomings they see in the juvenile justice system.
Mind your audience. Before you start writing, take some time to really look through SCU’s mission, vision, and values and see if (and how) they align with yours. SCU offers a Jesuit-based education with origins in the Catholic Church, which means its values and beliefs likely skew somewhat conservative. If your chosen challenge is potentially divisive or controversial, think about how that could resonate (or not) with your audience.
Be clear. This student opened with a compelling quote and a shocking statistic to convey the gravity of the holes in the juvenile justice system. But it would’ve been even more helpful to have given some context to that quote—were they a volunteer with the California Youth Authority and a mentor to Will? By showing us that they have direct, hands-on experience with the topic, this student could’ve made their personal connection to (and understanding of) the issue clearer and more compelling.
Play the long game. SCU wants to understand more than just how an SCU education will help you understand your dilemma. They also want to know how that education is going to help you address that challenge. SCU doesn’t want you to be a passive bystander; instead, school officials want to see you take action and create change, using what you’ve learned on campus. One way this student could’ve better crafted their response to match this prompt is by being more specific about their future actions than simply saying they’d “get involved with criminal and social justice organizations.” How would they make an impact? What, exactly, does “get involved'' mean? These are the details that will elevate your essay and make it ( and you) stand out.
Stay the course. This student does an excellent job of answering the prompt in the first half of their response, but they go off course in the second (at least, in relation to answering this SCU prompt) and bring in a whole new field of interest. Keep your essay focused on one dilemma and one challenge, and keep your “Why us?” responses locked in on that target.
how to write Santa Clara Supplemental Essay Prompt #3
(Important note: This is tucked into the Academic Section of Santa Clara's Common App page.)
Why are you interested in pursuing the [Division or Major] selected above? (50 words).
This essay prompt pops up once you select from drop downs in the Academic tab in the Common App.
This is a standard (but very short) “Why Major” prompt. For a larger guide to the “Why Major” essay, click here. Below is a condensed version.
One possible approach:
Think of this as a quick origin story.
Step #1: Imagine a mini-movie of the moments that led you to your interest and create a simple, bullet-point outline.
Step #2: Put your moments (aka the “scenes” of your mini-movie) in chronological order, as it’ll help you see how your interests developed. It also makes it easier to write transitions.
Step #3: You’ll likely want to include a specific thesis that explicitly states your central argument—in this case, what you want to study and why. This thesis can come at the beginning, middle, or end of your essay.
With 50 words, you’ll probably only have space for 2-3 sentences. Or 1 longer one.
And last, a quick tip: Be sure this essay is consistent with your personal statement if you’ve mentioned aspects of your major/career there.
Here’s an 89 word example written for a 100 word prompt (so you’ll have about half this space), to point you in the direction to head.
Example Essay:
My decision to major in Electrical Engineering was inspired by my desire to improve security through technology. When I lived in Mexico, my father’s restaurant security system lacked the ability to protect our property from robbers, who would break in multiple times a year. Thanks to the influence of my cousin, who now studies Autonomous Systems, I developed an interest in electrical engineering. I am inspired to not only improve my father’s security system, but contributing to security innovations for larger companies and perhaps, one day, national security. (89 words)
Special thanks to Julia for contributing to this post.
Julia published her first “book” on the elusive Pika in elementary school and has been writing fervently ever since. She’s thrilled to unite her quirky love of grammar and master’s in psychology to help students tell their most meaningful stories. Her favorite punctuation mark is the apostrophe because, in the words of Imagine Dragons, it’s “a symbol to remind you that there’s more to see.”
Top values: Collaboration | Family | Productivity
