How to Write the University of Virginia Supplemental Essays (2023)

• What are the UVA Supplemental Essay Prompts?
• How to Write Each Supplemental Essay Prompt for The University of Virginia
• How to Write the UVA Supplemental Essay Prompt #1
• College of Arts and Sciences
• School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
• School of Architecture
• School of Nursing
• Kinesiology Program
• How to Write the UVA Supplemental Essay Prompt #2
• Favorite Word
• Quirks
• Speak for an Hour
• Happy Place
• Expert-Level Skill
• Gift
• Website
• Recharge After Challenging Experience
• Place to Share/Keep Secret
• Beta Bridge Message

Option 2: We are a community with quirks, both in language and in traditions. What is one of your quirks?

Choosing a Topic:

Do you self-identify as quirky? Weird? Something similar? This prompt gives you a chance to let your freak-flag fly.

If you read this prompt and a whole list of quirks popped into your head, write those down (and include the fact that you constantly make lists in your head).

1. Ask yourself, what values do these quirks represent? What interests of mine might they be connected with? If you developed a secret code that you take your class notes in, does that express a value of privacy? An interest in war-time codes? A desire to learn world languages? If you’re constantly playing or practicing the drums on any available surface, what value does that suggest? An interest in the underlying rhythms of life—including sleep patterns and news cycles?

2. Another way to attack this supplement is to reverse-engineer it. What are some values or interests you want to highlight? Once you have a few in mind, ask yourself: “In what strange ways does each value or interest show up for me?” Perhaps you value conservation, and as a result you save all the trash you generate each week to get a better understanding of the waste you create.

Here’s a sample essay:

Example:

I love asking questions.

Imagine yourself as a high schooler again, sitting idly as your biology teacher drones on about how your body communicates with itself. This might seem boring for most, but not to me. We all know about the nervous and endocrine system, but I’ll dig deeper for specific answers, staying after class to chat for hours. I’ll ask how external particles interact with the olfactory complex and how our brain interprets these signals, allowing us to sense smell. I could pursue these conversations endlessly; I believe that learning goes beyond mere practical application.

This questioning is not exclusive to biology, however. I’ll ask my history teacher about the development of media over time and its effect on social and political events, or discuss with my Mandarin teacher the cultural differences among the many dialects of the Chinese language. I’ll even postulate non-academic questions on my own or with classmates on everything from politics to philosophy to yesterday’s football game.

And sure, I love finding answers to my questions, but sometimes the best questions are unanswerable. No one knows the meaning of life, if aliens really exist, or why phonetic isn’t spelled the way it sounds. Toying with these questions leads to long discussions with friends, and while a conclusion may not be found, it is far from time wasted.

As satisfying as it feels to answer a question, the mystery of not knowing can be even better.

— — —

Tips + Analysis

1. State your quirk clearly and, perhaps, early. Maybe in the first sentence. Maybe it’s even offset as its own paragraph? This student makes sure the first part of the prompt is satisfied right off the bat. If you’re having trouble stating your quirk clearly, that might mean it’s not a quirk at all. A strong quirk is unique, succinct, and will make someone think, “I want to hear more about that…”

2. Give clear examples of your quirk in action. Even though this isn’t the quirkiest of quirks, the author packs his writing full of clear applications. In biology class, in history class, in Mandarin class, with friends, alone, we see how this quirk comes to life in a wide range of contexts. Where does your quirk show up in your life? Where is it an asset? A hindrance? Once you’ve got some strong examples...

3. Connect your quirk to values. You want this supplement to showcase your perspectives and values. This student uses his final two paragraphs to make an unexpected pivot—his quirk isn’t just an expression of his values of knowledge and learning, but also values of conversation, mystery, and comfort with the unknown.

Choosing a Topic

Here’s a chance to nerd out about something you know a lot about. The best topics are ones that also excite you. What’s a topic that—when someone brings it up—lights you up? If you’re having trouble thinking of a topic on your own, ask yourself: What would be the topic of my TED talk? Don’t feel pressure to make it a super academic or serious topic, so long as you demonstrate the kind of thinker you are, and the type of perspective you will bring to the University of Virginia campus, you’ll be able to set yourself apart.

Want some ideas? Here’s a spreadsheet listing every single TED talk ever.

Here’s a longer example that you can use as inspiration:

Example:

Within the next fifty years, our generation will face the long-term impact of the mass-produced food industry. Nine billion animals are slaughtered each year in the U.S. for food, a number that will grow exponentially as the global population increases in the upcoming decades. Many factory farms pollute the environment near them with toxins, and expedite climate change through the use crop feeds grown from nitrate fertilizers sourced from oil.

As a vegetarian, but also someone who once loved the taste of meat and understands the vegetarian/vegan path is not the right choice for everyone, I am passionate about learning more about this topic and finding common ground. If we can return to producing meat in a more local, sustainable way, I believe we can slow climate change, curtail outbreaks of foodborne illnesses, and ameliorate the health of Americans. (141 words)

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Tips + Analysis

1. Raise the stakes. From the very beginning of this example, the author paints a pretty dire picture of what the world will look like if we don’t start changing the way we eat. He also makes it clear that the negative impacts are already happening and will continue to happen if we don’t take action. By starting in this way, we get a clear sense of why this topic matters and why we should care too.

2. But don’t take too long to get to your topic. Make sure the reader knows what your topic quickly. A little bit of suspense can heighten interest. Too much and that interest may evaporate.

3. Demonstrate your knowledge. Notice how the author cites specific statistics about the mass-produced food industry to give a sense of how bad the situation is right now. Not only does this compel readers to care, it also clues us in to how well-versed the author is on this topic. Clearly, he knows his stuff.

4. Embrace nuance, avoid being dogmatic. Part of what makes this essay so endearing and easy to relate to is that it acknowledges the vegan/vegetarian path isn’t for everyone. The author makes it clear that they enjoy meat too and want to find alternative solutions to completely eliminating meat from their diet. This acknowledgement makes the reader relatable and also shows a degree of flexibility and compassion that speaks to his maturity.

To Take Things to the Next Level, You Might Try Describing ...

1. A Flash Seminar that puts two surprising texts in conversation on a certain topic. Maybe “Hermione Granger and The Salem Witches—How a history of persecution has crafted the modern magic woman.” This approach will demonstrate that you are capable of interdisciplinary thinking.

2. A Flash Seminar that applies a distinct lens to a text you cherish. Perhaps a reading of The Lord of the Rings through the lens of Consumerism. Or a feminist viewing of Frozen 2. This approach will demonstrate that you are able to place texts in the context of philosophy and academic theory.

3. A Flash Seminar that might bring awareness to a topic you know well and that would benefit those who attended. Perhaps “How to use the principles of Tae Kwon Do to lead a more centered life.”

Pro Tip: If you’re applying to the School of Arts and Sciences, consider avoiding this prompt as both prompts tackle how you view and make sense of texts and ideas, so it may end up similar to your first supplement. If you can make them different enough from one another, though, go for it!

This is a super short prompt and wide open in terms of the directions you can take it. Ultimately, the key here is to actually choose something that makes you happy. Don’t choose a place based on a sense of obligation. It’s OK if your happy place is something a little weird or out of the box, as long as it speaks to your core values. It can be helpful to first try and break down the word “happy.” That’s such a broad emotion, and it can look differently for different people. Maybe for you, happiness is financial stability and comfort. Perhaps it’s a feeling of spontaneity and adventure. Those answers are both valid but both lead to drastically different responses. Before you start writing, figure out your own personal definition of “happy.”

And remember that the prompt is quite literally asking you to “take us to your happy place.” That means you should try to engage all five senses in your answer. Try to literally place your reader in your shoes, allowing them to soak in all the feelings you might have in the place you choose. It doesn’t have to be a specific location. It could be a state of mind, a relationship with an important person, or even a mundane activity—anything that brings you joy. In fact, choosing a less stereotypically “happy place” might lead to a more unique response.

For this prompt, remember to think expansively about what is a “skill.” Being able to eat 20 hotdogs in one sitting might be a totally valid response here if you can justify it in a way that connects to your values. Maybe having a greater stomach capacity means you can spend more time with your family at the dinner table or would allow you to create community through competitive eating events. OK, so maybe this example feels a little ridiculous, but you get the point.

Here’s another (potentially more realistic, but equally funny) one:

Example:

Flexibility. Not symbolically. Literally. Inflexibility runs in the family (Dad’s side–Mom was a ballet dancer, go figure). One time a doctor literally prescribed me stretches. I was there for a cold. It’d help me develop as a dancer and not get the lowest score on the sit and reach. (49 words)

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Tips + Analysis:

1. Have fun with it. You only have 50 words, so don’t try to get way too deep in your answer here. That doesn’t mean you have to shy away from more serious topics than flexibility (don’t try to be funny if it’s not coming naturally!), but this is a great example of how you can keep things short and sweet while still giving a sense of how you think.

2. Use sentence fragments. Seriously. You don’t have enough room for more than, like, 1-2 sentences here, so might as well disregard the rules of grammar just a bit to help fit in more info. This author makes every word count, using sentence fragments to create a dry, witty tone that speaks to her sense of humor.

3. Emphasize your values through both form and content. While the structure and formatting of the answer speaks to the author’s wry sense of humor, she also manages to fit in some details about her being a dancer towards the end. In about 50 words, this is the most you can ask for. Try using the style of your answer to reflect one value and the content to reflect another so you can cover as much ground as possible despite the tiny word count.

OK, to be totally fair, the internet already has wayyyy too much going on, and there’s probably a website for most things generally. That being said, the more specific you can get here, the less likely there is a website that exactly matches your description. The best tip we can give you here is to start with a topic you’re interested in and then try to break it down into smaller, specific components. Maybe you’re into The Simpsons. Well maybe you’re specifically interested in Lisa, the sister character. What are you interested in about Lisa? Well, perhaps it’s her persona as a strong, female character within a male-dominated franchise. OK, so maybe your website becomes an alternate universe in which Lisa is the main character in the Simpsons and it becomes a forum for discussing how that would change the basic premise of different episodes.

Okay, deep breath.

Get nerdy, get specific. You get the idea.

With only 50 words, start off right away with your message. And make the message concise. You want to devote most of your time to actually explaining why you painted the message, not just painting it on the metaphorical wall. Maybe spend some time looking up Beta Bridge and getting a sense of what it means to the community as well as what others have written on it in the past. And remember, with something as visual as painting, it’s not just the words you write but the way you write them. What colors would you use? Where would you write it? Of course, all of these choices need to be backed up with a justification or meaning. Don’t just write things to fill space—really think through something you care about.

Here’s a much longer example for another prompt that gives you a sense of how you could answer this question:

Example:

Give Homes Give Love Give Knowledge

“They shouldn’t be here.” This is a statement I hear a lot when visiting my mom’s side of the family. They all immigrated from Iraq–some legally, others not. Yet, when it comes to the immigration issue in the United States, they look down on refugees crossing the border out of desperation or protection. The first time I heard my immigrant relatives talk about other immigrants that way, it is not hard to understand how confused I was.

I have grown up in a very liberal household and an overall liberal environment. This has shaped the way that I view the world and I believe that immigrants should have refuge. The second time I heard a family member mention “the Mexicans taking their jobs,” I decided to start a conversation about it. I learned that my family’s views were based on reports from Fox News. When I tried to explain Fox News’ inherent biases, I was immediately shut down and told to “go play with the kids.”

The experience opened my eyes to see that a whole group of people, regardless of their own shared experience with those in the news, can choose to believe and follow political stances based on limited and flawed information. I am committed to staying educated as a voter in the next election and doing whatever I can to help educate my community before any of us make decisions based on fabricated ideas. (243 words)

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Tips + Analysis:

1. Be explicit about what you would write. Because this example is answering a different iteration of the prompt, the author doesn’t say what he would actually write on the wall. He spends more time explaining the power of words in relation to specific quotes people have said to him throughout his life. For your answer, get right to what you’d write, then think of this example more as a blueprint for how to answer the “why?” part of the question.

2. Get specific. With a short message on a bridge, it can be easy to speak in broad terms or generalizations. Try to provide some nuance in your answer, even if your message itself is a bit more vague. This author provides specific quotes and experiences with family members who refuse to engage with him on the topic of fake news, making him a more compelling, unique applicant.

3. Look to the future. A great way to approach this prompt is to think about what you hope other people will gain from your message should they see it in the future. Think about the effect you’d like to have on someone and how they’d walk away from your message feeling. This author is clearly interested in the harms of fake news and is seeking to make people in their community aware of this issue and their intended effect. Try to incorporate into your message a sense of where you’re going.

We think it’s important to keep in mind that the goal of this prompt (from your admission reader’s perspective) is to see how you engage with diverse and/or/probably challenging perspectives. When you’re in college, whether in classrooms or in the campus community, you’re virtually guaranteed to encounter ideas, beliefs, and world views that differ (perhaps greatly) from your own—show that you’re ready to engage with those moments of conflict in a healthy, productive way.

To that end, since you only have 50 words here, try to set up the conflict in as few words as reasonably possible, so you can devote a good chunk of your word count to what you did in response and what you learned from the experience. Use that structural approach to shape your brainstorming—what experiences can show how you are an empathetic speaker or a generous listener?

We don’t have an example written for UVA’s version of this prompt, but several other schools have added similar prompts in recent years, so we’ll give you an example that would also work nicely here (though it would have to be cut down some for word count—those cuts would focus far more on the first half than the second in this case).

Example:

I probably argue with my grandfather more than I do with most other people combined. It’s not because we’re at odds. We just have different perspectives, influenced by our experiences—his as a life-long resident of India, mine as a first-generation American.

One pretty common argument we have is over Eastern vs. Western medicine. My solution to a headache, for example, is to take Advil. His is to rub Tiger Balm on his forehead and coconut oil on the soles of his feet. I try to convince him of the benefits of taking a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory, describing how it can reduce inflammation by blocking the production of certain chemicals. He tries to convince me that the balm creates a cooling effect, distracting the brain from pain and relaxing the muscles. Rather than becoming sore at or resentful of each other, we’ve grown closer through these debates, and I’ve learned how to disagree without letting the situation get acrimonious.

Through these interactions, I’ve learned that a discussion shouldn’t be confrontational. The purpose isn’t to win, but to share my knowledge with the other party and learn from them as well. So rather than saying, “Rubbing balm on your forehead is stupid; you should just take Advil,” I say, “While rubbing balm on your forehead seems to work, I’ve noticed that taking an Advil has a stronger and more immediate effect.” Respecting the opposing party makes them more willing to hear you out.

I’ve also learned there’s a fine line between logic and emotion. I try not to take personally the things my grandfather says in an argument. Just because he doesn’t think taking Advil is the better solution doesn’t mean he thinks I’m stupid. If I take it that way, we begin to move away from what the argument really was about—the facts.

I’ll continue to apply these learnings in discussions and debates I have with others, realizing that having a “successful argument” isn’t about winning. It’s about sharing my opinion and learning from theirs, expanding our perspectives without alienating each other.

– – –

Tips + Analysis:

1. Show how you engage. Again, the prompt’s phrasing (empathetic speaker or generous listener) is a great guide here, and this student does a nice job using both showing and telling phrasing and details (like So rather than saying, “Rubbing balm on your forehead is stupid; you should just take Advil,” I say, “While rubbing balm on your forehead seems to work, I’ve noticed that taking an Advil has a stronger and more immediate effect.”) to communicate how they have grown as a listener, and the insights they’ve gained that will help them continue to engage in a healthy, productive way.

2. Show us what you’ve learned. Speaking of insight, this student does a nice job offering a few different moments (e.g. Respecting the opposing party makes them more willing to hear you out or Just because he doesn’t think taking Advil is the better solution doesn’t mean he thinks I’m stupid. If I take it that way, we begin to move away from what the argument really was about—the facts or having a “successful argument” isn’t about winning. It’s about sharing my opinion and learning from theirs, expanding our perspectives without alienating each other) where they directly tell us what insight they’ve gained. These moments help readers understand how you’ll be an active, valuable member of the campus community.

3. Use clear structure (And how it could be cut): The version above was written for an older Princeton prompt that asked a very similar question, but obviously had a much larger word count. To make the above fit UVA’s word count, the writer would likely want to cut/condense the first section especially (notice, for example, that while the second paragraph is great, it doesn’t really help to answer the prompt nearly as much as the later paragraphs do. In fact, this writer could probably condense the first paragraph to a single sentence, cut the second paragraph entirely, and revise/condense a couple pieces from the latter third of the essay and be pretty close to set.

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