How to Write the Fordham University Essays 2024-2025
Fordham has just one optional supplement, of 300 words. Although this prompt is technically optional, we strongly encourage you to take this opportunity to tell Fordham’s admissions committee a little bit more about yourself, and why they should want you at their school. You already have limited space to share your personality with admissions officers, and by not responding to this supplement, you’re voluntarily limiting yourself even further.
If you’re unsure about responding because you don’t know what to write about, don’t worry! That’s what we’re here for, as we’re going to break down each prompt option for you below.
Read this Fordham essay example written by a real student to inspire your own writing!
Fordham Supplemental Essay Prompts
All Applicants
You may choose to answer one (1) of the optional questions below. Keep in mind that your response is a maximum of 300 words. Choose the question that you think will help the admission committee get a better understanding of your unique perspective and potential contributions to our community.
- Option 1: At Fordham, we expect students to care for and engage with their communities and be active citizens for positive change. Please share an experience you had that caused you to develop a new perspective, change your point of view, and/or empower you to take an action or be courageous. Your response should include examples of your personal growth (e.g., what did you learn, did your point of view change, did you develop new skills or strengths?).
- Option 2: Fordham, as a Jesuit university, recognizes the dignity, uniqueness and potential of each person. A Fordham education is student-centered and rooted in close collaboration among students, faculty, and staff. Describe how you would contribute to our campus community as an actively engaged learner and leader. Specifically draw on your personal story, identity, experiences, strengths, and perspectives.
- Option 3: Our motto is “New York is my campus, Fordham is my school.” New York City is a diverse and global city that provides Fordham students with a special kind of educational experience, full of both challenge and opportunity. What has prepared you to embrace the unique opportunity of living and learning in New York City?
- Option 4: Is there something that you are proud of that you would like to share with the Admission Committee?
Option 1
At Fordham, we expect students to care for and engage with their communities and be active citizens for positive change. Please share an experience you had that caused you to develop a new perspective, change your point of view, and/or empower you to take an action or be courageous. Your response should include examples of your personal growth (e.g., what did you learn, did your point of view change, did you develop new skills or strengths?). (300 words)
This is a take on the classic “Diversity” essay, which also incorporates some elements of the “Community Service” archetype. You’ll want to discuss your values, viewpoints, and personal growth in relation to a specific story, preferably one that involves you actively working to make your community a better place. The important thing is to pick an anecdote that demonstrates your character and the good qualities that you will bring to Fordham.
The prompt specifically asks for an event or experience, so though it may be tempting, you shouldn’t take this opportunity to list a variety of qualities or even a few quick examples of you demonstrating different qualities. While in theory you’re giving your reader more information with this approach than by focusing on a single story, in reality trying to fit multiple anecdotes into just 300 words often leads to the essay feeling rushed or disjointed.
Instead, you should pick a single story, as one experience, if chosen well, can actually tell your reader just as much about you as a range of experiences can. So, dive deeply into the story you choose, and think about what it tells Fordham about you. If there is a culture, organization, or movement that you have deep involvement with, this is a good time to mention it, but you’ll still want to pick a specific event from that work, rather than summarizing across a period of months or years. If you don’t have a specific cause, can you think of a time that you showed particular strength of character? Either way, here are some questions to get you thinking:
- What qualities are you most proud of? What qualities do others admire in you? How did you develop them? Can you think of a story that showcases them especially well?
- Describe a time that you helped someone, or a group of people. What did you do? What led you to help? What did you learn?
- Reflect on some important beliefs that you hold. How did you come to those beliefs? Have they ever been tested? In what ways have you expressed or stood up for those beliefs?
- Name a time that your worldview changed or expanded. What prompted this change or expansion? How did you respond?
- Have you ever felt particularly inspired by a person or an event? What touched you about this experience? What did you do with the inspiration you felt?
Remember that the point of the essay is to set yourself apart from other applicants, so, while you of course want to be honest and share an experience that was genuinely meaningful to you, you also want to be mindful of stories that might also be told in a lot of other students’ essays.
For example, talking about making a new friend from another culture and learning about their background is a nice story, but it’s an experience that many people have had. That doesn’t mean you need to pivot to something entirely different, however. Rather, you could instead write about an argument the two of you had about something seemingly unrelated to culture, and how it helped you recognize certain cultural values that you had taken for granted.
Let’s say your friend is Muslim, and couldn’t attend your birthday party during Ramadan one year because she was fasting and didn’t want to be around so much food and activity. You could write about how you initially struggled to not be frustrated with her, and fully accept this part of her identity. By taking an unusual approach to a common story, you’ll teach admissions officers much more about yourself than if you just rehashed a story they’ve seen literally thousands of times before.
Once you’ve decided on your story, it’s time to start writing. While 300 words is medium-length for a supplement, that doesn’t mean you have all day, so you don’t want to waste words providing a bunch of background context on, for example, whether you drove or biked to the animal shelter. Just jump right in! You could start in the middle of the incident, or reflect back from present day, to make your essay dynamic and engaging from start to finish.
However you choose to structure your response, the majority should be focused on the event itself, which you should describe with vivid, sophisticated language. Then, incorporate a thoughtful reflection on this event and what it meant to you. Remember to talk specifically about what you took away from the experience and how you carry those changes with you now. Fordham wants to understand why you’re a good fit for their school, so the connection between this experience and your potential as a college student should be clear.
Option 2
Fordham, as a Jesuit university, recognizes the dignity, uniqueness and potential of each person. A Fordham education is student-centered and rooted in close collaboration among students, faculty, and staff. Describe how you would contribute to our campus community as an actively engaged learner and leader. Specifically draw on your personal story, identity, experiences, strengths, and perspectives.
This prompt is broader than the first, and allows you to explicitly connect yourself to Fordham. Rather than starting by looking backwards into the past, this option asks you to look to the future, imagining your growth over the next four years, and the contributions you would make to Fordham.
But to describe what you’ll look like as a college student, you’ll need to explain how you got to the place you are. Once again, the best way to showcase your unique personality, attributes, and viewpoints is through a story or concrete example. That will be much more memorable to admissions committees than a bullet-pointy list of qualities you possess, or a series of identities that are important to you.
While picking your example, you have more flexibility than with the first option. You might focus on a long-term commitment you have outside the classroom, like a local book club, or the ways you consistently go above and beyond to engage in classes, like when a book you read in class intrigued you so much that you attended a talk by the author, or you continued a science project after the deadline just to see how your research continued progressing. The words you want to focus on in this prompt are active engagement, leader, and close collaboration. Do any of these spark a story for you?
Some essays that could make for a strong response to this prompt include:
- A student who applied what she had learned in her science class to her after-school work at a daycare, where she led the older children in simple experiments.
- A student who learned that some of his high school bandmates couldn’t afford to travel to a major competition, and worked with the band to set up fundraising efforts so they could all compete
- A student who wrote about a local performance for her journalism class and ended up being published in her town’s newspaper
- A student who organized carpools for his swim team to increase team cohesion and keep younger teammates, or teammates without cars, from having to walk or ride the bus to and from the pool
As you write, remember to outline the background of your story quickly, including all relevant details, and then describe the actual events in detail, focusing most on the aspects of the narrative that demonstrate the qualities you want to display.
Finally, reflect on how you will bring what you learned from this experience to Fordham. There is an element of the classic “Why Us?” supplement here, so you want to make sure to connect your story to a niche you know exists at Fordham, to flex your knowledge of the school and show you’ll be ready to contribute as soon as you step on campus. If you’re not sure how to make this kind of specific connection, the course catalog and clubs page are great places to start.
Let’s say that learning about Picasso in your art class inspired you to look more closely at the way African and African-inspired art has been received in the Western world. You might write about your personal research into the topic, and conclude by saying that you can’t wait to bring your passion and research skills to art classes in Fordham’s Africanist Group.
Whatever you choose to write about, make it unique, focus on you and your best qualities, and then come full circle by connecting it to Fordham! It’s only 300 words, so keep it simple, focused, and make sure to put your best foot forward.
Option 3
Our motto is “New York is my campus, Fordham is my school.” New York City is a diverse and global city that provides Fordham students with a special kind of educational experience, full of both challenge and opportunity. What has prepared you to embrace the unique opportunity of living and learning in New York City?
There are some similarities between this prompt and the previous one, but here you’re being asked to picture yourself not just as part of the Fordham community, but as a resident of New York City. There are probably a million reasons why you’re excited about the prospect of living in New York, but, as we’ve noted in our breakdowns of the previous two prompts, remember that quantity over quality is the name of the game in college essays.
You also want to make sure you stand out–anyone can talk about the museums, the melting pot of cultures, or going to see Broadway shows. Although the prompt is asking you about New York, you should really be talking about yourself. So, rather than approaching this prompt from a touristy lens, and listing all the sights you want to see, think of this question as an opportunity to share what path you’re hoping to take in college, and how New York will help you along it. Consider the following example:
“All my life, I’ve longed for the simplicity of a grid, and New York is the apex of griddiness. In my hometown, unplanned growth means a tangled sprawl of city streets, all with random names. My family says it’s my fault that I ‘can’t find my way out of a paper bag.’ Maybe that’s true, but my horrendous sense of direction has helped me grow, believe it or not, even if I have accidentally ended up in the next town over when I was just trying to go to the grocery store..
I didn’t have a smartphone until I was sixteen, but was able to bike around town at age ten. That meant carrying a fold-out map in my back pocket which I was frequently (like, every block) stopping to consult. Initially, I was embarrassed by times when I pedaled in the wrong direction and added fifteen minutes to my rides, but as I matured, this insecurity shifted into a strange sense of certainty.
Maybe I didn’t choose the right path at first, but I developed faith in my ability to notice my errors, reassess, and try again without breaking a sweat, unless I was at the bottom of the infamous Spring Street hill. Getting things wrong and having to backtrack stopped fazing me, and this resilience and confidence in my problem-solving skills eventually stretched beyond my treks around town, to trying new things in school, sports, and various other adventures.
When people ask me how I can set off into college with such confidence, I tell them it’s not because I know I’m right; it’s because I know that I’ll be okay if I’m wrong. So I know whatever New York throws at me, I’ll be able to handle it.”
This student did two things well here. First, she’s picked a seemingly surface-level aspect of New York, that most people wouldn’t think to write about. Second, she’s connected that aspect to herself in a unique, compelling way by taking a seemingly negative quality and reframing it as a positive opportunity for growth.
Her creativity with both evaluating New York City and reflecting on her own experiences will both help her stand out to Fordham’s admissions committee. What unique attributes, narrative structures, or aspects of New York and yourself can you use to stand out to Fordham?
Option D
Is there something that you are proud of that you would like to share with the Admission Committee? (300 words)
This prompt is an open-ended opportunity to showcase an achievement, quality, or experience that you’re proud of, and that speaks to your potential contributions to Fordham. Fordham’s Admissions Committee is giving you a chance to share something that may not fit with the other prompts, but is still an important part of who you are.
Understanding the Prompt
Fordham is asking you to:
- Share a specific achievement: This could be a personal, academic, or extracurricular achievement that you are genuinely proud of.
- Reflect on its significance: Why is this achievement meaningful to you? What did you learn from it?
- Showcase personal growth: How did this experience shape who you are today? What skills or qualities did you develop? Why does it matter for understanding what kind of college student you’ll be?
Brainstorming Questions
- What is an achievement that you worked hard for and are proud of, and why does it mean so much to you?
- Have you ever overcome a significant challenge or obstacle? What did you learn from that experience?
- What is something unique about you that you’ve accomplished that might surprise others?
- Can you think of a time when you took initiative or demonstrated leadership, even in a small way?
- What personal values or traits do you feel are best reflected in your proudest moments?
What Makes a Good Response
- Authenticity and Sincerity: Choose an achievement that truly matters to you, not just because you think the admissions committee would want to hear about it.
- Personal Reflection: Go beyond just describing the achievement. Make sure you’re also reflecting on what you learned, and the lasting impact those lessons had on you.
- Relevance: Make sure your story reveals something important about who you are or how you would fit into and contribute to Fordham’s community.
- Specificity and Detail: Use specific details and examples to bring your story to life and make it memorable.
- Focus on Growth: Highlight how this achievement contributed to your personal growth or changed your perspective.
Hypothetical Student Examples
- Ryan, who struggled with social anxiety throughout middle school, might write about how he pushed himself to join the debate team in high school. Over time, he overcame his fear of public speaking and ended up becoming a team captain, who set up a buddy system, so that new members of the team would always have someone to confide in. This achievement boosted his confidence, by teaching him the power of perseverance and self-belief, and inspired him to not just empathize with others, but take steps to help them.
- Sophia, an aspiring scientist, could discuss how she independently designed and conducted a research project on water quality in her community. Despite limited resources, she managed to collect significant data and presented her findings at a regional science fair. This achievement is meaningful to her because it solidified her passion for environmental science and her commitment to making a difference.
- Jamal could share how he taught himself to code using online resources, and eventually developed an app to help students organize their study schedules. What started as a personal project turned into a tool that his classmates loved, and he was invited to present his app at a local tech startup incubator. This experience taught him the importance of self-initiative and creativity.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Overly General or Impersonal Achievements: Avoid focusing on achievements that many other students might also have (e.g., making the varsity team, getting the lead role in the school musical).
- Lack of Reflection: You want Fordham to understand what you did, but in reality how it impacted you and why it still matters to you today are much more important questions to answer.
- Cliché Topics: Steer clear of overused topics like “winning the big game” unless you have a genuinely unique perspective or deep personal connection to share.
- Bragging Without Insight: This essay isn’t a place for boasting. Your achievement should say something about who you are more generally, so focus on insights rather than just accolades.
- Unrelated Achievements: Make sure the achievement you choose has some relevance to your personal growth, values, aspirations, or future as a college student.
Good and Bad Examples
Good Example:
“In my sophomore year, I noticed a lack of mental health resources at my school. My best friend was struggling with depression, but there seemed to be nowhere to turn for help.
Determined to make a difference, I founded the ‘Mind Matters’ club to raise awareness about mental health issues. I organized events, brought in guest speakers, and created a safe space where students could share their struggles. At first, I was nervous about how it would be received, but the turnout exceeded my expectations. Seeing students come together, share their stories, and support one another filled me with pride.
This experience taught me the power of community and the importance of speaking up for what you believe in. Now, I am more confident in my ability to lead and make a positive impact. I plan to continue advocating for mental health awareness at Fordham, where I know I can make a difference on a larger scale.”
Why this is a good example: This response is personal, specific, and meaningful. The student describes an achievement that had a positive impact on others, and clearly led to their own personal growth. The essay shows leadership, empathy, and a commitment to making a difference, all of which are qualities that Fordham values.
Bad Example:
“I am proud of being on the honor roll every semester in high school. I worked hard to maintain good grades, and it wasn’t always easy. I stayed up late studying for exams and made sure to complete all my assignments on time. Being on the honor roll shows that I am a dedicated student who is committed to academic success. I will continue to work hard and achieve high grades at Fordham.”
Why this is a bad example: This response is too general and lacks depth. While being on the honor roll is indeed an accomplishment, it doesn’t provide much insight into the student’s character, values, or personal growth–plus, it’s something many other Fordham applicants have likely achieved. The essay is more focused on external achievements rather than internal development, and its connection to the student’s future at Fordham is extremely vague.
Conclusion
This essay is your opportunity to showcase something meaningful about yourself. By focusing on a specific experience that fills you with pride, reflecting on its deeper significance, and connecting it to your future aspirations, you can craft a compelling and memorable response. Authenticity and reflection are the keys!
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