How to Write the Penn State Supplemental Essays 2025-2026

While Penn State doesn’t have any supplemental essay prompts for all applicants to respond to—you aren’t even required to complete the Common App essay—applicants to Penn State’s Schreyer Honors College, Accelerated Pre-Med program, and Millenium Scholars program will also have to respond to a fairly extensive list of supplemental prompts—10 total for the Honors College, 5 essays for the BS/MD program, and 4 for the Millenium Scholars program.

 

Regardless of which of these more specialized programs you’re applying to, you want your essays to shine. In this post, we’ll break down each prompt, so you’re prepared to write a strong, engaging response to each one.

 

Read these Penn State essay examples written by real students to inspire your own writing!

 

Penn State Supplemental Essay Prompts

 

 

 

As we’re sure you’ve noticed, this is a major prompt. At 800 words, it’s even longer than the Common App essay. The admissions committee clearly wants to see depth, originality, and plenty of your personality in this supplement, so let’s talk about how to provide all that and more.

 

First, let’s look at what this prompt is asking for. Most obviously, you need to come up with a truly consequential idea that impacts most of the world. Not only should your essay cover what your idea is, it should also describe how you arrived at this idea, and why you think it’s so significant. You’ll want to demonstrate your understanding of the current state of affairs and engage with historical context, then connect this idea to yourself and your future. 

 

But how to choose an idea? Here are some questions to help get you started.

 

• Is there an issue you care deeply about that affects a large group of people (education, healthcare, climate, food, technology access, etc.)?
• Have you ever been personally affected by an issue, or seen it firsthand in your community?
• Do you have any particular skills or knowledge that lend themselves to a particular sector? Maybe your experience volunteering at mobile health clinics gives you a perspective on health equity or homelessness, or your family’s military history has given you thoughts on denuclearization. 
• Have you ever seen a solution to a problem that you wish was implemented differently, or you had a fresh perspective on? 

 

These are all different ways of uncovering a significant issue in our world that you care about or have thoughts about. You may want to generate a list of several ideas, and sketch out a few different outlines, brainstorming the rest of the essay for each and selecting the answer that allows you to answer the full prompt as effectively as possible. Whatever you choose, whether one problem stands out immediately, or there are several you could address, we recommend that your next step is to research. 

 

Research is part of the prompt, as you want to discuss how your solution builds on or differs from previous approaches, but it can also help you formulate a big idea that’s grounded in reality. Simple, straightforward ideas can be powerful, but many have also likely been tried before or are not feasible for established reasons. You don’t want to confidently propose an idea that’s already been suggested before and failed, or clearly won’t work for one reason or another.

 

Research will help you avoid coming across as overconfident, as well as giving you an opportunity to show deep understanding and ability to think across many dimensions of an issue. 

 

As you develop your solution, acknowledging previous solutions and building off them will show the depth of your research and help you build in the context so important to this prompt. Talking about the impact of your solution is another key piece. 

 

There’s a natural outline here that you don’t have to use, but might prove useful: start with the idea, explain how you arrived at it, describe the context, envision impact, and then finish by connecting it to yourself and your future. 

 

As you build out your essay, you should be spending 50 to 100 words on your hook, 150 to 200 words on your pitch, and another 100 to 150 describing how you arrived at your proposed solution. This can blend into context, which should get around 100 to 150 words, and impact, around the same. This leaves about 150 to 200 words for personal connection, future goals, and closing your essay. 

 

What would an answer that encompasses all these elements look like? Let’s take a look at some hypothetical student examples.

 

• Javier is passionate about green energy equity. Growing up in rural Arizona, Javier saw neighbors struggle with high electricity costs during extreme heat waves. His pitch: a national microgrid initiative using community-owned solar panels, reducing both energy bills and reliance on fragile central grids. His experience working with a local nonprofit on energy assistance gives him insight into both the technical and human sides of the problem.
  

 

• Sofia wants to use AI for accessible education. As a bilingual student who often translated for her parents, Sofia became interested in how AI could help break language barriers in education. She’d pitch an open-source AI tutor that adapts content into multiple languages and cultural contexts. She connects this to her interest in computer science and linguistics, while noting existing tools like Duolingo or Khan Academy don’t fully serve non-English-speaking families.
  

 

• Malik aspires to transform food waste. After working in a grocery store, Malik was struck by the amount of edible food thrown away daily. His pitch: a regional logistics system that diverts unsold groceries into low-cost meal prep centers. He frames this around his future goal of studying supply chain management and his volunteer work at a food pantry, explaining how this model could scale to urban and rural communities alike.

 

Once you’ve answered each part of the prompt and found a structure that works for you, it’s time to focus on the writing quality. With an 800 word essay, you’ll need a strong hook to engage your reader and an original angle that demonstrates your creativity, personal connection, and understanding of the issue. Perhaps most importantly, you need to balance a combination of big picture vision that encompasses the scope of the problem you’re addressing, and grounded steps that cover the practical details of how your solution will be implemented. 

 

Let’s look at an excerpt of an essay that incorporates all of these elements well, using Malik’s example from earlier. We’ll look at an effective beginning to his essay first, then a powerful end. 

 

 

Here, the groundwork has been laid for the entire essay. The student has provided his personal connection and captured his care for the issue, as well as effectively sketching out his potential solution, which utilizes existing infrastructure to replicate systems at play. Let’s assume that the middle of the piece extends the discussion of supply chains and other relevant context and strengthens the applicant’s personal connection, and circle back to take a look at an effective ending for this essay. 

 

 

This student closes with some powerful anecdotes and memorable images, a strong personal connection, and a clear demonstration of both his passion for the subject and his appreciation for its complexity. All of this works to make an effective close for this essay. 

 

 

This open-ended response is an opportunity to showcase your self-awareness and introspection, as you describe how your life experiences have shaped your identity and aspirations.

 

The focus here is on growth, which Schreyer defines as certain aspects of your life enabling you to get outside your comfort zone, intellectually or personally. You’ll want to reflect on transformative times that made you stronger, more capable, more confident, and so on. Keep in mind those times may have been uncomfortable in the moment, but if you are alright sharing those moments with the admissions officers, it can reveal a lot about your character.

 

We recommend you hone in on a specific example that clearly shows the value, belief, or experience. Rather than saying you developed a sense of empathy from tutoring middle schoolers, describe a specific tutoring session where you were getting frustrated at your mentee and you had to control your emotions and see things from his perspective to better help him. Using a concrete anecdote to center your essay will make it feel more personable and help you better articulate the before and after state of your growth.

 

As you’re describing the story, remember to go beyond surface-level descriptions and get to the meat of your essay: what were you thinking and feeling as you grew? This self-reflection is what Schreyer is looking for—they want students who are deep thinkers and in tune with themselves.

 

While you don’t have unlimited space, we always recommend trying to tie your growth to your future goals. Explain how the lessons you’ve learned or the traits you’ve developed will continue to empower you in college and beyond. This forward-looking tone will demonstrate to the admissions committee that you would be an asset to their campus community.

  

Here are a few hypothetical examples of how students might approach this essay:

 

• Emily, an aspiring environmental scientist: Emily has always been passionate about nature, a value instilled in her by her parents, who often took her hiking. However, her appreciation of nature shifted when she spent a summer working on a reforestation project in a region devastated by wildfires, as that was the first time she grasped how fragile the world is. This experience inspired her to volunteer at a local national park the following summer and lead workshops on fire-safe practices, to be proactive about preventing fires rather than just cleaning up the aftermath. She hopes to expand on her passion for environmental protection to animal conservation as well now that she understands the impact wildfires have on habitats and ecosystems.

 

• Katelyn, a future travel writer: Katelyn had the opportunity to participate in a summer foreign study program through a partnership her school has with an Italian institution. Through the program, she learned just how much variety there is in Italian culture, in contrast to the monolithic way it’s often presented in the US. When she got back, she started a blog to reflect on her experiences, and now has the long-term goal of expanding on those blog posts in a series of travel books highlighting the striking regional differences across the Italian peninsula. 

 

As both of these examples did, it’s best to hone in on one specific value or experience rather than trying to cram multiple catalysts for growth into 200 words. Additionally, while these examples highlighted activities and extracurriculars the students are involved in, they are woven into the larger narrative so it doesn’t sound like a recap of their resumes. Go beyond what you’ve already shared with the admissions officers to give them the personal stories they can’t learn from other parts of your application.

 

Overall, you want to provide a detailed, reflective narrative that highlights your empowered growth. Be specific, show rather than tell, and make sure to tie your past experiences and values to your future goals. By doing so, you’ll create a compelling and memorable essay that stands out to the Schreyer Honors College admissions committee.

 

 

This prompt is a more-lighthearted question that just wants a sense of your personality—are you more adventurous or more restrained? Are you more interested in culture and history or relaxation and some peace and quiet? 

 

Your answer says more than you may think about what kind of person you are—but don’t freak out! There’s no “right” or “wrong” answer here. All that matters is you choose something genuine that you have a good explanation for. 

For example, maybe you’re the first-generation child of immigrants from India but have never been back there yourself. You could write about how a trip to India would allow you to reconnect with your family roots, your culture, and the pasts of your parents. 

 

If you don’t feel like you have a special story or experience to share, however, don’t worry. Your answer will be strong so long as it is unique to you, so brainstorm a place or country that would be at the top of your bucket list. 

 

Maybe you’re an avid hiker and want to take a crack at Mount Kilimanjaro. You can write about how visiting and climbing the mountain has always been a dream of yours that you hope to have the resources to achieve later on in life. Write about what hiking means to you and why, as well as why Mount Kilimanjaro, specifically, is the end goal.

 

Keep in mind that it’s always better to be more specific in your response. For example, there’s nothing wrong with saying “Brazil” or “Scotland”, but you can reveal a lot more about your interests by getting more granular and instead writing “The Christ the Redeemer statue” or “The old town of Edinburgh”.

 

At the end of the day, this should hopefully be one of the more fun essays you get to write for Schreyer. Let your enthusiasm for visiting these places jump off the page. The goal should be to provide such a vivid image of why this place is meaningful to you that the admissions officers reading it are inspired to book a trip!

 

 

This prompt is going to sound familiar, because it’s very similar to the Activities section of the Common App. The difference here is that you have two hundred words to home in on what’s most important to you, and you’ll want to emphasize leadership. 

 

As you come up with your list of activities, think about what themes or common elements can be expressed through your chosen list. If you’ve read the full list of prompts, you know the next two address leadership and recognition, which should impact your supplement in a few ways. 

 

First, it should be clear just how important leadership is—Penn State really wants to hear about this, so carefully consider which activities you’ve participated in would set you up well to talk about leadership in the next prompt. You’ll also have a chance to talk about recognition, so if you’ve received significant awards, you can also tee up those organizations or activities here. 

 

However, you could also consider showing a diversity of activities that may not have resulted in recognition, because you’ll get to talk about awards later. Either way, prioritize leadership, because the prompt specifically asks about it. 

 

What else should get first place in your activities list? These questions can help you decide. 

 

• Which few activities best show your passion, time commitment, and leadership?
• Are there activities that unite around a common element or theme and demonstrate some consistency? How can you group or connect activities so they don’t feel random?
• What connects to future interests, particularly programs at Penn State or the Schreyer Honors College?
• Where have you shown initiative, drive, responsibility, or others of your best qualities?

 

You don’t want this to be a rehash of your Activities section, so think about how to succinctly capture a few meaningful activities that make sense together. This prompt is specifically different from the Common App in that it allows you the chance to provide more reflection and insight on your activities. For that reason, we recommend you don’t copy and paste your descriptions from the Common App so you can approach your activities from less of a technical perspective and more from an introspective one. 

 

Let’s take a look at one effective list that captures these elements. 

 

 

The last paragraph is what really ties this essay together. The reflection of how all the activities have come together to teach you lessons about leadership is extremely important to include in your response.

 

 

Building off of your previous essay, you now need to zoom in on the most significant leadership experience you’ve had. Notice that “significant leadership experience” is not defined by Schreyer. This gives you leeway to decide which experience has been the most meaningful to you. 

 

You don’t have to necessarily choose the experience where you were in charge of the most people or you were elected to a position of leadership. Maybe you’re class president, but instead you choose to write about being the oldest of four kids as the most significant because it taught you that you can only be an effective leader when you genuinely care about the welfare of those you lead.

 

As long as you can tell a good story and highlight why leadership is important to you, you can choose any experience.

 

While writing, you want to incorporate anecdotes to share more about the experience that is meaningful to you. Anecdotes are also useful tools to show, not tell, the challenges and successes you’ve experienced as a leader. However, remember to go beyond just describing the scenario and the actions you took as a leader; you also need to reflect on why leadership is important to you.

 

You can do that by describing the positive emotions you experience when you are a leader, reflecting on skills you’ve developed or lessons you’ve learned, discussing the tangible and intangible outcomes of witnessing/exhibiting successful leadership, etc.

 

 

 

This prompt is a great opportunity for you to paint a better picture of yourself and your accomplishments, both academic and otherwise. After listing all of your awards and recognitions, there are two main ways you can approach this question—you can highlight an honor or distinction you have received for an academic or extracurricular achievement, or you can flex your creative muscles and expand on a smaller award or appreciation you have received. 

 

For example, if you have been recognized for your success in an extracurricular activity with a competitive element like debate, Model UN, or robotics, you can explain the activity’s importance to you, and what the process of winning meant to you. You could also take this approach if you have won your school’s talent show, or received a ribbon in a local photography contest. Alternatively, you could talk about being voted captain of your cross country team, or awarded the lead role in your school’s musical theater production, and describe how you handled that responsibility. 

 

However, if you lack any formal awards, try to think of any informal recognitions you have received over the years—a superlative in the yearbook, a counselor of the summer award at a sleepaway camp, even a “Best Cousin Ever!” sticker your 5-year-old cousin gave you last Thanksgiving. While you may feel awkward writing about something not conventionally “impressive,” this approach can actually show a high level of maturity and reflection, as you show you can appreciate and emphasize your best qualities beyond what’s been officially recognized. 

 

College applications are by definition pretty braggy, so showing admissions officers that you have an appreciation for “the little things” in life can, perhaps counterintuitively, help set you apart from other applicants who may have written about more traditional, resume-y achievements.

 

  

This is an opportunity to pull the most significant elements out of your list above and really emphasize them. You want to connect recognition you’ve received to your goals and values, discuss how your awards have shifted your perspective, and demonstrate your ability to reflect on your accomplishments and what they truly mean. 

 

What you don’t want to do is merely select your most prestigious or impressive award. Rather, pick one that is genuinely meaningful to you. 

 

When it comes to expanding on the award, try to avoid merely rehashing the description of an award, or using generic phrases like “hard work pays off.” Instead, describe what it took to win this award—highlight the qualities or skills you used to obtain recognition, the amount of time it took to work towards it, etc.—and how you approach life differently because you have the award.

 

These hypothetical student examples can help you understand what a successful response will look like.

 

• Taylor chooses her regional science fair honorable mention, not the bigger national win. She reflects on how it showed her that her project on algae biofuels was worth pursuing despite setbacks.
  

 

• Diego writes about being named “Volunteer of the Month” at his local food pantry. The recognition shifted his outlook from “helping occasionally” to realizing service could be a central part of his life.
  

 

• Lina reflects on receiving her school’s “Spirit of Band” award. While not the most competitive, it meant the most because it came from peers noticing her mentorship, which changed how she saw her role as a leader.

 

Each of these students manages to talk about an award they’ve received while remaining humble. They emphasize what’s most important to them, create a personal connection, and demonstrate an ability to share what they’ve learned about themselves, their values, and their goals. 

 

 

Think about something that you’ve read, watched, or listened to that has stuck with you or impacted you personally. This isn’t meant to be an opportunity for you to recant your love for Shakespeare or your appreciation for Charles Dickens, although you certainly can if it’s deeply resonated with you. 

 

The key here is to be genuine with your answer. You can go on and on about how much you admire an author or filmmaker’s style or craft, but what the admissions officers really want to know is how a piece of media has changed your perspective and impacted you personally.

 

Is there a movie that you can endlessly rewatch? A book you always find yourself going back to? A podcast or an album you can’t stop listening to? The trick is to do some reflection into the “why”—media, above anything else, has a strictly personal connection to our minds, so see if you can figure out what about the connection to your selected media is so special. 

 

If you’re stumped, do a bit of journaling, either while participating with your chosen media or afterward, and write down how it makes you feel and what it makes you think about. Chances are you’ll be able to uncover what it means to you and how it affects you.

 

Perhaps your mother’s favorite movie is the musical West Side Story, and you and her went to see the Steven Spielberg remake together. Maybe she has a special connection with the musical because she’s originally from Puerto Rico. You might write about how sharing that experience with your mom got you excited about your heritage and your roots, and got you to reevaluate what it means to be a Puerto Rican in the America of today.

 

Maybe you choose the book Green Eggs and Ham because it was your favorite as a child, but when you recently re-read it cleaning out your attic, it made you think about prejudice and how people can be so quick to stereotype and make assumptions about people before they’ve actually “tried them”, so to speak.

 

Everyone has a different story, and it is tapping into that story and how it relates to your media choice that should be the basis of your response here.

 

 

This is an example of the classic Diversity prompt, so you have two main goals in your response: highlight some aspect of your identity, and explain how that part of you has shaped your personality as a whole. If you just say “I lived in Italy from age 8 to age 14” or “I come from a family where we don’t bleed red, but green, for the Philadelphia Eagles,” but don’t explain what you’ve learned from these experiences, your reader won’t actually understand you any better.

 

Instead, like always, you want to include a specific anecdote or two that highlight some personality trait, or part of your worldview, that you wouldn’t have if you weren’t a part of this community. Take the Eagles example above. Later in the essay, you might say something like:

 

 

In this excerpt, the student doesn’t just list a community they’re a part of, but also shows us why that community is so important to them.

 

Finally, note that the prompt gives a broad definition of “community.” Hopefully, our two examples also help emphasize that you don’t need to write about any one particular thing. We’ve seen students take diversity essays in a number of unconventional ways. All that matters is that you are about to demonstrate the impact being part of this community has had on you. Whether that’s through discussing ways you’ve grown, skills you’ve strengthened, or interests you’ve developed, make sure it’s clear that you have been changed for the better as a result.

 

A quick note if you intend to write about your racial background: In June 2023, the United States Supreme Court struck down the use of affirmative action in college admissions. The ruling, however, still allows colleges to consider race on an individual basis, which is one reason many schools are now including diversity prompts as one of their supplemental essay prompts. 

 

If you feel that your racial background has impacted you significantly, this is the place to discuss that. Of course, you are more than welcome to discuss something else, but do be aware that if you don’t discuss your racial background in any of your essays, Penn State will be unable to factor that aspect of your identity into their decision.

 

 

This prompt is the last opportunity for you to fill in any gaps left over in your application to the Schreyer Honors College. Look over your application and all your previous responses and reflect on if there’s anything still left unsaid. Remember, the admissions reader wants the clearest picture of you as they can possibly get, and the more information you can provide them about yourself the better.

 

Here are some examples of details you may wish to write about here:

 

• Unusual circumstances or hardships (financial hardships, first-generation status, illness, tragedy, etc.)
• Family responsibilities that may have prevented students from taking traditional extracurriculars
• Unique extracurricular that wasn’t written about in another part of the application outside of the Activities Section
• Describing your identity in the context of race, gender, or LGBTQ+

 

This prompt is going to be on an extremely case-by-case basis, so do what feels right for you and remember that you don’t have to embellish anything about yourself or your life in an attempt to make it sound more interesting to an admissions reader. They really just want to get to know you as your authentic self, so make sure that you’re answering this prompt in a manner that is genuine and honest. 

 

Don’t pad this section out with fluff, or repeat information you’ve already shared for the sake of answering it, but if you do have something to say, definitely take advantage of this prompt.. 

 

 

This prompt is the classic Extracurricular essay. Remember that the admissions committee already has a list of your extracurricular activities, so make sure you’re delving beyond a simple list of your responsibilities. You’ll want to share your emotions and thoughts as you participate in this activity, as well as how it’s impacted you.

 

As you choose your activity, consider which qualities you’ve already demonstrated in your application, and which ones you’d like to highlight more. If you’ve already written about one activity in your Common App essay, there’s no need to repeat it here. Or, maybe your Common App essay demonstrates resilience when you also consider yourself a very ambitious person. Then, you might want to pick an activity that highlights your ambition.

 

If you’ve had any jobs or internships in the medical field, this is your opportunity to expand on your experience and what it may have taught you. However, the key to this prompt is to choose something that was the most meaningful to you. Don’t feel like you have to choose an extracurricular in medicine just because you’re applying to a BS/MD program. 

 

Once you’ve chosen an activity to write about, reflect on how it has shaped who you are. This is extremely important, as a common mistake with this prompt is to focus too much on the activity itself without explaining the “why” behind its importance. What lessons has the activity taught you? What skills did you learn? Why has this activity kept you engaged or kept you motivated? These are just a few of the questions that can guide your answer.

 

 

As you are probably aware already, the Penn State-Kimmel program is a highly rigorous seven-year program that will require you to commit to a career in medicine. It is not a fast track to becoming a doctor, but rather a set path to reaching that goal. Keeping that in mind, this prompt should be somewhat easy to answer. It is simply a space asking you to explain why you are interested in medicine and the program specifically, which means your answer will be best the more it sounds like you.

 

Brainstorming a list of reasons why you want to become a physician is always a great place to start. There will likely be several things that draw you to this career path, so list as many you can think of and use that as a jumping-off point. Some questions that can get you thinking may include:

 

• What was the first experience that made you think about medicine as a career?
• Are there any subjects in school that gave you an interest in medicine? What about extracurriculars?
• What do you hope to do as a physician? Any specific field you would like to work in?
• Are there any personal experiences that you have that make you want to be a physician?

 

Of course, there are dozens of other questions that you can ask yourself to get a solid foundation for this prompt, but the point is to Jeopardy-style your way into an answer. Ask yourself a series of questions and see what answers you come up with!

 

Once you describe your reasons for pursuing medicine, you can move forward to the next two parts of the prompts, which are more or less the same question—why this accelerated program? 

 

When it comes to explaining your interest in an accelerated program, the admissions committee has likely heard it all: guaranteed admission to medical school, getting your MD sooner, etc. But what will these benefits do for you specifically? What will you do with the extra time you’ll have from not needing to apply for medical school, or being able to graduate early? Maybe you have a specific clinic you want to spend a lot of time in, or perhaps you want to serve patients in countries impacted by climate change, which will only get more urgent over the next several years. Dig deeper beyond the obvious benefits of an accelerated program.

 

Finally, you want to explain why the Penn State-Kimmel Program is right for you. How will it help you achieve your specific goals? This will require you to do a fair amount of research on the program and the Sidney Kimmel Medical College. Look into the specific courses, research opportunities, statements from alumni, and more. 

 

Remember, you don’t want to simply name-drop the opportunities you’ve found into your essay—they should be incorporated naturally and connected back to your interests, motivations, or goals. 

 

For example, maybe you want to help develop immunotherapies for cancer after your aunt received an experimental treatment that worked wonders. You could express interest in contributing to the Immune Cell Regulation & Targeting Research Program at Jefferson Health (the home of the Sidney Kimmel Medical College). Or, maybe you want to conduct research on the social determinants of health as a Black woman, particularly when it comes to race. Since Philly (where the Kimmel Medical College is located) is 40% Black, the city would be a good setting for your research.

 

A large thing to keep in mind is that this program is a 7-year commitment to getting an MD, so you’ll want to frame your answer around how you’ve wanted to be a doctor for a large part of your life. Your essay should leave no doubt in the admissions officers mind that not only have you dreamed of becoming a physician, but you can only achieve that dream at Penn State.

 

 

This is a common question not only in college applications, but also career interviews, so your answer to this question may even prove helpful down the road!

 

This prompt is more straightforward, so you can simply discuss a few strengths and weaknesses. Given the word count, we recommend sticking to 1-2 each. Try to follow them up with examples of times you demonstrated those qualities. 

 

If your strengths relate to medicine, that’s all the better! But no need to explain how these qualities will benefit you in medicine. The connection can be implicit, as doctors need many soft skills.

 

For example, maybe one of your key skills is that you’re very organized—you could explain how you managed seven different committees as Student Body President, and how you kept track of their progress by having them use a color-coded Google Sheet. The implicit connection to medicine is that being a physician requires you to keep tabs on a plethora of patients and follow-up on their changing needs.

 

When you get to the weakness part of the question, remember that this prompt is meant to get you thinking about what you believe you can improve upon. For instance, you don’t want to write that you’re an introvert, as this is an aspect of your personality that is difficult to change. 

 

Think about weaknesses that you can work on. For example, maybe you have trouble with criticism and take it personally because you’re very proud of the work you do. But, you also recognize how important it is in improving your work. So, you’ve already started actively seeking out criticism, such as submitting your artwork to art feedback Discord servers and state-wide contests.

 

Your answer to these questions will give the admissions reader a sense of your work style and will help evaluate if you are a good fit for the requirements of the program, so remember to frame your answer with that in mind. 

 

 

Speaking of questions that you’ll likely get in job interviews, this is another classic. This prompt, which falls under the Overcoming Challenges archetype, will get you reflecting on any experience, both in and out of the classroom, where you had some sort of shortcoming, and how you applied that knowledge to future endeavors. 

 

Admissions readers know that in a program like this one, you’re bound to fail at one point or another—they just want to see that you know how to grow from your mistakes. There are a plethora of examples you could probably choose from, but the best one will be the most personal to you.

 

Keep in mind that your topic doesn’t need to be medicine-related. The point of this prompt is simply to see how you pick yourself up after a failure. You don’t even need to have succeeded in the end; what’s important is that you show what you learned.

 

Roughly half of the essay should describe the process of overcoming the challenge. In this portion of the essay, you should lay out the basics of the challenge, discuss the steps you took to overcome it, and any final accomplishment that illustrates what you’ve overcome. 

 

Remember, the more you can show the obstacle you faced and how you approached it, the more engaging and revealing your essay will be. Bring your reader into the moment with you by incorporating vivid imagery, dialogue, your internal monologue, and specific details about the actions you took to try and be successful. 

 

The second half of the content (we recommend spreading this throughout the overall narrative) should cover your state of mind, your emotional state, and how your perception of the challenge has changed over time. Essentially, this is where you highlight how you grew from the experience. You can do this by showing where you were at the beginning of the experience, providing reflection while explaining your approach to the challenge and the steps you took, and then doing more reflection on how you picked yourself up after failing. 

 

The admissions officers want to see your perseverance and determination, along with any other skills this experience taught you. Make sure you approach this essay in a positive light so it’s clear to your readers that you see setbacks as a learning opportunity rather than a burden.

 

 

This prompt is similar to the classic Diversity essay, which asks you to share your unique background, perspectives, and experience, but with the added layer of making a connection to Sidney Kimmel Medical College specifically and your future career as a physician. The admissions committee wants to see that, beyond having the intelligence necessary to be a physician, you are committed to equity and inclusivity.

 

Note that the connection between your diversity and medicine doesn’t have to be direct. If your parents immigrated to the United States from Korea, you don’t have to write about wanting to serve Korean populations as a doctor. You can, of course, if you genuinely are interested in pursuing that, but the connection you make can also be more nuanced.

 

For example, say that some of your relatives are still in Korea and don’t speak English, but you have developed a relationship with them through watching movies, listening to music, and eating food together. These experiences have shown you the power of nonverbal communication. As a doctor, you’ll need to be able to communicate and connect with patients who don’t always speak the same language as you, so knowing ways to break down barriers and make others smile will be useful down the line.

 

Although this connection may not be one your reader was expecting, it works, as this explains it in a clear, easy-to-follow way. Plus, this essay is on the longer side for a supplement. You have 500 words at your disposal, so you have plenty of space to draw more sophisticated connections.

 

The only real rule here is that the connection you’re drawing is explained clearly. For a rather extreme example, if you just said, “I have family in Korea, which means I can provide care to patients who speak another language,” your reader would have no idea what you’re talking about. So, just make sure you’re able to articulate the link you see, so admissions officers understand how we got from A to B.

 

Remember, you want to include a good amount of reflection about why your lived experiences will make you an equitable doctor. Make it clear to the admissions officers that you’ve learned skills or perspectives from your diversity that you carry with you throughout all aspects of your life, and that you will continue carrying with you in the future.

 

If you are still feeling lost, you can follow this structure: First, identify an aspect of your identity that you want to focus your essay on. Then, describe specific experiences that show how this quality influenced your growth. Finally, connect what you’ve learned about yourself to your interest in medicine, and your commitment to being an empathetic, open-minded physician.

 

 

This is a variant on the “Why This Major” and “Global Issues” essay that wants to learn about your academic interests through the lens of global problem-solving. This is a big ask, and a long essay at 500 words, so let’s talk through how to best accomplish this. 

 

You want to show that you’ve carefully considered and are invested in your prospective major, as well as your capacity to consider global issues and be a part of potential solutions. These questions can help you brainstorm the beginnings of an essay that fulfills all these requirements. 

 

• Which global challenge sparks genuine emotion in you? (Frustration, curiosity, hope, etc.)
• What specific experiences have connected you to this issue (personal, academic, or community)?
• What unique lens can your major bring to this problem?
• What’s your dream project or solution (even if ambitious)?

 

As you select answers, remember that a good essay is specific, so you’ll want to pick one issue to dive deep on. You want to emphasize yourself and your personality, so choosing an issue with a personal connection can help. Make sure that your topic connects in a concrete way to your major, and it doesn’t hurt to have it connect to your future, too. Finally, you’ll want to demonstrate nuanced reflection, so try to pick a topic that has some depth to it. 

 

What does incorporating all these elements look like? Let’s take a look at some hypothetical student examples. 

 

• Arjun (Computer Science): He grew up in California’s Central Valley, where droughts impacted his farming community. Arjun wants to use data modeling to optimize irrigation systems for small farmers so droughts will be an inconvenience, but not a financial death-sentence.
  

 

• Zoey (Biology): After volunteering at a free clinic, Zoey saw patients struggling with diabetes management. She is interested in cellular biology research to design affordable therapies for diabetes so patients from lower socio-economic classes aren’t affected as adversely.
  

 

• Violet (Environmental Engineering): Inspired by a family trip to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, she hopes to develop resilient water infrastructure to ensure there is clean drinking water in disaster zones.
  

 

• David (Economics): David’s parents emigrated from Venezuela, and he’s seen how hyperinflation devastated access to medicine. He wants to study economic models that stabilize healthcare supply chains in struggling economies.

 

All of these examples provide background context as to why each student cares about the global issue. They also clearly lay out each student’s goals so it is clear how their prospective major will allow them to make a difference.

 

 

This is what we call an Impact on Community essay, which asks you to reflect on what you’ll be like as a member of the Millenium Scholars community at Penn State. You want to show that you can not only thrive in this environment, but enrich it for others. The best way to do that is by emphasizing your strengths through effective storytelling. 

 

Coming right out and talking about how great you are will often backfire, as you can come off as arrogant or full of yourself. A better way to approach this essay is to show the admissions committee your best qualities, whatever those might be. You also want to show that you can thrive on campus, and exactly what you’ll contribute. 

 

Consider building your essay around a few strong examples of how you’ve contributed and benefited from group settings in the past. This could be on a sports team, at work, in a classroom setting, or even at home with your family. Make sure to demonstrate your personal connection, and use specificity to ground your essay in authentic, memorable examples. You’ll want to maintain balance between what you’ll bring to the table and what you’ll gain from it, because too much of one side can sound shallow. Lastly, it’s always a good idea to tie these essays into your long-term goals, particularly how you see yourself at Penn State. 

 

Let’s take a look at an example of what a good response to this prompt might look like. First, we’ll look at an example that could use some tweaks. 

 

 

This is a well-written essay that starts with a compelling and demonstrative anecdote as a hook. The student’s focus on themselves as a giver grows off-putting, though, when we get into the second paragraph and the focus remains stuck on them and how they have and will continue to boost those around them. The professed selflessness gets a bit repetitive, and can also run the risk of sounding self-congratulatory. What if, in the third paragraph, the student wrote this, instead?

 

 

Here, the student acknowledges that they have much to learn as well, and that they’ll have the opportunity to do so in the Millennium Scholars program. Talking about this demonstrates both humility and vulnerability, and makes it clear that the student understands that participating in this program wouldn’t be a favor to those around them—it would be a huge opportunity for this student, as well. 

 

 

This essay fits roughly under the umbrella of the Overcoming Challenges essay archetype. The best response will highlight the resilience you’ve displayed thus far, your understanding of its importance in your life, and your ability to recognize how you may have to demonstrate resilience in college. 

 

As you reflect on times that you’ve had to come back from failure, loss, or rejection, consider what these experiences might demonstrate along with resilience. Resilience alone is necessary to answer this prompt, but you also have an opportunity to show off your creativity, growth, patience, humility, or optimism. 

 

The best essays will focus on multiple positive qualities, using specific personal stories to ground your statements. Remember that this essay is as much about process as it is about outcome, and so stories where you really show off your persistence may be better than one where your success is greater. 

 

Finally, deep reflection is perhaps the most important part of this prompt, so make sure you’re taking the time to be thoughtful about what you experienced and why it’s important. 

 

Let’s take a look at some hypothetical examples, and talk through what each does well.

 

• Darius, STEM researcher: His robotics team’s machine malfunctioned two days before competition. He rallied teammates to redesign and improvise, leading to a functional, though imperfect, robot. He realized resilience was about creativity under pressure. At college, he sees resilience as being key in labs where results often fail.

 

This essay highlights a genuine interest of the student, as well as his ability to lead and to work in a time crunch. His desire to work in STEM research ties in well to this story, as well as his acceptance of an imperfect robot and his learning that good science sometimes means accepting when things go wrong and striving to improve.

 

• Alina, caretaker: She balanced caring for younger siblings when her parents worked long shifts while still excelling in school. Resilience for her meant learning time management and self-discipline. At college, those skills will help her balance academics, part-time work, and community service.

 

Alina’s essay emphasizes her selflessness and care for others, as well as her value for hard work and education. She demonstrates an ability to manage time, which is crucial in college, as well as self-awareness that allows her to make the most of her abilities while still attending to her responsibilities.

 

• Mateo, athlete-turned-writer: After a sports injury ended his soccer career, he discovered creative writing as a new outlet. He reframed resilience as finding meaning in new paths. At college, he’ll embrace new opportunities instead of clinging to one identity.

 

With this essay, Mateo demonstrates maturity as he accepts the reality of his injury, and flexibility as he adapts and turns to other pursuits. This shows that he’s open to changing his mind, trying new things, and taking advantage of opportunities and even setbacks, whether they align with what he had planned or not. 

 

 

This is a Diversity essay, which wants to find out what makes your perspective unique, how you interact with people different from yourself, and how lessons you’ve learned from those of different backgrounds will shape your future community contributions. In short, this essay is about both who you are, your experiences of difference, and how these things have influenced your values, behavior, and relationships. 

 

A quick note if you intend to write about your racial background: In June 2023, the United States Supreme Court struck down the use of affirmative action in college admissions. The ruling, however, still allows colleges to consider race on an individual basis, which is one reason many schools now include diversity prompts as one of their supplemental essay prompts. If you feel that your racial background has impacted you significantly, this is the place to discuss that.

 

To get started, here’s a list of questions you can brainstorm. 

 

• What aspects of your identity (race, ethnicity, religion, geography, family background, socioeconomic class, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, etc.) have shaped you?
• When did you first realize that people see or experience the world differently than you?
• Have you bridged divides between groups—cultural, political, or otherwise?
• What values guide how you approach collaboration with people from other backgrounds?
• What do you want to bring to your college’s community of diverse students?

 

As you review your answers to these questions, weed out anything that’s generic or could apply to dozens of other applicants. Even if you choose something that might be more common, like your status as a member of the LGBTQ+ community, find a unique story that highlights how this aspect of your personality has affected your relationships. 

 

Strong essays will pick concrete anecdotes to exemplify not just the student’s background, but also how they interact with others in an inclusive way. Don’t get caught up in trying to define what diversity and inclusion means to you—let your appreciation for these topics naturally unfold as you share your story and reflect on it.

 

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