Last Updated on 08/10/2026 by Ethan Sawyer
Finding the right combination of higher education, service, and community isn’t easy. But Fordham University believes that striving for excellence + caring for others + fighting for justice = an education that’ll change the world. If you agree, Fordham might just be the right place for you to call home.
While Fordham leaders love the person you are now (why wouldn’t they?), they’re just as excited to see whom they can help you become. Using a core curriculum rooted in the liberal arts and sciences and guided by Jesuit and Catholic traditions, Fordham strives to nurture the humanity and intellect of its students, so you can go out into the world and make your mark.
For a clearer sense of what Fordham is looking for in its students, you can get 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. And for insights into how the university envisions itself and its role, and how it wants to grow and evolve, read its strategic plan.
What are the Fordham University Supplemental Essay Prompts?
Fordham University Supplemental Essay Prompts
You may choose to answer one (1) of the optional questions below. Keep in mind that your response is a maximum of 300 words. Choose the question that you think will help the admission committee get a better understanding of your unique perspective and potential contributions to our community:
- Our motto is “New York is my campus, Fordham is my school.” New York City is a diverse and global city that provides Fordham students with a special kind of educational experience, full of both challenge and opportunity. What has prepared you to embrace the unique opportunity of living and learning in New York City?
- At Fordham, we have a tradition of having our graduating seniors send a message to their younger selves. What will the future “you” tell the “you” of today about what you accomplished as a Fordham student?
- At Fordham, we expect students to care for and engage with their communities and be active citizens for positive change. Please share an experience you had that caused you to develop a new perspective, change your point of view, and/or empower you to take an action or be courageous. Your response should include examples of your personal growth (e.g., what did you learn, did your point of view change, did you develop new skills or strengths?).
How to Write the Supplemental Essay Prompts for Fordham University
How to write Fordham Supplemental Essay Prompt #1
Optional prompt 1: Our motto is “New York is my campus, Fordham is my school.” New York City is a diverse and global city that provides Fordham students with a special kind of educational experience, full of both challenge and opportunity. What has prepared you to embrace the unique opportunity of living and learning in New York City? (300 words)
We find this prompt interesting because it’s actually asking you to think outside the confines of Fordham, when typically schools want to know why you want to go to THEIR school. Instead, essay readers are hoping to learn why you want to spend the next few years of your life in New York City. Sounds easy, right? New York is pretty awesome.
But there are some potential pitfalls you could fall into, so the name of the game here is FOCUS.
What your application reader wants to hear is how you envision using New York as an extension of the learning community you’ll get at Fordham. What they DON’T want to hear is how you’ve always wanted to go ice skating in Central Park (although, you should definitely do that). Look at the language in the prompt… it’s all about the EDUCATIONAL opportunities New York can provide you, so make sure to consider the Big Apple through this lens. Try to connect the city-as-a-classroom to Fordham-as-a-classroom.
The word “challenge” pops up in this prompt, and although it’s quick, it’s also pretty significant. Living in New York City isn’t for everyone, and Fordham wants to know that you’ve considered what life will be like in this bustling metropolis. It’s busy and crowded and always in motion, and your essay reader wants to make sure you’ve given some thought to whether or not this is an environment you can thrive in. If it is, then show them!
We don’t have an example written for this prompt, but the below essay (written for an older “Why NYU” prompt) and tips/analysis can point you in the right direction.
Example:
For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved cities, but when I first picked up National Geographic “The Cities Issue,” I discovered I could make a career from the intricate and multifaceted hubs where millions of people converge. I want to immerse myself into where history lives and evolves through architecture and design; where the environment, technology, and government intersect; where there’s a myriad of languages, cultures, music, and food. Only cities have it all, and NYU gives me more options to explore cities than anywhere else.
I love unexpected connections-in “The Cities Issue,” I learned about urban environments through rat populations. In Gallatin, I will continue exploring in nontraditional ways; especially through First-Year seminars like “The Lives, Deaths, and Rebirths of Public Space” and classes like “Architecture as Narrative.” New York City will be the ultimate classroom-a city of unexpected connections waiting to be discovered.
Flipping through Nicolas Ruel’s double-exposure photography of cities, I learned it’s impossible to understand complexity from only one viewpoint. NYU will encourage me to explore the full spectrum of what makes a city, and Gallatin specifically emphasizes branching out. In taking classes across Metropolitan Studies, Sustainable Urban Environments, and more, I will mix disciplines freely; whether architecture, engineering, history, or Social & Cultural Analysis. Gallatin’s focus on interdisciplinary studies means my education will be nuanced and relevant in an unparalleled way.
I could spend days poring over the ideas Skidmore, Owings, & Merrill propose for creating a sustainable urban future. I want to be part of something visionary, and captivating research is happening at NYU. I hope to get involved with Professor Solly Angel’s Urban Expansion research at the Marron Institute to explore the far-reaching impacts of urbanization, and collect data on lighting with the CUSP Urban Observatory to examine the intricacies of our relationship with cities.
When I read “The Cities Issue,” I imagine myself in Singapore’s SkyPark and Tokyo’s Yakitori restaurants. At NYU, I won’t have to imagine-I can study abroad anywhere from Accra to Shanghai, since it’s crucial to gain a global perspective. I look forward to “Seeing London’s Architecture” and “Street Food & Urban Farming.” I especially want to study abroad in Madrid to continue working towards fluency in Spanish and explore La Gran Vía y El Retiro.
Everything that makes a city amazing-the intersection of every discipline, a diverse group of people, boundless opportunities, and thought-provoking experiences-I will find at NYU. (400 words)
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Tips + Analysis:
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Let the tone of your essay mirror your content. This student’s excitement about New York nearly jumps off the page. How do they achieve this so well? It’s in the words, the pace, the sentence structure. Language like “immerse,” “converge,” and “connection” highlights what it is that this student values about NY. Their sentence variety creates an immediacy to their writing. They manage to speed things up and slow things down from one paragraph to the next. In many ways these details mirror what life in NY might be like. Let your writing enhance and reflect your content by using all the linguistic tools you have available to you.
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Details, details, details. This writer doesn’t just tell us that they love cities (and NY in particular); they also tell us why, and this is a key reason why this essay is so strong. You know how you had to do some homework to learn about Fordham? Well, being specific about what you love about cities shows you’ve done your homework about NY as well. Educate yourself about the things in NY the average tourist doesn’t know. Where’s the best bookstore? Is there a cultural center that will be part of your NY community? What off-campus resources are available to you that relate to your major? Find the answers to these types of questions and include them in your response.
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Ways to tweak to fit this prompt. Because the above was written for a Why Us, it includes a lot of details about NYU classes, professors, and programs. And for a normal “Why Us” that’s a good thing. But for this Fordham prompt, you’d want to replace those with details about New York itself, and the opportunities you want to take advantage of outside of Fordham to learn and grow. (Though you’d want the same level of specificity and “so whats.”)
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How to Write Fordham Supplemental Essay Prompt #2
Optional prompt 2: At Fordham, we have a tradition of having our graduating seniors send a message to their younger selves. What will the future “you” tell the “you” of today about what you accomplished as a Fordham student?
This can be a valuable prompt to think through, in large part because we’ve had some students who, before this prompt, had never thought before about what exactly they wanted their college experience to look like.
A few key things here:
Spend some time really investigating this. Give yourself space to think expansively. You can think in terms of career, but don’t limit it to that. Also take some time to explore aspects of personal growth:
- Who is the human being you want to become?
- Are there ways that Fordham can help you further develop your values?
You can treat some of this essay as a “Why us?”—what does Fordham offer that helps you on your path to becoming the human you want to be? Get specific rather than broad statements. Show its admissions counselors that you’ve done your research and have thought about why you and the school are a good fit, and how it will help you on your journey.
You’ll want something thesis-ish in the essay, though you can build toward it rather than leading with it.
Here’s an example written for a similar, tweaked to fit Fordham’s version:
Example 2:
You escape English class with excitement and anticipation, bolting towards the school cafeteria to begin organizing the ingredients.
Sophomore year of high school, you established Cooking on the Stove (COTS), a club where members could connect through common culinary interests. Through COTS, you discovered how to empower classmates with a collective drive to experiment and test creative recipes together.
In a different realm, at the American Society of Anesthesiologists conference, you presented an internship data science project to anesthesiologists from across the globe. Navigating through the convention center, you were entranced by the thousands of presentations and products transforming the medical field. When presenting next to other researchers at the conference, you felt part of a global movement to overcome medical problems of every variety.
Building connections like these will be an important goal for you in college. On a personal level, you’ll establish COTS at Fordham, cooking together with other food fanatics. Off-campus, you’ll participate in study abroad with Fordham’s chapter of Global Medical Brigades, where you’ll get to know the students you travel with and others across the world who share your interests.
On a professional level, your college circle will start with research. In particular, you’ll work with faculty in improving the quality and accessibility of healthcare solutions across the world. By working in the Disruptive Health Technology Institute, you’ll connect with renowned faculty to develop innovative healthcare technologies that will shape the future.
While strong academics set the stage for a good education, the true experience is defined by the connections and relationships with people that you build along the way. In this network, growing individually becomes synonymous with growing together.
And here’s another example, written for Carnegie Mellon’s “successful colleges experience prompt. Notice that if the writer changed the “I” pronouns to “you/your”, they could make this into an essay that responds to this Fordham prompt really easily.
Example 4:
I hope to help the blind to see. My ambitious goal requires an equally ambitious undergraduate learning plan. There will be milestones to meet and communities of learning to foster.
In addition to my goal of helping the blind, I also intend to develop an algorithm that can create a fully-functional program through speech, using code generation and natural language processing. The Small Undergraduate Research Grants program will help me take the initial steps toward succeeding. The ultimate goal of this system would be to enable a layperson to create professional-grade software just by stating the intent of a program in an English sentence, which would liberate incredible ideas. The types of problems people could solve would not be limited by money, networking, or education. Taking tangible steps toward achieving this goal is integral to my idea of a successful college experience.
I also look forward to joining a community of engineers. From a young age, I’ve worked with those around me to create, design, and innovate. At Carnegie Mellon, I will become involved in organizations such as the Computer and Data Science clubs and will continue to be active in the competition math community through the Math Club. In addition, I intend to pursue a joint major in Statistics and Machine Learning, and take a secondary major in Human-Computer Interactions. Through my clubs and classes, I will foster a community of engineers: they will help me advance my ideas, while I in turn help them nurture theirs.
I know my college experience will be successful when, through my coursework as a part of my major, and through my interactions with my community of engineers, I have taken steps towards achieving my milestone of creating a language-to-code translator as well as my ultimate goal of allowing the blind to see.
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How to Write Fordham Supplemental Essay Prompt #3
Optional Prompt 3: At Fordham, we expect students to care for and engage with their communities and be active citizens for positive change. Please share an experience you had that caused you to develop a new perspective, change your point of view, and/or empower you to take an action or be courageous. Your response should include examples of your personal growth (e.g., what did you learn, did your point of view change, did you develop new skills or strengths?). (300 words)
There is a lot packed into this prompt, and it’s asking you to cover a lot in just 300 words! This means you’ll have to be strategic AND make sure you’re hitting each and every point they’re asking you to. We’re here to help you do both.
First things first, parse out each element of this prompt, going sentence by sentence. If you’re a person who likes bullet point lists, you’re in luck:
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Fordham wants to know how you’ve actively created positive change, and this should be the framework for your response. What have you done that has left a lasting impact on your community?
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Next, they’re asking you to get specific. Was there a defining moment, a significant experience that let you see the world through a different lens or that pushed you to stand up and be brave? That’s what they want to hear about.
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Finally, and this is the big one, Fordham wants to learn what you learned. The idea is that you somehow emerged from this significant experience having grown and learned something about yourself. Be self-reflective, be specific, and be focused!
Overall, this prompt offers multiple versions of what is generally referred to as a “diversity” essay-check here for a full guide to various kinds of “diversity” prompts.
One option for this prompt is to treat this as essentially a “Community Essay” focused on how your engagement led you to develop “a new perspective, change your point of view, and/or empower you to take an action or be courageous.” You can find our comprehensive guide on how to write the Community Essay here. Or, if you’re short on time, here’s the abbreviated 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 …
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Place: Groups of people who live/work/play near one another
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Action: Groups of people who create change in the world by building, doing, or solving something together (Examples: Black Lives Matter, Girls Who Code, March for Our Lives)
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Interest: Groups of people coming together based on a shared interest, experience, or expertise
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Circumstance: Groups of people brought together either by chance or external events/situations.
Step 2: Use the BEABIES Exercise to generate your essay content.
Once you’ve chosen a community, map out your content using the BEABIES Exercise.
That exercise asks:
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What did you actually do? (Tip: Use active verbs like “organized” and “managed” to clarify your responsibilities.)
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What kinds of problems did you solve (personally, locally, or globally)?
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What specific impact did you have?
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What did you learn (skills, qualities, values)?
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How did you apply the lessons you learned?
Step 3: Pick a structure.
The Narrative Structure works well for students who have faced a challenge in or with this community. Otherwise, the Montage Structure works well.
Consider answering these three questions in your essay if you choose the Narrative Structure:
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What challenge/s did you face?
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What did you do about it?
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What did you learn?
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How do those things shape how you will contribute to Columbia? (Ideally with some Why Us detail)
Here’s an example that illustrates how you can approach this prompt (and others like it).
Example:
I felt a blend of connection and distinction at a Heritage Day event in Bahrain. Amidst a sea of flowing thobes and artistic hijabs, my Pakistani shalwar kameez, rich in embroidery, boldly told a tale of my roots. As the event unfolded, a curious voice asked, “Why is someone from Pakistan at our school?” Underlying that innocent curiosity was a shade of bias, reminding me of the delicate balance between being part of a group and standing apart.
Instead of diminishing my spirit, this nudged a fire within me. A fire that later blazed as I hoisted our flag, representing Bahrain in tennis and paddle tournaments. Those moments of uncertainty did not anchor me down; instead, they acted as the wind beneath my wings. My roles at Numu and IKMUN made me wonder-if I could lead there, why not lead in building bridges of understanding, too? So, I wore the hat of an inclusivity advocate. Through endeavors like “Go Green Environmental,” I aimed to do more than just address water sanitation; I wanted to shift our collective lens. Activities like the Ramadan Food Drive and house renovations with Team Nasser made me witness the transformative power of community efforts.
Fordham University’s ethos of justice and global sensibility? It is like hearing a familiar song that resonates deeply. The Dorothy Day Center for Service and Justice is not just a program; to me, it is a beacon. I envision a cultural symphony at Fordham, where our varied stories don’t just echo but inspire. Drawing from my life’s tapestry, I aspire to knit a community at Fordham where every voice is heard and celebrated. Let’s make our stories not just tales to tell but beacons of inspiration for all.
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Tips and analysis
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Share (and briefly set context for) the experience. The first paragraph of this essay is dedicated to giving the reader all the context they need to know: the event (Heritage Day event in Bahrain), the student’s identity (Pakistani), the incident (“Why is someone from Pakistan at our school?”), and the thought or insight that allowed the student to take action (last sentence). While it may be easy in early drafts to over-explain, refining this part of the essay will give you the much-needed context for the rest of the essay where you’ll expand on your personal growth. Doing so briefly ensures that you can still devote most of your word count to your actions, impact, and insights.
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Tie in relevant activities. This student mentions their roles at Numu, IKMUN, as well as “Go Green Environmental” and the Ramadan Food Drive. Weaving in these activities allows the student to create a narrative around their leadership experience in being an advocate for inclusivity, while also allowing them to expand on their activities list and give extra context that might have not fit there. In relation to the prompt, this advocacy is evidence for how their experience (first paragraph) inspired them to take action in some of their activities.
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Bonus points for thinking about how you can contribute. In the last paragraph, the student mentions how they’ll be able to use what they learned to contribute to Fordham’s campus, specifically the Dorothy Day Center. This isn’t a requirement for this prompt, but adding how you can contribute to a specific community could be a nice addition, especially if you haven’t had a chance to mention this specific aspect in another essay. It’s also worth noting that this contribution piece may be more fitting for the second prompt option below. Keep scrolling!
Here’s an example essay written for a very similar prompt for Villanova.
Example:
Growing up, most of my childhood friends were Asian. I never thought much about it; it seemed normal to me that all of my friends had similar backgrounds and perspectives.
However, when I was introduced to the storytelling world of Instagram, I realized what a homogenous environment I’d been living in. On Instagram, I wrote stories with a diverse group of friends like Fio, who identifies as nonbinary, and Cindy, who is on the autism spectrum. Meeting Fio allowed me to gain a better understanding of my brother, who identifies as transgender, while working with Cindy showed me that there are many ways to approach creativity. Having different kinds of friends is important to me because it allows me to consider issues in society from their points of view.
I was able to use this experience from Instagram when I volunteered at Harbor House Ministries. There, I noticed that Jennifer, a girl with ADD, was experiencing some difficulties fitting in. I volunteered to be her buddy, because I felt that, after working with Cindy, I was in a unique position to help her. I noticed that she behaved better when she wasn’t overwhelmed, so during recess, I introduced her classmates to her in small groups. Her behavior improved, and others became more comfortable around her.
By trying to understand people’s needs, I’m able to be more inclusive. At Villanova, I want to continue using my experience to help others, while also gaining new perspectives by meeting diverse new friends. (249 words)
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Tips + Analysis
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Set the stage. It’s important to give your reader some context before just jumping into the details of your story, and this writer does an excellent job of that in just two sentences. After reading the first short paragraph, we know this student’s cultural background, a little about their childhood, and a lot about their perspective. Your readers will thank you for your clarity.
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Show readers the active part of “active citizen.” This prompt gives you the opportunity to contextualize your experiences through the lens of positive change, so fill your readers in on the details of your “activity.” This student doesn’t just say they want to continue to work towards inclusivity; instead they show us precisely how they’ve already done that. They have been active agents of change, and readers learn the specific ways in which they’ve enacted change.
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What did you learn? When answering this prompt, it’s so important that you address this final piece. Not only does it ensure you’re fully addressing the prompt, but it also helps you bring your essay to a clear and relevant conclusion. Once you’ve shown readers what you’ve already accomplished, let them know that YOU know there is more to do. And if you can frame this through the lens of contributions you hope to make to Fordham specifically, even better!
Want advice on dozens of other supplemental essays?
Click here
Special thanks to Jessica for contributing to this post.
Jessica has a Ph.D in English from the University of Southern California and teaches English at a Los Angeles-area independent school, where she has also been English department chair and a class dean. Sandra Cisneros is her hero, and she loves books, her awesomely-sarcastic family, the beach, cozy sweaters, and more books. Oh, and her sweet pitbull/lab mix named Ruby.
Top values: Curiosity, equity, wonder
