📝 Supplement Essay Tips

School-specific angles, do's and don'ts, and the insider framing for every Why Us, Why Major, and activity essay. Tailored to your target colleges and your actual profile.

Cornell University — Engineering
Prompt: Why Cornell Engineering? (250 words)
✓ Do this
• Name a specific professor and their research by title
• Reference a specific course sequence or dual-degree option
• Connect your EC work (robotics, research) to something Cornell-specific
• Mention the Engineering Learning Community by name if relevant
✗ Avoid
• 'Cornell's beautiful campus and Ivy League prestige…'
• Vague references to 'diverse student body' or 'world-class faculty'
• Repeating your main essay themes
• Describing Cornell as a 'well-rounded' school
Key angle: The strongest Cornell Engineering Why Us essays show intellectual depth specific to a department — not general school enthusiasm. Mention a specific class (e.g. 'ECE 3150 Microelectronics'), a named lab, or a project team.
Georgetown University — SFS
Prompt: Why Georgetown SFS? (500 words)
✓ Do this
• Engage with Georgetown's Jesuit mission — 'women and men for others' — authentically
• Reference a specific Georgetown professor's published work you've read
• Connect your international experience or language study to SFS specifically
• Name a specific concentration: BSFS in International Politics, IPOL, CULP
✗ Avoid
• Claim you want to 'change the world' without specifics
• Focus on Washington DC location as the primary draw
• Ignore the Jesuit identity entirely
• Write generically about international relations as a field
Key angle: Georgetown SFS students say the school wants people who care about service, not just career. The essay that stands out shows you've wrestled with a real-world policy problem and connects it to something Georgetown-specific.
MIT — Any department
Prompt: Why MIT? (100 words) — It's short. Make every word count.
✓ Do this
• Be hyper-specific: lab name, course number, specific research group
• Show you've done your homework beyond the website
• Use your 100 words entirely on MIT — don't re-introduce yourself
• End with something that sounds like YOU, not a template
✗ Avoid
• 'MIT's collaborative culture and UROP opportunities…' (every applicant writes this)
• Use more than 1-2 sentences on the same theme
• Start with 'Since I was young…'
• Waste words on filler like 'I believe' or 'I feel'
Key angle: MIT reads tens of thousands of Why Us essays. Anything generic is instantly forgettable. The ones that work read like they could only have been written by one person, about one specific thing at MIT.
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