To Add More Words to the Issue: A College Supplemental Prompt Ranking

Ok, look, no one asked for this. Actually, this article was turned in like a week and a half late. Sorry Tess. But we need more Spambler articles and so here we are: my personal rankings of your basic supplement prompts. For the record, they all suck, but we’re teasing out the degrees here:

12: Everything not listed below.

If you don’t encounter it enough for it to fall into one of these categories, then you’re probably only going to see it once, which means you’ve never thought about it before, which means you can’t reuse anything for it, which means writing it from scratch. Which sucks.

11. Silly Short Answers

What’s your favorite movie? What’s your ideal fictional college roommate? What song would you play for them to set the right tone for the next four years? Like, I know you’re not going to deny me because of what I say here, but THAT DOESN’T STOP ME FROM STRESSING OUT ABOUT IT UNNECESSARILY. Please don’t. I can’t take it.

10. Short Answer But It Actually Matters

Deciding how to play these two was hard, but I feel like there’s a little bit of beauty in perfectly crafting your message to fit in under 50 words. Sure, it’s stressful, but at least I’m stressing about something important. Still awful.

9. UChicago

I don’t know how to use the whole ™ thing, but if you were to define the UChicago essay prompts, it would be Quirky™, also known as, “Now I want to jump out a window”. No one else seems as hell-bent on putting their applicants through premature hair loss. Only this high up because finally coming up with a good idea is really, really, satisfying.

8. Social Justice

Look, if you’re involved in activism, then this one’s great! If you aren’t then you have to come up with a sincere answer to a question with a very limited number of options while treating it with the respect it deserves while also trying to stretch it to a 500 word requirement. Personally, it was not a good experience.

7. Why This Major

While SOME PEOPLE’s major is a well thought out decision that their entire life orbits around, the rest of us just clicked on the ones the sounded kind of cool on the Common App’s drop-down bar. And now we have to talk about it for 400 words? This is going to be great.

6. Community + A Little Something Extra

Your basic community supplement but you have to talk about the school too. What do you value in a community, and how do you plan to contribute to the one at _____? A pain. Has resulted in the butchering of many a brilliant supplement.

5. Extracurriculars/Favorite Activites

I don’t know what to say here. Nothing amazing, but dependable. Everyone’s got an answer.

4. Why Us

Controversial but I love these questions. They lead to deep ruminations and unexpected conclusions: namely, that maybe this entire application isn’t worth my time, I should give up and online shop instead. That’s always nice.

3. Community

Fulfills two key requirements: consistency and adaptable. Whether you’re going for a UC or the UW, there’s something there about community, defined in the loosest terms imaginable. I reused mine seven times.

2. Family Background

Excellent space for trauma dumping.

1. What else?

Apart from your impressive academic credentials and extracurricular accomplishments, what else makes you a strong candidate for admission? In other words: do you have a separate 400 word supplement that you really want to recycle but can’t find a place for. Stick it here. Thank you, University of California and William and Mary, for helping make the jigsaw puzzle that is reusing supplementals a little bit easier. And for that, we salute them.