What to Keep in Mind When Applying to Georgetown

This article was written based on the information and opinions presented by Alexander Oddo and Vinay Bhaskara in a CollegeVine livestream. You can watch the full livestream for more info.

 

What’s Covered: 

• An Overview of Georgetown’s Essays
• How Important are Your Essays to Georgetown?
• Understanding the Human Factor

 

 

An Overview of Georgetown’s Essays

 

When applying to Georgetown, all applicants are required to submit essays for prompts 1 and 2 of the Georgetown supplemental prompts. Then, based on the specific school you are applying for, there is one more essay you must write that is generally about your academic goals and interests. 

 

For the school-specific essays, make sure to carefully read the prompts and address any questions asked. The supplemental prompt for Georgetown College, for example, asks specifically about what being educated means to you, so it is important that you don’t focus only on your academic interests and forget to fully respond to the prompt.

 

One more thing to note regarding Georgetown’s essays is that there is a page count instead of a word count. This is important because it allows you to be creative with the way you use that space. You can reduce the amount of empty space to allow you to include more words or you could even try a different form of writing, such as poetry.

 

For more advice and tips on how to write the Georgetown supplemental essays, check out this article onCollegeVine.

 

How Important are Your Essays to Georgetown?

 

Georgetown, as is the case with all very selective schools, often has many equally qualified applicants. As a result, Georgetown is using students’ essays to differentiate between those who have similar backgrounds, quantitative profiles, and resumes.

 

Your goal in these essays is to establish your personal qualities and make Georgetown’s admissions officers actively choose you over similar applicants. Because admissions officers will most likely review multiple applications within the same hour, it is also important to make your essay unique and something that will stick with them.

 

Coming up with a great idea for a college essay can be difficult, but if you are looking for inspiration check out our article on 16 Strong College Essay Examples.

 

Understanding the Human Factor

 

What is the Human Factor?

 

When thinking about why your essay may or may not be successful, it is necessary to understand the human factor. The human factor is simply the fact that a group of human beings, admissions officers, are reading your applications. It is not a computer, an algorithm, or a scale giving you a standardized score. These are real humans on the other side, and they are reading your essays and making the overall call on your application. 

 

If you think about why we make decisions in general, it’s frequently because of a factor that’s hard to quantify. That’s the human factor. 

 

Additionally, a college is not composed of machines or test scores. It is made up of actual human beings, each with their own unique perspective and diverse background. Therefore, as a result, admissions officers care a lot about who their applicants are as people.

 

How Might the Human Factor Affect You?

 

Admissions officers’ circumstances also will affect how they read your essay. Every admissions officer comes in with a different background, and they read your essay with varying levels of context and experience. Factors like their politics, religion, alignment with Georgetown’s vision and culture, and other applications they have read all affect their perspective. 

 

For example, if the admissions officer reading your application is a Georgetown alum who majored in Asian Studies with a focus on post-Soviet, Central Asian politics, they might be more inclined to enjoy reading applications from students who have an interest in the politics of central Asia. 

 

Finally, an admissions officer may just be having a really busy or bad day. An essay that they would have normally enjoyed might not sit as well with them on that day, and they might rate the applicant lower as a result. This is why there is always an element of luck when applying to a top school, such as Georgetown, but to improve your chances of admission you should make sure to do everything within your control to craft your best application.