While most schools require that you complete a supplement specific to their school, often in the format of an essay or series of essays, some schools offer a slightly different kind of supplement—an arts supplement detailing your interest and contribution to a certain creative field. Here’s what you need to know:
How to Write a 500-Word College Supplement
Ok! So we’ve covered 1-word answers, we’ve buzzed through 50-word ones, we’ve broken down the 250 crew, and now we’re in the final stretch of our Supplement Series: the 500(ish)-word answer. We’re adding ‘ish’, because (as you will see) these longer-form supplements have been known to range from 400 to a whopping 800 words, but the same strategy applies for all of them. Basically, each one of these is like a Common App essay where you don’t get to choose what you write about, but you should take it just as seriously. The awesome thing is that you are getting the intel on how to ace it from us, so they shouldn’t be a problem. If you want more, we even have college-specific posts that break down specific supplement questions, outlining our strategies for success! If we haven’t written a post on the supplement for a school you’re applying to, let us know. While the tips below will give you a firm foundation, we’d love to help you build an amazing application :)
How to Write a 250-word College Supplement
Welcome to the third part in our supplement series! We’ve covered 1-word answers, and 50-word answers, but most of the supplement questions come across fall into the 200-300 word range. Colleges like the 250(ish)-word length because it’s concise enough to be a quick read, but it gives the student enough space to either do a really good job or to raise some admissions red flags. We want you to do a really good job, so we’re here to help you out.
How to Write a 50-word College Supplement
Welcome to the second part in our four-part supplement series! We have a bunch of college-specific posts that dig into specific supplements, but we get a lot of questions from students about how to address the word limits in their supplements more generally, so we decided to dig in, go deep, and help you write the best supplements you possibly can.
How to Write a 1-Word College Supplement
Supplements are annoying, supplements are hard, and supplements are really important. Really important. REALLY important. The common app essay matters because it shows a school who you are, but the supplements show a school why you should matter to them specifically. Think about it like this, the common app is the present, and the supplements are the bow on the present. You can be a perfectly awesome present, sorry, applicant, without that bow, which is why some colleges go supplement-free, but having an awesome bow can cover up mistakes in the wrapping job. If that makes any sense...Anyways, the point is that we put a lot of emphasis on supplements because they are the thing that many students forget to set aside time for. Fall rolls around, school starts up again, things get lost in the shuffle, and the supplements end up rushed. Let’s not let that happen.
How to Write the Stanford "Short Essay" Supplement
We’ve already talked about how Stanford is hard to get into which makes your supplements matter a lot, and we’ve also broken down to the short answer questions for you, so we’re not going to repeat ourselves here except to say: your supplements matter a lot. The short essays are a key part of Stanford’s ‘weeding out’ process, and they have a knack for coming up with questions that elicit a reaction of “Only 250 words?!? That’s crazy!!” We promise you, they do it on purpose. By limiting you to 100-250 words, they force you to give more than a Miss America answer while still ensuring that you’d don’t have much space to get anything in.
How to Write the Stanford "Short Question" Supplements 2017
Stanford is hard to get into. With an acceptance rate hovering around 5%, applying to Stanford isn’t something anyone should be tackling on a whim. The ridiculous number of applications flooding in every year means that Stanford, like other elite schools, has had to develop a sorting process that helps them filter out people who aren’t a good fit quickly and find the people who are a good fit efficiently. The first level of the filter is, of course, academic standing. Having an outstanding GPA is crucial as are impressive test scores, but Stanford wants more than cookie cutter kids. Stanford’s supplements are intense because they care deeply about who a student is behind the manicured metrics. They are looking for specific things in each supplement that aid them in putting together a class of thinkers.
How to Write the Smith College Supplement
Smith College is an all-women’s college in Northampton, MA. It has about 2,500 undergraduates and is a part of the five-college consortium: Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and Smith. If you go to school at one of the colleges within the consortium, you can take classes relatively freely throughout all five.
How to Improve Your Extracurriculars if you are Applying to College Right Now
Let’s talk about Charles. He does a lot of extracurricular activities. His commitments include:
- Treasurer, Student government
- Volunteer Club committee
- Vice President of the Finance Club
- Soccer team
- Babysitter
How to Choose a Major for your College Application
Nearly every college supplement will include some question that basically amounts to “why do you want to go HERE?” Sometimes they will fancy it up to make it seem less harsh or direct, but it’s really just asking one thing: if you are qualified, and if we like the rest of your application, how would you make the most of your time at our school? The if’s are important because if you aren’t qualified and they don’t like your application, it really doesn’t matter how much you adore the work of that one professor in the English Department or how badly you want to walk onto the soccer team. However, if they are considering accepting you, answering this question correctly is crucial.
Deadlines For Seniors
Senior year is upon us. The main thing that we stress at TKG is that we never miss deadlines. They are critically important and essentially our central rule that guides everything that we do, both internally and with clients. There is no getting around deadlines. You can’t argue with Common App, College Board, or the colleges. You get your applications, testing, and submissions in on time or you don’t. It’s the only black and white part of the entire process. Kapish? With us? Fabulous.
Do I Have to Delete my Facebook and/or Instagram When I Apply to College?
When Do I Submit Standardized Test Scores?
We know--you have dozens of deadlines that you’re struggling to balance during this process. You have to get all of your forms in on time, write your essays, and on top of everything, you have to continue to exceed in school. One deadline that trips most people up is when to submit standardized test scores. We know you’re short on time, so here we are:
Should I Retake the SAT/ACT?
We have officially entered the period of the college admissions calendar lovely referred to as “the freakout months.” Ok, maybe only we call it that, but we think it’s a fitting name. Between now and December, things get real. Final test dates are fast approaching and application due dates are right around the corner. Students who promised themselves they’d work on their applications over the summer then spent the last few months goofing off realize that they are way behind, and even students who are on top of the ball start overthinking, nitpicking, and generally freaking out.
The Smartest Admission Strategy For Getting Into Your Reach School
Everyone wants to get into their reach school, but it’s called a reach school for a reason. It’s not a guarantee. And sometimes you might feel like you’re getting onto your tippy toes to get to a book even thinking about applying. That is why we’re here. We’ve helped so many students apply to their dream schools, and more than that, we’ve helped them come up with reaches they hadn’t previously considered. We want to give a rundown of what we’ve learned about how to get into your reach school(s). We advise all of our students to abide by the following 4 guiding principles when putting together their application and writing their essays:
How do you Write a College Essay Introduction?
How Important is Demonstrated Interest for College?
Should I do the Optional College Application Writing Supplement?
The college application process is long. It’s complicated at times, and it can be confusing. We totally get it. We’ve gone through it many times. By choice. It can be easy to breathe a sigh of relief when you’re applying to Hamilton (your third application this week) but then see that twinkling “This essay is optional” written at the top of the page. “Omg,” you think. “Dare I? I have SO many other essays to write that are all required and what difference is one little 250-word count essay going to make? I’ll just skip this one. I have to finish Bates tonight to stay on track so I’ll go do that instead.” Right? Time management and prioritization? Nope. Wrong. Sirens. Here’s why:
Why You Shouldn't Send Your Kid on a Community Service Trip for College
There are a lot of problems with short-term service trips, or voluntourism as it’s often called. There are social problems, there are economic problems, there are cultural problems, and there are problem problems, but none of those are the problems we’re going to talk about here. Analyzing the socio-political side effects of importing unskilled teens into impoverished countries with the (mis)intention of saving the day isn’t our specialty...or it isn’t here, at least. Our specialty is getting great kids into stellar colleges, and so we’re going to focus on why sending your kid on a service trip isn’t going to help make that happen.
The 10 Best Colleges for Extroverts
There are thousands of schools in the United States, and they’re pretty easy to sift through if you’re looking at binary determinators. Do they have an engineering program? Do they offer a study abroad program doing fieldwork in Madagascar? Do they have a themed living community for young men and women who wanted to be wizards but, after not receiving that invite to Hogwarts, have resigned themselves to a life in chemistry? All of those are important questions (they’re important for someone, ok, don’t judge), but they are also simple questions. They have yes or no answers.