Why Do You Want to Attend This College, Anyway?

It’s hard not to resent supplements. You’ve poured your heart and soul into your Common App essay—it’s a thing of beauty, it’s 650 words, and it’s DONE!—and then right on its heels come the supplements.

Of all of the supplements you’ll have to write, “Why Do You Want to Come to Our School?” is probably the most common. The good news is that it’s also the most important and most valuable to you. See, writing 350 extra words about an extracurricular that matters to you, a community you’re a part of, or what book you would recommend to your entire freshman class will help the college further get to know you as a writer, potential student and potential community member. (That’s worth your time!) But the exercise won’t do much for you. (Well, except for exercising those super-important writing muscles!)

“Why Us?,” on the other hand, is a very important question for you to answer. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve kicked off this essay with a student just to have them tell me, “………… I don’t know?” Why are you applying to this school if you don’t even have a reason?! I find that the overwhelming number of choices when it comes to colleges leaves a lot of students clinging to the names they know. Limiting themselves to the handful of schools they’ve heard of is somehow reassuring. But if you can’t sincerely answer why you’re excited to be going to a school—you don’t really deserve one of their limited spots.

Research First

So, start by doing your homework. Spend a reasonable amount of time at the school’s website (like, at bare minimum 20 or 25 minutes). What does the school tell you about itself? How does it see its students, and how do they see themselves? Does it have any religious affiliations, and what does that mean to you (if anything)? What programs is it famous for? If you know what program you’re interested in, why is this a good place to study it? What is student life like? Are there unique minors or certificate programs in niche areas you’re interested in? Does it have access to less-common club sports that matter to you, or the opportunity to take part in performing arts even as a non-major? There are many ways schools can stand out. I understand—having written this essay side-by-side with students for years—that it’s not always easy to find those ways, especially if you are undecided in your major or career path. Remember that if that’s the case, you might be searching for a curriculum that will help you explore, or a variety of quality programs so that you don’t have to transfer when you find your calling.

Let the Essay Be Simple

Once you’ve established that YES, this school is in fact somewhere you’re excited to consider going, you will take all of the evidence you found on the website and put it together. An opening “hook” for this type of essay might be as simple as when and how you first learned about the school, or any personal connection you have with it. After making that connection, jump right into the academics—remember, that’s the primary reason you’d be going there! If the prompt suggests it, after academics include the extracurricular or community aspects that draw you.

Edit It Right

As always, write long and edit short. If you write toward a 150-word limit, you will inevitably sound like you are glancing over everything you are mentioning—it will sound like a shallow summary. Furthermore, if you don’t write long, you won’t have enough left after this critical edit: Cut everything that could have been said by any student, and cut anything you could have said about any school. You are trying to prove that this school is the perfect fit for you, and by extension, that you are a perfect student for it. If your reasons could be true for any student about any school (“great professors; warm, welcoming campus; beautiful old buildings; variety of courses” … I think you get the idea), then you haven’t hit on what makes this school special to you. You want to persuade the admissions office that you could show up on campus tomorrow ready to take advantage of everything they have to offer!

For a few more tips specific to “Why Us” essays, check out this overview of common supplemental essays.

(Photo by Dom Fou on Unsplash)