Davidson College is an elite, small liberal arts college located in Davidson (original), North Carolina, about 30 minutes from Charlotte. Side note, North Carolina’s kinda got some banger colleges (UNC, Wake Forest, Duke). Anyways, with under 2,000 undergrads, you can imagine that Davidson is hard to get into – they boast a 14% acceptance rate. That means you need to do everything you can to write amazing supplements to help you stand out among the crowd.

It’s also important to have a Common App that stands out, too. We help students with their Common App essay, their activities section, and, if needed, the additional information section every year.

Davidson only has two supplements, both fairly straightforward. Let’s get into it!

Prompt 1: There are just under 4,000 4-year colleges and universities in the United States. Being as specific as possible, what interests you most about Davidson College (250-300 words)? 

Davidson is asking the most quintessential, perhaps basic (sorry) college essay question out there. The Why This College essay is asked by most schools, which can be annoying for you as the applicant. But it also means there’s a pretty easy way to approach these essays. For the sake of this essay, you will want to declare a major. Don’t worry, you’re allowed to change it! They’re not going to print this out and interrogate you if you change your major down the road.

You want to start by telling your reader your backstory, how you came to be passionate about your chosen academic topic. If you’re majoring in English Lit, for example, you might want to talk about how you would stay up super late, sneak a flashlight into your room, and read books under the covers, and then how that love of reading led you to start a literary magazine at your school. Which of course, is why you want to study English Lit. Backstory!

Next, you want to provide Davidson with evidence. This evidence proves why Davidson is the only possible school for you and it proves you’ve done your research on Davidson. You will want to dive into their course catalog and find two upper-level (!!!) classes to write about. The classes should be upper-level because every school has introductory classes, you want to choose ones that draw upon Davidson’s unique expertise. When you write about these courses, you can’t just say “it’s interesting,” because that has like, no juice to it at all. You need to write about why they’re interesting – like that class on Mark Twain sounds cool because you have always enjoyed satire and want to learn more about how his background influenced his writing. After you pull in classes, you’ll want to find a professor you’d want to work with or research with and do the same thing. Their interest area should be tied to your interest area, or could help you expand upon your interests, and same thing here, you’ll write about why rather than just saying they’re cool.

After that, you will talk about extracurriculars you’d want to engage in at Davidson. These should also be related to things you’ve already done – it won’t make a ton of sense if you’re going to join a Women in STEM club if you’re a) not a woman in STEM and b) never did anything like that before. It’s also important to note that Davison cares a lot about , so it might behoove you to incorporate those themes into the extracurriculars you choose to write about.

With only 250-300 words, you don’t have a ton of space to just write to your heart’s content, but you have enough space to hit all the major points. 

Prompt 2: Davidson encourages students to explore curiosities in and out of the classroom. What is a topic, activity or idea that excites you? Tell us why. Examples may include hobbies, books, interactions, music, podcasts, movies, etc. (250-300 words)*

This question might seem similar to prompt 1 on the surface, but we beg you, do not write about the academic topic you’re writing about above. We know it is easy to fall into that trap, but instead, use this prompt to tell them something new about yourself! That also means not writing about anything in your activities section (sorry). A few other colleges like to ask this question. The UCs have a prompt like this, Harvard asks a similar question, and one of the Tufts prompts asks this too. We linked those so you can see some of our advice for those, but we’re also going to get into it here.

What Davidson wants to see here is what makes you unique, how you think about things, and what you’re excited about. Basically, what makes you you, you know? Like we said, you want to get a little creative with it here, put a lil bit of swag on it, have some fun. It’s better to talk about things you haven’t mentioned anywhere else on your application, because it shows you have intellectual curiosity beyond the confines of a classroom.

Also, “topic, activity, or idea,” doesn’t need to just be academic. Almost anything can be intellectually stimulating. You don’t want to be unprofessional with it, but this is a place to show personality. Sure, you can write about how you got really into the robotics team even though you’re a history nerd, but you can also write about pop culture. They mention “hobbies, books, interactions, music, podcasts, movies, etc.” in their prompt, so you don’t need to shy away. Maybe you got really into Crystal Castles and American Apparel and Skins (the UK version, ofc) because of some TikTok videos about indie sleaze (also, this was our heyday, btw) and became obsessed with learning how it developed as a response to the financial instability of the late 00s.

Basically, this is a prompt to loosen up a bit. Maybe you have a hobby you got really analytical about, like bird watching (RIP Flaco the Owl), or cooking, or you’ve developed some sort of algorithm to track sports statistics because you were absolutely NOT going to lose fantasy football this year. Walk us through your last Wikipedia rabbit hole or that time you watched every single Wes Anderson movie because you got really into set design.

Once you have an idea, tell us the story. All good non-Why-This-College essays tell a story. Drop us into the middle of that Wiki rabbit hole, or set the scene with the first time you heard “Dance Yrself Clean” by LCD Soundsystem. Walk us through how you discovered your thing, how you learned everything you could about it, and how you use what you’ve learned in the now.

Prompt 3: If you would like to submit your resume (optional), please do so here.

Duh, please do this. If you don’t have a resume, make one (handy guide here). There is no such thing as optional in college applications. With an acceptance rate like that, you need to take every opportunity to set yourself apart. Also, especially if you’re a student (like most of our clients) who has one zillion activities and could only choose 10 for the activities section, this is your place to include the ones that broke your heart to take off and expand on the ones where 150 characters didn’t cut it.

Now you have everything you need to create the perfect Davidson supplement. Best of luck!

Need help with your Davidson app? We got you, reach out today.