Many of my college application tutoring clients hit the same snag when writing their Common App. How about you? Have you had the following experience?:
They carefully enter in all of the information requested by the App, such as a detailed activities list.
They toil away at draft after draft of a Personal Statement they’ll send to every Common App school.
Then, when they’re already burned out from months of college app work (and in the middle of an academically rigorous Senior Fall), the realization hits them like a ton of bricks: they still need to draft a mountain of supplemental essays.
To make matters worse, while some of these extra essays can be quickly retooled and recycled for a few different schools—like a “community” essay or an “activity” essay—there’s one extremely popular topic that CANNOT be just tweaked, then copy-pasted into each college’s Common App portal.
You guessed it: the “why this school?" prompt. For obvious reasons, this essay needs to be crafted uniquely for each individual school.
Though you can’t write a one-size-fits-all response to this question, I DO have a one-size-fits-all strategy for writing these responses. And since I’m in the business of breaking down complex application processes for my clients (and for you), I’ve developed today’s one-stop guide to writing a stellar “why this school” essay.
Article Contents
1. Video version of this article
2. Step-by-step breakdown to writing the school-specific college essay
a. Figure out what you're looking for in a college
b. Research the college(s) you're writing this essay for
c. Real talk: is this college a good fit for you?
3. Yikes! What if I realize I don't like a college I’m applying to?
4. Conclusion
Video version of this post:
Strategy for the school-specific application essay
Step 1: Figure out what you're looking for in a college
You’d think this would be intuitive, but I’ve found that quite a few students try to dive into this particular essay without having considered the big-picture questions behind it. Before you can persuade an admissions officer why you are a perfect match for Smartiepants U, you need to know what you want to get out of college in the first place! For example:
What are your main career interests, currently?
Is there a subject(s) you’d be excited to study or major in?
Which extracurriculars do you KNOW you’ll want to do in college? Any particular arts or sports programs? Pre-professional programs? Volunteer opportunities?
Are there specific parts of student life that you want to participate in? (Think: sororities or fraternities, co-ops, activism, foreign language housing, a particular personality trait/set of values the students share, etc.)
Once you have a sense of the kind of things you want out of your college experience, it’s time to…
Step 2: DEEPLY research the college(s) in question
The next step is to head to the college or university’s website—NOT the College Board or the Fiske Guide or College Confidential. The latter are solid places to find useful information ABOUT a given college, but what you want right now is the school’s official website itself. You need to carefully review the pages of each school’s site so that you can intimately understand how the institution thinks about itself.
This research stage is NOT just a quick once-over. It should take you a couple of hours per college, maybe even a bit more.
These sites can be confusing to navigate at times, so hone in on these specific pages for the informational needles in the haystack that you need:
An "Academics" or "Academic Life" Home Page
These pages will tell you: Is there a core curriculum that all students must follow? How many and what type of classes does it consist of? Would you be able to take all of the courses YOU want to take if you also must fulfill those requirements? If you are applying to a particular college at a larger university, would you be able to take classes in a different college or department?
Pages for Department(s) of Interest or Residential College(s)
These pages will tell you: Does the college offer the major(s) you want to study? What are the requirements of that major? Check out the titles of the classes you’d actually take: do you like what you see? Write down the names of a few of the classes and professors that excite you. Does this school offer internship programs to help you gain experience in your field(s) of choice? Take note of those, too.
Student Life
Read through the school’s list of extracurriculars, scanning for your favorites. Click on them to read further. Not seeing what you want? See if there’s a process in place to start your own club! Have you visited the campus? What type of people do you want to spend four years around? What are the characteristics/impressions you’ve gotten of the students at Smartiepants U?
Stay alert, too, for any miscellaneous traits of a given college that are relatively unusual. These could be monthly symposium options, Jan(uary) terms, final projects that all seniors complete, the fact that the school requires no core curriculum, etc. Colleges put great effort and thought into coming up with and maintaining these special elements, and by showing off that you’re aware of and excited about them, you send the signal that you get what makes that school unique.
Finally, you’re ready to determine….
Step 3: Is the college a good fit for you?
Sure, “college match-making” sounds like something out of a dating app, but it’s also a crucial step in your drafting process for this essay—and in the admissions process as a whole.
That’s because the “why this school?” essay is just as much about why THIS school would be good for YOU as it is about why YOU would be a great addition to the campus. It’s not a one-way street. This isn’t a question of a given student being “standout enough” or “not standout enough” to get in—it’s about both of you being a strong fit for the other. Seriously.
If there isn’t enough real shared ground between your desires and what the college offers…then there’s a good chance that a) you wouldn’t have much to contribute to their particular campus and b) you’d be unhappy there, anyway. And this unfortunate combo could lead to something that colleges really, really want to avoid: you transferring away from their school after freshman year!
That’s not good for anyone.
So, after your custom, thorough research (at least a few hours of it), ask yourself: are you still thrilled (indeed, more thrilled than before) at the idea of spending four years at Smartiepants U? After all, if you’ve figured out how to get all your academic and personal needs met, then the school probably IS a good match for you.
Next you just need to actually SHOW THEM what a fantastic fit you’d actually be! Use your essay to paint a portrait of where you’d slot into their campus: which department, which clubs, which teams. Help the admissions officer who'll be reading your essay picture you hanging out on the main quad, shredding guitar in a school band, or warming up on the soccer field!
At the same time, you need to resist the urge to come off as cocky. Think about it like this: in the dating world, if you just automatically assumed your crush liked you and then proceeded to act like they were lucky to even be in your presence, you’d just annoy the person of interest.
Likewise, when it comes to the “why this school?” essay, don’t adopt a tone that suggests you know you’re a shoo-in! What this means, in practical terms, is that you should:
Avoid grammatical constructions that imply that you’ll definitely be on campus in the near future: “When I” or “I can’t wait to” or “I’m excited to.” They make you sound presumptuous.
Instead, use the conditional or subjunctive tense of your verbs: “Were I to be accepted,” “I could/would,” “I’m excited by the prospect of….”, etc. These phrases strike the right balance of humility and hope.
Also, here’s what NOT to include: a discussion of the city Smartiepants U is located in, declarations that Smartiepants U is the “greatest,” exclamations of how well-known/famous it is or how impressive its name is. That’s like telling Zendaya you want to date her because she’s a famous actor, instead of because she’s funny/sweet/intelligent/etc. (no clue if that’s even true! Zendaya fans, please feel free to set me straight in a comment on the Ivy Lounge Facebook page or YouTube channel).
In other words, customization goes a long way. Descriptions that could fit many schools make an admissions officer doubt whether you fully “get” the college you’re applying to.
Step 4: The best outline of the tailored college essay
Is this starting to sound like a LOT of info to squeeze into ~200-400 words…again and again, for most or all of the schools you’re applying to? Well, the good news is there’s a pretty straightforward way you can structure this essay. You’ve really only got two sections to flesh out per school:
Academics/Career: This section/paragraph focuses on your hopes and dreams for your future career and the collegiate area of study that could get you there. What does Smartiepants U offer (department, requirements, classes, career opportunities) that you love? “If I were to attend _____, I’d be excited to study/take/participate in _____.” “I’d see myself _____.”
Extracurriculars/Personal": This (usually shorter) section/paragraph focuses on your passions and interests, and shows the admissions officers what Smartiepants U currently offers that excites you. “I’m excited by the prospect of _____.” “I see myself living in ______, doing _____.”
Whether you choose to organize your essay in this way or some other way, think about being specific, enthusiastic, and most of all, authentic. You want to be you—you just want to also show the school you're writing about that who YOU really are aligns organically with who THEY really are.
What if I realize I don't like a college I'm applying to?
By the time you’ve done the mental and emotional work of plotting out your hypothetical life at Smartiepants U, you might decide you don’t like it and can’t see yourself there at all! And that’s OK. If that’s the case, better to have determined that out now than after you’ve wasted a year on that college campus, right?
Plus, and fortunately, I’d say this doesn’t happen too often. When I start a “Why this School” essay with a student, it’s way more common that they begin to get genuinely hyped about what it would be like to attend that college! And if you can show that real excitement in your essay, your reader will see it, too.
Conclusion
I hope this walkthrough has made one of the more slippery college essays seem more approachable. This is a great first step! But if you’d like customized, expert help with your essays, check out my essay mentoring packages here. Or shoot me an email with any questions.
