How to Write the Reed College Essay 2025-2026
Reed College is a liberal arts college in Portland, Oregon, known for its rigorous academics and distinctive intellectual culture. Students are encouraged to think independently, engage deeply with ideas, and take ownership of their education. With a strong emphasis on seminar-style learning, faculty mentorship, and a pass/fail grading option in the first year, Reed attracts students who are curious, reflective, and sincere seekers of knowledge.
Reed has one required supplemental essay for students to respond to that asks them to create their own college course. This essay reflects Reed’s intellectually curious nature. In this post, we’ll help you curate a strong essay to help yourself stand out from the rest of the applicant pool.
Read these Reed college essay examples to inspire your writing.
Reed College Supplemental Essay Prompt
For one week at the end of January, Reed students upend the traditional classroom hierarchy and teach classes about any topic they love, academic or otherwise. This week is known as Paideia after the Greek term signifying “education” – the complete education of mind, body and spirit. What would you teach that would contribute to the Reed community? (200-500 words)
Reed’s supplemental essay allows you to flex your creative muscles and share a topic you are passionate about with the admissions officers. The key here is to demonstrate your love and deep-rooted enthusiasm for this topic, so you want to choose something that you could genuinely talk about for hours on end.
Choosing Your Topic
The prompt states that you can choose any topic, academic or not, as the focus of your Paideia class, so don’t be afraid to pick something just because it may not seem “intellectual” enough. That being said, you can’t just pick Taylor Swift as your Paideia class—you need to provide the bridge between your seemingly non-academic topic and the educational significance. Basically, what’s the “so what?” behind your topic that should make other students care about this topic?
So, instead of “Taylor Swift” you could choose to focus on the economic implications for the music industry of re-recording her music through a class called “The Economics of Stardom (Taylor’s Version)”. Or maybe you are more interested in the concurrent evolution of her music and the feminism movement and teach a class called “Who is Miss Americana?”. Maybe you are fascinated by her songwriting and the deeper meanings in her lyrics so your class is “Storytelling and Selfhood: The Narrative Craft of Taylor Swift”. All of these classes are interdisciplinary because they combine Taylor Swift with other topics to show how even a pop star can be academic. Make sure your topics have this interdisciplinary nature if they are inherently non-academic.
Even if you choose a traditionally academic topic, you still want to bring creativity and your unique interests to it. Choosing biology broadly is a waste of this prompt; it’s already a class that exists, and it doesn’t allow you to reveal anything specific about your intellectual curiosity to the admissions committee. If you chose to teach a class on the Mitochondrial Eve or on bioacoustics in marine environments though, those would be strong topics for your essay because they are specific and more unique topics. However, don’t choose these topics if you are not passionate about them!
Admissions officers can see through disingenuous enthusiasm, so make sure that whatever topic you choose, you are genuinely passionate about it. Start by reflecting on your broad interests (i.e. soccer, musicals, solving puzzles, cooking, etc.) and then dig into niche hyper-fixations within those topics (i.e. how political climates shape World Cups, jukebox musicals and the power of nostalgia, the rise and fall of escape rooms, zero-waste cuisine, etc.) to help you find your Paideia class.
What to Include in Your Essay
Once you have a topic locked down, you can start thinking about writing your essay. For this essay, you want to both convey what your class would be, but you also want to express your interest in this topic and why you think it would make a good class.
Beginning with the latter point, the best way to show your interest in the topic is through an anecdote. You can start your essay by describing your interaction/fascination with the material. Whether that’s through sharing how you initially became interested in the topic or by including a story of your love for the topic, you want to draw your readers in off the bat and make your passion jump off the page.
For example, a student who loves historical costuming in period pieces might begin their essay with a story of them researching costumes from different Pride and Prejudice adaptations to determine which is the most historically accurate:
“The cursor blinks beside a paused frame of Pride and Prejudice (2005), Keira Knightley mid–twirl in a soft green gown. On the next tab, the 1995 BBC version, Elizabeth Bennet’s dress is higher-waisted, the fabric stiffer, the bonnet more Regency than romantic. My notes read like a detective’s log: cotton vs. muslin, 1813 silhouettes, empire lines—check sleeve seams.”
The level of detail here really helps the reader appreciate this student’s passion. No matter how you choose to open your essay, you want your passion for the topic to come through. Maybe that’s as simple as defining a bunch of terms related to the topic that an outsider might not know or it’s as detailed as providing an imagery-filled account, regardless, you don’t want to begin your essay like this: “For my Paideia class, I would teach about…”
You also want your essay to touch upon the larger significance of this class. Why should people who aren’t already familiar with the topic want to learn about it? What broader themes or takeaways will be important lessons for anyone, regardless of their prior knowledge in this field? You can weave this throughout your essay, or perhaps it will fit in more naturally towards the beginning or the end, but be sure that your essay alludes to the broader significance somewhere to show your appreciation for interdisciplinary academics.
For example, a student whose class is about sneaker branding and basketball culture could address why they think it’s a worthwhile class to teach like this:
“This class encourages students to analyze how a single product line can influence identity, social behavior, and media narratives—demonstrating that basketball’s cultural footprint reaches far beyond the game itself.”
Beyond including your connection to the class and why it’s important, you also need to incorporate details about the class itself. This is another way you can demonstrate your genuine interest in your topic: include a bunch of details as you describe the class.
You should describe key themes your class will touch upon, as well as what students should expect to learn or get out of it. Creating sample lesson plans, homework assignments, required reading lists, guest lectures, etc., are all great ways to show your granular knowledge of the topic and help your class come to life for your reader. Really put yourself in a professor’s shoes and consider what your class would entail.
Maybe a class on the economic and environmental impacts of overtourism would have a field trip to a coastal town where students would hear testimonials from the residents. Maybe your class on the psychology behind Fortune 500 logos would have a capstone project where students have to design their own logo using the psychology principles they learned in class. Think outside the box here!
Just remember, this essay has to strike a balance somewhere between full-on narrative and course syllabus. You want to fully flesh out your Paideia class, but at the same time, don’t forget this is a college essay and the goal is to share more about yourself and your interests with the admissions officers at Reed. If you can strike that balance and share your enthusiasm while also painting the picture of the class you would teach, you should be golden!
If you would like to see how real students have responded to this prompt in the past, check out this post to see the essay examples.
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