In addition to its strong biology and writing programs, Emory University has plenty of personality: One of its more cherished traditions is Dooley’s Week, in which Dooley—the unofficial skeleton mascot and spirit of Emory—hosts a variety of festive events while also randomly popping in to dismiss class. Like Dooley, Emory’s supplemental essay prompts ooze with personality, and they’re asking you to do the same.
But before you dive right into the prompts, you can get an extensive, by-the-numbers look at Emory’s offerings in its Common Data Set, and for deeper insights into how the university wants to grow and evolve, read its strategic plan.
What are the Emory University supplemental essay prompts?
Emory University Supplemental Essay Prompt #1
What academic areas are you interested in exploring at Emory University and why? (200 words)
Emory University Supplemental Essay Prompt #2
“Getting to know you” Category: Respond to one of the following. (150 words):
- Which book, character, song, monologue, or piece of work (fiction or non-fiction) seems made for you? Why?
- Reflect on a personal experience where you intentionally expanded your cultural awareness.
- Emory University aspires for all students to flourish on campus. Reflect on what flourishing at Emory means to you.
- Emory University's core mission calls for service to humanity. Share how you might personally contribute to this mission.
- Emory University has a strong commitment to building community. Tell us about a community you have been part of where your participation helped to change or shape the community for the better.
- Reflection is a central tenet of Emory University's values. Craft a personal email giving advice to yourself in your first year of high school.
How to Write Each Supplemental Essay Prompt for Emory University
how to write Emory Supplemental Essay Prompt #1
This essay is what we call a “Why Major” essay.
You’ll find a step-by-step guide to writing this essay at this link, but here’s the short version:
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: Decide if you 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 be at the beginning, middle, or end of your essay.
Step #4: Write a draft!
We don’t have an Emory-specific example to share. But here’s a great example, written for another school’s very similar prompt. Note that this example is nearly 250 words, and yours will need to be no more than 200 words.
Example:
My interest in Gender and Sexuality Studies was sparked in my eighth grade Civics class when we studied topics pertaining to sexual equality. I went into the class knowing I believed women had a right to make choices for their own bodies and that view remained the same, but I discovered the complexity of abortion debates. I challenged myself by thinking about the disparity between actual and potential personhood and the moral rights of unconscious lives. If pregnancy had the same consequences for men as it does women, how might the debate be different? Would this debate even exist?
A year later, I shadowed an OB/GYN at a nearby hospital. On my first shift, I watched an incarcerated woman receive a postpartum exam after giving birth in her cell toilet with just Advil, and the issues discussed in Civics suddenly became urgent and real.
My school projects have often focused on reproductive rights. I’ve spent numerous hours delving into summaries of Supreme Court cases on abortion and contraception, and I’m even known as the “Tampon Fairy” at school because I frequently restock the school bathrooms with tampons and condoms.
I’m interested in exploring how Gender and Sexuality Studies connect to Public Health and Reproductive Biology, as well as Public Policy and Law. The interdisciplinary nature of this major will allow me to investigate many other areas of study and create a more nuanced understanding of how this particular field interacts with our world and society. (246 words)
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Tips + Analysis
Brevity is key. We know what you’re thinking: “Not even Quentin Tarantino can write an award-winning 200-word script!” (Are we the only ones mentally smack-talking Pulp Fiction right now?) True, you’re not given much real estate space, but look at how much this student conveyed in fewer than 250 words. Channel your inner director and plan your script by answering three key questions: Where did my interest start? How has it evolved? What do I hope to achieve through further study?
Think breadth over depth. Every iconic movie has iconic scenes. Rafiki holding baby Simba in The Lion King. The Cantina scene in Star Wars. What are your iconic scenes? You likely have several reasons you’re considering a particular major, so let’s hear them. Keep it to one scene per sentence if you have a lot of ground to cover, or you may prefer a short paragraph for each scene to add more detail. Either way, each quick glance should show how your interests developed.
Add the unexpected. Most students with a clear academic interest have taken a course, pursued an extracurricular, or completed a project (maybe all three) related to that interest. But how many incorporate that interest into their everyday life with such zeal—like appointing themselves their school’s “Tampon Fairy”? We guarantee that image is in your head right now and will stay there for a while. Why? Because we didn’t see it coming. Consider how you can add impact by using unexpected (read: uncommon) language and details.
Breathe. It’s OK to not know your major. Yes, we called it a “Why Major” essay, but not everyone applies to college knowing exactly what they want to do or be (here’s us at your age, raising our hands high). And that’s the great thing about college—you’ll have a chance to explore and find your interests. So if you’re undecided, instead of focusing on a major, select a few specific areas of interest and explain how you’ve satisfied your curiosity in each. Or pick a singular theme (problem solving, experimentation, etc.), share the ways that theme has shown up in your life, and explain how a particular field of study can help you further explore it.
how to write Emory Supplemental Essay Prompt #2
- Which book, character, song, monologue, or other creative work (fiction or non-fiction) seems made for you? Why?
- Reflect on a personal experience where you intentionally expanded your cultural awareness.
- Emory University aspires for all students to flourish on campus. Reflect on what flourishing at Emory means to you.
- Emory University's core mission calls for service to humanity. Share how you might personally contribute to this mission.
- Emory University has a strong commitment to building community. Tell us about a community you have been part of where your participation helped to change or shape the community for the better.
- Reflection is a central tenet of Emory University's values. Craft a personal email giving advice to yourself in your first year of high school.
Option #1:
While it may be tempting to select a work that sounds impressive, if you don’t have strong feelings about it, it will be pretty difficult to explain how it represents you. The real opportunity to impress with this prompt is not by showing off what you’ve read, heard, or seen, but by demonstrating the kind of reader, listener, or viewer you are.
Choosing a work (book, character, song, or piece of fiction or non-fiction) for this is tricky, but here are some questions you can ask yourself to help you get there:
Is there a work that embodies a core value or important detail I haven’t shared yet?
Is there a work that marked the beginning of my interest in a certain genre, author, or movement?
Is there a work I experienced that led to a particularly vibrant conversation with friends or family? A hotly contested debate in class?
Is there a work that I thought I was going to hate, but loved? Or hated at first but grew to love?
Or maybe there’s a work you could say a million things about. If so, odds are high that a work you’ve thought about that much has come to represent some part of you, so it could be a pretty promising topic.
Let’s take a look at a strong student example:
Example:
“If You Give a Mouse a Cookie,” the book goes, then the mouse will ask for a glass of milk. If you ask me a question, I’ll answer with another question.
I’m naturally inquisitive. As a girl, I’d interrogate my parents during 13-hour flights to Beijing: “If we’re traveling to a later time zone, does that mean we’re entering the future?” or “If planes have autopilot, why do we need pilots?”
Today, my curiosity has transitioned to topics like thermodynamics. Through questioning, I’ve made boring lectures more engaging for me and my peers, while also helping us better internalize the information and develop an appreciation for scientific theories—the ideal gas law and atomic configuration—that help us make sense of our surroundings.
Questioning my surroundings has allowed me to find my voice in the crowd, letting me step out of my comfort zone, while furthering me and my peers’ knowledge.
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Tips + Analysis
Hook the reader by alluding (maybe in the first sentence) to how the work embodies you. By focusing on the common core value you share with a particular work, you take the reins of your essay. Notice how this author compares her own curiosity and hunger for knowledge to the greedy mouse of the famed children’s book—and that’s the last time she mentions the book. This allows her to focus more on her value of why asking questions is important and less on the book itself. She also does a smart thing by connecting her curiosity to her academic interests.
Employ the “super” essay approach when possible. This tip is important because when you can use the same essay for multiple prompts (tweaking as necessary to fit each prompt), it can save you a ton of time. This essay, for example, was excerpted from another school’s “Why Major” prompt. By properly strategizing what you write about in your personal statement, you can use all your supplemental essays as opportunities to talk more about what you’re interested in studying or doing in the future—even if the prompts themselves aren’t asking those particular questions directly.
Consider ending with a clear “so what?” After showing the way her question-asking has changed over time, this author makes sure the reader leaves with a clear takeaway: “Questioning my surroundings has allowed me to find my voice in the crowd, letting me step out of my comfort zone, while furthering me and my peers’ knowledge.” These supplementals are short, but don’t be afraid to show first, then tell the reader what’s important to understanding you and why.
Option #2:
The word “intentionally” pops out because it highlights the active nature of how you should respond to this prompt. Cultural awareness encompasses a wide variety of experiences, so we encourage you to lean into the purposefulness of expanding yourself. It’s easy to stay in your comfort zone, but this prompt asks you to consider a time when you either stepped out of your comfort zone or sought out more information to broaden your understanding of the world around you.
Some things to think about as you explore:
Society is in a constant state of cultural evolution, so perhaps identify a topic that emphasizes your cultural awareness of the current times. Culture can be defined as the symbols, language, beliefs, values, and artifacts that are part of any society. In anthropology, it’s often defined as a “system of meaning-making.” Those are quite broad definitions to work with, so think through which aspects resonate with you and your experiences (race & ethnicity, socioeconomic class, learning a new language, etc.).
Maybe you have a personal experience related to your own culture or someone else’s culture and sought out more information to build on your knowledge. How did you approach the situation, and what specifically did you do? What did you learn—about yourself, about others, and about the broader community and your place in it?
This is a great opportunity to demonstrate your fit on a campus that celebrates diversity. Communicate your level of cultural sensitivity or your commitment to equity and inclusion. Perhaps you’ve reached out to community members for support and guidance with a service project. Maybe you’ve advocated for social justice by lobbying your elected officials. The key is to share how you’ve accepted, adapted, or integrated different perspectives into your own experiences.
Example:
Reflect on a personal experience where you intentionally expanded your cultural awareness.
In 2018, I was eager to see the Senate vote on DACA, an issue I only knew through debate, so I sat in the Senate gallery for 8 hours, surrounded by DREAMers in neon-orange shirts. When Senator McConnell quoted the White House calling the DREAMers unlawful immigrants, we exchanged grimaces. When Senator Schumer listed all he was willing to give up to save DACA, I smiled at the woman next to me.
As we sat for hours with no food, water, or bathroom breaks, I began to understand the gravity of the issue, realizing the impact 60 people can have on millions, through just one vote. After the government shut down without passing protections for DREAMers, I understood the human impact of our immigration policies. This experience expanded my awareness of the struggle that immigrants go through, and I recognized my responsibility in seeking justice for others.
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Tips + Analysis
Keep it specific. While “intentionally” is a key word here, so is “experience.” (Although truthfully, just as every word counts in your essay, every word in the prompt counts too.) It might seem easier to talk about something profoundly life-changing that you read or watched, but Emory wants to know how you really got to work and got your hands dirty, so to speak, to actually and purposefully live a moment that broadened your awareness of the world around you—like this student did in attending, and soaking in, the Senate vote on DACA.
Remember that big things can come in small packages. Don’t discount something “small” that expanded your awareness just because you don’t think it sounds as impressive as sitting in a Senate gallery for eight hours. The archaeologist who discovered trilobites is no less important than the one who uncovered the first T-Rex. They’re just different. Each experience is important in its own way, and it’s the way it changed you that will be more impactful to the reader.
Connect it with the present. Technically, the prompt is asking about a past experience, but admission officers want to know how this experience both changed you then and still affects you now. As with so many essays, you want to be able to answer, “so what?” or “Why does that matter?” Answer those questions by showing how you plan on continuing to expand that awareness. How will it impact your activities, attitude, and even intentions moving forward? That insight doesn't have to be a whole paragraph (especially with such a small word budget). For this student, it involved just a few words: “I recognized my responsibility in seeking justice for others.”
Option #3
One way to approach this prompt is as a version of a really short “Why us?” prompt.
Think about the human being you want to be in 5, in 10, in 20 years. How does Emory help you on that path?
Because it’s so short, you’ll want to find a few specific reasons how Emory helps you grow and flourish, both academically and personally. And remember that it’s a “Why us?”—as in you + the school, and why you’d be a great fit together, and not simply “why them.” One way we sometimes joke about this is to think about the essay as though you’re helping the school understand why your online dating profile and its online dating profile are perfect for each other, and how you’d probably make great partners.
For a complete guide to “Why us?” essays, click here. Here’s a condensed version:
Five Common Mistakes Students Make on “Why Us?” Essays
Mistake #1: Writing about the school's size, location, reputation, weather, or ranking
Mistake #2: Simply using emotional language to demonstrate fit
Mistake #3: Screwing up the mascot, stadium, team colors or names of any important people or places on campus
Mistake #4: Parroting the brochures or website language
Mistake #5: Describing traditions the school is well known for
Mistake #6: Thinking of this as only a "why them" essay (as mentioned above)
So, if those are things you shouldn’t write about, what should you write about? Here are some steps to figure that out.
Step #1: Do your research.
Spend 1 hr+ researching 10+ reasons why this college might be a great fit for you (you’ll only use a few of them, but try to find more than you’ll need for the essay so you can choose the strongest).
Step #2: Use this chart to map out your research.
Step #3: Decide on your approach.
Approach #1: The “3-5 Unique Offerings” Strategy
Find 3-5 opportunities that are particular to the school (i.e., available at no other school or no other school you’re applying to) and connect each one back to you.
Approach #2: The “One Value” Strategy
How it works: Identify one core value that links you to the school and tell a story. Like so:
1. Find a way in which you and the school are deeply aligned.
2. Take your time crafting the essay.
3. Find a way to be vulnerable.
Could I create a hybrid approach by focusing on a central theme, but still listing a few reasons?
Yup.
We don’t have an example written specifically for Emory, but the below example written for a very similar prompt for Carnegie Mellon can show you the direction to head in (though CMU allows for double the word count).
Example:
“New Data Shows Largest Number of People in Poverty on Record.” I couldn’t stop scrolling through the gut-wrenching graphs and pictures in the New York Times, each painting a more horrifying picture than the last. As a young adolescent, I was already committed to becoming a service-oriented and proactive student, I have sought opportunities to give back through volunteering at my local library and tutoring for the National Honors Society. Pursuing Finance and Entrepreneurship concentrations and abundant community service opportunities at Carnegie Mellon will give me the tools to keep making a positive impact on the world around me—my personal benchmark for a successful college experience.
Inside the classroom, I look forward to learning in an environment that centers on hands-on, collaborative learning. New Venture Creation under Dave Mawhinney will immerse me in an environment where I’ll be able to share ideas and learn from others to put together an effective business plan, skills that I’ll need to tackle the global education crisis. Learning under David about the inner workings of successful startups would help me start my own ventures in finance to fund education systems around the world, which would provide much-needed long-term economic growth in many communities around the world.
Outside the classroom, 1000plus Day of Service will allow me to continue striving to make a positive impact in under-developed communities around the world through education and civic engagement. Through 1000plus Day of Service, I will ultimately learn more about the culture around CMU through serving my campus and the surrounding city. Obtaining and putting my in-depth knowledge about finance and entrepreneurship to use by helping others, whether through short-term opportunities such as 1000plus Day of Service, or long-term such as a startup aimed at funding education around the world, will define my successful college experience.
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Tips + Analysis
Define what success/flourishing looks like to you. The prompt asks you to reflect on what flourishing at Emory means to you. Every student has their own dreams and goals for what their college experience (and beyond) will look like, and the admissions readers aren’t mind readers, so it’s important to define this somewhere in your essay. This student does it really clearly in their first paragraph, where they say that their personal benchmark for a successful college experience means that they get to keep making a positive impact on the world around them.
Show that you’ve done your research. The “Why Us” essay is not only a good opportunity to show readers why the university is a good fit for you, but it’s also an opportunity for you to learn more about the school and get excited about the different things that would be available to you. This student gives us a few reasons why CMU would help fulfill their meaning of success, from the learning environment to major-specific classes to extracurricular activities—they do a great job at telling us about the different parts of the college experience they’re excited about at CMU.
Connect the dots & craft a narrative. This student allows the reader to see how many of their interests, past extracurricular activities, and aspirations can come together at a university that will help them achieve their goals. That sounds like a lot, but this sentence sums it up really well: …I have sought opportunities to give back through volunteering at my local library and tutoring for the National Honors Society (past extracurriculars). Pursuing Finance and Entrepreneurship concentrations and abundant community service (interests) opportunities at Carnegie Mellon (university) will give me the tools to keep making a positive impact on the world around me (future goals). By connecting these dots here and elaborating later on, it creates a story of the path you’ve been on and hope to take, as well as that university’s role in your future.
OPTION #4:
One way to approach this prompt is to talk about whichever community service project/s you’ve been most involved in, and how you hope to continue serving others in college and beyond.
Essentially, you can treat this as a combo community service + “how will you contribute” prompt.
Here’s a step-by-step guide to extracurricular activity essays that can give you guidance and examples for how to brainstorm and write about community service.
For the second part of the prompt, you’ll want to connect what you’ve already done with some “Why Us” details about Emory—show how you want to continue engaging in Emory’s mission, and possibly how your Emory education can prepare you for service post-graduation.
STEP 1: DECIDE WHAT SERVICE ACTIVITY YOU WANT TO WRITE ABOUT
Generally you’ll focus on issues that are most important to you and that you’ve spent time engaging on over the past few years.
STEP 2: USE THE BEABIES EXERCISE TO GENERATE YOUR ESSAY CONTENT
You’ll find detail on the BEABIES Exercise + a chart you can use at that link.
STEP 3: DO SOME “HOW WILL YOU CONTRIBUTE” RESEARCH
You’ll want to offer a few specific ways that show how the experience/s you’re discussing in your essay will allow you to contribute to the college. The easiest way to do this is to do some “Why Us”-like research and find ways you’ll engage with and contribute to the school’s community.
STEP 4: PICK A STRUCTURE (NARRATIVE OR MONTAGE)
STEP 5: WRITE A FIRST DRAFT!
Here are some example essays written for similar prompts from other schools to show you the direction to head here.
Example:
During my time at UT-Austin and beyond, I want to be an active participant in efforts to implement effective climate change legislation on the state and national levels. At UT, I’d like to be part of student teams across majors, disciplines, and geographical areas working to educate communities on climate and local environmental initiatives. This is why I would love to be part of the Students Fighting Climate Change Club as together we can help spread the message that global warming is a real issue affecting cities all over the country. Right now, I am the social media coordinator for a non-profit, We Dance For Change. From my social media background, I hope to use my expertise and work with the other members of SFCC to inspire more people join the cause. I regularly post on all social media sites like Instagram and Twitter on ways that we can combat climate change and lessen our global footprint, whether by carpooling, for example, or consuming less meat.
Also, I believe in the importance of engagement and dialogue, especially amongst the younger generations. It is critical that people understand the voting process early on so they can become more active participants in our democracy. At my school, as part of the Social Studies Honor Society, I spend time registering high school students to vote. I would love to continue this work with TX Vote Club and ease the process of registering as many people as possible. Additionally, when I joined V3ssel I realized how important it is for people my age to have a say in their government. After drafting legislation for financial literacy to be taught in schools I see how it should be more feasible for students to have a say in laws that impact them.
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Tips + Analysis
Start with a strong opening sentence. First sentences are a reader’s first impression of an essay and/or paragraph, and it can also work as a mini blueprint to tell readers what they can expect to find in the rest of your essay. In their first sentence, this student writes that they want to “implement effective climate change legislation on the state and national levels.” This does a nice job of clearly setting up that we’ll be seeing more about this student’s work and aspirations at UT regarding climate change. This student does so again for their second paragraph, which guides the reader and makes the essay clear, straightforward, and easy to follow. With shorter supplemental essays, you don’t have a ton of space for flowery language, and your reader will thank you for clarity.
Show what’s important to you & how it connects with the university. This prompt specifically references Emory’s value of service to humanity, and this student does a great job by talking about what service to humanity means to them, touching on climate change and voting. By writing about these two issues, we not only see some of their values and beliefs come out, but it also probably made researching this part of “Why Us” a lot easier—they knew what to look for on the university website or what to ask about during a tour.
Build on previous experiences. While this prompt is relatively future-facing (share how you might contribute to service to humanity), you can use your previous experiences to talk about what you’ve learned and how exactly you might contribute to this mission in the future. This gives you an opportunity to talk about an activity in context, exploring the why for your what, which is tough to do in your activities list. This student says that using their social media background, they hope to use this experience to inspire more people to join the cause for fighting against climate change. Using the BEABIES exercise, you can brainstorm what you’ve done and what skills have you gained that can help you succeed in the future.
Option: Forgo a “conclusion.” For shorter essays, you don’t always need to end the essay by tying everything up with a nice bow. Depending on the word count allowed, you might decide that your word count is better used to focus on your actions, values, and impact, for example. While there are many different ways to end an essay, this student simply closes out their thoughts on voting, but most importantly, they answer the question to the fullest extent possible with the allotted word count.
And here’s another example essay, for further illustration.
Bonus Example:
As Co-Head of Roman2Roman, a program intended to help integrate incoming ninth-graders into my school community, I have become a creative, open-minded, and empathetic leader by understanding the dynamics of communication and responsibility. From leading bi-weekly committee meetings to pairing 135 freshmen with older mentors, coordinating with administrators, planning and orchestrating events for 350 people, and finding unique ways to involve the greater community, my role in the R2R program has equipped me with managerial skills that will be helpful in college and beyond.
As a result of my leadership experience, I was selected to be Co-Head of The Student Service Learning Board. In this role, I organized successful food, clothing, and book drives, in addition to planning meal-packing projects for the homeless, card-design activities for veterans, and beach clean-ups to support local parks, all of which involved participants ages K-12.
Within my family’s Farm Foundation, I also assumed leadership responsibilities as I coordinated our annual Thanksgiving meal donation at the local fire station which entailed fundraising, communications, purchasing, packaging, and operations.
As a Longhorn, I hope to expand my leadership opportunities and make a lasting impact on the UT community. Through establishing meaningful connections among R2R members, and understanding the importance of an inclusive community, I am interested in getting involved with The Transfer Student Agency of Student Government as a way to help incoming transfer students integrate into the UT community. I’d love to participate in The McCombs Leadership Program to hone my leadership skills through retreats and workshops focusing on cooperation, communication, and contributions to society. Hunger and Homelessness Outreach would also be an ideal opportunity for me to continue my leadership and service and utilize my experiences on the SSLB and my family’s farm foundation to organize volunteer opportunities to aid members of the Austin community.
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Option #5:
“Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.”
If you’ve written (or are writing) other essays for other schools that ask about communities you’ve been a part of, how you’ve contributed to them, what you’ve gained from them, then you can probably re-use that essay for this prompt. Here’s a guide on how to re-use all sorts of essays (and maybe save yourself 20+ hrs on this whole process).
For this specific essay, here’s a step-by-step guide that offers a short exercise to help you think through all the communities you’re a part of that might make a good topic for this particular essay.
Here’s the TL;DR version:
Step 1: Create a “communities” chart by listing all the communities you’re a part of. Keep in mind that communities can be defined by so many different variables, including place, culture, interests, political beliefs, hobbies, sexual identity, and even favorite sports team. Get creative.
Step 2: Use the BEABIES exercise to generate your essay content for 2-3 of these communities. Simply ask yourself and jot down notes to these questions:
What kinds of problems did you solve (personally, locally, or globally) in that community?
What specific impact did you have?
What did you learn (skills, qualities, values)?
How did you apply the lessons you learned inside and outside of that community?
Step 3: Pick a structure for writing this essay and focus on the community that you feel is most compelling and reveals the most about you. I recommend either a narrative structure (focusing on a single moment or story) or montage structure (focusing on several moments that are united by a common theme).
Here’s a particularly well-written essay:
Example:
Decorated with bright red paper banners, my grandma’s store stands out from surrounding mud farmhouses and grey cement dwellings. As the only store in rural Qianpu, Jiaying’s sells daily supplies for local farmers and industry workers. Every day, a single mother would come into the store. Abandoned by her husband, she lived on the street with her kids. When she purchased groceries, my grandma would give her extra toiletries and snacks for her children. Sitting at the cashier desk daily after school, I learned that it is important to respect everyone’s background, especially women. I will bring this valuable quality to Emory. Joining She’s the First and Candler Women, I will fundraise and provide advocacy for underprivileged women. With HerCampus, I will promote women's leadership. Attending Emory Women in Business and participating in Personal Branding Workshop, I will use my own business expertise to support women around the world.
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Tips + Analysis
Hook the reader with a vivid description. With only 150 words available, a hook isn’t necessary, but the author’s contrast of the standout red banners, mud farmhouses, and grey cement sweeps us away from a computer screen and into another world. What are the colors, sounds, and distinctive places in your story? Using a little descriptive language goes a long way toward preparing readers to understand the abstract “standouts” you love about your community.
Connect your extracurricular experience to a value. If the community essay guide isn’t yielding what you want, go through the Best Extracurricular Activity Brainstorm I’ve Ever Seen (AKA BEABIES exercise). These exercises together should help you decide which topic might create the best content for your essay. If you’re unsure, try writing a simple outline for two different topics.
We don’t know if this student included working at her grandmother’s store in her Activities List, but this essay likely adds new depth and reveals something different from the rest of her application. Beyond stating what you’ll bring to Emory point-blank, make it resonate for the reader by connecting it to some aspect of what makes you, well, you. Here the author focuses on how her after school job taught her the importance of respecting women in society.
Describe how you’ll engage with the campus community. While they don’t directly ask you to in this prompt, you have the option of showing how your past experiences connect to how you want to continue engaging with community at Emory. Be just as precise with your word choice as you are with researching what resources you’ll want to get involved with at Emory. After the author shows the values of compassion, respect, and equity that she learned working in her grandmother's store, she names how she will fundraise, provide advocacy, and promote the empowerment of women on campus. We know that you may not yet know exactly what your future on-campus involvement will look like, but choosing the right action verbs make your plans sound as concrete and specific as your aspirations are.
OPTION #6:
Whether you realize it or not, you’ll have experienced tremendous growth from the time you started high school to when you apply to college. The beginning of high school is filled with opportunity and potential.
Put yourself back into your shoes as a freshman/first-year and think about lessons you’ve learned now that could’ve been useful then. Perhaps you would’ve joined that Glee Club or taken that AP Calc course. Maybe you would’ve dedicated more time to family and friends.
Whatever advice you choose, make sure it highlights your personal development over the course of your high school years. Remember that this prompt is under the “reflections” category: This is an opportunity to show insight into your choices and the lessons that have come from those decisions, and the values you’ve developed along the way.
Here are some steps to help you brainstorm and write this essay:
Step 1: Take a moment to do this Values Exercise.
Step 2: Are your top values the same now as they were a few years ago? And has what any of those values mean to you changed over the past few years? Choose one and backtrack to the experiences that led to the change in your values or how you see/embody your values. How have those experiences shaped the person you are now? Write out the ways you’re different today than you were when you started high school. What do you know now that you didn’t know four years ago? See if you can remember specific moments that contributed to your personal growth.
Step 3: Show the impact of how you’ve changed. How have you applied this insight, and what more could you have done or accomplished had you known this advice when you were younger? What’s the takeaway as you prepare for college?
Special thanks to Elica for writing this blog post.
Elica (she/her) is a college essay specialist who has a love of language in all forms; she has degrees in linguistics, has taught academic writing at the university level, and has been coaching students on their college and graduate school admissions essays for over 7 years. When she’s not working with students or writing, Elica can be found reading, printmaking, and exploring nature.
Top Values: Collaboration | Curiosity | Patience
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