Harvey Mudd is a private college in Claremont, California. The College is focused on science and engineering and is a super small school. When we say small, we mean small. It usually has just under 1000 undergrads. They offer 10 engineering, science, and mathematics-based majors and a core curriculum that also includes humanities classes. They are part of the Claremont Colleges, a consortium that includes Pomona College, Scripps College, Claremont McKenna College, Harvey Mudd College, and Pitzer College. Students at these universities can take classes and access opportunities across these 5 campuses. Harvey Mudd has about a 10% acceptance rate. Their supplement is 2 questions and an optional upload. Let’s break it down.
“Scientific research is a human endeavor. The choices of topics that we research are based on our biases, our beliefs, and what we bring: our cultures and our families. The kinds of problems that people put their talents to solving depends on their values.'' - Dr. Clifton Poodry
How has your own background influenced the types of problems you want to solve, the people you want to work with, and the impact you hope your work can have?* 500
This is a tricky question. While it starts with a long quote that can give you some good context, you don’t have to speak to it, instead just focus on the prompt. This prompt asks you to do two things. The first thing is to bring us into your world. We need to know something about your background. Many students hear words like “background” and think that they need to speak to a religious, ethnic, or another minority status. You can talk about any of those things, but background can be a lot of other things. Your family, school, community, location, all of this can play into the background which shaped you. The second thing is to talk about your interests and goals that your background has pushed you towards.
For example, maybe your background includes being on a Robotics team. You tell a story about how being a team player in a research setting is important to you. You can use that story to build off of. Maybe you want to talk about how you believe robotics can help in the medical field and how you want to continue researching and building medical tech. 500 words is a long essay to only be about “ifs” and future scenarios, so having a story at the base of this essay will help you stay on track even when you start to explore where you want to go.
This essay should feel personal. We should learn something about you as a person and as an academic. This is a tall order. Make sure that this essay has story elements. This will ground this essay and allow you to have a couple of more “in the future”-s on the back half.
Many students choose Harvey Mudd because they don’t want to give up their interests in the Humanities, Social Sciences and the Arts – or HSA as we call it at HMC. Briefly (in 100 words or less) describe what you'd like to learn about in your dream HSA class.* 100
If you haven’t already, you need to read the HSA page on Harvey Mudd’s website CAREFULLY. We agree that the humanities are important, yes, even to you “math and science people.” The best answer to this question is to speak to a specific subfield in a humanities subject.
What do we mean by that? Well, history is too big of a topic here. Women’s history? Getting closer. The history of women’s roles in the reconstructionist south? Now we are talking. Get specific here. Most college classes in the humanities are extremely narrow in scope. The second part of this question is explaining why you are interested in your specific subject. Try to flesh out your reasoning with a quick story.
For example, maybe your Grandfather used to recite the poetry of Jaime Sabines. This sparked a love of Mexican poetry and now you want to learn more so you would want to take a class on Spanish Poetry of the 1900s. This question is super short, so you might need to boil it down to the basics, but try to connect it to a story and create a good through line.
Optional: You may include examples of mathematical or scientific endeavors or research abstracts if relevant. Please limit your submission to two pages.
This is optional and not everyone will have this. However, if you have this ready upload it! This is mainly for structured research that happens outside of the classroom. If you are racking your brain as to what to put here, you probably don’t have it.
Harvey Mudd is super selective, so take this supplement seriously. A lot of candidates will be working hard to put their best foot forward. Take some deep breaths, start early, and do your best!
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