Personal Essay and Short Answer Prompts,Personal Essay Prompts
WebPlease select one of the following short answer prompts in approximately words:* Vanderbilt offers a community where students find balance between their academic and WebWriting Application Essays. In an effort to make our handouts more accessible, we have begun converting our PDF handouts to web pages. Download this page as a PDF: WebThey have two potential prompts, each of which with a word limit; you may answer one of them. While Vanderbilt is not as famous as many Ivy League schools, it is still a WebAug 3, · August 3, College Essay. With an acceptance rate of just 6% for the entering class, Vanderbilt has become one of the more selective schools in the WebAug 26, · How to Write the Vanderbilt University Essay Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN, is a selective research university that comprises three ... read more
Why should the committee select you? Try to show how events in your life have led you to pursue this step and how it will help you further your personal and professional goals. This handout was adapted from the Vanderbilt Office of Honors Scholarships, DePauw and Duke University Writing Centers, and scholarshiphelp. In order to access certain content on this page, you may need to download Adobe Acrobat Reader or an equivalent PDF viewer software. Writing Application Essays In an effort to make our handouts more accessible, we have begun converting our PDF handouts to web pages. Download this page as a PDF: Writing Application Essays Return to Writing Studio Handouts Although writing application essays can be daunting, you do not have to have saved the world or cured cancer to write a good personal statement.
Below you will find a set of question that effective application essays will take into account. Questions to Take into Account for Your Application Essay What is the prompt asking? For whom am I writing? How will this opportunity help me get where I want to go? Personal Essay Prompts To help us get to know you in the application review process, you are required to submit a personal essay. Common Application essay prompts Coalition, powered by Scoir essay prompts. Short Answer Question To give us a glimpse into how you engage with your community, we ask you to complete a short answer essay approximately words based on one of two prompts. Vanderbilt University values learning through contrasting points of view.
We understand that our differences, and our respect for alternative views and voices, are our greatest source of strength. Vanderbilt offers a community where students find balance between their academic and social experiences. While Vanderbilt is not as famous as many Ivy League schools, it is still a premier institution, and is very proud of its academic prowess and accomplishments. They are looking for dedicated and intelligent students, who are eager to learn and participate in the campus community, and who will contribute positively, both to the campus culture, and the world at large. Please briefly elaborate on one of your extracurricular activities or work experiences. There are more things on heaven and earth than I dream of in my philosophy, any one of which could have provoked the error message that snickered at me as I faced my nascent Hurricane Harvey Rescue coordination system.
Everything seemed in order, but none of the functionality — posting locations for rescue, marking rescues as completed — was working. After sifting through the backend PHP, I arrived at the paradoxically frustrating conclusion that everything was perfectly fine. Could the server itself be the problem? Putting hubris aside, I gave them a call. The first employee to answer had no intention of complicating his night with an intricate problem that could disappear with a dial tone. Next try, I reframed. I reached Ryan, who like me, codes in his spare time. Also like me, he realized the best weapon against terrifyingly enormous problems is a new paradigm.
Our conventional philosophies of life and coding cast aside, we found together what I could not find alone. At 4am, we launched. That night, I refined my philosophy. I learned that the world itself is malleable. It was about having the courage to find new approaches. With hours left and water rising, dreaming new things into my philosophy saved over Houstonians. That night, seeing the world as something to be molded by my hands confirmed that I need to attend Vanderbilt, where I can truly shape the future. The first thing to note is the word count of the essay.
You have anywhere from to words to tell this story with. Even in a longer essay, however, every word used should be put in with purpose. This is an incredibly open ended question. This makes it very easy to reuse other essays you have written which discuss a value you exemplified through your experience in an extracurricular activity. If you wrote a community or leadership essay which centers around one of your extracurriculars, this is a good place to reuse it. If you do reuse an essay, you should make sure it fulfills the prompt. Just copy and pasting an essay from another school can work, but adding more details to fill out the word count is recommended. Also, showing other values beyond the main one adds more depth.
Vanderbilt only asks for the one essay, so you need to say as much as possible with it. In the essay above, the author relates a number of their values, and new things they learned. They demonstrate their speed and skill as a coder, and their care for their community. They show their humility in a willingness to ask for help, and admitting that they do not know all the answers. Finally, they learn that sometimes there is a solution beyond the obvious, and it requires looking at a problem in a different light to uncover the best way forward. The last sentence is not strictly necessary, but does a nice job tying the essay to Vanderbilt specifically. While the specific values you choose to include can be different, the overall goal of the essay is to show who you are as a person, and how that will contribute positively to Vanderbilt.
So be bold and show Vanderbilt your curiosities, your communities, and your ways of working with a pool of diverse thinkers! Want to get a better sense of what Vanderbilt is looking for? For deep insights into how this private research university envisions its role and how it wants to grow and evolve, read its academic strategic plan for the next five years it even has its own website! Reading through this will give you a strong idea of what Vanderbilt values. What resonates with you? Keep reading to find out how you can connect the dots. Your most impressive activity may not always make for the best essay. Notice, too, that the prompt asks you to reflect on how your work or extracurricular activity has influenced you.
This means you will want to pick an activity that has helped shape one of your core values or interests. Take a look at your Common App essay and make sure to avoid too much overlap. Also remember that your activities will be in the activities list with descriptions. Go to your Common App activities list and pick possible topics. This will help you decide which topic might yield the most content for your essay. This connection might be a nice way of wrapping up your essay. Write a draft! To guide you, each of those columns could provide a sentence or two of your first draft that you can tweak later.
I used to imagine my future as a pediatrician in an office decorated with bright posters and knick-knacks. Although I am still excited for that, lately, I also picture myself conducting research. I recently had the opportunity to intern at the Behavioral Psychopharmacology Research Lab at McLean Hospital, where I helped with studies focused on treating alcoholism. On my first day, my mentor gave me a list of spreadsheets filled with data. Each study required multiple types of data, some of which was collected by sensors on wristwatches and some of which was handwritten in journals. My job was to process the raw data into something more readable.
As the days went on, I became more familiar with my task until eventually, I was processing data for three of the four RAs in the lab. A few days later, I was tasked with a new job: organizing potential subjects. I ranked them in order of most eligible to least, based on factors such as their alcohol and drug habits, body measurements, and proximity to our lab. As I watched a research subject drink significantly less alcohol than before, I realized the impact that my spreadsheets might have. The experiment happening right in front of me could help people gain more control over their lives by relearning how to live without alcohol. At the Lamb Center for Pediatric Research, which focuses primarily on infectious diseases, I could gain more experience working with children and how diseases affect them differently.
At Vanderbilt, where academic opportunities are as plentiful as the trees, I will gain the exposure I need to help develop a better world for future generations. Be specific about the how and why. Demonstrate your unique expertise and values. Starting off with a description of where she started processing raw data and upping the ante by showing how she quickly became an expert, exceeding the capabilities of others on the team without being a jerk , reveals some impressive values: adaptability, critical thinking, diligence, and a willingness to learn. Question: Do you really need to include all these classes?
Why not! One of your goals here is to get the admissions reader to imagine you at Vanderbilt. Adding details like these will make your essay that much more specific and, hey, our 1 comment to students is to be more specific! Despite my interest in pursuing a career in medicine, I secretly love marketing. Stephens, but failed to grasp authentic campus life in the short time I had to talk to my student host. Stephens would have the close-knit community I craved. I immediately joined Key Society to improve the tour for prospective students, but soon realized it was impossible to have real conversations in brief passing periods between classes. What if shadows had more meaningful time with students and could actually imagine themselves on campus from the photos online?
My connections with prospective students have certainly made a lasting impact on me, which is why I want to continue this type of work at Vanderbilt through joining the AmbassaDors program, where I can learn more about the university, meet members of the Vanderbilt community, and hone communication skills imperative not to my success as an AmbassaDor but also to my future career in public health. Vanderbilt will give me the opportunity to become involved in organizations like Volunteers for Health, where I can use the leadership skills I have acquired through my work in Key Society to start working directly with people in the healthcare field and begin pursuing a career in Public Health. Moreover, Heal VU and Partners in Health Engage will allow me to marry my interests in health advocacy and marketing.
Use an unexpected transition to engage the reader. Many essays discuss common activities baseball in common ways learning the value of hard work. To stand out, consider using the element of surprise. Explain how you solved a problem: Just like in the first essay example, this student tells us about joining Key Society and how she contributed. But what is your legacy? What is it? Here are some more tips for your extracurricular activity essay, either for Vanderbilt or for other schools:. Try to tie the extracurricular activity or work experience of choice back to a specific value in your life. Rather than just state what you did point-blank, make it resonate for the reader by connecting it to some aspect of what makes you, well, you. This just makes things more engaging and dynamic overall.
Then, tell us what you did about it. Then what you learned. Write it long first, then cut it. In our experience, this tends to be easier than writing a very short version and then trying to figure out what to add. You want to connect your time and energy to a meaningful outcome. This prompt is asking you to think about how you communicate with others who have different viewpoints than you. In order to answer this prompt, you will first want to brainstorm specific scenarios where you were in a conversation or interaction with someone who had a differing view.
It might be helpful to set a time for this try 20 minutes at first! Also consider experiences where you were a part of a group that might have been divided due to opposing views. For each instance, write down the differing opinions, what instigated the discussion, how you handled it, and especially what you learned. Per the prompt, also consider how acknowledging these differences has made you and those around you stronger. Brainstorming Tip: As you begin to brainstorm potential topics, consider both serious and playful options. While this essay could be about political or religious viewpoints, it could also be about the strong differing opinions you and your friends have on your go-to fast-food order though if you go with something more playful, the lessons you draw will probably need to be profound.
Maintain focus. This kind of essay should focus on how differences have shaped and strengthened you, not on the specific opinions themselves. As you write about people with differing opinions, especially those with ones that might make you heated, make sure you write about them maintaining a level of respect. You will always come across best in the essay if you write with a level of kindness! Anger can of course still exist in the essay, but it should also be met with some component of understanding or self-reflection. The past few years have demonstrated a rift between perspectives present throughout the nation, and my Spanish class perfectly demonstrated this.
Once during a group discussion, someone shared a cartoon in which a certain elected official with a certain style of hair who lives in a certain house was drawn as an infant. This led to a heated argument. Some of us found it relatively humorous, while others were offended, claiming the political caricature was a form of bullying. As the quarreling continued, the focus on the image waned. For a while, I just attributed this to differences of opinion. But once members of the group began avoiding each other, I noticed the resentment over who had or had not chuckled at the simply-drawn lines of the cartoon had led to another drawing: that of deep divisions between friends.
There seemed to be a lack of ear-lending and little fact-based explanations shared as to why others were perceived as wrong. When we revisited this incident in our next discussion, I realized education is different from indoctrination. Explaining something to demonstrate why a certain belief is not a fact is different from forcing someone to change their beliefs by belittling them. Though I considered myself a neutral party in this particular argument, I had taken a side internally. In the future, if I were to find myself in a similar situation, the first thing I would do is limit my bias by attempting to hear the rationale behind both sides before concluding that one is worse than the other.
There is power in neutrality. In the above essay, the writer keeps their own opinions on the matter to themselves, acting instead as more of an observer in the situation. This is effective because it keeps the focus of the essay on the rift between friends rather than the topic that divides them. If you are writing about a controversial topic like this one on a specific political figure, consider how the essay might read if you write with a more neutral eye. This can be useful if you are struggling to keep the essay focused on the conflict and its resolution, rather than you and your beliefs, or if you are unsure where you stand. Shape the conclusion with a realization. Because this prompt is interested in how your experiences have directly impacted you, make sure to dedicate a decent chunk of the essay to reflecting on your realization rather than just stating it.
Consider these questions: What did I believe before? What do I believe now? How has it been complicated? Look to the future. By considering how they might handle the same situation in the future, they are deliberately showing how their perspective and insight have grown. They are putting their realization into hypothetical practice. You can try this too! Imagine how you would handle the same experience differently and write a potential ending with this in mind.
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WebThey have two potential prompts, each of which with a word limit; you may answer one of them. While Vanderbilt is not as famous as many Ivy League schools, it is still a WebAs stated in the essay prompt, this is a simple chart listing your activities. Include only the activities related to the mission of the scholarship. Your complete activity chart from your WebAug 3, · August 3, College Essay. With an acceptance rate of just 6% for the entering class, Vanderbilt has become one of the more selective schools in the WebAug 26, · How to Write the Vanderbilt University Essay Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN, is a selective research university that comprises three WebWriting Application Essays. In an effort to make our handouts more accessible, we have begun converting our PDF handouts to web pages. Download this page as a PDF: WebPlease select one of the following short answer prompts in approximately words:* Vanderbilt offers a community where students find balance between their academic and ... read more
Things to Keep in Mind: Maintain focus. Close Menu Vanderbilt University. This service was invaluable in the knowledge that we gained throughout the process. How important are the Vanderbilt supplemental essays? Be specific about the how and why.
Vanderbilt University values learning through contrasting points of view. Things to Keep in Mind: Maintain focus. The truth is, vanderbilt admission essay prompt, although we don't always realize it, everyone has a unique story to tell. Could the server itself be the problem? What do I believe now?
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