Why do you want to go to school here? If there’s one prompt you are certain to write more than once, it’s this one. This prompt comes in a few different flavors, but at the end of the day, they all want to know why their school is the perfect school for you and why you’re the perfect student for them. No pressure or anything.
Here are some examples of how schools ask this question; they range from just academics to culture to all-encompassing:
Duke:
What is your sense of Duke as a university and a community, and why do you consider it a good match for you? If there's something in particular about our offerings that attracts you, feel free to share that as well.
How do you hope to use your Harvard education in the future?
Columbia (they ask it twice!):
Why are you interested in attending Columbia University? We encourage you to consider the aspect(s) that you find unique and compelling about Columbia.
And
What attracts you to your preferred areas of study at Columbia Engineering? or What attracts you to your preferred areas of study at Columbia College? (depending on the college you’re applying to)
Why are you interested in the major you indicated as your first-choice major?
In addition, we will ask all applicants to complete this sentence in 100 words or less:
“I am applying to Tufts because…”
As you can see, this question might be worded in many different ways, or they might have slightly different focuses. Some are long, some are short. But they all ultimately want to know why you’re drawn to their school and how their school can help you accomplish your goals.
AND!! If you’re applying to schools without a supplement (like Bates, Middlebury, or Northeastern for example), we strongly recommend sending them an email that is, essentially, a why essay.
So, how do you write a why essay?
The Formula
The Why essay can be broken down into a few distinct parts, and we promise that if you hit these points, you’ll have a strong essay. Think about this essay as an argumentative essay, where the thesis is “lemme in!!!”
1. Origin Story
This is the why behind your major: your lightbulb moment, the time you realized you were passionate about this topic. If you want to study chemistry, maybe it’s the backyard experiments you used to do with your dad. If it’s engineering, you’d talk about building legos all the live long day. If it’s English, maybe you stayed up all night reading as a kid. It doesn’t need to be a childhood passion either – it could be a lecture you heard in class or a conversation you had with an adult that made you explore something deeper.
1a. Declare Major
If you don’t have a major decided, tough luck, you’re gonna have to pick one. “But, but, but… I don’t know what I want to study!” We get it, most of y’all don’t, but for the sake of college applications, you need to pick a major you are genuinely interested in. Totally lost? Look at your resume and find a major that connects the dots between your extracurriculars.
You’ll end your origin story with something along the lines of “That thing I just mentioned is why I want to study Major at University of College.”
2. Provide Evidence
Time to do some research! Your goal here is to prove to the admissions officer reading your essay that you have looked into their school, know what they can offer you, and how you see these things helping you achieve your goals. Go into the school’s course catalog and search the classes for the major you’re applying to and choose a few you’d want to take. Longer essays mean more classes, really short ones may only have space for one or two. Avoid intro level classes, since almost all schools offer Intro to Bio or American Government. You want to choose classes that fit into what you told them in your origin story, if possible, so if you talked about your love of Victorian-Era literature, you probably wouldn’t take a class on the Great American Novel. Now, explain to them why you like this class. Do not just say it’s cool – talk about why it’s interesting, what it can teach you, or what kinds of skills you’re excited to gain from the class.
Next, you’ll go to the faculty page for the college/department. You want to find a professor doing research in your interest area (most of them have this in their bios on the faculty page) and talk about how you want them to be your mentor, how you want to join their lab, how you want to be their TA, how you want to do research with them, etc. Make sure you’re doing the same level of why you did for classes, no saying Professor XYZ’s “vibes are right,” or whatever. The professor does not need to teach the classes that you pulled above, but they can be the same if you want or if you’re very limited on space.
3. Extracurriculars
You want to talk about how you’d plug in outside of the classroom. For Why prompts that focus solely on academics, these should be academic extracurriculars like clubs, honors societies, specialized study abroad programs, labs, lecture series, etc. Write about how these things will enrich your experience and help you, again, achieve your goals!
For more broad Why prompts, you might want to include some academic extracurriculars, but you also can talk about the cultural things you’re excited about, but they can’t be out of left field. The activities you choose should be in line with the activities you’ve already done in high school, so if you did Yearbook in high school, joining the school paper or literary magazine isn’t a crazy stretch. If you played hockey all four years, maybe you want to join the club team! If you had a community service org you were really involved in, find something similar at the school and talk about joining their team. It’s also okay to lean into a school’s culture: if it’s a big sports school, you can write about being excited to go to games, or if it’s in a unique location (think Tulane and New Orleans), tell them how you can’t wait to take advantage of that.
Also, some schools have things they’re very, very proud of, and you should absolutely write about them. Some examples: Dartmouth’s D-Plan, Rice’s Residential System, Colorado College’s Block Plan, Columbia’s core, Northeastern’s co-op programs, NYU’s global campuses.
4. Conclusion (sometimes)
If you’re writing a really long why essay, like Cornell’s or Michigan’s, you may want to have a little conclusion sentence summing up all the reasons you’re excited to go to this school and how you can’t wait to be a Wolverine or Bear or whatever. Not all of them will call for this.
And that’s the why essay! We have guides on how to write tons of these, so if there’s one that has a twist that throws you off, check our blog for guidance. Otherwise, best of luck!
Need help with your why essays? Reach out to us today.