The University of Michigan is a public university in Ann Arbor, MI. There are over 1,500 clubs, groups, and organizations on campus spanning a multitude of academic, cultural, and social interests. There are roughly 30,000 undergraduates and the 2018 acceptance rate was 26%.

The College of William and Mary is located in Williamsburg, VA and is considered one of a few “public Ivies.” This means that they are public institutions that offer lower tuition but a high-quality education comparable to that of an Ivy League school. It’s a solid medium-sized school of about 9,000 undergraduates with an emphasis on research, particularly for undergraduates, which is rare. Though it’s academically rigorous, the small-town vibe that Williamsburg possesses is unique and special. Last year they had an acceptance rate of 36%.

Boston College is a private, Jesuit university, as well as a research university, located in Boston’s Chestnut Hill neighborhood. The school has a 31% acceptance rate last year. This year’s supplement allows students to choose from four prompts.

Dartmouth is a small liberal arts school located in the woods of New Hampshire. You go there to get away; it’s located on the Connecticut river, which partly separates Vermont and New Hampshire. It’s a great place for outdoorsy and library-loving students alike, but it certainly is in the middle of nowhere. Indeed, that’s the appeal for many who attend. Dartmouth owns its very own skiway and a slew of cabins available for students to rent throughout the year. With a bit less than 4,500 undergraduates, Dartmouth is all about building community. And supplement speaks to that; they want students who apply to understand what it means to attend and to know their specific answer to: why Dartmouth?

Columbia University is located in uptown New York, NY. It is home to ~4,500 undergraduates who attend the college, and 1,500 students who attend their engineering school. As a major research university, students have access to Columbia’s vast number of resources, as well as internship and work opportunities that exist as a result of its prime location. Columbia's supplement is one of the more extensive ones, but the challenge here is to achieve both depth and brevity.

If you don’t know better, The University of Pennsylvania, commonly referred to as “Penn,” may sound like a typical state school. If you were under that impression, let us be the first to tell you that it’s not. It’s a private school (not a state school), an Ivy League institution, and it is world-renowned for its undergraduate programs—especially finance, business, political science, and anthropology. The school itself is in the heart of Philadelphia, one of the wealthiest cities in America when it comes to national history.

Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island is known for being the more free-spirited Ivy university. Last year, Brown’s admission rate dropped to 7.2 percent. In this post, we provide advice on how to nail Brown’s three, 250-word supplement essays.

USC is a research university located in Los Angeles. In 2018, USC’s acceptance rate was 13 percent. For the USC long answer essay portion of the supplement, applicants must write two essays. For the first essay, students can choose between one of three prompts and all applicants must answer the final “Academic Interest” question.

The prestigious University of Southern California is a private school located in the heart of Los Angeles. In 2018, USC admitted just 13 percent of applicants. 

Vassar is a small liberal arts school in Poughkeepsie, New York. The class of 2022 admitted just 1,996 students with an acceptance rate of 24%. Vassar is liberal, there’s a lot of on-campus activism, and students are encouraged to study multiple disciplines.

Cornell is a private research university located in Ithaca, NY with an undergraduate student body of approximately 14,000. Last year, Cornell accepted just 10.3% of applicants which is the lowest acceptance rate in school history. The school has called the class of 2022 the “most diverse class in university history.”