CollegeVine College Essay Team December 15, 2024 30 Essay Guides 2024-25

How to Write the Lehigh University Essays 2024-2025

Lehigh University has 3 required supplemental essays, as well as additional supplements for those students who may be looking to apply to some of Lehigh’s specialized programs.

As a small liberal arts university, Lehigh puts a lot of emphasis on the importance of writing, and so it’s important to write strong essays. In this post, we will be detailing how to answer all these questions, both those prompts for all applicants and those for any applicants wishing to apply to any of Lehigh’s specialized programs! 

Want to get personalized odds of acceptance at Lehigh? Calculate your chances for free right now!

Lehigh University Supplemental Essay Prompts

Overview

We know you’ve been writing what feels like thousands of essays, so you’ll probably be happy to hear that these essays are all 300 words or less. While that may be a relief, it should also raise a bit of a red flag – short word counts can actually be a bit more demanding since they require you to condense a lot of important information (like how great and qualified you are) into a very small space. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that you don’t need to spend a lot of time on these essays just because they’re short. But don’t worry. We know–easier said than done. But rest assured that we’re here to help you write some brilliant essays!

This prompt probably doesn’t need much interpreting—it’s a straightforward “why this college” essay. This essay wants to know what prompted you to apply to Lehigh and how you first learned about their institution. You’ll notice that the word count here is pretty short, at a measly 150 words. That’s not a lot of space at all, so make sure to be concise and get straight to the point.

The most common mistake that people make with “why this college” essays is that they’re too general. They write an essay that any applicant could write because they list the aspects of Lehigh that anybody and everybody is excited about. This sends the message that the applicant didn’t do much research beyond a quick Google search. For this reason, admissions officers end up reading hundreds of practically identical essays. Instead of rattling off generalities, you want to make your essay unique and interesting!

So how do you find a unique aspect of Lehigh to talk about? Research! You can find a full list of ways to research for the “why this college” essay, but we’ll give you a quick breakdown now as well. 

• Start by making a list of all the reasons that you want to go to Lehigh. You might realize looking at this list that it’s full of generic answers such as “great location,” “good price,” and “my test scores are in the competitive range.” It’s okay! Use those answers to guide your research. 

• Look for more specific information about what Lehigh has to offer — like unique courses, an internship program, a club you’re interested in, or research projects. Now is a great time to head over to the university or department website or visit student social media groups. Or, even better, ask your guidance counselor to connect you to a current student to talk to! The more specific the information you include as your “why Lehigh,” the more you’ll stand out.

You may think that admissions officers are looking for a specific answer, but the truth is that they really just want to get to know you better! There are no wrong answers, and trying to give a “correct” answer is boring and overdone! Find something you’re genuinely passionate about and run with it.

You may find yourself getting so caught up in the “why Lehigh” part of the question that you totally forget to answer the part about how you first heard about Lehigh. Don’t fall into that trap! No matter how good your essay is, skipping part of the prompt will make you appear careless and you certainly do not want that. Think back to the first time Lehigh was on your radar. Did a friend mention it to you? Do you live nearby? Maybe a character in your favorite TV show went there or you read about it in a book.

A mistake a lot of students make with essays like this—especially with such low word counts—is that they spend too much time writing about all the amazing things about the college. I know what you’re thinking: But isn’t the prompt asking me to talk about what I like about Lehigh? Well, yes and no. Admissions officers want to know what you like about Lehigh, but frankly, they already know that it’s an incredible institution and they don’t need you to remind them. They’re much more interested in what parts of you match up with their values.

Sound confusing? Think of it this way. Let’s say you’re interested in Lehigh because of Professor Christopher Burke’s social psychology research on dealing with stress through partner support. Prof. Burke isn’t applying to Lehigh and the admissions committee already knows all about him, so spending 100 words talking about how great he is wastes time and words. Instead, introduce your interest in his research, and then frame it around your own research experience on the effect of marital status on hypertension. Also, discuss how this resource is related to your professional goals; maybe this student wants to become a marriage counselor and this research will help him better understand the science behind the therapies, and even come up with new ones. 

If you’re still stuck, try checking out these “why this college” essay examples. Just remember to make it your own and stay true to yourself!

This prompt is a Diversity archetype essay that asks you to reflect on how your personal background will contribute to Lehigh University’s goals of innovation, impact, and collaboration. The emphasis is on how your unique experiences and identity will enrich the Lehigh community and drive its strategic plan forward.

Remember that “diversity” can cover a wide range of experiences, not just race or ethnicity. So, you can talk about something academic, cultural, extracurricular, familial, or really any other aspect of your identity, as long as you can align it with Lehigh’s goals of innovation, impact, and collaboration.

That said, do remember that the Supreme Court overturned Affirmative Action in 2023, which means schools are unable to directly factor a student’s race or ethnicity into their admissions decisions. They can, however, consider these traits as part of a student’s broader life story, namely through the essay. So, if your racial or ethnic identity is important to you, we’d encourage you to write about it here, as otherwise Lehigh will have no way of acknowledging that aspect of who you are.

Regardless of which topic you choose, you’ll want to make sure it specifically demonstrates your appreciation for teamwork, revolution, and making the world a better place. In other words, it should align with Lehigh’s commitment to inspiring future makers.

What does an essay with that kind of alignment look like? Here are some hypothetical student profiles to get you started. 

‌

• Growing up in a bicultural household, Alena has always navigated between two different cultural worlds. This experience has made her adept at understanding diverse perspectives and finding innovative solutions to bridge cultural gaps. She plans to bring this ability to Lehigh by contributing to multicultural initiatives on campus, and ensuring students have ample opportunities to celebrate all aspects of their identity.
• Juan has always been passionate about engineering, but his interest deepened after working on a project to create low-cost water filtration systems for underserved communities. His background in STEM, combined with his commitment to social impact, will allow him to contribute to Lehigh’s goal of “making a difference” by participating in and possibly leading projects that merge engineering innovation with community service.
• As the first in her family to attend college, Eliana has often had to rely on community support and has developed strong collaboration skills to navigate challenges that her family can’t help her with. She intends to contribute to Lehigh’s goal of “making it together” by joining peer mentoring programs and student organizations, where she can both give and receive support to foster a more collaborative campus environment.

What makes these responses so good? Each essay tells us about the students’ backgrounds, their future at Lehigh, and creates a strong connection between the two. They show understanding of Lehigh’s mission, and their essays highlight each students’ potential contributions in concrete terms. 

These students also skirt some of the easy traps to fall into: being too vague, being generic, or over-focusing on either Lehigh’s mission or their own identity, but skipping over the intersection, are the big ones that come to mind. 

Finally, though the fifty word limit may sound like a breeze after writing hundreds of words of supplements, underwriting is another mistake to avoid. With up to 300 words to work with, you’ll want to make the most of them, to show your commitment to Lehigh, your own uniqueness, and how seriously you’re taking the application. You don’t need to use every last one, as your exact word count depends more on particular phrasing and word choice than content, but you ideally want to be at least in the 280-290 range. If you’re significantly below, that’s a sign you should add more detail!

Here’s one example of what a strong, completed essay might look like. Let’s use the example of Alena, the bicultural applicant described above. 

This 295-word essay builds a concrete bridge between a detailed description of a specific aspect of the student’s background, and her future at Lehigh, with Lehigh’s future-making goals seamlessly woven in throughout. While your own topic might look quite different from this one, so long as you hit those three points, you’ll be well on your way to wowing Lehigh’s admissions team.

This supplement is another archetype: the “Why this Major” prompt, which wants you to explain why you’re applying to the program you’ve chosen specifically, and how you see it helping you achieve your goals. Like the prompt above, this is a great chance to show off the research you’ve conducted into Lehigh’s offerings, and how deeply you’ve thought about your own future. 

Once again, this prompt has a lower limit that may seem tempting – just 20 words! However, we really recommend that you make use of the full 200, or close to it, to show you’re taking Lehigh, and this question, seriously. College applications are already quite limiting by their nature, so you don’t want to voluntarily limit yourself even further by using only a fraction of the words available to you.

Here are some brainstorming questions to help you develop an excellent response, which can easily fill 200 words: 

• What is your chosen major or program, and why do you want to pursue it? How did you develop this interest in the first place?
• Why did you choose Lehigh over similar universities? What is unique about Lehigh, especially their program in this field, and how will the school’s resources and culture influence your academic journey?
• What are your long-term goals? Why are you passionate about them? What at Lehigh will help you achieve these goals?

The best responses will clearly link your goals and choices to Lehigh’s offerings, to help admissions officers understand both why you’re choosing their school (as opposed to any of the other 4,000 colleges and universities in the United States alone), and why they should choose you back. Mentioning specific aspects of Lehigh that appeal to you proves you know your stuff, but you want to do more than just name drop–demonstrate you’ve gone beyond just researching, and thought about how what you’ve learned about the school will help enhance your personal college experience.

For this essay, as for all essays, you’ll want to avoid being vague or generic–phoned-in interest will make you forgettable and less compelling as an applicant. Writing an essay that any other student could have written can signal to the admissions team that you haven’t spent much time looking at Lehigh, and you don’t really care whether you get in. 

Consider the following two excerpts from application essays to get a sense of what we mean here:

While this excerpt sounds good at first blush, on closer examination, a lot of this student’s plans are vague. While Lehigh does have a great finance program, many other schools do as well, and having merely heard that it’s a good program does not demonstrate this applicant has made any effort to research why it’s good. Similarly, building community and relationships can happen at any school, so the essay fails to show how Lehigh specifically will help this student grow. 

Now compare that essay with the following selection from a potential essay. 

Now, this essay is immediately more compelling, and while being longer helps, it’s not just the higher word count that makes a difference. By referencing particular campus resources, programs, and professors, this student makes it clear that they’re familiar with what makes Lehigh great. They connect their own specific passions to the environment at Lehigh, its philosophical approach to learning, and their values of sustainability and bettering the world through business.

This prompt is for students looking to enter the Integrated Business & Engineering Honors Program only. It’s a fairly straightforward question that wants to know your rationale for being in the program and hear about your professional goals and how you believe the program can help you advance them. This is not a typical honors program for all liberal arts majors, but rather only specifically for those interested in integrating a STEM-based engineering education with a business mindset. 

The first thing you’ll need to do is write a list of reasons why you feel like you are interested in this program. Think about your career aspirations and how they fit within this program. Generally, there are two kinds of students who will be applying to this program:

The Business Major: The IBE program stands out to business students who are looking to understand how products are designed and manufactured in order to have a better sense of the development process from start to finish. Additionally, business students will learn the qualitative and problem-solving skills of engineering that can only help them in their business endeavors. Perhaps you’re someone who is interested in finance, the IBE program would help teach you analytic skills in regards to specific products and show you how to make judgment calls based on the development process as a whole.

The Engineering Major: For those students who are looking to go into some area of engineering, learning business skills through IBE will help them understand the decision-making process behind products. In doing so, engineering students can learn how to make their products more effective and fill the needs of the consumer or client. Having a business-oriented mindset will also aid them in the workplace and allow them to not only design products, but make decisions regarding the product in terms of development, distribution, and marketing. For example, perhaps you’re interested in mechanical engineering and want to work in the construction industry, learning business skills through IBE would help you understand how mechanical engineering is an essential part of the daily business of our lives and how construction can be idealized to benefit the public.

Knowing this, match the list of reasons you have for IBE to the kind of student you want to be. While you can end up getting a dual degree through IBE in engineering and business, you will need to select a concentration when you start off. Do you feel like you want to be a business student with an engineering integration or an engineering student with a business integration? If you’re still unsure, you can read more about the IBE program on their website, attached here. The website includes information about curriculums, courses, and other main staples of the IBE program, which brings us to our next step: figuring out how the IBE program can help your professional goals.

You obviously don’t have to know what career you’d like to have when you graduate college – that’s what college is there to help you figure out. However, it can be helpful to set goals for yourself that will guide your path throughout the program. 

Perhaps you want to launch a business that can solve a problem in your community – maybe you live in a coastal town and want to design a home appliance to protect your house from floods. While you may not know how to engineer that, you can discuss how the IBE program would help you with both facets of the endeavor – the business and the engineering behind the product. 

The IBE program offers a two-semester Senior Project course in which teams work with a corporate sponsor to actually go through a product development process. You could write about how you would hope to pair with an environmental engineering start-up that could work with your team to design a sustainable product for these coastal communities. You can even go further and mention how participating in both the Sophomore and Junior Laboratory programs, which primarily focus on educating students on the business and engineering sides of project development, would prepare you to take on a task of this stature.

Regardless of how sure you are of your goal, be as specific as you can and showcase your ambition.

This prompt is for students looking to enter the Integrated Business & Engineering Honors Program only. It’s a fairly straightforward question that wants to know your rationale for being in the program and hear about your professional goals and how you believe the program can help you advance them. This is a four-year program that will award you a degree from both Lehigh’s College of Business and their College of Engineering and Applied Science and thus is a highly rigorous and specialized program. It requires full commitment and dedication, which is what admissions representatives will be looking for in your response.

The first thing you’ll need to do is figure out what makes you interested in this specific program. Do you have an interest in computer science but want to know more about how you can apply it in business? Are you more interested in business but already know more about computer science? Do you want to combine both of them to eventually work at a tech start-up of the future? Whatever your goal may be, remember it’s not just about the finish line, but what about integrating computer science and business appeals to you? And that includes what you hope to do in the program at Lehigh.

For example, one of the most important offerings of the CSB program is the senior Capstone project, in which students will conduct a highly intensive design project often with the backing of corporate sponsors. Students will work with these corporate sponsors to attend to the company’s needs, often programming or designing internal systems for the company such as websites, applications, modules, and more. Discussing a specific offering like Lehigh’s capstone project will showcase how you wish to apply your skills in the business world. 

Perhaps you hope to work with a sustainability company to help design ways to connect people with more environmentally friendly ways to live. Maybe something as simple as connecting people with the nearest public recycling bin. You could write about how a project of that size with the guidance of a corporate sponsor would give you the hands-on experience of client-based work to help you succeed in the business world.

Whatever your reason for wanting to be a part of the CSB program may be, remember to showcase your driven and determined nature. Even if you’re not sure of what specifics you wish to get out of the program, there’s bound to be something on the CSB website that sticks with you. Do research, brainstorm, and write what most encapsulates your interest.

IDEAS, or the Integrated Degree in Engineering, Arts, & Sciences, is an honors program at Lehigh University that is aimed at students who are interested in obtaining an education in both liberal arts and STEM. The IDEAS honors program will require students to take courses in mathematics and sciences, and then gives students the ability to select whether they’d rather pursue an Engineering concentration or an Arts & Science concentration. 

All in all, IDEAS is for students looking for a cross-disciplinary education that can give them a really strong sampling platter of various fields of study. It is a rigorous four-year program, but one that provides a rewarding all-around experience. While IDEAS may offer a comprehensive education in several disciplines, it is not for students who are just simply undecided in their major, rather the contrary – it’s for students who know they desire a holistic education that engages a variety of interests and allows them to forge their own path from those interests. 

One of the key distinctions between high school and college is that whereas in high school you’re splitting your time evenly between math, science, English, and other subjects, in college you will generally have control over how much time, if any, you spend with each. For example, if you are an English major, it doesn’t make much sense for you to take Organic Chemistry – that is, of course, unless you want to be an IDEAS student.

Think about how you’ve enjoyed your high school experience. Maybe you’re someone who has an astute interest in philosophy as well as computer science. The IDEAS program would not only give you the ability to take courses across Lehigh’s various colleges and give you access to all the philosophy and computer science courses but also allow you the ability to define your own major and eventual career path. 

Using this example, perhaps you’re interested in how computer science and ethics intersect. You can write about specific examples of this such as how self-driving cars may need to make snap decisions based on how they’re programmed with the principles of human ethics. You can write about how the IDEAS program would give you the ability to learn about the intersection between ethics and engineering, thus giving you a highly-specialized profile to obtain your eventual career goals.

If you’re unsure of what your career goals or specific interests may be exactly, write down various subjects that interest you and then try to find the intersection between them. Chances are you can establish a connection between most two subjects, and your ability to do so will display creativity and determination. Admissions representatives for the IDEAS program are looking for students who are hoping to carve out their own path at Lehigh, so the more specific you can get the better.

This prompt is a slightly more specific version of the “Why this Major” prompt archetype, which asks you to explain why Lehigh’s Integrated Business & Health (IBH) Program in particular is the best fit for your academic and professional goals. The admissions team wants to know why you’re specifically drawn to this unique program and how it aligns with your future plans. 

This is your opportunity to demonstrate that you’ve researched the program and understand how its unique combination of business and health studies will help you achieve your academic and career goals. You need to be specific about what aspects of the IBH program appeal to you and how they connect to your interests and aspirations–you don’t want to come across as only applying because it sounds prestigious.

Here are some questions to get your brainstorming started. 

• What are your long-term academic or career goals, and how do they relate to the intersection of business and health? Why are you interested in an interdisciplinary program that combines business and health, rather than focusing solely on one of the fields?
• What specific aspects of Lehigh’s IBH program appeal to you? Examples include courses, faculty, research opportunities, or experiential learning. 
• How will the IBH program at Lehigh uniquely prepare you for your future career in ways that other programs might not? What factors are most important to you, and how does Lehigh’s program supply these factors? 
• How do you see yourself contributing to or benefiting from the IBH program’s community and resources?

A strong response will answer many, if not all, of these questions, by demonstrating knowledge of the program, clearly defined plans that relate to both fields, and a strong connection between your plans and Lehigh’s offerings. 200 words isn’t’ a ton, but if you’re efficient, you’ll be able to craft a response that both is informative and lets your genuine interest in the program shine through.

Let’s look at some hypothetical student examples to get an idea of what a good essay might look like. 

• Levi has always had a passion for business, but became interested in the healthcare industry after being diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. He wants to start his own healthcare tech company one day, focused on improving the lives of those with diabetes, and he believes the IBH program’s combination of business acumen and healthcare knowledge will give him the tools to truly innovate and address real-world health challenges head on.
• Selma is passionate about improving public health systems and believes that a strong understanding of both health and business is crucial for making effective policy decisions. She’s drawn to Lehigh’s IBH program because of its emphasis on courses that cover healthcare economics and management, as she believes these courses will give her the skills she needs to influence health policy in meaningful ways.

Each of these essays explains what these students hope to do, why the IBH program is right for them, and what is most compelling about Lehigh in particular. The first one even includes a personal detail that helps give emotional weight to Levi’s interest in the field, but that isn’t necessary for a great essay, so don’t force it if you don’t genuinely have something to say.

While these examples may seem intimidatingly specific, you don’t actually need to know exactly what you want to do in the future–Selma, for example, doesn’t know exactly which policies she wants to spearhead. You do need to have some particular area of business and healthcare you’re drawn to, as an essay that tries to cover the entirety of both fields will go off the rails fast. But at the same time Lehigh knows college is a time to learn, so it’s okay if you’re still figuring out exactly what you hope to accomplish, so long as you do have some concrete ideas of how Lehigh will help you eventually decide.

‌

This is another program-specific “Why This Major” essay, that asks you to explain how Lehigh’s dual degree program aligns with your educational and professional goals. Like the prompt above, this is a great opportunity to show your knowledge of Lehigh’s offerings, your plans for your future, and how the two connect. You’ll need to connect the specific elements of the program to your personal ambitions and explain why pursuing a major in both the College of Arts and Sciences and the College of Engineering is the best path for you.

A good response will make a clear and direct link between your dreams for your future and Lehigh’s program. Beyond Lehigh overall being your top choice, you want to talk about why this program specifically is the right one for you, as opposed to some other option at Lehigh. 

To do this, you should have a good idea of what your goals and interests are. They don’t need to be set in stone, but knowing enough about yourself and your passions to talk about how the dual-degree program will help you is key. You’ll also want to know enough about the dual-degree program to provide details of why you want to be a part of it. The last thing you want is for Lehigh to think you seem great, but that you just aren’t knowledgeable enough about this program to take full advantage of it.

The word limit is just 200 words, so you’ll have to be concise and persuasive. You’ll also want to avoid over-focusing on one aspect of the program, while also taking care not to spread yourself too thin. You want to show you appreciate the different sides of the program, while also leaving yourself enough space to make connections to your own interests and future goals–you don’t want your essay to just feel like a bullet point list.

Consider the following examples of strong essays to get a concrete sense of how to incorporate all these elements:

This student has a clear vision of the future, both at Lehigh and beyond, but that’s not a requirement for a strong essay. Consider this other example, which is just as powerful and informative, but doesn’t require knowledge of exact future goals. 

This student may still be choosing exactly which path they want to follow, but they clearly have the drive and love of interdisciplinary learning necessary to take full advantage of the program’s resources to develop a more concrete idea of what they want to do long-term.

‌

This prompt is a classic “Why This Major” essay, like many of the prompts above, but focused on the highly competitive, 7-year program that includes guaranteed admission to dental school. The key here is to demonstrate a deep understanding of the opportunities offered by this program and to show how they align with your personal and academic aspirations in dentistry specifically.

To help prepare to write this prompt, let’s break it down into the necessary parts. You will want your essay to answer many, if not most, of the following questions.

• What aspects of this program (specificity, length, etc.) do you believe will set you up to be the best dentist possible?
• Why do you want to be a dentist, and what are your goals within the field? How does this school, this program, and its unique attributes prepare you to reach those goals?
• What have you done to prepare yourself to thrive in this kind of accelerated, highly competitive program? Clubs, coursework, summer programs, part-time work, volunteer experiences?

While these may seem like daunting questions, when you’re applying to this kind of program, which often has an acceptance rate in the low single digits, you want your aptitude for the field of dentistry to come across crystal clear. That said, if you don’t yet have specific reasons for applying, that’s okay–that’s just a sign you need to hop on Lehigh’s website, find some specific attributes of the program you’re drawn to, and reflect on why.

Note that these attributes should be more specific than just “finishing faster so I can start working sooner and making money.” While being practical is not a bad thing in your own life, admissions officers want your enthusiasm for the field in and of itself to leap off the page, to the point that they feel completely confident giving you a spot at their school for the next seven years.

Next, when you think about future goals, you don’t need to be hyper-specific, and have everything planned down to the letter. That said, you should have a reason for pursuing dentistry beyond “it’s interesting.” For example, maybe you had a lot of teeth issues as a kid, and your dentist’s kindness helped you not feel insecure about them, so you want to do the same for other kids.

Here is an example of what a good response which ties all these elements together might look like. 

This supplement is pretty straightforward – it’s an opportunity to list experience that is connected to your future in the dental field. The prompt is very broad, so you’ll want to spend some time carefully considering what to include here. While you might have experience that is easily classed as pre-med or pre-dental, other things may feel more borderline. Here are some considerations to help you decide what to include. 

• Have any of your activities or experiences helped to teach you about the medical or dental fields? This could be classroom learning, doing medical or dental research, or instruction in more niche aspects of the field, like the financial or administrative aspects of this kind of work. Think broadly about what might count as acquiring knowledge. 
• Has anything prepared you for the physical work or tasks associated with dentistry? This might include experiential learning, practicing techniques, working with lifelike models, or exercises or fine motor work that mimic dentistry. 
• Have you spent time in settings associated with dentistry or medicine? This might involve lab research, shadowing, or participating in an internship or assistantship. Carefully consider what you were able to watch and glean from your experience before including it here. 

When you have your list of potential inclusions, go over it with a critical eye. There is no length provided for this supplement, but you still don’t want to pad it out with fluff. While a long list might look impressive, including irrelevant, repetitive, or superfluous information may make a poor impression on the admissions officer reading your essay–they’re busy people, and don’t have time to spend thinking about how gardening connects to your future as an orthodontist. Choose only experiences that are truly relevant, and describe them as clearly and succinctly as possible. 

Finally, if you do not have any experience, or do not have much experience, this prompt rather generously offers the opportunity to demonstrate your commitment by asking you to plan future exploration of the field. Lehigh understands that acquiring healthcare experience as a high schooler can be tricky, and just because you haven’t had the opportunity to explore the field directly yet doesn’t mean you won’t be a great dentist one day.

If you’re in this boat, you’ll want to be as specific and direct as student’s with pre-existing experience, only instead of explaining why what you you’ve already done is relevant to dentistry, you’ll want to explain why what you envision yourself doing will help you develop the skills you need to succeed in the field. Resist the urge to explain your lack of experience here–it’s not relevant, and could make your essay seem like a downer rather than emphasizing your vision for your future.

‌

This is another prompt that’s broad, but not necessarily straightforward. While any work with hands is asked for, try to keep in mind what is most relevant in dentistry. The smaller and more detailed the work, the better, so sewing or building model airplanes will make a better impression than large-scale construction. 

Again, though no length is provided, you’ll want to be succinct. While the prompt itself asks for a list, it’s a good idea to still use complete sentences, and include enough detail that admissions officers can clearly see how engaged you are in this activity. Here are some examples that can help kickstart your brainstorming. 

• Embroidery, sewing, or needlepoint
• Knitting, crochet, or quilting
• Sculpting or pottery
• Building models
• Woodworking or carpentry
• Jewelry making
• Mechanical repair (particularly small electronics or engines)
• Fine detail painting
• Makeup, cosmetic or SFX

The broadest prompt of all, you can list anything that involves working with people. As you likely have many examples, make sure to select the most salient and the most impressive. Dentists work with patients, after all, who may be experiencing a serious health issue, so the activities you choose should demonstrate empathy, patience, and communication skills.

As with the other prompts above, you’ll want to keep your list focused and relatively short. The following questions should help you trim down your options to only those examples that truly deserve to be included.

• Do you have any person-facing experience in the medical or dental fields, like checking people in for vaccines? 
• Do you have any experience in customer service? 
• Have you worked as a member of a closely knit team?
• Have you ever worked or served in a mentorship or leadership role, like being a summer camp counselor? 
• Have you worked in a problem-solving capacity? Examples might include refereeing, facilitating, or being a kind of official.
• Do you have any experiences of working with others that are remarkable for their rarity, intensity, or any other reason? Going on backcountry ski trips could be an example here.

‌

For this final prompt, you’ll have to discuss your reasons for going into the profession of dentistry. This is a great opportunity to go into more detail about some of the experiences you’ve briefly listed above. Maybe there’s a factor that links several of these experiences together, or you want to describe one of the most important ones more vividly. For example, maybe you’ve done a lot of activities focused on building others’ confidence, and since your smile can be one of the first things strangers notice about you, you see dentistry as a fantastic way to keep doing that in a professional context.

You may be tempted to ignore the final part of the question, or give an answer that doesn’t really answer the prompt. That would be a mistake, however. No career is perfect, and Lehigh wants to see that you’re truly ready for the demands of dentistry, rather than having a naive perspective on what the job entails. Maybe you’re worried about dealing with health insurance, or giving people bad diagnoses. 

Whatever you choose, be honest about why this thing worries you, but also include a positive spin, by describing something you plan on doing to deal with it. For example, perhaps you hope to volunteer in an administrative role at a clinic during college, to learn more about health insurance, or you’re going to join a mindfulness club to learn how to keep a calm mind even in difficult situations.

Make sure that what you say here isn’t redundant with Prompt 1. While that essay is focused on Lehigh’s program specifically, this one is more about your broader goals for dentistry down the line.

Finally, while there’s no word count for this prompt, you don’t want to write a novel. Something in the 200-400 range should be sufficient. Remember, admissions officers have a lot of applications to get through, and if you write too much, they could end up just skimming to save time. So, be thoughtful, but also focused, to ensure your passion for dentistry comes across clearly and concisely.

Where to Get Your Lehigh University Essays Edited For Free

Do you want feedback on your Lehigh essays? After rereading your essays countless times, it can be difficult to evaluate your writing objectively. That’s why we created our free Peer Essay Review tool, where you can get a free review of your essay from another student. You can also improve your own writing skills by reviewing other students’ essays. 

Need feedback faster? Get a free, nearly-instantaneous essay review from Sage, our AI tutor and advisor. Sage will rate your essay, give you suggestions for improvement, and summarize what admissions officers would take away from your writing. Use these tools to improve your chances of acceptance to your dream school!