Harvard Supplemental Prompt

[john963red]

I’m on the Common App, and I have reached the following Harvard supplemental prompt,

“Your intellectual life may extend beyond the academic requirements of your particular school. Please use the space below to list additional intellectual activities that you have not mentioned or detailed elsewhere in your application. These could include, but are not limited to, supervised or self-directed projects not done as school work, training experiences, online courses not run by your school, or summer academic or research programs not described elsewhere.”

Is this an optional prompt? Because I can’t think of anything that I could include here. Or am I thinking too deeply about what they want to see in this section? What are some examples? Because I think everything important could’ve already been included in the main application.

[gibby]

My advice: Although Admissions says It’s optional, it’s not, as thousands of other students – your competition – will be submitting the supplemental essay and giving an Admissions Officer a better view into their personality.

Google “How to Write the Harvard University Supplemental Essays 2018-2019” and click on every link on the first search page. That will certainly give you an idea of what to write about!

From one of those links, here’s some sage advice:

Start by looking at your application and figure out what’s missing. If you could only use five words to describe yourself to a stranger (in this case, a stranger of your dreams because it’s Harvard), you would never use the same word twice.

So don’t double down on the fact that you love English or want to be a civil engineer. What characteristic have you not been able to show yet? It’s a good starting point because you need to keep that trait in mind as you decide on a topic/story.

[compmom]

I think you could include something as simple as reading at home, if you do so. Do you have a hobby? Martial arts, music, knitting? Even something like knitting can involve math. Just think about the question before you omit it.

What do you do during the summers? It is not out of bounds to mention training for jobs if that is what you spent your time on.

Be yourself. If you cannot think of anything, don’t answer- as long as the prompt is optional. The intellectual activity can be ordinary and should be included to give them a picture of who you are. If your application has already done that, then no need to worry.