How to Write the University of Rochester Essays 2025-2026
With over 160 undergraduate programs, students can pursue just about anything at the University of Rochester. What sets Rochester apart is its flexible curriculum—there are almost no general education requirements, letting students chart their own academic path.
This year, Rochester has one required essay for all applicants to respond to. Additionally, if you are applying to one of Rochester’s combined degree programs, you will have to submit an essay about your interest in the program.
Keep reading for our advice on answering the University of Rochester essay prompts for the 2025-2026 application cycle.
University of Rochester Supplemental Essay Prompts
All Applicants
Prompt: The University of Rochester benefactor, entrepreneur, photography pioneer, and philanthropist George Eastman said, “The progress of the world depends almost entirely upon education.” In what ways do you envision using the curricular flexibility and co-curricular opportunities at the University of Rochester to promote progress and change within the communities you inhabit? (250 words)
Combined Degree Programs
Prompt: What relevant experiences or insight have led to your interest in this particular program? Describe how Rochester’s resources – facilities, faculty, peers and research – will meet your academic and personal ambitions. Describe how you see yourself contributing to the challenging field you want to enter as a Rochester graduate. (250 words)
All Applicants Prompt
The University of Rochester benefactor, entrepreneur, photography pioneer, and philanthropist George Eastman said, “The progress of the world depends almost entirely upon education.” In what ways do you envision using the curricular flexibility and co-curricular opportunities at the University of Rochester to promote progress and change within the communities you inhabit? (250 words)
This prompt is a combination of a few different typical college essay tropes. There are aspects of a “Why This Major?” essay when it asks about using the curricular flexibility to your advantage, there is some of the “Why This College?” archetype as well when it asks about co-curricular opportunities, and finally there’s some influence from the Impact on Community essay when it asks about promoting progress and change.
If cramming all of that into 250 words sounds like a daunting task, don’t worry—you’re not alone. However, you can break it down into a more manageable structure to help you answer all the different questions in this prompt in a concise and easy-to-follow manner. We recommend approaching this essay using this format:
Identify a way you want to make the world better → How will your major help you achieve it? → How will the extracurriculars you join help you achieve it?
Thinking about this essay backwards—starting with the change you want to see in the world/your community—allows you to come up with a central theme that can be the throughline of your entire essay.
Identify a way to make the world better
The first thing you have to ask yourself is: what issues am I passionate about solving? This can be something as big as climate change or as local as increasing the funding to the arts in your school district. As you are brainstorming, think about issues you’ve learned about in class, read about in the news, or have discussed with your friends or family. What sticks out to you?
Keep in mind, your college essay is a chance for you to reveal more about yourself to the admissions officers, so you want to pick an issue you have some personal relation or affinity towards; don’t just pick a topic because you think it sounds “impressive”.
You should also remember that you don’t have to pick something as lofty as solving climate change or ending political polarization—you can also discuss progress you want to see in the world. Maybe you envision a future where America has infrastructure to support a high-speed rail system or you imagine progress in the way we diagnose illnesses that don’t require X-rays. All that matters is that you pick a specific way in which you would like to see the world improve, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you have to be directly solving a current “issue” to get there.
The topic you identify should relate to your academic interests though. This way, you will have a clear path to talk about how you will work towards achieving your goals through your college major and extracurriculars. Consider the following two students and which topic makes for a better issue to address based on their other interests:
Student A: She believes that racial profiling is a big issue and is a major hindrance to the advancement of minority communities. At Rochester, she plans to study Chemical Engineering and she’s looking forward to joining the Solar Splash group to design solar-powered boats with her peers.
Student B: She thinks that the lack of easy access to financial literacy for women is a big problem because it puts many women in a position where they are dependent on men and unable to leave unhealthy situations. She is planning to major in Financial Economics and is looking forward to getting involved with Forté Campus to actively help young women access business educations so they can learn more about finance.
Student B has a much stronger throughline for her essay because she picked an issue that is related to her academic and extracurricular interests at Rochester. Go through this exercise yourself to narrow down the topics you care about so that you choose one that lends itself well to the rest of your essay.
How will your major help you achieve it?
Once you’ve picked a change you would like to see in the world, now you have to think about how your academic studies will equip you with the knowledge and tools to make that change. Specifically, how will your academic studies at Rochester make it possible?
You need to go beyond listing out reasons that could apply to any college—for example, a prospective biology major will have access to hands-on labs and undergraduate research at most colleges across the U.S. What can Rochester provide that other schools cannot?
This is where we recommend you spend time poking around Rochester’s website to find specific resources and opportunities that are unique to the school. Look into unique classes (not Psychology 101 but Children’s Thinking About Society), professors and the specific research they do, study abroad programs, special centers or programs, and more. You don’t want to name-drop multiple things you found; instead, pick one or two that directly relate to your interests and the change you want to see in the world and explain why you are looking forward to engaging with that resource—in other words, what are you hoping to get out of it?
Remember, Rochester emphasizes their academic flexibility in the prompt, so especially if you are undecided on your major, you can incorporate how you plan to take advantage of the interdisciplinary education and how knowledge of other fields could help you achieve your goal.
How will extracurriculars help you achieve it?
You also want to show the admissions officers that you will be an active member of the campus community outside of the classroom. This is where the last piece of this essay comes in: discussing Rochester resources you will utilize beyond the classroom.
Now, the most common way to address this is through clubs or organizations you will join that will provide you with experience or skills to make a difference in the world. However, you could also think more broadly and talk about other aspects of Rochester—for instance, maybe meeting people with different backgrounds and perspectives in your dorm will help you achieve the progress you seek because it will broaden your understanding of others.
Like with the academic aspects, you don’t want to list out a multitude of ways you will grow from participating in Rochester’s campus life. Keep your essay focused with one or two and draw connections to how participating in these activities will help you.
Example Essay
Now that we’ve broken down each piece of the essay, let’s see an essay that puts all of this advice to practice.
“My neighborhood had no sidewalks. Watching kids bike in the street alongside speeding cars and seniors struggling to navigate without ramps made me realize how infrastructure determines opportunity. I want to reimagine cities to be sustainable, accessible, and healthier for everyone who lives in them.
Rochester’s curriculum makes that vision possible. As an Environmental Engineering major, I’ll gain the technical skills to design energy-efficient systems and resilient structures, while an Urban Studies cluster will provide the social context to ensure those designs serve communities equitably. Courses like Environmental Impact and Risk Assessment would sharpen my ability to evaluate how infrastructure projects affect people and ecosystems, and Rochester’s emphasis on interdisciplinary problem-solving would let me connect engineering with public health and policy.
I’m particularly excited about collaborating with the Community Design Center of Rochester, where students and professionals work together on local development projects. Getting to apply my classroom knowledge to real neighborhoods—seeing firsthand how engineering decisions shape daily lives—would prepare me for a career in sustainable city planning. I also look forward to joining Rochester’s Engineers Without Borders chapter, where I can learn how environmentally conscious design empowers global communities with limited resources.
For me, progress means sidewalks that invite children to play safely, ramps that give elders independence, and cities that reduce harm to the planet while enhancing quality of life. Rochester offers the perfect bridge between technical expertise and community-focused design, equipping me to turn that vision into reality.”
Combined Degree Programs Prompt
What relevant experiences or insight have led to your interest in this particular program? Describe how Rochester’s resources – facilities, faculty, peers and research – will meet your academic and personal ambitions. Describe how you see yourself contributing to the challenging field you want to enter as a Rochester graduate. (250 words)
Once again, we have a take on the classic “Why This Major?” essay, however this time it’s a combined Bachelors and Masters program instead of just a major. It asks you to reflect on the experiences that led you to your chosen program, explain why Rochester is the best place for you to pursue it, and envision how you’ll contribute to your field as a graduate. That’s a lot to fit into just 250 words, but with careful storytelling and specificity, you can craft an essay that connects your past, present, and future in a meaningful way.
Let’s break it down into the three key pieces.
Why this field?
The opening of your essay should capture attention with a concrete, personal moment. “I’ve always loved science” is too vague to stick in the reader’s mind, but describing yourself hunched over a microscope trying to track the life cycle of fruit flies instantly brings your interest to life. A strong opening anchors your essay in your lived experience rather than abstract statements.
Imagine a student who became interested in biomedical engineering after his grandmother underwent dialysis. Instead of starting with “I want to help people through medicine,” he might describe watching the dialysis machine hum beside his grandmother’s hospital bed and realizing that engineering could be as lifesaving as surgery. That moment would make his essay unique to him. Similarly, a bilingual student fascinated by linguistics and computer science, could begin with the image of tinkering with translation bots alongside their uncle in their garage. These small but vivid scenes draw readers in immediately.
Your opening doesn’t need to be dramatic or life-changing—it just needs to be specific. A student interested in education might recall the encouragement of their third grade teacher, while another pursuing environmental science might remember kayaking down a river only to see plastic bottles float past. By choosing one or two memorable moments, you will show the admissions officers the human story behind your academic interests.
Why Rochester?
Once you’ve explained your personal connection to your field, the next step is to show why Rochester is the perfect place for you to pursue it. This is where many students fall into the trap of generic compliments—calling the school “prestigious” or saying it has “great professors.” These statements don’t reveal anything about you or your fit for Rochester.
Instead, you need to highlight resources that are specific to Rochester and connect directly to your experiences. Remember, because you are applying for a combined degree program, you will have access to resources at both the undergraduate and graduate level. Look into classes, professors, research centers, special programs, and more that are available to both types of students.
Remember to keep your essay personalized by not simply name-dropping a dozen different resources you will engage with. Connect your past experiences to Rochester’s offerings in a way that makes your interest feel natural and intentional. When you write about Rochester, ask yourself: how will this resource build on what I’ve already done? How will it push me toward the next step of my academic journey?
What’s next?
The final part of the essay should look beyond college. Rochester isn’t just curious about why you want to study something now—they want to know what you plan to do with that knowledge. This doesn’t mean you need to have your entire life planned out, but you should offer a glimpse of your ambitions and the impact you hope to make.
Even if your vision is broad—say, advancing health equity or promoting sustainable development—it should still feel grounded in your story. Admissions officers don’t want empty promises; they want to see that you have thought seriously about the role your education will play in your future. The best way to do this is to tie your future goal back to the specific interests and experiences you described earlier in your essay, creating a full-circle effect.
Remember, you are committing to a lot of school up-front by applying for one of these programs, so you want to make it clear to the admissions committee that you have some semblance of a plan of what you will do with your education afterwards.
Example Essay
Here’s what an essay might look like that accomplishes all the steps we’ve laid out:
“When my father tested positive for COVID-19 during the early months of the pandemic, I saw firsthand how a virus could upend not just health, but livelihoods. Our family quarantined in our small apartment, and my father—who drives for a ride-share service—couldn’t work for weeks. I started following county dashboards, watching case counts rise and fall, and wondered why some neighborhoods were hit harder than others. I began to see how public health was about far more than a disease—it was about inequities in housing, employment, and access to care.
This curiosity grew into action. I joined a youth research initiative where I analyzed local COVID vaccination rates by zip code. The disparities were stark: areas with fewer clinics and higher poverty rates had the lowest vaccination coverage. Presenting these findings to our city’s health board made me realize that epidemiology isn’t just about studying disease—it’s about translating data into policies that protect people like my father.
The 6-Year HEAL Program at Rochester is where I can develop this vision. The BA in Epidemiology will give me the technical foundation to analyze complex health data, while the MPH will teach me to design interventions that address systemic barriers. I’m especially drawn to the Center for Community Health & Prevention, where I hope to contribute to projects on vaccine equity.
As a Rochester graduate, I aim to create public health systems that protect vulnerable communities during crises, so no family faces the fear and uncertainty mine did in 2020.”
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