How to Write the "Why This College" Essay
One paragraph, seven colleges
It is October, and a senior has nine colleges on her list. Seven of them ask some version of the same question: why do you want to come here?
She starts with her first choice and writes that she is drawn to its outstanding academics, its diverse community and its beautiful campus. It reads well. Then she opens the application for her second college, pastes the paragraph in, and changes the name. Nothing else needs to change.
That is when she sees the problem. If the paragraph fits seven colleges, it tells none of them anything.
What colleges want from this essay
Admissions officers already know their college has strong academics and a nice campus - that's probably why you are applying to it in the first place. What they cannot know, unless the student tells them, is whether this applicant has looked closely at the place and can picture what they would do there.
Some colleges say this directly.
- The University of Michigan asks applicants to describe the unique qualities that attract them to the specific college or school they are applying to, and how its curriculum would support their interests. Its admissions office suggests that applicants consider mentioning relevant faculty members, courses and research opportunities.
- At Tufts, the admissions office's director of communications advises applicants to focus on details and "go deep with them", and says readers ask whether the attitude in the writing matches the community.
The question has two halves, and a good answer covers both. One half is what is specific about this college. The other half is what is specific about this student. The essay is the place where the two are joined.
Step 1: start with yourself
Most students begin by opening the college's website. It works better to begin with two or three lines about yourself, because they tell you what to look for.
Write down what you have already done in the area you care about, and what you want to do next. Take a student who has spent two years recording birdsong at the wetland behind her school. Her lines might be: "I have about 300 hours of recordings. I noticed that the same species sounds different near the highway, and I want to understand why."
Those lines stay the same for every college on her list. What changes from one college to the next is what she finds in the next step.
Step 2: research the college in detail
Now search the college's own website for things that match those lines. General pages such as "About us" will not help. The useful material is deeper in the site.
| What to look for | Where to find it | What makes it worth mentioning |
|---|---|---|
| Professors | The faculty page of the department you are interested in. Read the short description of each professor's research, and open one recent project or lab page | Their work overlaps with something you have already done or a question you already have |
| Courses | The online course catalog. Look past the introductory courses to specific seminars and upper-level classes | The course covers a topic you have tried to learn on your own |
| Labs, centers and programs | Pages for research centers, field stations, undergraduate research programs, internships and study abroad | It would let you continue a project you have started, with better tools or guidance |
| How departments work together | Lists of majors, minors and joint programs | It combines two interests of yours that most colleges keep separate |
| Student groups and traditions | The directory of student organizations and the student newspaper | You can name what you would do in the group, and not only that you would join |
Two or three good finds are enough. An essay that mentions ten things has no room to explain any of them.
Check every detail before you use it. Professors move, courses are not offered every year, and some labs do not take undergraduates. Confirm each one on the college's own website, and make sure it belongs to the college you are writing to. A program credited to the wrong college is the quickest way to show the essay was recycled.
Step 3: connect each detail to yourself
This is the step most students skip. Naming a professor or a course shows that you searched the website. It becomes meaningful when the next sentence explains why that professor or course matters to you in particular.
Here is the same paragraph at three levels, for the student with the birdsong recordings. The college and the professor are invented for the example.
| Level | The paragraph | What the reader learns |
|---|---|---|
| Generic | "I want to attend because of the excellent biology program, the renowned professors and the beautiful campus." | Nothing. Every applicant to every college can write this |
| Names without a connection | "I am excited to take classes with Professor Lindqvist and to use the college's field station." | She visited the website. It is still not clear why these two things matter to her |
| Connected | "For two years I have recorded birdsong at the wetland behind my school, trying to work out why the same species sounds different near the highway. Professor Lindqvist's lab studies that exact question, how traffic noise changes bird calls. The college's marsh field station would let me keep recording through all four seasons, which I have never been able to do." | What she has done, what she wants to do next, and why this college is the place to do it |
The third version only works for one college and one student. That is the goal.
Step 4: say what you would bring
The question is about a match, so the essay should also say what the college would gain. A promise such as "I will contribute to the campus community" does not do this, because anyone can write it.
A specific plan does. The same student might write: "I would bring my recordings to the student bird-banding group and add sound to its spring counts." The reader can picture her doing it in her first year.
A quick test
Cover the name of the college and read the essay again. If you could put a different college's name in and the essay would still be true, go back to step 2. If the essay would stop making sense, it is specific enough.
Four mistakes to avoid
- Praising what every college hasRankings, reputation, a beautiful campus and good weather say nothing about the match.
- Copying the website's languagePhrases lifted from the college's own pages sound like a brochure, and the readers wrote the brochure.
- Listing instead of explainingSix courses and four clubs in one paragraph leave no space for the reason behind any of them.
- Retelling the main essayThe same reader has just read it. Use this essay to show something new.
How Pursiva helps
This essay is hard mainly because there are so many of them. A student applying to nine colleges may have to write seven, each to a different length and deadline. Pursiva's Application tracker keeps every college's essay questions and due dates in one place, so none is discovered the week it is due.
Pursiva also helps with the student's half of the answer. Because it already holds the student's profile and theme (Pursiva calls it a Core Narrative), the Essay coach asks questions that help the student work out the two or three lines from step 1 themselves, and checks that they stay consistent with the rest of the application.
When the student brings back what they found in their research, the coach asks the question from step 3 about each item: why does this one matter to you? It also gives feedback on the draft, including which sentences could be sent to any college.
Two things stay with the student. The research is theirs to do and to check on each college's own website, because Pursiva does not supply or confirm details about courses or professors. And the writing is theirs, because the coach does not write any part of the essay.
The senior from the opening still has seven essays to write. Each one now starts from the same few lines about her, and the research gives each a different second half.
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