TABLE OF CONTENTS
(click to skip ahead)In addition to its academic reputation, the University of San Diego has some other fun reasons you might want to apply—like it’s considered the top surfing school in the country, or Geisel Library is home to the world’s largest collection of original Dr. Seuss manuscripts and materials.
Or maybe you’re excited by USD’s contemporary Catholic values or its liberal arts tradition.
Below, we’ll talk you through how to write the University of San Diego personal statement and supplemental essays, with examples and tips + analysis for how to write yours.
If you want to get a clearer sense of all that the University of San Diego is looking for, you can explore 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 of San Diego envisions itself and its role, and how it wants to grow and evolve, read its strategic plan. Reading through these will give you a strong idea of what USD values.
What are the University of San Diego Supplemental Essay Prompts?
Prompt #1
At the University of San Diego, we believe education should spark curiosity, foster connection, and prepare students to make a meaningful impact in the world. Tell us about an idea or experience that has shaped your worldview or inspired you to learn more. Why is this important to you, and how do you see it connecting with your future at USD? (350 words max, recommended 200 words)
Prompt #2
Choose one of the three prompts below to write about. (350 words max, recommended 200 words)
- Option #1) USD is committed to fostering a community where everyone feels a sense of belonging and purpose. Reflecting on your own experiences, what does community mean to you? How have you helped create inclusive, welcoming spaces for others, and what have you learned from those efforts?
- Option #2) As a proud Changemaker Campus, the USD experience emphasizes changemaking through care for our common home, social justice efforts, civic engagement, social innovation, creativity and a global perspective. Write about one of the challenges facing humanity today. Why does it matter to you? What experiences or insights have you had that speak to the urgency of this issue?
- Option #3) As a contemporary Catholic university, we welcome and celebrate students from every background and faith tradition, including those who do not identify with a faith tradition. We’re committed to helping every student feel connected and supported by offering space to grow in faith, reflect on their values and explore who they are called to be. Share how faith or spirituality—your own or someone else’s—has shaped a perspective, experience, or decision.
Click HERE to learn more information about USD as a Changemaker Campus.
How to Write Each Supplemental Essay Prompt for San Diego University
How to Write San Diego University Supplemental Essay Prompt #1
Prompt #1
- At the University of San Diego, we believe education should spark curiosity, foster connection, and prepare students to make a meaningful impact in the world. Tell us about an idea or experience that has shaped your worldview or inspired you to learn more. Why is this important to you, and how do you see it connecting with your future at USD? (350 words max, recommended 200 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 USD offers and how you will make a great team.
Here, you’ll want to make sure that the parts of you you’re connecting to relate to “an idea or experience that has shaped your worldview or inspired you to learn more.”
STEP 1: BRAINSTORM (ALL ABOUT YOU).
Do the “If You Really, Really Knew Me” Exercise.
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.
Once you’ve done these exercises, you’ll have a better sense of:
YOU: A bunch of different values/talents/skills/identities/qualities/insights 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., USD).
Make connections between what the school offers and what you’re interested in.
Here’s an example essay written for a similar prompt for Bowdoin
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I believe in the power of small acts of service. After witnessing the plight of Middle Eastern migrant workers left at sunrise in desert mountains with nothing but a broom, a bottle of water, and a single meal to last the day, I felt helpless. Globalization often comes at the cost of thousands of immigrant lives, but the realization that there was little I could do to ease their anguish affected me deeply. In that moment, I found my calling as an advocate.
When I returned home, I was determined to give back to my own community. Working at the NJ Help Center has enabled me to spend a lot of time with immigrant families like mine, translating applications for housing aid and health insurance while immersing myself in stories of their escapes from war-torn countries and crippling economies. Soon, I realized how great an impact small exchanges could have.
At Bowdoin, I’ll continue to work towards building a community for myself and others. By joining fEMPOWER, I can work alongside peers to directly engage with social justice issues and increase female representation on campus and beyond. Through the Muslim Student Alliance, I hope to facilitate interfaith dialogue. And as a dad jokes connoisseur who thrives on improv, I can’t wait to spread laughter and joy across campus.
And some day, in addition to becoming a universal helping hand, I hope to become the first hijabi U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, a journey I embarked on at Bowdoin.
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Tips + Analysis
This opening illustrates what screenwriters sometimes call the Inciting Incident (as in, the moment that started it all)—in this case, the moment that inspired the author to take action.
Notice how the author shares a) what they witnessed, b) how it impacted them, c) why it impacted them, and d) a statement of resolve (decision to do something about it).
Q to consider as you’re exploring your own essays: Was there a moment for you that started it all? What was your Inciting Incident, if there was one?
Notice that the author highlights specific actions they took as a result of what they witnessed, and again shares the impact it had on their thinking.
And even though this particular activity may have been mentioned in their Activities List, one of the important values of your supplemental essays is to bring to life and give context to these experiences.
Q to consider: How did your extracurricular activities impact you? Could you use your supplemental essay(s) to include details and information about your “why” that isn’t and can’t really be shown in your Activities List?
The author includes specific opportunities available at Bowdoin: fEMPOWER and the Muslim Student Alliance.
The author doesn’t just mention these on their own, however, or simply say “...and these seem great!” Instead, the author includes specific language about how they’ll engage with these opportunities and how they’ll contribute:
“By joining fEMPOWER, I can work alongside peers to directly engage with social justice issues and increase female representation on campus and beyond” and
“Through the Muslim Student Alliance, I hope to facilitate interfaith dialogue.
In your essay, show how you’ll engage with and be an active member of the college community.
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How to Write University of San Diego Supplemental Essay Prompt #2
Choose one of the three prompts below to write about. (350 words max, recommended 200 words)
Option #1) USD is committed to fostering a community where everyone feels a sense of belonging and purpose. Reflecting on your own experiences, what does community mean to you? How have you helped create inclusive, welcoming spaces for others, and what have you learned from those efforts?
Option #2) As a proud Changemaker Campus, the USD experience emphasizes changemaking through care for our common home, social justice efforts, civic engagement, social innovation, creativity and a global perspective. Write about one of the challenges facing humanity today. Why does it matter to you? What experiences or insights have you had that speak to the urgency of this issue?
Option #3) As a contemporary Catholic university, we welcome and celebrate students from every background and faith tradition, including those who do not identify with a faith tradition. We’re committed to helping every student feel connected and supported by offering space to grow in faith, reflect on their values and explore who they are called to be. Share how faith or spirituality—your own or someone else’s—has shaped a perspective, experience, or decision.
Click HERE to learn more information about USD as a Changemaker Campus.
To decide which prompt you want to respond to, think about what sides of you / your contributions and impact that USD is seeing in other parts of your application, in particular your personal statement and the “Why Us” above—is there something important they’re either
Not seeing at all? Or
Seeing a little bit, say in an entry in your activities list, but aren’t getting the full scope or importance of?
To think through/brainstorm options you might have for topics here:
Option 1 is a form of “diversity/community” essay.
Option 2 you can approach as either a “service/engagement” prompt, or as an “intellectual/issue” prompt.
Option 3 is another form of “diversity” essay, focusing specifically on your relationship to faith or spirituality.
(For a complete guide to different kinds of “diversity” prompts, head here.)
Here’s how you can approach each of those prompts.
For option 1:
You can think of this as a community essay that potentially includes some aspects of how you add to the diversity of the campus community.
In particular, be sure to think about how you’ll directly address the core questions with your response:
What does community mean to you?
How have you helped create inclusive, welcoming spaces for others?
What have you learned from those efforts?
Keep in mind that you don’t have to focus on something like race or ethnicity here, although those are of course possible things to write about.
Here’s a step-by-step guide that offers a short exercise to help you think through which communities you are a part of that might make a good topic for this essay.
Here’s the short version:
Step 1: Create a “communities” chart by listing as many of your communities as you can think of. Keep in mind that communities can be defined in a variety of ways, including place, culture, interests, political beliefs, hobbies, 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 or work to 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, and connect those experiences to how you will impact the college’s community (for more on how to do this, check our “Why this College” guide.
While it’s not required with the prompt’s phrasing, you can potentially end the essay with a couple really specific ways you want to continue engaging at USD (e.g. a club or organization or three that focus on things related to what you wrote about in the body of your essay).
For option 2:
If you want to approach this as a “service/engagement” prompt:
Two questions to ask yourself as you brainstorm topics:
What sort of service and civic engagement projects have you been involved with? Your Activities List is a good place to start.
Are there any essays you’re already writing for another school that you could double with this prompt? If so, it may be a candidate for a Super Essay.
To start brainstorming potential topics, think about meaningful examples and anecdotes that bring the values of service and civic engagement to life—like the club you started to teach STEM to fifth-graders to try to bridge educational gaps, or the recycling project you led in your neighborhood, or the comedy skits you put on for the local senior center to help address social isolation.
The key here: Your topic of choice should be something you genuinely care about, and something you’ve already acted upon in some way. (You can in theory write an essay that focuses entirely on an issue you hope to address someday but haven’t actually done anything about yet, but that seems really hard to pull off well.). You’ll find it much easier to write with enthusiasm if you talk about something you actually find important and interesting.
With this approach, once you’ve picked a topic, you’ll notice you’re (probably) writing an extracurricular activity essay. Here’s a complete guide on how to write that. You’ll want to make sure your values are super clear by the end of the essay.
If you want to treat it as more of an “intellectual/issue” prompt:
By asking about an issue/challenge that matters to you, USD wants to learn in what ways you’re the kind of critical, insightful thinker they want on campus, leading the drive for future change. They also know that being able to formulate and ask critical questions is as (if not more) important than having the answers. After all, what’s college for if not to widen your thinking and give you the resources and confidence to help you solve the unsolvable? So don’t feel as though you have to have all the answers—raising interesting, complex questions that USD can help you explore can be just as (or more) useful.
And note that while your issue doesn’t necessarily have to relate to your major or future career path, that can make it easier.
And while you don’t have to, since you’ve got 350 words of “why us” for prompt 1, you could specify ways that USD can help prepare you to help address this issue (citing specific programs, professors, etc).
So, say your burning issue relates to how to create and implement sustainable health systems for under-resourced communities—your response might include
Why this issue is so important/meaningful/complex
Specific ways you’ve already engaged with it
Maybe: how getting involved with specific aspects/resources at USD will offer nuanced instruction on the socioeconomic determinants of health and wellness
For option 3:
Again, you can approach this in part as a form of “diversity” essay, focusing specifically on your relationship to faith or spirituality (note that you definitely do not need to be Christian to apply, or write this essay), and both ways you’ll connect with other students through/around faith, and ways you want to continue exploring what you believe and how your beliefs shape the life you want to pursue.
Before you start writing, ask yourself these questions:
What are the most important values my spirituality/faith/religion instills in me?
How do I apply those values to my everyday life? How has my spirituality/faith/religion shaped what I do or how I interact with other people?
How do I want to continue growing, and how do my beliefs frame/support that growth?
(Maybe) How do I see these values align or intersect with the mission and/or resources at USD?
By answering these questions with specific details, stories, or insights, you’ll start to see how seemingly disparate parts of your identity and lifestyle might be connected to your faith.
It may help to think of writing this essay like building a house, with spirituality/faith/religion as its foundation. You may build off that foundation by talking about your academic goals, extracurricular interests, career aspirations, or aspects of community you’ve engaged with, but try to connect those in some way back to spirituality/faith/religion and the values or tenets therefrom.
Here are some example essays to illustrate how you can approach some of these prompt options:
This first example was written for Colgate’s “contribute” prompt, but could also fit nicely here (with word count space to expand)
Example:
Aside from my inherent love for bagels, my Jewish background has led me to become more embedded in my community, joining Jewish activists and building a website on Holocaust education.
In the 1930s, 36 members of my family were lost to the Holocaust, and that fact has led me to carry on the memory of my ancestors through tradition—with my Bar Mitzvah—as well as with an educational lens—teaching others about the Holocaust and about specific stories of survivors.
Feeling disconnected from Jewish activism, I decided to become an educator on the Student Leadership Board of the Seattle-based Holocaust Center for Humanity last year. Each week, we met to discuss present-day instances of oppression and discrimination across the world, and finished the year by building a website to share the story of a Holocaust survivor.
Being on the board connected me to a network of other passionate Jewish activists, and helped me to channel the pride for my culture and ancestors into visual media that reaches many viewers. At Colgate, I hope to find myself surrounded not only by like-minded Jewish students, but by a diverse group of people with whom I can learn and make connections. (196 words)
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Tips & Analysis
Highlight a core identity. In the example essay, the applicant highlights their Jewish heritage and the profound impact it has had on their life choices and commitments. This is a great way to approach this prompt—think of communities/identities that you claim, pick one that Vanderbilt isn’t seeing elsewhere, and show how that aspect of you + your experiences will allow you to contribute to the Vanderbilt community. Similarly, for the Vanderbilt prompt, ensure you shed light on the aspects of your background that have shaped your identity. This could be cultural, familial, or personal attributes that have molded you into the individual you are today.
Provide concrete examples of impact. Just as the sample essay vividly narrates the applicant's journey in Jewish activism, so you’ll want to offer specific instances that exemplify the impact your background has had on your decisions and pursuits. Whether through personal experiences, engagements, or projects, share specific moments where your background has led you to initiate meaningful actions. In short, show us.
Connect to the college's community. The sample essay could be stronger if the writer reflected even more on how they might continue to nurture their identity at Vanderbilt. How can you do that? Address how your background, values, and commitments align with Vanderbilt's vision and how you intend to extend these connections on campus to foster learning and shared growth. For example, perhaps you plan on joining (or creating?) relevant student clubs, volunteering at a local museum, or finding innovative ways to connect with students who share a similar background.
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And here’s an example written for Princeton that could be doubled here
Example:
What would you think of me if I told you I lift weights, play basketball, and can grow a full beard? Stereotypically masculine, right? What if, instead, I said I listen to Taylor Swift, sleep in bunk beds, and am a sucker for Hollywood romance… A little less clear. In a country where masculinity feels as standardized as a McDonald’s Happy Meal, I’ve often hid this latter side of myself, fearing it deviates further from the “man” I’m supposed to be than I’d like to admit.
A discussion in my English class about JD Sallanger’s Catcher in the Rye helped ease my insecurity about this sentiment. Sallanger’s work details Holden Caufield’s (the protagonist) teenage insecurities, specifically in regard to his masculinity. We deconstructed hypermasculinity through Caulfield’s actions, whereby he habitually labels people “phony” whom he deems ingenuine because of the facades they construct to avoid vulnerability. Contradicting this belief, Caulfield hypocritically constructs a facade himself in nearly every social interaction he has throughout the novel.
Being a single-sex class, we focused on this projective behavior and how we often deflect our overt shortcomings by resorting, like Caulfield, to disparaging or humorous comments. We then shared personal situations where we felt insecure. To a group of sophomore boys, all insecure in their own masculinity, this admittedly began as a joke, but as we went around the room the tone changed. The laughs and whispers were replaced with respectful silence and considerate nods of agreement. Students shared stories about sports teams, relationships, and their body image—topics that while seemingly trivial to an outsider were exactly the types of experiences we all empathized with and understood.
Ultimately, this conversation was meaningful to me as it validated my own feelings. Others also experienced difficulties conforming to society’s inaccurate and unattainable standards of masculinity. Since this class discussion, I’ve tried to actively oppose this harmful societal standard by pausing in situations where my instinct is to deflect. Rather, I’ve begun to acknowledge my feelings because, as Sallanger demonstrates, those who call others “phony” are the biggest phonies of all.
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And here’s an essay (also written for a Princeton prompt) that could work nicely for USD’s option 2.
Example:
The issue of educational injustice is deeply important to me. School closures during the pandemic exacerbated this inequality, with many public institutions staying closed the 2020-21 school year as opposed to their private school counterparts—their students’ educational experience being less optimal as a result. According to the California Department of Education, students of color account for 75% of public-school enrollment, making them the primary victims. Understanding this disparity and driven by the values of service instilled through my Sacred Heart education, I decided to start TutorDigital, a non-profit free tutoring and technology donation service for Bay Area students.
My interest in tutoring began in middle school through volunteering as a peer tutor. In high school, I created a tutoring club, giving my peers the opportunity to help younger elementary students on financial aid with their homework. With the club being sidetracked by COVID-19, I joined 826 Valencia, an organization dedicated to supporting under-resourced students. This experience prompted me to transition my old club to a remote format, adapting to restrictions imposed by the pandemic. I worked with my friend to rebrand the club, naming it TutorDigital, registering it as a non-profit, designing a website, and recruiting additional tutors. These efforts helped expand our reach to include local public schools. Through our efforts, we’ve helped provide tutoring services to 34 students, while also identifying other opportunities to support public schools, such as donating upwards of 60 iPads and creating a book donation program.
While educational injustice is an issue that unfortunately won’t be solved overnight, it’s an issue that must be aggressively addressed, now more than ever given the massive impacts from the pandemic. I look forward to continuing my work at Princeton through a program such as the Pace Center’s Princeton Online Tutoring Network which closely resembles TutorDigital’s mission. But for now, I gain great satisfaction from each thank you note from a parent or good grade achieved by a student, knowing my efforts have potentially improved the academic trajectory of these children and helped to address educational injustice in my community.
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Andrew Simpson, CEG’s Editorial Director, has worked as an educator, consultant, and curriculum writer for the past 20 years, and earned degrees from Stanford in Political Science and Drama. He feels most at home on mountain tops and in oceans.
Top Values: Insight/Growth | Truth | Integrity
