How to Write the UIUC Essays 2024-2025
UIUC is one of the best public universities in the USA, so writing strong essays is important to making your application stand out. UIUC has two required short prompts and two optional ones, and we’re here with expert advice on how to respond to all of them!
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Supplemental Essay Prompts
All Applicants, Required
Prompt 1: Explain, in detail, an experience you’ve had in the past 3 to 4 years related to your first-choice major. This can be an experience from an extracurricular activity, in a class you’ve taken, or through something else. (150 words)
Prompt 2: Describe your personal and/or career goals after graduating from UIUC and how your selected first-choice major will help you achieve them. (150 words)
All Applicants, Optional
Prompt 3: Explain any challenges (outside of COVID-related) you have faced throughout your academic career, including the dates or timeline below. (300 words)
Prompt 4: If you have a low grade or a drop in grades that you have not already explained, do so below. (300 words)
Prompt 1
Explain, in detail, an experience you’ve had in the past 3 to 4 years related to your first-choice major. This can be an experience from an extracurricular activity, in a class you’ve taken, or through something else. (150 words)
At first glance, this prompt seems pretty straightforward, and there isn’t much space for extraneous storytelling.
However, what gives this prompt its difficulty is the necessity of going above and beyond. Not only do you need to identify the experiences that shaped your interest in your selected major, but you need to provide deeper reflections as to why those experiences impacted you in the way they did.
For that reason, it’s not enough to simply list the experiences that led you to your chosen major. For example, you shouldn’t just say:
“I first discovered my passion for film in English class, when I had to write a take home essay about the movie adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray. I furthered my interest in film by making my own home documentary alongside a couple friends. I also started volunteering at a local arthouse cinema to understand a more commercial perspective on film…”
Rather, it’s better to go deeper with a given example and provide insights into what motivates your passions. Instead of simply listing experiences related to film, you might say:
“My English teacher assigned our class a take-home essay, where we analyzed the movie adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray. Looking at the movie through a closer lens gave me a deeper appreciation for the small decisions directors make and the big impacts they can have…”
The admissions readers at UIUC want to see that you have the necessary experiences under your belt to thrive in your chosen course of study, and they also want to see that you will be passionate and motivated while doing so! Make sure to show them both your experiences and your deeper insights about those experiences, and you’ll have a strong essay on your hands.
Prompt 2
Describe your personal and/or career goals after graduating from UIUC and how your selected first-choice major will help you achieve them. (150 words)
The trick to this prompt is making sure you convey a clear personal or career goal, while also relating your intended course of study to that goal.
Thus, you should acknowledge the following main points while answering this prompt:
- What are your future personal or career goals?
- How will your chosen major help contribute towards those goals?
Let’s address each of these points separately.
1. What are your future personal and/or career goals?
The prompt plainly states that your response needs to identify your future personal or career goals. If you have a clear idea of what your goals are, that will make this part easy. In that situation, you would have presumably chosen a course of study that will serve as a stepping stone towards your longer-term ambitions.
On the other hand, UIUC knows that your interests will change over the next four years, and that nothing is set in stone. If you’re uncertain about your career goals, it’s also okay to identify a few possible career paths that interest you. Another option is to discuss the type of work you wish to do (e.g. helping deliver aid to marginalized communities) as opposed to the specific career title.
Keep in mind that UIUC gives you the option of specifying your personal goals as well, and not just your career goals. Your personal goals should still be related to your major, but don’t have to be as career-focused. For instance, some solid personal goals to mention would be things like becoming a stronger public speaker, learning to program in a certain coding language, doing research on a specific topic, or writing a novel.
As long as you can make a compelling case as to how your chosen major relates to your future ambitions, you will be in good shape for this essay.
2. How will your chosen major help contribute towards those goals?
Once you have identified your personal or career goals, you also need to indicate what aspects of your chosen course of study will help you achieve those goals.
This will mean both speaking about your major in broad terms, as well as identifying some features of UIUC’s course of study that serve you particularly well. This is not a “why UIUC” essay, so showing depth of research is not the top priority, but it will strengthen your response nonetheless.
While this essay does not require personal reflections in the way that many other college essays do, it is still important for your voice to come through in deeper analyses that show you understand the significance of your major-goal combination at a deeper level.
To accomplish this, make sure you are always stating why a particular aspect of your intended major serves your goals. For instance, it is not enough to say, “I hope to be a lawyer for the United Nations, so I want to take the course Governing Globalizations.” You might instead write:
“Courses such as Governing Globalizations, which explore the historical, moral, socio-economic, and political dimensions of an emerging global society, will provide me with the interdisciplinary background to thrive as an international lawyer.”
This second version goes the extra mile, by showing exactly what you hope to learn from this course and why that knowledge is relevant to your future ambitions, to truly give UIUC admissions officers the information they’re looking for.
Prompt 3 (Optional)
Explain any challenges (outside of COVID-related) you have faced throughout your academic career, including the dates or timeline below. (300 words)
While we encourage applicants to respond to most optional prompts, this prompt and the following one are truly optional. You should only respond to them if you have exceptional circumstances that apply.
This prompt is not the typical Overcoming Challenges essay, where you’re asked to share examples of your resilience through a story. This is truly for major challenges that negatively impacted your academic or extracurricular history, and it should be written in a straightforward format, not narrative form.
Some examples of challenges that may apply include:
- Major illness
- Death in the family
- Divorce
- Job loss in the family
- Anything else that prevented you from achieving at your potential
You don’t need to take up the full word count; only use the space you need. Here’s an example:
“During my entire high school career, I had to babysit for my two younger siblings right after school because my family couldn’t afford daycare. As a result, I was unable to do sports or other extracurriculars, however, these many afternoons prepping snacks and coming up with new games to play were valuable in teaching me responsibility and creativity.”
While you don’t want to go into a ton of descriptive detail like you would in a typical supplement, you should ideally touch briefly on what you learned from this experience, like this example does. That positive framing shows maturity, and that you would bring a perspective to campus that not many other students have, both of which will be attractive to admissions officers.
Prompt 4 (Optional)
If you have a low grade or a drop in grades that you have not already explained, do so below. (300 words)
The same advice for the previous prompt applies here too, however, this is specific to grades. Again, don’t use this space for that one class you got a B. This is for grades that are truly out of the norm from your academic record or abilities.
Make sure you also don’t blame others for your lower grade (i.e. “the teacher was bad”). If there were factors outside of your control, explain the situation as diplomatically as possible.
“In September 2022, I was diagnosed with ADHD and started taking medication for it. Prior to that, during freshman year, I was not able to do my best academically because I was unable to focus. After starting ADHD medication, I was able to follow along in class and complete all my assignments, and my grades rose significantly as a result.”
Note that, like in the example for Prompt 3, this response shows growth, by touching on how you overcame your low grades freshman year. That will give UIUC admissions officers confidence that you’re prepared to thrive in the more rigorous academic environment you’ll encounter in college.
Where to Get Your UIUC Essays Edited For Free
Do you want feedback on your UIUC 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!
