How to Write The New School Essays 2025-2026
Known for its innovative approach to higher education, The New School combines programs in design (via Parsons), liberal arts, performing arts, and more. With its location in one of the most culturally vibrant cities in the world, The New School offers abundant opportunities for creative collaboration and real-world engagement with New York City.
Students applying for admission must submit two supplemental essays. Because The New School gets thousands of applications from qualified students each year, it’s important your essays are strong to help set yourself apart.
The New School Supplemental Essay Prompts
Prompt 1: In your study or work at The New School, what social issue or system would you make the focus of your efforts to effect change? (300-400 words)
Prompt 2: What specific aspects of The New School’s academic programs or community drew you to apply? Please pay particular attention within your essay to the college, program, and/or campus to which you have applied. (300-400)
Prompt 1
In your study or work at The New School, what social issue or system would you make the focus of your efforts to effect change? (300-400 words)
In this essay, The New School wants to see that you are passionate about making the world a better place. Beyond that, they want to know how you will make it a reality by attending The New School. They are looking for alumni who make an active difference in the world, so you need to show the admissions committee there are issues you care deeply about and how you will actively work towards improving them, both in college and after.
A successful essay should have the following components:
- A focus on a special issue you want to address
- A personal connection to the issue you’ve chosen
- A forward-looking plan for what change would look like
- Details about how you will go about making change
Let’s review each of these items in more detail.
Picking Your Issue
The first step is to pick a social issue or system that you would like to change or improve in some way. This goes hand-in-hand with the second component which is having a personal connection to the issue; when you are thinking about your topic, you want to choose something you have some experience with.
While there are dozens, if not hundreds, of worthy causes you might want to tackle, for the purpose of a college essay, it’s far better to choose something you have a connection to that way you can share anecdotes with the admissions officers and share more about your background, perspectives, activities, etc.
For example, maybe you think that pharmaceutical companies should have more regulation to prevent unfair pricing practices, but if you don’t have a tangible connection to this issue, it might not make for the best focus of your essay. Instead, you could talk about reforming public school funding because you tutor kids in a different town after school and you’ve seen first hand the disparity in resources between your school and theirs, just based on property taxes in the district. The latter topic makes far more sense for this essay because it would allow you to share more about your direct experiences with the issue.
Your connection to the issue doesn’t have to be as straight-forward as the example above. The following examples would also count as personal connections. Essentially, you just want to choose an issue you can tie back to a story of your own as these students do:
- Wyatt picks marine pollution because he’s from a coastal town and has seen the effects plastic pollution has on marine ecosystems.
- Avery chooses Islamophobia because she witnessed the way her friend was bullied and excluded because of her religion.
- Pedro’s topic is political polarization because he did a research paper on the causes and effects for class and became passionate about the issue.
- Shivani picks the fashion industry’s lack of inclusive sizing because she’s struggled first-hand trying to find clothes she felt confident in that were in her size.
What Change Would You Like to See
Once you have the current issue you are passionate about, you need to consider how you would like to address the issue. This part of your essay doesn’t have to be overcomplicated—it also doesn’t have to be extremely long. You simply need to show that you are solution-oriented and can think of ways to solve problems that you see.
For example, Wyatt from the examples above might propose designing every-day plastic materials like water bottles, utensils, and bags to be made out of degradable materials as his solution. Shivani’s solution could be creating her own clothing brand that is specifically geared towards plus-size bodies to fill the gap in the industry.
How Will You Go About Bringing Change
What is arguably the most important piece of this essay is to demonstrate how you will go about addressing the issue and work towards the solution you’ve proposed. This is where you show the admissions committee that you have identified the actions, skills, and knowledge you will need to make a difference in the world—and The New School is a critical part of that journey.
Essentially, if you’ve identified the current state of the issue and what you would like to see in the far future, you now need to fill in the missing piece of what you will do in the near future (in college) to get to your end goal.
You should think about how the things you learn and engage with at The New School will help you address your issue. Is there a specific professor who specializes in the topic you plan to work closely with and learn from? Is there a club or program at the New School that addresses this issue on a local scale so you can gain exposure and apply that knowledge to a national or international scale? What classes in your major will help you develop key skills you need to effect change?
Just because you’re submitting a “Why This College” essay for the second prompt, does not mean you should not include specific resources and opportunities in this essay. However, just as with a traditional “Why This College” essay, you’ll need to be careful that you aren’t name-dropping New School resources for the sake of it—anything you include needs to have reasoning behind it.
For example, consider the difference in the following two examples.
Example 1: “At The New School, I would tap into many of the university’s offerings to tackle housing inequality. I would participate in classes like Social Justice in the Everyday: Spatial Justice and Museums and Social Justice, volunteer with the Lang Office of Civic Engagement and Social Justice, align with Equity, Inclusion, and Social Justice (EISJ) initiatives, and engage in the Public Engagement Fellows program. All these resources would help me build the knowledge and network to effect change in housing policy.”
Example 2: “In working to reform housing inequality, I plan to lean heavily on The New School’s Public Engagement Fellows program, especially because of its mentorship component and ties to real-world community projects. As a Fellow, I can partner with local housing advocacy groups through the Schools of Public Engagement, gaining firsthand experience in negotiating rent policy and community planning. I would also enroll in Social Justice in the Everyday: Spatial Justice in Eugene Lang, where seminars will be combined with field trips and guest lectures that examine how zoning laws, land use history, and neighborhood segregation have shaped inequity. That course’s project work—mapping neighborhoods’ legal histories with respect to racial covenants—would directly inform the policy proposals I want to craft.”
While both show ways this student will work towards solving this issue while at The New School, the second example shows the reader exactly what the student will get out of each experience. Not only does this help us appreciate what their plan to effect change is, it also shows that their research on the New School’s opportunities was genuine as they took the time to choose two resources that are directly related to them, rather than including anything they found on the website.
Prompt 2
What specific aspects of The New School’s academic programs or community drew you to apply? Please pay particular attention within your essay to the college, program, and/or campus to which you have applied. (300-400)
This prompt is your classic “Why This College?” essay where schools want to know about your interest in them over other colleges. The key piece of advice we urge you to remember is that this essay has to be extremely specific to The New School. Reusing a “Why This College” essay for a different application and replacing the name of the school won’t cut it—you need to tailor this essay to The New School and the opportunities it offers.
Specifically, the prompt asks you to pay attention to the college, program, and/or campus you are applying to, so your essay should be geared towards that more specifically than The New School as a whole.
What to Include
With up to 400 words at your disposal, you should include multiple aspects of your college or program that you are drawn to in your essay. The prompt asks for both academic programs and community, so the resources you discuss should ideally span both of these categories.
In terms of brainstorming, our best advice is to spend time scouring the website, watching videos, looking at brochures, etc. Looking into classes, professors, extracurricular activities and clubs, research opportunities, special programs, study abroad, living learning communities, and more are all great ways to find unique aspects of your college or program at the New School that excite you.
You could also include more intangible aspects of The New School you are drawn to, like their values. However, these should be balanced out with the more tangible offerings since it might appear to the admissions officers that you haven’t done your homework on The New School if you only discuss their values.
Remember, it’s not enough to just include the resources/opportunities and move on—you need to elaborate on why you are looking forward to them. What do you hope to get out of participating in each opportunity? What skills/knowledge will you gain? How will it set you up for success or help you achieve your goals? These are the questions admissions officers really want answers to, so make sure your essay explains the why behind each New School offering you include.
For example, instead of writing, “I want to take classes in Sustainable Systems and work in the Design Lab,” try something more purposeful, like this:
“The Sustainable Systems course will help me understand the intersection of environmental design and policy, giving me the framework to expand my work designing eco-conscious urban spaces.”
Another important thing to keep in mind is that you shouldn’t just praise The New School—you should also show your alignment. Don’t be afraid to include anecdotes or personal stories (we often recommend opening your essay with these rather than the overused “I want to attend The New School because..”) to show how the resources you include in your essay connect to you.
For example, a student applying to Parsons for Interior Design might begin their essay like this:
“Last summer, I turned my garage into a ‘studio’—really just a folding table, scraps of wood, and a sketch pinned to the wall. My goal was simple: transform the unused space into a welcoming study area for my younger siblings. The process taught me more about design than any tutorial—how light affects focus, how materials influence mood, how people interact with what surrounds them. At The New School, I want to expand that hands-on curiosity into a deeper exploration of sustainable, people-centered interiors”
Finally, you should also include your long-term aspirations to show how studying at The New School will help you get there. Admissions officers want to see that this isn’t just a school you like, but the next step in your intellectual and creative journey, so make sure your essay conveys that.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
There are three main things we advise students against when writing a “Why This College” essay.
Firstly, make sure you aren’t name-dropping school offerings without providing any elaboration or reasoning as to why you are interested in those specifically. It’s always better to include a fewer number of resources/opportunities if it means you can elaborate on the ones you do include in further detail.
Another thing we caution against is empty flattery of the school. The admissions officers are well aware of The New School’s prestige or world-renown; they don’t need you to tell them about it. Save your space for sharing unique things The New School has to offer rather than just writing what you think they want to hear.
Finally, remember that The New School has far more assets than just being located in New York City. While many students are drawn to this school for its prime location, that alone should not be one of your reasons for wanting to attend.
If you want to talk about NYC in your essay, make sure it is within the context of ways The New School engages with the surrounding community—for example, through programs, hands-on classes, etc. Even if you’re pursuing the performing arts, try and find something specific about the opportunities at The New School (guest lectures from alumni on Broadway, field trips to matinee performances, opportunities to perform at Lincoln Center, etc.) rather than just citing its proximity to an artistic and cultural hub of the world.
Where to Get Your New School Essays Edited for Free
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