How to Write the North Carolina State University Essays 2025-2026
North Carolina State University has two required essay prompts for applicants to respond to this year. The essays are a combination of why you want to study your first and second choice majors and why you want to study them at NC State specifically. There is also a required prompt for applicants to the University Honors Program that asks about your curiosity and how it has driven you to meaningful action.
NC State receives thousands of applications from strong candidates each application cycle, so your essays are your best chance to stand out. In this post, we’ll discuss how to craft an engaging response to each of these prompts.
North Carolina State University Supplemental Essay Prompts
All Applicants
Prompt 1: Explain why you selected the first choice academic program above and why you are interested in studying this at NC State. (250 words)
Prompt 2: Explain why you selected the second choice academic program above and why you are interested in studying this at NC State. (250 words)
Honors Program Applicants
Prompt: Tell us about an event, realization, or project where your curiosity inspired you to take action. What initially sparked your interest, how did you pursue further understanding, and what specific actions did you take as a result? (250-600 words)
All Applicants, Prompt 1
Explain why you selected the first choice academic program above and why you are interested in studying this at NC State. (250 words)
This is a blend of the classic “Why This Major?” prompt and “Why This College?” prompt. There are two parts you need to address in not a lot of space:
- Why you are passionate about your prospective major
- Why NC State is the best place for you to pursue this major
The majority of your essay will likely be dedicated to the first part of the prompt, but that doesn’t mean you can neglect the second part. Your essay won’t be complete in the admissions officers’ eyes unless you can convey that the opportunities and resources at NC State will afford you a better education in your chosen field than any other college would.
Reading this prompt, it would be easy to fall into the trap of simply listing your extracurriculars that relate to your intended major. For example, if you want to major in engineering, you might list that you participated in Science Olympiad, robotics club, etc. However, avoid the urge to do this.
While you should certainly mention if there is a particular extracurricular that drove you to love this field, don’t simply list things you’ve done relating to this major or program. Instead, you want to support your decision with specific content that the NC State admissions officers have not yet seen on your application.
For example, you could tell a story about a moment during the Science Olympiad when you encountered a project with applications beyond the club. Perhaps you discovered a robotic device to assist others and from that moment, you realized that this was a field where you could make a tangible impact.
It might be helpful to consider these questions to guide your writing:
When did you decide to pursue this major/program? Why?
Think back to what first got you interested in the program you intend to pursue. For example, if math has been a passion of yours for a long time, then you could make a joke about how doing a math problem is your earliest memory. Or perhaps you always considered yourself a humanities person until you challenged yourself in a math class and discovered your passion for the subject.
What are the broader applications of this program?
Another factor that admissions officers will be looking for is your ability to exhibit the ways in which a degree from their school in this major would help you achieve your goals and make the world a better place. Try citing your career goals and discussing how your major will help you achieve them. The admissions officers want to see your passion—they do not want to accept someone who is pre-med just because it is financially lucrative or because their parents want them to be a doctor.
How does your major connect with some of your other interests?
Admissions officers appreciate students who realize that their major can connect to other subjects and activities. Briefly referencing your other interests will portray you as an interdisciplinary person, making you appear more interesting. Such a response could look like this:
“Philosophy, much like the jazz music I play on my piano, is all up to interpretation and how you see things. You can give any jazz pianist the same chords to improvise over, but you’ll never get the same song. Similarly, after posing a question to a group of philosophers, you will get myriad and innovative responses.”
Why this major/program at NC State and not another school?
The most important thing for this part of your response is doing research! Avoid hackneyed statements like: “NC State will help me pursue my dreams of becoming a civil engineer because they have a really good engineering program.” You need to pinpoint specific courses, concentrations, professors, research labs, study abroad opportunities, co-op programs, etc. that NC State offers and then make the case for why having access to those resources will help you.
By citing specific resources you plan to take advantage of, you will help admissions officers picture you as part of the NC State community. Just be careful not to namedrop for the sake of it. For any of the resources you highlight in your essay, you need to elaborate on how they will be beneficial to your education.
All that being said, it’s also okay to be undecided. One of the wonderful things about college is that it is a time to explore your interests and try new things! If you are unsure about your potential major, then provide examples of things that you want to try out at NC State.
You could discuss how you may want to be an engineer, but how you’ve recently worked with little kids as a camp counselor and would like to explore teaching. For this strategy, the same rules as above apply—do not simply list! Instead, be specific and tell a story about your background, or about how you would fit in at NC State as you try new things and gain value from a multidisciplinary education!
Essay Example
Now that you have an understanding of what elements to include in your essay, let’s look at an example of a weak essay, and then discuss how it can be improved:
“I have a passion for learning about different cultures. I have studied French for six years and participated in an exchange trip after my freshman year for two weeks, allowing me to live with a family in Oyonnax, France. This experience, along with continued political discussions in the midst of the French and American elections, sparked my interest in global affairs. I love communications, diplomacy, and politics. I want to go into international public service with a focus on human rights so I can be a voice for those who lack one.”
One of the main reasons this essay is not very strong is due to its “listiness” quality. Many of the items included in this essay are ones that the admissions office will already have read from the activities list on the Common Application. Including them here is a waste of space that could better be used to share new information.
How could it be improved? Telling a story and showing why you want to study this major is a good place to start. Focus on what was mentioned in the last sentence: “be[ing] a voice for those who lack one.” Have you had experience with this? Why is this important? Why have you enjoyed it in the past? The focus could also be placed on the part about the French and American elections—What was interesting about these discussions? How were those elections similar and different? Give specific details to strengthen your response. Here is a much stronger example:
“‘Macron a gagné,’ my host mom said with a relieved sigh. It was 2022, and I was studying abroad as a homestay student in Oyonnax, France. The murmur of BFM TV became muted as I tuned into my own thoughts—I had just lived through my first French election!
Since that day, I have been interested in the differences between French and American elections, and most of all, democratic power transitions. Elections to me are a universal human right—the peaceful transition of the torch of Lady Liberty, the keys to the kingdom, is a historical marvel.
I want to keep democracy alive; by combining what I learned about political accountability in Oyonnax and in Durham as a poll worker, I aspire to start an election-monitoring NGO that works in my mother’s home country of Mali. Majoring in Political Science at NC State, with its unique Honors Program and faculty advisors who conduct comparative elections research, is the best stepping stone I could take to make my goal a reality…”
All Applicants, Prompt 2
Explain why you selected the second choice academic program above and why you are interested in studying this at NC State. (250 words)
As I’m sure you’ve noticed, this is the same prompt from above, just for your second choice major now. Since we’ve already done a full breakdown of that prompt, this breakdown will focus primarily on how to distinguish this essay from your first one.
Some things to keep in mind as you write this essay:
- Your second choice major should not come across as settling. You want to express genuine interest, passion, and excitement for both majors.
- Your essay should not be a rewrite of your first with a new subject. Try to utilize new anecdotes, emphasize new personality traits, and show another angle of your interest in NC State.
- You can choose a second major that is complementary or similar to your first, just make sure that you’re showing a new angle or approach in talking about your interest in the program.
Instead of seeing this as a repetitive prompt, appreciate it for the opportunity it gives you to demonstrate more of your personality to the admissions committee. Maybe your first essay about the environmental science major demonstrated your passion for the environment and dedication to the cause of promoting biodiversity. Your second essay could use the plant biology major to explore your intellectual curiosity and love of challenge, or your view of nature as an interconnected web and your desire to find humanity’s place in it.
To write this essay, you should go through the same steps you did above: spend some time brainstorming anecdotes, reflecting on your personal connection to this major, and framing a narrative around your interest. If there are stories that didn’t fit well with your first essay, this could be a good place to include those so the admissions committee still sees them. Make sure that what you’re writing fits with the major you’ve chosen and isn’t just repurposed from your first essay.
Let’s look at a few strong examples comparing and contrasting first and second essay topics.
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Daniel – First choice: Computer Science | Second choice: Statistics
Daniel got hooked on coding through robotics competitions which he emphasizes in his first essay, but his love of analyzing data sets came from working on a baseball analytics project with his coach, his second essay topic. He’d be excited about Statistics as another way to use logic and quantitative reasoning to solve real-world problems.
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Fatima – First choice: Environmental Engineering | Second choice: Microbiology
Fatima wants to design water filtration systems but is also fascinated by the microorganisms that affect water safety. If placed in Microbiology, she’d study pathogens and contaminants at a microscopic level, which still aligns with her broader goal of ensuring clean water access.
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Marcus – First choice: Business Administration | Second choice: Agricultural Business Management
Growing up in a family that ran a small farm stand, Marcus knows agriculture is the backbone of his community. If not general business, he’d pursue Agricultural Business Management to blend his entrepreneurial drive with his roots in sustainable farming.
Each of these examples shows a real interest and strong commitment to both potential majors. Daniel is connected to both majors through his STEM interest, but doesn’t limit himself to one future path. Fatima demonstrates an interdisciplinary approach by recognizing different angles by which to approach a subject she’s interested in—water filtration is one way to approach water safety, but she could also study the organisms that water filters target. Finally, Marcus focuses on two paths to the same result, either by doing a broader overview of business, or laser-focusing on something he already has an appreciation for.
These are just three examples of how to make sure your essays work together to give the best possible portrait of you, but there are many more options for how to write this essay. Keep in mind the important points from the first essay—be genuine, reference NC State programs and offerings without just name-dropping, and demonstrate a real connection and engagement with the major—still apply. Then, think about what might be missing from that first essay, or what else the admissions committee could learn about you.
Whether you go deeper or go in a totally different direction, take advantage of this supplement to show even more of your best self.
Honors Program Prompt
Think about a time when your curiosity led you to not just learn, but to act. How did you learn more, and what tangible steps did you take as a result of what you learned? What insights about yourself, others, or the world did you take away from this process of learning and doing?
You are encouraged to draw from any meaningful experience, whether it happened in school, at home, in your community, at work, or anywhere else your learning and growth have taken shape. (250-600 words)
This prompt asks you to reflect on a moment of curiosity that led you to take meaningful action. The key is to show how your intellectual inquisitiveness drives you to learn and engage with the world beyond the classroom, and to demonstrate your capacity for insight by reflecting on the experience. You have up to 600 words, and should use most, if not all of that space, to fully capture your intellectual curiosity, commitment, and ability to learn.
To begin, you’ll want to identify a topic or question that you are genuinely interested in and have taken concrete steps toward understanding further. That could be by conducting research, initiating a project, beginning a new related hobby, or seeking out mentors, but your pursuit of this topic should be obvious, as well as some kind of realization or change that took place because of what you learned.
So, what kind of interest should you write about? Consider these questions to help you pick the best possible topic.
- When did you encounter an idea or problem that made you hungry to know more?
- Have you ever gone above and beyond to further your learning? Think reaching out to experts in the field, taking an additional class, picking up a hobby, or any other serious effort or time devoted to learning more.
- Have you ever responded to new knowledge by taking action in a way that was new, or that you’re particularly proud of?
- Have you ever been surprised, challenged, or had your mind changed by new knowledge? How did you respond to it?
- Have you ever learned something that had a significant impact on how you approach the world or think about yourself?
As you brainstorm responses to these questions and potential essay topics, keep in mind that the best essays are as unique as possible, highly personal, and include meaningful reflection. You might have started coding in class and loved how it let you see behind the scenes on your favorite websites, but this is a story that thousands of people likely share. Better to hone in on learning about facial recognition errors and how it led you to learn about algorithmic bias and appreciate the need for tech equity. Focus on stories that are specific, connected to who you are, and allow you to demonstrate how you learn and grow.
There are many potential formats to writing this essay, but one of the most straightforward is starting with how your interest sparked, describing your process of learning, talking about the action you took, and reflecting on what you learned. Even if you don’t end up using this simple narrative arc, it can be helpful to write out your story in this way so you know you aren’t missing any major elements.
Now, let’s look at an example that brings all of these things together – picking a strong topic, making sure it’s unique, personal, and meaningful, and answering every part of the prompt in a fluid and skillful way.
“Growing up, my older sister’s favorite nostalgia show, Lizzy McGuire, drilled into me the horror of being an “outfit repeater.” When I began working part-time at the nail salon, each paycheck was precious, and affordable online shopping became my obsession.
Then I learned that a single cotton t-shirt could take up to 700 gallons of water to produce.
It was a line in a documentary designed to shock, and shock me, it did. That number seemed absurd—how could something sitting in my closet have consumed the equivalent of weeks of drinking water? I stood in front of my closet and imagined my rows of impulse buys as a tsunami crashing over me.
I couldn’t shake the shame, so I started researching. At first, it was late-night Googling and TED Talks, but soon I was digging into supply chain reports, academic papers on textile dyes, and even emailing a professor at a local university who studied sustainability in consumer products. What I found was both overwhelming and motivating: my digital shopping cart was a key part of a system that contributed to polluted rivers in Bangladesh and mountains of discarded clothing in Ghana.
Knowing wasn’t enough—I wanted to act. I started small, experimenting with upcycling my own clothes. My sewing skills were shaky at best, but with help from YouTube tutorials (and a very patient grandmother), I turned old jeans into tote bags and embroidered patches over worn-out shirts. When friends started asking for their own, I realized this could grow into something larger. That summer, I organized a clothing swap at school, complete with a workshop on repurposing clothes. To my surprise, over 100 students showed up, and we collected three carloads of extra clothes to donate to a local domestic violence shelter.
The most important lesson wasn’t about clothing, it was about myself. I realized my curiosity doesn’t stay in the realm of “interesting facts;” it drives me to test, to tinker, to share. Instead of being upset with myself for not knowing better, I can focus on starting to do better. And my impact can go beyond myself – once I framed sustainability not as guilt, but as creativity and collaboration, people got excited, and I got to experience the power of the community around me.
Now, whenever I learn something that unsettles me, I ask: what small experiment can I run? What prototype, workshop, or event might push this knowledge into action? That mindset—of refusing to leave curiosity at the level of consumption, refusing to turn away from things that scare me—has become central to how I engage with the world.”
As you’ve likely noticed, this essay is nowhere near the 600 word limit, but that’s only to keep this article from getting unnecessarily long. When writing supplements, we always recommend that you use as many words as you’re given, or close to it. While you shouldn’t pad your essays out with fluff, incorporating another anecdote, or adding in more rich description or reflection, will only help your essay be more memorable and impactful.
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