How to write the "Why Us?" college essay

When writing your supplemental essays, you’re bound to come across some version of the question “Why us?” Out of the thousands of schools in the world, you chose to apply here; now, the admissions team wants to know what made you chose them. While this may seem like a relatively straightforward question, it can be surprisingly challenging to navigate. To really nail this question you’ll have to be well-prepared, thoughtful, and organized, so in this blog post we’ve laid out the key principles to writing a great “Why us?” essay.

What they definitely don’t want

The worst possible thing an applicant can do is turn this essay into a laundry list of generic reasons for choosing a school. “I love UCLA because the weather is spectacular!” You know where else it’s warm? Every other UC school, the south, and about a thousand other places. “I want to attend Michigan because it is a big research university with great sports”…just like every other Big 10 school and countless others. The point being that mentioning things like weather, location, sports, prestige, and other non-distinguishing factors is not going to wow an adcom.

Reframing the question

Too often do students fall into the trap of making this essay all about the college and not about themselves. Colleges are not looking for an ego boost here; they did not ask you this question for you to simply tell them how great they are. They already know how amazing their school is! Instead, you should think of this question as “Why are we a perfect match for each other?” In doing so, you should be conveying who you are and why they have what you want. This is your opportunity to tailor the passions, interests, and abilities that you’ve discussed in the rest of your application to this specific school.

Steps to writing a strong essay

Make a list

Before you begin writing this essay, we recommend that you take the time to sit down and make a list of all the things that attract you to this college. It’s okay if at first these are general things like “research university” or “strong economics department.” The purpose of this exercise is simply to identify the areas that you value most in order to guide your research into the school.

Do research

Once you’ve identified the most important general areas of focus, you should move on to doing some specific research on the school. Your research needs to exceed common knowledge, like Columbia’s core curriculum or Princeton’s eating clubs, and should include making a list of majors and programs you’re interested in, clubs and organizations you’d like to join, specific classes and professors you’d like to take—the more specific and unique to the school, the better. Simply citing overarching facts about the school as reasons to attend will not make for a convincing, nor differentiating essay and are thus to be avoided.

Putting it all together

Now that you’ve done your research…put it to use! Usually when you meet someone for the first time, you don’t want them to know that you stalked them online beforehand – this is not the case with the “why us” essay! It should be abundantly clear that you’ve thought long and hard about this question and that the information you’ve used to make this decision could not have come from a five minute google search.

The key to this essay is taking broad and generic reasons for wanting to attend a school and turning them into special and unique answers. The best way to go about this is by combining the strengths and interests you’ve expressed in your application with what this school has to offer in order to create a cohesive answer to their question.

For instance, saying you want to go to a school because it is a research university in a big city isn’t a very compelling reason on its own. But if you pair that with the fact that you want to study Sociology and Urban Studies, then you begin to provide some context of why you are drawn to this school. Finally, you want to solidify the connection with the school by citing specific opportunities that they can offer. These can include urban sustainable development research being done by faculty to which you would like to contribute, professors whose work in the field of social policy has inspired your own interest, the campus chapter of Habitat For Humanity you want to join, or a community outreach program you’d like to start.

This same process can just as easily be applied to an english major who is drawn to a liberal arts school because the small class sizes will allow for deep and intimate class discussions, and the college’s literary magazine will provide a platform for them to share their creative writing. Taking a general factor like “urban research university” or “small liberal arts college” and linking it to both your interests and the school’s opportunities creates a thoughtful and unique answer.

Final Considerations

When all’s said and done, you want to have painted a picture for the adcom of what it would be like to have you on campus. If they were to follow you around for a day, where would you be going? What classes would you be taking? How would you be interacting with their community and how would you make the most of all their school has to offer? In doing so, you must be concise and direct, as these prompts often come with a tight word cap. Finally, you want to be sure that this essay complements the rest of your application by reaffirming your core strengths and passions.

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Dimitrius Keeler

Dimitrius is a Political Science major at Columbia University who is committed to leveling the uneven playing field that is college admissions. When he's not writing for the CollegeVine blog, he's listening to trap music, consuming cable news in unhealthy quantities, and arguing with friends over the future of our country.