How to Write the University of Miami Essay 2025-2026
The University of Miami is one of America’s top research universities, located in one of the most dynamic and multicultural cities in the world. More than 19,000 students from around the world are pursuing their academic goals at the University of Miami, a vibrant and diverse community focused on teaching and learning, the discovery of new knowledge, and service to the South Florida region and beyond.
UMiami has one required supplemental essay prompt for all applicants. The prompt asks about how your life experiences, challenges you’ve overcome, or skills you’ve acquired would contribute to the UMiami community.
Since the University of Miami receives thousands of applications from academically strong students, your essays are your chance to stand out. In this post, we’ll discuss how to craft an engaging response to this required prompt.
Read these UMiami essay examples to inspire your writing.
University of Miami Supplemental Essay Prompt
Reflect on a community or experience that has influenced you—be it your school, club, team, or any other group that has played a role in shaping who you are. What significance did that community or experience hold for you, and in what ways did you contribute to it? How will you bring those experiences, values, and insights to thrive and enrich our campus community at the University of Miami? (250 words)
This essay is all about showing the UMiami admissions officers how you will fit into their campus community by drawing parallels to a community you are currently part of that’s meaningful. Essentially, the question you need to be sure to answer is: How would your past experiences make you an asset to the University of Miami’s community?
The admissions reader should walk away thinking that you both have a proven track record of engagement and will make the UMiami campus stronger by being there.
This prompt is very straightforward, but it also gives you a lot of freedom to talk about any community that is meaningful to you and what you do as a part of it. You must pick a community that is central to your life and one in which you play a significant role. Including the examples given in the prompt, here are a few examples of communities you could consider:
- Religious community
- Racial or ethnic community
- Sports teams
- Clubs and extracurricular organizations
- Volunteer organizations
- Political movements
- Apartment building or street block
- Online communities or groups
- A community of people who share a similar hobby or interest
As you can see, there are many different ways to approach this essay. You might even write about a language community, or a community of people with a similar disability. Once you know what community you want to write about, you need to discuss your role within the community. For tips on choosing a community and writing thoughtfully about it, check out our guide to writing the diversity essay.
A quick note: In 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.
When choosing a community, don’t make the mistake of thinking you can only talk about one where you were a leader or contributed to some big project—even as a member of the community, you could still play a large role. When you’re thinking about the role you played, ask yourself these four questions:
- What actions do I generally take?
- Why do I enjoy being in this community?
- How do I impact others in my community?
- What do I learn from being a part of this community?
If you can answer these questions, you can write an essay that is personal and informative. Including self-reflection, especially for the third and fourth questions, will demonstrate your critical thinking and maturity to the admissions committee.
It might help you to describe a formative experience that involved your membership in your chosen community. This experience should ideally be one in which you learned a new lesson, gained a new skill, or personally grew in some way. You are limited to 250 words total, including the last part of the prompt, which concerns your future involvement in the UMiami community, so be sure to get right to the point.
These questions might help you distill the entire experience into the most important points:
- What happened?
- What was going through your mind, and how did you feel as it happened?
- How have your emotions about the event changed over time?
- Have you faced any challenges as a result of membership in this community or your background?
Remember, as in any college essay, you want to show the admissions officers (not tell!) why your community/experience is meaningful to you. Notice the difference in how these two examples accomplish showing versus telling.
Showing: “There’s almost nothing like the last Friday of every month: international club’s monthly banquet. Three long cafeteria tables are hidden beneath trays of crispy empanadas, handmade onigiri, creamy muhammara, and steaming jollof rice. But the one thing that tops this feast for the eyes (and stomachs) is the Thursday before, when I spend all evening in the kitchen with my Nai Nai’s hand-written cookbook, making her favorite Cantonese treat: nian gao. Although she wouldn’t approve of me serving a Lunar New Year treat in October, I can’t resist the opportunity to cook by her side again once each month. I hear her sarcasm in the directions she annotated and I watch as my hands become hers as I roll out the sticky rice dough.”
Telling: “I enjoy being part of the international club at my school because once a month we host a banquet where everyone brings food from their culture. I always bring nian gao because it was my grandma’s favorite. It’s incredibly special to me when I make nian gao because it’s a way for me to reconnect with my grandma who I miss. I’m so glad I have a community like the international club that lets me get close to those I love through our culture.”
Both of these examples convey the same basic message, but the first one is incredibly more detailed, which in turn makes it more impactful. We see how this community (the international club) allows this student to connect with her grandmother and another community she belongs to (her Chinese heritage).
Finally, the last part of this prompt asks how your membership in this community will help you enrich the UMiami community. To discuss this, go beyond generic college tropes like late-night conversations with your roommate, as those are things you can find at any school. Instead, find some element of UMiami that you’re specifically intrigued by.
Maybe your Puerto Rican community at home is extremely important to you, so you’re looking forward to joining Puerto Ricanes on campus to stay connected to that community. Or, perhaps you’re planning to start a fashion entrepreneurship club on campus to create a community that currently doesn’t exist.
By the end of your essay, the admissions committee should know exactly what you value in a community and should be able to imagine you in specific communities at UMiami. Ending the essay with your specific ideas for your community involvement at the school will leave the admissions officers with a positive impression of you as an involved student.
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