How To Write The Vanderbilt Supplemental Essay

Vanderbilt is 1 of the Usa' highest-ranked colleges. With an acceptance rate of simply seven percent, information technology'due south ranked every bit extremely competitive. It'due south no surprise—Vanderbilt is known for having a wealth of appealing programs, including its schoolhouse of medicine, the Peabody College of Didactics and Human Evolution, and Blair School of Music.

Considering it's extremely competitive, you'll need to set yourself apart as a prospective student. That doesn't hateful only your grades and impressive extracurriculars; information technology besides means writing a killer essay to become along with your application.

In this guide, we'll tell you everything you need to know nearly Vanderbilt'south supplemental essay, including some platonic topics, some pitfalls to avoid, and fifty-fifty some analysis of past Vanderbilt essays that have worked.

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The Vanderbilt Supplement Nuts

Vanderbilt's application is fairly straightforward. They accept multiple application formats, including both the Mutual and Coalition Applications, equally well as Questbridge.

What application you utilize is upward to yous. There are many reasons to choose one or the other, just regardless of which application you lot pick, you'll nevertheless be writing simply 1 supplemental essay prompt from Vanderbilt. Choose whichever application works best for y'all.

In add-on to the essays required for your Common, Coalition, or Questbridge Awarding, Vanderbilt requires one supplemental essay. There are 2 promp ts to choose from; y'all'll select ane to respond to in a short respond essay of no more than 250 words.

However, having merely one supplemental essay ways that you lot'll need to put a lot of attention into making your essay equally good as it can be. You simply have one take a chance to prove yourself in your essay, so make it count!

A little latte art never hurts.

What Are the Vanderbilt Supplement Essay Prompts?

Vanderbilt has 2 prompts for their supplemental essay. You'll be asked to select i and respond to it in 250 words or less. The prompts are as follows:

Vanderbilt University values learning through contrasting points of view. We empathize that our differences, and our respect for alternative views and voices, are our greatest source of strength. Please reflect on conversations yous've had with people who have expressed viewpoints different from your own. How did these conversations/experiences influence you?

Vanderbilt offers a customs where students find balance between their academic and social experiences. Please briefly elaborate on how one of your extracurricular activities or piece of work experiences has influenced you lot.

Each prompt asks you to describe and reflect on a different aspect of your experiences and values, so nosotros'll interruption downwards how to respond them individually.

Supplemental Prompt #one: Diversity

Vanderbilt University values learning through contrasting points of view. We sympathise that our differences, and our respect for alternative views and voices, are our greatest source of strength. Please reflect on conversations yous've had with people who have expressed viewpoints different from your own. How did these conversations/experiences influence you?

In this prompt, Vanderbilt is request you to describe how you interact with and learn from people who are unlike from yourself . College campuses are diverse communities filled with people of different races, ethnicities, nationalities, and religious and political beliefs. This essay is your chance to show Vanderbilt that yous're the kind of student who's open to learning from and with people from many different backgrounds–and that y'all'll be kind and empathetic in the process.

To answer this question, call back of a specific conversation (or serial of conversations) you've had with a person or grouping who expressed views that are different from your ain. You'll desire to tell a compelling story about the experience, so try to remember details similar how the conversation started, why the people involved felt invested in the conversation, what the outcome was, and, nearly importantly, how you were influenced past the conversation.

Rather than giving a play-by-play, "they said/I said" of the chat, focus on describing how you and the other people involved expressed yourselves and treated each other. Did you accept a shouting lucifer in the hallway at school, then apologize later considering you lot realized that yelling isn't a good way to express your views? Did you take a heartfelt, bawling conversation wherein you finally came to sympathise someone you've been at odds with for years? And most important of all, how did yous come to these realizations, and how have they affected who you are and how y'all care for people who are different from you today?

Recollect to keep your essay focused on the people involved in the conversation, how you treated each other, and how you were affected past the interaction. This essay isn't the identify to harp on how you were right and you totally owned your opponent with your awesome debate skills. Instead, Vanderbilt wants to run into that you can appoint civilly and empathetically with people who are different from you lot–and that you're open to learning new things from others. Afterwards all, learning and growing with people from different backgrounds is a key role of the college experience.

Supplemental Prompt #2: Extracurricular Activities

Vanderbilt offers a community where students find balance between their bookish and social experiences. Please briefly elaborate on how ane of your extracurricular activities or work experiences has influenced you.

The question is straightforward—Vanderbilt is asking you to discuss one of your extracurriculars in depth. This doesn't just demonstrate to the admissions office that you're dedicated to your interest, but besides that you have passions exterior of school. Vanderbilt wants to know that y'all'll bring something besides academics to campus, and this is the space to tell them about information technology.

Keep in mind that Vanderbilt isn't looking for a list of activities or just a short discussion of ane of your extracurriculars. They specifically enquire for one, but you have 250 words to encompass—which means y'all should spend some fourth dimension unpacking not simply the activity itself, just why yous do it and why it matters to you lot. Be thoughtful; really retrieve near your activities and why you lot exercise them across that they expect practiced on your college application.

Don't just pick the extracurricular activity that you call up Vanderbilt would want to hear about. If you're a champion Mathlete but you really feel fulfilled when you're making short films with your friends over the weekend, you should be writing about the short films. If your short movie was played at a local film festival but y'all discover more significant in the time y'all spend knitting, write almost knitting!

It'south not about being impressive hither. Plenty of other applicants will exist discussing their charity work or science team victories. Use this space to hash out yourself, and why the things you do matter to you. If the nigh impressive thing in your repertoire and the thing that's most personally meaningful line up, great! But don't feel like you tin can only write about things like academic success, leadership roles, or entrepreneurship. Write about what's meaningful to you lot and Vanderbilt will see your personality—which is actually what they're looking for—smooth through.

Reading Vanderbilt essays that worked is like planting a seed for your own success.

Vanderbilt Essays That Worked: Assay

To give you a sense of what an effective Vanderbilt supplemental essay looks like, we tracked down an example of a successful Vanderbilt essay.

Continue in mind that this is a response to an older prompt. However, it still gives y'all a good idea of what admissions counselors are looking for in a thoughtful response. Consider this essay from an admitted Vanderbilt student:

Please briefly elaborate on one of your extracurricular activities or work experiences. (150-400 words).While all my extracurricular activities have helped me shape my values, there is one in particular I have enjoyed the well-nigh: picking tangerines from my grandmother's orchard. Picking tangerines was often to me simply a burden. I had to wake upward at vi every Sabbatum and drive 50 miles to assist my grandmother reap good tangerines. On the whole ride I would think to myself: I would rather be reading poetry and ponder upon ways to modify the world. Equally far as I was concerned, reaping tangerines was not going to help me do so. The orchard belonged to my grandmother, who to relieve money had to "hire" me and my mom. In that location was no wage; the only working benefit was beingness able to taste a few fresh tangerines for free. At age xiii, such benefit was enough. At seventeen, I was not so sure if it was. Working at the orchard usually involved scratches, itching, worms, climbing up the ladder, getting hurt, and demanding, long hours of physical labor.

Only as I worked through the years with tangerines, I began to recognize all the beauty my labor had. Everything in the orchard began telling their own stories. A tiny, pruned tree took pride in its small fruition, all the while a chunky tree demanded attention for its crooked children. Their offspring–tangerines–told by their taste who their copse were; some of them edgy, some of them warm, and some of them implicitly aroused. Bugs would tell me which tree needs my help. No tree is without a promise. Within a few days of assistance, all the copse fought back those tiny enemies and always claimed victory. They became ever more proud, stronger, and complete. Enemies came back; but this time the trees didn't demand my help. Some tangerines would get bad–in extreme cases would give up under negligence. We grieve. Simply we simply bear on. We learn to proceed more advisedly, and we let go.

The orchard is for me a story of life–human life. It makes all the complications of our lives more simple, easier to grasp, and more than available at my tongue, hands and feet. So equally of correct at present, my Saturday is always booked for the orchard. I hope by next year this fourth dimension around, yet, my orchard will be at Vanderbilt.

This essay was successful--the bidder was accepted at Vanderbilt! The fact that it was successful shows you that it contains features that Vanderbilt likes to see.

The writer of this essay discusses the anarchistic "education" they received while working in their grandmother's tangerine orchard. This topic is striking because it's an extracurricular/work experience that few other applicants have likely had. The bidder'south creative estimation of "extracurricular activities or work experience" from the prompt makes their essay stand out from others that talk over more common experiences.

Not everybody had this same experience, but that doesn't hateful that yous tin't utilise some of the same ideas in your own work. The writer draws a clear line between their feel working the orchard and the person they are at present—you lot could do a similar matter by connecting the person you are with the activity you've called to write about. What accept you lot learned nearly yourself because of what you do?

The writer is also able to connect what they learned through working the orchard to the kind of student they will be at Vanderbilt. Past cartoon an analogy between the tangerine trees and the challenges nosotros go through in life, the bidder conveys their core values. More than importantly, they write about where those values come up from—something you could easily do past referencing the importance of the activeness you choose.

What's most of import to accept abroad from this essay is the way that the author connects the experience of working the orchard to the person they became. No matter what your instruction was or what activeness you choose to write about, you can practice a like thing in your own essay!

Don't be afraid of multiple drafts—they make the difference between a good essay and a neat one.

v Key Tips for Writing Your Vanderbilt Essay

Vanderbilt is a prestigious school, simply there are some essay standards that hold true no thing where you lot're applying. Follow these steps to write an essay that's sure to print!

#1: Showtime Writing

Starting is the footstep that sounds the easiest, merely it's actually the hardest. No thing what you have to practice to showtime writing, whether it's freewriting, brainstorming, or just pumping out a first typhoon as fast as you can, you need to do it. At this signal, don't worry most quality or being impressive. Just get words down on paper and so that you can edit them into shape afterward—if you lot spend too much time worrying about starting with a perfect beginning, you'll never arrive past that point.

#2: Edit

Step two is when you can start worrying nearly quality. Read your essay aloud and see if you can spot problems with give-and-take choice and flow. If you're struggling to read it, change words and add together punctuation as necessary.

Also think most your overall betoken. Does it make sense? Are you able to trace your logic all the way through without a trouble? If not, detect ways to connect your thoughts from commencement to cease.

Be thorough in cut extraneous words. 250 words isn't a lot, and you'll want to brand sure y'all're making your essay count by picking vibrant, active verbs and clear linguistic communication. Don't worry nearly being flowery or busting out the thesaurus, but do be sure that your diction doesn't experience tired or wearisome.

#3: Seek Feedback

I of the all-time ways to notice holes in your logic or other issues in your essay is to go others to give you feedback. Observe people who want to see you succeed, but preferably not those who aren't going to give you criticism if you need it. Teachers and other mentors are a expert pick, if they're bachelor.

Don't feel like yous have to use every slice of feedback you receive, but do consider all of it. Your essay should e'er be your own work, so effort to rephrase suggestions in your own words or rewrite confusing passages how you would write them, not how others advise.

#four: Take a Break

With deadlines looming and other essays to write, information technology may be tempting to simply rush through after getting feedback and fix everything. But take some time away from your essay, focusing on other college application duties or on other things entirely. Anywhere from a couple days to weeks to months tin can exist skilful for improving your essay, though practice exit yourself fourth dimension to revise.

Taking a break lets your mind forget what you've already written, so that when y'all come back to revise you practice so with fresh eyes. This way, you can see holes in your logic or places where your language isn't equally tight as it could be. You'll never be able to completely shed your zipper to your essay, merely spending some time away from it can give you lot a whole new outlook on your work!

#5: Revise

Now that you've had some time away and y'all have notes to incorporate, it'south time to revise. Revision tin can exist something you practise multiple times, combing through your essay for errors and places to strengthen it, just eventually you are going to have to turn information technology in. Don't become defenseless up in perfection—focus on making your essay the best you tin. Check it for spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors to exist certain it's clean and piece of cake to read, and send it off!

What'south Adjacent?

Starting your essay is oftentimes the hardest part. If you're unsure where to begin, bank check out this guide to starting a college essay perfectly, and don't be afraid to just dive correct in!

A good essay is just one part of a successful Vanderbilt application. If yous want to actually wow the admissions office, be sure your grades and exam scores are up to snuff, too!

Vanderbilt University may non be an Ivy League school, but that doesn't mean your awarding can't be Ivy League-fix. Use these tips for getting into Harvard to shape your higher application, and you'll have no problem getting into any school you cull!

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About the Author

Melissa Brinks graduated from the University of Washington in 2014 with a Bachelor'due south in English with a creative writing emphasis. She has spent several years tutoring K-12 students in many subjects, including in Sabbatum prep, to help them gear up for their higher teaching.

Source: https://blog.prepscholar.com/vanderbilt-supplement-essay

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