If you’re planning on applying to Boston University, you’ll need to write one additional 300-word supplemental essay above and beyond your Common App Personal Statement. On its admissions page, Boston University stresses the importance of your essays to your application as being “an important part of your application because it gives you the chance to tell us your story as an applicant.” Read on to learn about what parts of your personal story you should include in your Boston University supplemental essays.
Boston University Supplemental Essay Prompts
For your Boston University supplemental essay, you will choose from one of two essay prompts that are both focused on the overarching theme of community:
Boston University is dedicated to our founding principles: “that higher education should be accessible to all and that research, scholarship, artistic creation, and professional practice should be conducted in the service of the wider community—local and international. These principles endure in the University’s insistence on the value of diversity in its tradition and standards of excellence and its dynamic engagement with the City of Boston and the world.”
With this mission in mind, please respond to one of the following two questions in 300 words or less:
1. Reflect on a social or community issue that deeply resonates with you. Why is it important to you, and how have you been involved in addressing or raising awareness about it?
2. What about being a student at BU most excites you? How do you hope to contribute to our campus community?
A Note on the Preamble
Don’t make the mistake of skimming over the preamble or skipping it altogether to jump straight to the prompts. Keep in mind that every part of a supplemental essay prompt matters and deserves your attention, including the preamble that sets the stage for the more detailed prompts.
Break apart the preamble to identify keywords and pieces of information that you can use to guide your essay, regardless of which prompt you choose to write on.
One keyword is diversity, which is highlighted as a university value in connection to educational access. Another keyword is community, which encompasses not only the local community of Boston but the global community as well. Service is a related keyword to community but important to highlight to understand the relationship that Boston University is trying to bring your attention to between community and service.
In other words, community service at local and global levels is something that Boston University deeply cares about, so you should too if Boston University is on your college list.
A final critical piece of information to take away from the preamble is the maximum word count of 300 words.
Writing the Boston University Supplemental Essays
The Boston University supplemental essays offer you an option of which prompt to respond to:
Boston University Supplemental Essay Prompt Option 1
After setting the stage with its preamble emphasizing the essay’s themes of diversity, community, and service, Boston University provides their first prompt option for you to consider for your supplemental essay:
Reflect on a social or community issue that deeply resonates with you. Why is it important to you, and how have you been involved in addressing or raising awareness about it?
Looking at this prompt, we can see the keyword community again front and center. The prompt encourages you to identify a community issue that is important to you (i.e., the what) and explain the reasons behind its personal importance (i.e., the why).
The how comes in as it relates to your community service. Even though service is not directly stated in the prompt, this keyword from the preamble underlies the latter of the prompt asking you to share how you’ve addressed or raised awareness about the community issue of your choice. This section of your essay should focus on providing concrete examples of actions you have taken to tackle the community issue you identified at the beginning of your essay. Doing so shows the reader that you translate your passions about the community issue to action.
When selecting your community issue, remember that the preamble mentioned community at the local and global level. While you may not have international experience addressing the issue or raising awareness about it, you might want to consider incorporating a global perspective when introducing your community issue and when reflecting on its personal importance to you.
For example, if your chosen community issue is food scarcity, you could acknowledge that you recognize that food scarcity is a global phenomenon and your actions volunteering at your local food pantry are one step towards combatting this issue.
Another element of the preamble to consider when picking your community issue is diversity. Think about whether there is a way that you can highlight the diversity in your chosen community issue. Be sure to mention what diverse population or populations are impacted by the community issue, such as groups defined by different socioeconomic status, race, gender, sexuality, geography, language, or disability. Emphasizing diversity in your response to this prompt will show readers how your values align with those of Boston University.
Boston University Supplemental Essay Prompt Option 2
If coming up with a community issue of personal importance that you’ve acted on is challenging for you, a second Boston University supplemental essay prompt option for you to consider is:
What about being a student at BU most excites you? How do you hope to contribute to our campus community?
This prompt option is broader than the first, but community and service are still there as anchoring themes that you’ll want to focus on in your essay. Similar to the first prompt, you’ll also want to write about your concrete actions, but this time in relation to something at Boston University that excites you.
To help you pick a school specific detail to focus on in this essay, review this blog post on the Why Us essay, which overlaps with the second Boston University supplemental essay prompt. Like a Why Us essay, you’ll need to do your research on student life at Boston University and spell out for the reader one thing that you’re most excited about.
Maybe it’s a specific class, professor, research lab, student organization or club. Whatever you pick, try to select something that is unique to Boston University that you wouldn’t be able to find on any other campus. For example, do not say that you’re most excited about taking the Introduction to Psychology course at BU, because practically every college or university offers a similar class.
After you’ve landed on your ‘Why Us’ detail, the heart of this essay is focused on communicating your campus community contribution as it relates to your school specific detail. Imagine yourself on Boston University’s campus and paint a picture for your reader of how you will actively engage with and serve the campus community.
Conclusion
Regardless of which prompt you choose, be sure to consider the keywords that are mentioned by Boston University in the preamble to the supplemental essay prompts as your guide: diversity, community, and service. Ideally, all of these themes will be present in your essay to show how your values align with Boston University.
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