Wake Forest is a strong small research university with 5,500 undergraduates in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. They offer 49 majors, and are especially well known for cultivating thoughtful future leaders in the spirit of their motto: “Pro Humanitate” (For Humanity). The vast majority of classes — 99% — have fewer than 50 students, and the acceptance rate is about 22%. This makes Wake Forest a great ‘foundation’ school for high achieving students drawn to their close community and mission of purpose.
How to Write the Bowdoin Supplement 2025-2026
Bowdoin is an extremely popular, yet also profoundly niche, small liberal arts college in Maine. They are well-known for being an intellectual safe haven for brilliant students who think differently and want to change the world. To spark that change, they pair their close-knit Maine campus with exceptional international and off-site learning opportunities, from the Bowdoin Public Service in Washington program to semester and year-long programs in partnership with international universities. For decades, Bowdoin flew under the radar. They were known for super strong academics in an intimate — and isolated — learning community, but mostly attracted students in the Northeast. Then, the world caught on. Over the past 20 years, Bowdoin has skyrocketed in popularity. The acceptance rate is only 6.8%.
How to Write the Vanderbilt Supplement 2025-2026
Vanderbilt University is known for offering broad opportunities with focused attention on students. There are over 70 majors and programs students can pick from, and an impressive 7:1 student to faculty ratio. 7,200 undergraduates call campus home, and 13,500 students overall. The rate of admission for students who submitted regular decision for the Class of 2029 was 3.3%. The early decision acceptance rate for the same year was 13.2%.
2025-2026 Additional Information Changes and New Challenges and Circumstances Common App Section
For the 2025-2026 application cycle, Common App decided to make no changes to their essay questions, but some significant changes are coming to the Additional Information section. After the COVID-19 pandemic, a question was introduced to ask about any COVID-related impacts on you or your family; later, it was changed to include natural disasters along with COVID. This year, they are changing the question from “Community disruption” to a new “Challenges and Circumstances” prompt.
How to Write Cornell Supplement 2025-2026
Cornell is well-known as the most practical of the elite Ivy League schools. Yes, they have all the usual humanities and liberal arts majors that one expects at a top-tier well-rounded university, but where Cornell truly stands out is in their specialized programs. Many of their programs are singular at the Ivy League level. Agriculture and hospitality, for one, but also many programs that are hard to find at such an exceptional level for undergraduate students, like architecture, public policy, labor relations, and human ecology. The overall acceptance rate is 8.4%, but we’ll break that down further where the data is available in this post.
Official Common App Essay Guide 2025-2026
How to Write Duke Supplement 2025-2026
Duke is a prestigious private research university with a stellar academic reputation and an iconic athletic tradition that makes being a student there, well, a ton of fun. Just over 6,500 undergraduate students call Duke home, and the overall student body is well over 17,000. The top five majors across all undergraduates are Computer Science, Economics, Biology, Public Policy, and Psychology. Based in Durham, North Carolina, Duke is popular with students across the United States and internationally, but especially students from NC, New York, Florida, California, and Texas. There are two undergraduate colleges, the College of Arts & Sciences, and the Pratt School of Engineering. Our kids LOVE Duke, and we’re really good at getting them in. Most recently, the acceptance rate was 3.3%.
English Extracurricular Activity Strategy for Juniors
If you are a junior interested in an English major in college, first of all let us say that you are awesome. In an era that is heavy on the STEM fields, it isn’t common for students these days to want to pursue English at a top-tier school like an Ivy League or similarly competitive college. And yet, English majors are some of our faves. As an English major, you study literature and the written word, you learn how to write persuasively, how to break down anything you read analytically — and how to develop creative work.
How to Write University of Michigan Supplement 2025-2026
The University of Michigan is one of the top three public universities in the United States, and many rank it at the top of the pile. They are iconic for students pursuing tech, engineering, computer science, and the hard sciences, and have an athletic and entrepreneurial culture that is beloved. The college is wildly popular, and the number of applications has surged over the past five years from 65,000 first-year applicants to just under 100,000. The overall acceptance rate is 15.6% — remember, though, that this includes both in-state and out-of-state students.
How to Write the University of Miami Supplement 2025-2026
The University of Miami is a leading private research university (not, note, a public university) with over 12,000 degree-seeking undergraduates in Miami, Florida. They group students into 9 undergraduate schools and colleges, maintaining a small student to faculty ratio of only 11:1. Despite having such a large undergraduate student body, half of all undergraduate classes have 17 or fewer students. The acceptance rate is about 19%.
How to Write the University of Wisconsin-Madison Supplement 2025-2026
The University of Wisconsin-Madison is a highly-respected large public research university in Madison, Wisconsin. Students love Madison for mixing strong academics with broad opportunities and an iconic culture. Greek life and athletics are big at Wisconsin, and help to define the social experience whether or not you want to join a Greek organization or cheer on the Badgers in basketball. There are nearly 37,000 undergraduate students, and they receive over 65,000 applications for first-year admission annually. The overall acceptance rate, including in-state and out-of-state applicants, is 45%. Remember though, if you are applying from outside of Wisconsin your chances of admission are undoubtedly far lower than that 45%. Way back in 2018, the university shared that they aimed to admit 2/3rd of Wisconsin applicants. Using some back-of-the-envelope math, that means that about 25% of out-of-state applicants were accepted to reach a 45% overall acceptance rate.
How to Write the Williams College Supplement 2025-2026
Williams is an iconic liberal arts college in Williamstown, Massachusetts. Home to about 2,000 undergraduate students, the college is particularly popular with students pursuing majors in biology, psychology, history, mathematics, political science, computer science, English, art, and most of all economics. This highlights the intellectual diversity of the Williams community, with students pursuing the hard sciences and the humanities hand-in-hand. At the core of this is the Williams liberal arts foundation. This has made Williams a coveted school for top-performing students, driving down the acceptance rate to only 8.5%.
How to Write Common App Essay Prompt 7: Example and Guide 2025-2026
How to Write Common App Essay Prompt 6: Example and Guide 2025-2026
We’re nearing the end of our deep dive into the seven Common App essay prompts, and today we’re shining a light on Prompt #6. This might be one of our favorites! Sure, Prompt #7 will always be our top pick for its open-ended freedom, but we know that many students feel more confident with a bit of structure. If that’s you, Prompt #6 can be a fantastic option.
How to Write the UNC-Chapel Hill Supplement 2025-2026
UNC-Chapel Hill is an acclaimed public research university in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. The university is large, with over 4,500 first-year students in each class and an impressive array of opportunities and options. They are also known for an iconic athletic tradition, with students — sporty or not — lining up for hours, if not longer, to get into ‘Tar Heel’ games. Academically, UNC-Chapel Hill has strong programs in almost every field but is especially respected for biology, business, and media and journalism. The acceptance rate is only 15.6%, the most recent data point in a continual drop over the past 5 years. This decline can be attributed to a steep increase in applications, as well as increased attention nationally for academic excellence.
How to Write the Georgia Tech Supplement 2025-2026
The Georgia Institute of Technology is a top public university in the United States, and the university is especially well-known for the research that happens on campus — and that undergrads get to contribute to. The school is big, with over 50,000 students across multiple campuses, and they have the resources and activity options that a student body of that size demands. Students can pick from dozens of majors across seven colleges and 29 schools, covering nearly anything you can imagine from the hard sciences to business, humanities to creative arts. One of the particularly innovative programs at Georgia Tech is the cooperative education program, the largest of its kind in the U.S. The acceptance rate for first-years is 14%.
How to Write the Boston College Supplement 2025-2026
Boston College is a private Jesuit institution grounded in the liberal arts but heavily involved in groundbreaking scientific research, too. Jesuit colleges are Catholic, but in ways that are sometimes surprising to people. The Jesuits prize the learning process, and develop communities of academic inquiry that push students to stretch themselves intellectually. That spirit runs deep at Boston College.
How to Write the Tufts University Supplement 2025-2026
Tufts combines the close-knit community of a liberal arts school with the powerhouse academics of a major research university. They have four campuses, including rural, suburban, and urban settings, all around — or in — Boston. Across Tufts, there are 460 student organizations and clubs, and over 150 majors and minors. Nearly no matter what you want to study, from the humanities to the hard sciences, Tufts doesn’t just have a program — they have one of the best.
How to Write the University of Chicago Supplement 2025-2026
The University of Chicago is an outstanding Ivy-caliber institution in, unsurprisingly, Chicago, Illinois. The university truly is comparable to Harvard in caliber of education, but there are a few things about the culture of the school that make it stand out. UChicago is truly unique, and it doesn’t use the idea of being ‘quirky’ simply as a marketing gimmick. As you will see when we break down the supplement questions below, they challenge students to think outside of the box from day one. Being cookie cutter does not work for UChicago. The acceptance rate is only 4.5%.
How to Write the Northwestern Supplement 2025-2026
Northwestern is a top research university in Evanston, Illinois that has become iconic for combining a collaborative learning environment with innovative hands-on research opportunities. They have a top engineering program, a top business school, a top education program (as in teaching future teachers), a top speech-language pathology program. If that sounds diverse, it is. Northwestern doesn’t pigeonhole themselves, and they excel across the board. It’s not surprising, then, that it isn’t easy to get in. There are about 8,000 undergraduate students, and the acceptance rate is under 8%.