In less than a month’s time, the big reveal of Supplemental Essays will take place. While there could be a variety of supplemental essays that colleges/universities ask their students to answer, one of the most common and prominent is the one about what would you like to study in college. We call it the ‘Why this Major?’ essay prompt.
Voila! The perfect opportunity to prove your love for your major just arrived. So how do you welcome it?
Well, here are 5 tips to help you do that –
1. Your academic subjects and performance
As an example: If you’re applying for Computer Science, you do not necessarily need to have taken Computer Science as an academic subject. However, you would need to demonstrate strong performance in Mathematics. Talking about your strong math skills definitely works in your favor.
If you’re applying for gender studies, then talking about how History and/or Literature have pushed you to think critically about the world around you would help make your case for this major. Did you develop deep reading skills that have allowed you to go beyond the obvious and really analyze two sides of the coin?
2. Your Academic Extracurriculars
Academic Extracurricular activities are those that are related to your major. This is an amazing way to showcase a tangible outcome in support of your choice of major. Students typically would engage in writing a research paper or a book or creating an app. In the UK, these are typically referred to as Supercurriculars. When writing your UCAS Personal Statement, you can definitely talk about them.
3. Opportunities offered by the University
Colleges and Universities offer tons of clubs and organizations to meet students’ interests and talents. These literally range from a simple Robotics Club to something as fancy as the Squirrel Club at U.Michigan. The latter would make sense if you’re planning for the pre-vet track or Animal Psychology major! Thus, ensure that your choice of club/organization is in sync with your major and related interests.
4. Summer Programs
If you’ve participated in any summer programs that demonstrate your interest in the area you’d like to pursue at college, do dive into what you learned and the goals you achieved. This could be in the form of a poster presentation or a talk at a symposium or a full length research paper.
5. Community Service Projects
If you’ve demonstrated strong passion for a subject area through activism or volunteering, this is the time to mention it. One thing to be weary of is that some universities would have a specific Community Essay wherein you may need to use these anecdotes. In that case, it would be best to stick the any of the aforementioned points so that you can use your community project for the community essay, even though this doesn’t necessarily need to be the case.
Final Word
Supplemental Essays for 2021-22 will be declared on 1st August on the Common Application portal. Given the pandemic, you could expect some changes to the supplemental essays this year. Guess only time will tell.
May the countdown begin!
