2 Strong UNC Chapel Hill Essay Examples
What’s Covered:
- Essay Example #1 – Topic of Interest
- Essay Example #2 – Change One Thing About Where You Live
- Where to Get Your UNC Chapel Hill Essays Edited
UNC Chapel Hill is the flagship institution of the University of North Carolina system and is often regarded as a “Public Ivy” because of its academic excellence. Not only that, UNC Chapel Hill has a spirited fan base that loves to support the Tar Heels, especially in basketball.
In this post, we’ll go over two essays that real students submitted to UNC Chapel Hill, and we’ll discuss the strengths and some potential areas of improvement. (Names and identifying information have been changed, but all other details are preserved)
Please note: Looking at examples of real essays students have submitted to colleges can be very beneficial to get inspiration for your essays. You should never copy or plagiarize from these examples when writing your own essays. Colleges can tell when an essay isn’t genuine and will not view students favorably if they plagiarized.
Read our UNC Chapel Hill essay breakdown to get a comprehensive overview of this year’s supplemental prompts.
Essay Example #1 – Topic of Interest
Prompt: Discuss an academic topic that you’re excited to explore and learn more about in college. Why does this topic interest you? Topics could be a specific course of study, research interests, or any other area related to your academic experience in college. (250 words)
Armed with pink playdough, I transformed my bedroom into a dimly lit laboratory. Every squish and mold orchestrated the crinkled folds into an organ capable of choreographing life.
As I grew older, the brain’s complexity surpassed what I had explained to my stuffed-animals. Volunteering alongside OB/GYNs, I witnessed newborns’ painful prelude to existence with their fragile bodies scarred from incomplete neural tubing and spinal cysts. Between infancy and old age, the brain fades into memory loss. The severity of Alzheimer’s draped a cruel fog over events I organized in a senior home as residents kept forgetting where they were. Playdough was no longer enough to mend the brain’s crinkled folds.
“Apples in a tree, cars in a garage,” a simple saying that bridges the natural world with genetic expression. When apple trees don’t bloom and adenine fails to bind with thymine, both landscapes and DNA become distorted. By examining the mechanisms of DNA damage through a neurobiological lens, I can develop targeted treatments focused on enzymes that untangle molecular threads in neurons. Learning to genetically map expecting mothers for fetal defects opens avenues for proactive interventions before NICU visits. As I experiment with CRISPR alongside Professor Dowen, I’ll be able to modify altered DNA sequences seen in Alzheimer’s. The intersection between genetic variation and neural pathways drives me to translate my knowledge into technology capable of diagnosing psychological illness from nerve activity.
Using my pink playdough, I hope to construct genetic blueprints that build a brighter future amid neurological disorders.
What the Essay Did Well
The student who wrote this essay is able to convey two critically important things: their passion for and knowledge of this topic. As a result, we get a complete picture of how captivated this student is with neurobiology, and how they will be an engaged neurobiology student on campus.
Their passion is conveyed right from the start. The introduction is short and sweet—just long enough to get the reader hooked, without wasting precious words on recounting their entire childhood. Thanks to the descriptive details of “pink playdough” and complex concepts “explained to my stuffed animals,” within the first three sentences we immediately understand the child-like fascination this student has had for neurobiology for most of their life.
Once the early spark of passion is established, they provide details on their extracurricular involvements related to this topic, to show how they furthered their interest. Although the prompt doesn’t specifically ask you to discuss your extracurriculars, in any college essay you want to use examples to illustrate your points.
For this student, their activities–working with an OBGYN and at a senior center–allow them to show how passionate they are about going into medicine. This strategy is far more effective than the student simply telling us “I am fascinated by this topic.”
To further establish their interest in this field, and why their passion would make them a good addition to the UNC campus, the student displays their knowledge of the topic. Again, they don’t accomplish this by saying “I’ve read countless books on this topic and have learned a lot about Alzheimers.”
Instead, this essay shows us they know what they are talking about by providing technical details like “neural tubing and spinal cysts,” “adenine fails to bind with thymine,” and “enzymes that untangle molecular threads in neurons.” Seamlessly including technical details, in a way that feels accessible even to people who don’t know much about this topic, conveys a sense of confidence in your knowledge and shows admissions officers you are prepared for college-level coursework.
Finally, although not explicitly asked for in the prompt, this student accomplishes one of the higher level goals of a “Why Major” essay and tells the reader what they hope to accomplish with their degree. (Note: this prompt is a little different from a typical “Why Major?” prompt, in that you have the freedom to write about a topic other than your intended major, but many of the same general principles apply.)
A forward-looking ending like this is always a smart move, as showing the admissions committee that you already have longer term dreams for how you’ll use your degree gives them confidence that you’re ready to take full advantage of the resources their school has to offer. Even better, this student alludes to a specific professor they want to work with to help make those dreams a reality, thus bringing UNC into the picture as an integral player for achieving their goals.
What Could Be Improved
A 250 word limit is fairly restrictive, so we don’t want to nitpick too much, but one area that could have been expanded on in this essay is how the student hopes to engage with the UNC community.
As mentioned above, they do tie their goals back to UNC by mentioning a professor, but the conclusion would have been even stronger if they went farther than just name dropping one professor. This could have been done in a few ways:
- Including one or two classes that are unique to UNC (so, not neurobiology 101) that they are excited to take, and a specific lesson or piece of information they hope to take away from their coursework.
- Mentioning a club or research lab on campus they hope to join and what they will learn/achieve through it.
- Elaborating on the professor’s research or lab they are involved with–that extra detail shows they’ve done their homework and didn’t just pick a random name.
While the details they include earlier on in the essay to prove their knowledge of neurobiology are certainly effective, they could afford to sacrifice one or two, to buy themselves some extra space at the end. Their point would still come across, and doing one of the things listed above would make an already excellent essay even better, by further building their case for why they need to attend UNC, specifically, to make their aspirations reality.
Essay Example #2 – Change One Thing About Where You Live
Prompt: If you could change one thing about where you live, what would it be and why? (200-250 words).
Sitting behind the loaded plates on our dinner table, I predicted my mom’s first question with 100% accuracy: “So, how did you do on the trigonometry test today?” Notorious for failing math classes, my brother paused from chewing his chicken wing.
I knew he’d be in trouble.
Indeed, after hearing his grade, my mom scolded: “Look at our neighbor’s kid; then look at you! She never gets anything below a 90!”
There it is again: “the neighbor’s kid,” a Chinese concept that I wish would serve a different purpose. Upon learning about their children’s unsatisfactory academic performance, Chinese parents often bring up a so-called perfect neighbor’s kid for comparison. It saddens me to see individuals raised under the shadow of “the neighbor’s kid” not able to simply enjoy exploring knowledge. They toil through years of schooling for good grades and a prestigious college’s acceptance letter at the cost of their mental well-being. Worse, some measure their self-worth by grades alone: my brother believes he’s not good enough, despite all his admirable traits outside of academics.
Instead of “the neighbor’s kid who got a good grade” at the dinner table, I suggested my parents discuss “the neighbor’s kid who sells bracelets to raise money for charity” or “who had a hot discussion with the teacher about whether animals have consciousness.” I look forward to a more vibrant and colorful dinner conversation, where families talk about their roses and thorns of the day, rather than a neighbor’s kid defined by numbers.
What the Essay Did Well
This essay does a great job of opening with a strong anecdote and seamlessly transitioning the anecdote into an answer to the prompt. The reader feels the suspense of sitting at the dinner table with the student and their family waiting for the response to their mom’s question, and might even relate to hearing the student’s parents complain about their grade. It’s a simple and quick story, but everyone can find something in it they relate to, which makes the reader want to keep reading.
The essay was also successful at transitioning from a personal anecdote to a broader topic that addresses the prompt. The anecdote is connected to the larger issue the student has with their home environment and provides context for their reasoning that growing up surrounded by this mentality is harmful. The use of the anecdote bolsters the entire essay by perfectly setting up the student’s response to the prompt, rather than being an out-of-place inclusion to add some empathy or imagery, which is a common mistake with anecdotes.
Another positive aspect of this essay is how the student’s passion for the issue shines through. The reader learns a good deal about the student’s family life and familiarity with the “the neighbor’s kid.” The student’s sadness and disapproval at not being able to enjoy learning because the immense amount of stress their parents place on them to get good grades is evident when they say, “They toil through years of schooling for good grades and a prestigious college’s acceptance letter at the cost of their mental well-being.”
The inclusion of the student’s brother also shows how close this issue is to the student’s heart, because they are watching stereotypes harm someone they love. The details and direct language included provide strong evidence for why the student wants to change this aspect of where they live, which is the most important part of the prompt to address.
What Could Be Improved
For the most part, this is a great essay. The one thing that could be improved is the last paragraph that explains what the student wants to change. As far as the reader knows, the suggestions the student makes to discuss “the neighbor’s kid who sells bracelets” or “the neighbor’s kid who had a hot discussion with the teacher” are random topics the student chose to contrast with the idea of valuing a kid for a numerical grade. Since these appear as random topics, it distracts from other qualities the student and their brother might possess and want to showcase to their parents.
In an essay that is focused on changing the norm of equating worth with a grade, it would reveal more about what the student wants to be recognized for if they mentioned topics of conversation that related back to their interests. For example, if the student liked to ice skate and play the trumpet they could say:
“Instead of the dreaded question about my grades, my parents would ask about how my axel is coming along or what new song I’m considering for the winter concert.”
An ending more like this, that discusses the student’s interests rather than randomly mentioning other students, still achieves the same goal of the student not wanting to solely be measured by a number, but conveys the idea while also providing more insight into the student and what they value.
Where to Get Your UNC Chapel Hill Essays Edited
Do you want feedback on your UNC Chapel Hill 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.
If you want a college admissions expert to review your essay, advisors on CollegeVine have helped students refine their writing and submit successful applications to top schools. Find the right advisor for you to improve your chances of getting into your dream school!
