The essay prompt is…
The Committee on Admission is interested in getting to know each candidate as well as possible through the application process. The following essay question is designed to demonstrate your writing skills and facilitate our full appreciation of your unique perspective.
The quality of Rice’s academic life and the Residential College System are heavily influenced by the unique life experiences and cultural traditions each student brings. What personal perspective do you feel that you will contribute to life at Rice?
Would writing about being a middle child be ok? I want to talk about how being a middle child has pushed me to be more independent and think outside the box, and also has helped me feel less pressure to conform and be more empathetic. Being a middle kid has affected my whole life because it has given me a special set of traits that enables me to be a mediator and an encouragement to my peers.
It’s just an idea, but does it fit with the prompt?
Any topic can be a good one if it’s handled skillfully but this one may be a bit tougher to turn into a diamond. There are a lot of middle children applying to Rice. It’s going to be hard to argue that your middle child experience is uniquely different from everyone else’s middle child experience, and given you qualities that the other middle children don’t also have. It’s possible. But difficult.
You might do better to pick something else that is more unique. Surely you have some aspect of your life that isn’t common to 50% of the applicant pool.
Where did you find that essay prompt? I’m a little worried because I don’t see it. I only see the four questions under Writing Supplement:
- Extracurricular/Work Experience
- Explain why applying to particular school of study
- Listing other colleges applying to
- How did you first learn about Rice?
Then “The Box” where an image is uploaded.
dream big–> it is #5 just after howbyou learned aboutRice an before the Box. 500 words
I checked again and it’s not there. I searched and found a past thread from last fall where there was this same issue of a missing prompt:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/rice-university/1705137-missing-a-supplemental-essay-please-help.html
@rmaddux4 @wandlmink Are you applying to a specific school? Maybe the prompt only comes up once you answer a specific question. It seems really strange, though, because it’s a wide open question.
@rmaddux4 I like the idea of you writing about being a middle child. I can see if you used some humor and wrote about a couple of specific situations where being a middle child helped ease tensions, etc. it would show how you could contribute positively to the Rice community (like being a mediator).
Everybody applies to a specific school. My daughter applied to the School of Engineering. However, the question doesn’t relate to a school but the University as a whole. If you aren’t seeing it, call the Admissions Office and see if you can do a work-around like submitting it separately. Once you submit your application you need to upload the ED Agreement and I don’t see why you couldn’t upload an essay. See what they suggest.
I think the prompt the OP listed is on the Universal Application and was on Rice’s Common App years ago so still can be found on the internet. I don’t see it in the Common App for this year either.
@ellagrace No, it’s on my comm app this year. It’s included in the Rice writing supplement.