Harvey Mudd is a hyper-selective and super specialized college in Claremont, California that only offers a Bachelor of Science degree. They specialize in the sciences, mathematics, and engineering, and take that specialization super seriously. The student body is small, with under 1,000 students. Despite the small size, Harvey Mudd is widely regarded as one of the best undergraduate colleges in the country for students focused on STEM. Harvey Mudd is quite tight-lipped about their acceptance rate, but the most recent officially reported rate of acceptance was 12.7%.

Harvey Mudd is currently SAT and ACT optional for applicants through 2025, but most successful applicants do submit scores. Unsurprisingly, the strongest scores are high. To be in the middle 50th percentile of applicants, you need an SAT of 1530 or an ACT of 35. If you can’t reach these scores, it’s good news that they are test optional right now, right? Wrong. As we said, most students who get into Harvey Mudd submit scores. Those who don’t typically have a really good reason to have not submitted scores, whether it’s an inability to access a testing location (mostly applicable to international students) or a diagnosed learning difference. Those reasons aside, you should be taking and submitting scores.

In this post, we’ll be talking about the things that aren’t summed up in numbers, though. Your transcript and scores need to be solid, but who you are matters just as much. We’ll break down how to make your Harvey Mudd supplement do the most to improve your chances of acceptance.

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The Harvey Mudd supplement isn’t short, and it needs to be taken seriously. All supplements should be taken seriously, obviously, but one of the Harvey Mudd supps is 500 words — that’s basically a full-page essay! Plan to spend at least three weeks working on this supplement alone as you brainstorm, draft, edit, and finalize.

SUPPLEMENT

Harvey Mudd College seeks to educate engineers, scientists and mathematicians well versed in all of these areas and in the humanities, social sciences and the arts so that they may assume leadership in their fields with a clear understanding of the impact of their work on society. - HMC Mission Statement

“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

HMC’s collaborative community is guided by our mission statement. Through an intentional interdisciplinary curriculum, our students seek to build a skillset adaptable to society’s needs. 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 words)

This supplement prompt asks you to answer three questions:

What is something notable about your background that they should know?
How has that influenced your desire to work with others?
What impact do you want to have through your work?

Now, the admissions officers know that the goals you have today aren’t necessarily the ones that you’ll have as a college sophomore or just before you graduate, but they want to see that you are dreaming. They also want to know who you are beyond all the ‘impressive’ things. This means picking a story from your life that connects to what you want to study and illustrates something about you that the application readers will not learn anywhere else in the application.

Picking this story can take some work, so give yourself time to brainstorm. Remember, though, that this isn’t a hardship test. Don’t jump to sharing the most difficult thing that you’ve faced. Instead, share the most relevant experience or memory that sparked your academic interest. We know this may sound vague, so let’s give an example.

Maybe you want to study math at Harvey Mudd. As a kid, you would go to school on public transportation each morning, first with a parent and then alone. Your parent taught you to read the map, and to check for numbers on buses or trains, and you became fascinated by this shared language that gets millions of people where they need to go every day. That grew into a passion for numbers, and later a desire to study math in college.

Continuing with the example story, you’ll need to connect this to others and to creating impact. Maybe you want to be involved in creating systems that improve people’s lives in the same way that public transportation does, and perhaps you want to work with people who view the world as a series of fascinating puzzles to solve, like a map.

Remember, you have 500 words, so there is a lot of space to tell this story — although you don’t need to use all of it. Take advantage of the space by employing sophisticated storytelling techniques like dialog and strong descriptive imagery.

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. Your class can either be one chosen from existing classes at HMC, or you are welcome to create your own. (100 words)

This is an interesting prompt because it requires you to look beyond your STEM interests, showing that you are more than your area of primary focus. We love going the “make up a course” route, but taking inspiration from an existing class. Put your own twist on it, and write the supplement as a course listing with a course title and description. Remember that you aren’t teaching the course, you just need to love it.

Optional: You may include examples of work that you would like to share, including additional math and science endeavors, research abstracts, or creative projects. Please limit your submission to two pages. (upload file)

Re-read the last sentence: “Please limit your submission to two pages.” They are very serious about that, no matter how important you feel it is that they see more. We recommend creating a condenses but readable PDF of one or two pages. If you aren’t sure what should go on there, we can help.

Harvey Mudd is small, it is specific, and it is selective. We advise our students who are interested in Harvey Mudd to begin thinking about this application months before they will press submit. Giving yourself time really is the secret to success.

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