In this article, we’ll be covering our successful Vanderbilt extracurricular essay that worked. The extracurricular essay for Vanderbilt is important because it helps students show more of their personality and character in the application process.
In fact, we want to demonstrate just how crucial this essay prompt is. Let’s look at some stats.
Vanderbilt Class of 2026 Freshman Admissions Profile
- Admit Rate: 4.7%
- Students who received one or more significant honors or major leadership positions: 100%
- SAT Middle 50% Evidence-Based Reading and Writing: 740-780
- SAT Middle 50% Math: 770-800
- ACT Middle 50%: 34-36
These stats alone are incredibly competitive. Since the acceptance rate for Vanderbilt has only seen a downward trend over time, we can assume getting accepted is very difficult. This is especially true. We’ve seen over time how perfect 4.0 students couldn’t get away with just their grades and test scores alone.
Students needed to have fantastic essays and extracurriculars that would help them compete amongst the rest of the competition.
The focus of the Vanderbilt extracurricular essay prompt is using the prompt to write an essay that readers can use to infer your character traits. That’s the trick. Writing your essay to be analyzed as a unique demonstration of character.
Below, we’ll show you what kinds of characteristics the essay infers and why they make it a successful essay.
Table of Contents
- Vanderbilt Extracurricular Essay Prompt
- Vanderbilt Extracurricular Essay Prompt That Worked
- What Does This Essay Say About The Applicant?
- Why Do These Traits Make This Essay Successful?
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Vanderbilt Extracurricular Essay Prompt
Please briefly elaborate on one of your extracurricular activities or work experiences. (150-400 words)
Vanderbilt Extracurricular Essay Prompt That Worked
“Five, six, seven, eight!” I tried not to trip over my own feet, or Daniela’s. Backwards, forwards… twirl? Clearly, I was a stranger to dancing in a Quinceañera; however, that was the beauty of it. Never before have I integrated so deeply into another culture until then.
When I graduated high school in 2019, I sought to fund and plan my own international gap year journey without the help of an external program. There’s a beauty to going on an adventure abroad, but I was terrified knowing it would be my first time alone. Yet, living in the same environment for 18 years invoked a yearning for something greater “out there”: a whole world to learn from.
One of these worlds was Ecuador.
I booked a one-way ticket to Quito, Ecuador to move in with a host family. I connected with them through the Academia Latina Americana program: a local immersion school. Nonetheless, fully integrating into a wildly different place, in a language I barely spoke, was exactly the humbling experience that would teach me to adapt to my surroundings whilst expanding my worldly curiosity.
While living with the Chiriboga family, I exponentially improved my Spanish at the Academia. This meant studying four hours each morning; eventually, I was writing essays on Ecuadorian stories and creating presentations on politics. With my host family, I cooked dinners with their great grandparents, practiced with my host brothers’ soccer team, joined their gym, and played video games with them.
By the end of three months, I was not only very confident in my Spanish; but, I felt much more connected with the community and the Chiribogas. This led to something I never expected: I was asked to be a chambelan to their niece Daniela’s Quinceañera. That my host family would extend an invitation to me was an immense honor, as that position is reserved for those close to the family.
I started my graduation with big hopes and dreams. After planning, self-funding, and much reflective thought, I took the risk of traveling alone. I could not have predicted I’d improve my Spanish so quickly, let alone integrate so well with Ecuadorian society. When I braved this personal journey, I never expected I’d find exactly what I was looking for: myself, dancing to the beginning of a new life.
In my next adventure, I might still trip over my feet. But, I’ll keep dancing.
Vanderbilt Extracurricular Example Essay That Worked
What Does This Essay Say About The Applicant?
Perhaps one of the most important things to take out of the successful Vanderbilt extracurricular essay example is the personality and characteristics AOs can take out of it.
This is a good rule of thumb. When considering how to write the Vanderbilt extracurricular essay, think about what admissions officers will think of you. In particular, what can they infer based on what you write?
Think back to English class. The student’s job is to read the text and analyze it for themes and motifs beyond the surface level. In some ways, Vanderbilt’s extracurricular essay follows the same process. You open up to the school by writing about your extracurriculars, and the admissions officers use it as a metric to analyze you on a deeper level.
In this essay, we’ve considered some of the themes and character traits we could extract through the subtext. These are elements you may want to consider weaving into your own essay to make it stand out.
The Antidote to White Savior Complex
One of the problems with writing your college essay about travel is the danger of the white savior complex. To clarify, the white savior complex is defined as the following:
“The white savior complex is an ideology that is acted upon when a white person, from a position of superiority, attempts to help or rescue a BIPOC person or community. Whether this is done consciously or unconsciously, people with this complex have the underlying belief that they know best or that they have skills that BIPOC people don’t have, according to Savala Nolan, author of Don’t Let It Get You Down: Essays on Race, Gender, and the Body and the director of the Thelton E. Henderson Center for Social Justice at UC Berkeley School of Law.”
Health.com
Now, the definition and debate around the white savior complex can get political. The focus of this article is NOT to debate the political nuances of this perspective or the validity of the white savior complex. We’re simply stating the fact that many universities will be wary and careful of the white savior complex.
In addition, this does not absolve people of other ethnic backgrounds. Let’s say you’re an Indian American or Vietnamese American in an upper-middle-class community in San Jose. You decide to move back into your home country to go on a personal mission to help the poor and underserved. This is used as leverage to give yourself a strong extracurricular activity and boost your admissions chances.
Although this is not the white savior complex, it follows the same principle: using a position of power to help the unfortunate as a means of gaining external benefits.
So, will admissions officers simply jump on the opportunity to say you’re being racist or bigoted? Well, no. It depends on how you write about your travel experience in the admissions essay. One of the best ways of avoiding sounding like you have a white savior complex in your essay is to specify that your mindset is that of a student rather than a master.
In this essay, the applicant risked sounding like they were a privileged student going on vacation to “watch the plebians”. This is a little bit different from the white savior complex, but it follows the same pattern. They needed to avoid sounding too privileged and to do that they needed to weave a proper mindset into the essay.
The essay does not talk sanctimoniously about the ways they were able to lift people out of poverty. Instead, they were a student in a new world. They were open to learning and discovering from other areas, and this mindset is something that would make someone less privileged and more humble.
When discussing your journey from a position of privilege to one of poverty and suffering, it’s crucial to show that you’re constantly learning. After all, you’re applying to a new institution as a student. Now, speaking of learning, let’s get to the next topic.
The Intrinsic Desire to Learn
The desire to learn can be quite a cliche for many applicants. In fact, it can be quite difficult to believe students when they tell you they went to college “to learn more.”
No. Most students applied to college because they knew their parents would be very upset if they didn’t. They applied because they didn’t want to be left out of the pool of other students in their school moving on to college. They applied to school so that they’d have a job waiting for them at the end of the tunnel.
But, that doesn’t mean students don’t go into college without having learned a lot from their experience.
In this essay, we made sure the applicant drove the point home: they had an innate desire to learn. This can be seen through their passion in learning cultural dances, integrating into the language, living with a host family, and being in a shoestring budget to avoid distractions like touristy comfort and leisure. The applicant showed in their essay that this was a trip not just for pleasure, but for self-discovery and self-development.
In your own essay, it’s crucial to show admissions officers that you have the need to truly learn on a personal level. This doesn’t have to be in the Vanderbilt extracurricular essay in particular. But, it certainly helps to show that you are someone who is willing to go out of their way to grow and learn, even if it’s outside of the academic sphere.
Respect, Honor, and Dignity in the Wake of Other Cultures
This is a hard one to tackle; but, it’s important nonetheless. If you’re writing your Vanderbilt extracurricular essay on anything involving integration of foreign cultures, it’s crucial to take delicate care with it.
With culture comes many traditions, morals, and ambiguous nuances that can often be hard to understand for those outside the culture. If you demonstrate that you’re at all disrespectful or disingenuous when approaching a foreign culture, it’s easy to toss your application into the rejection pile.
Let’s take a look at this segment of our Vanderbilt extracurricular essay example.
“…but, I felt much more connected with the community and the Chiribogas. This led to something I never expected: I was asked to be a chambelan to their niece Daniela’s Quinceañera. That my host family would extend an invitation to me was an immense honor, as that position is reserved for those close to the family. “
This section shows that the applicant had a respect for the culture as well as appreciation for their gestures. They felt it necessary to write to admissions officers how being invited to be the chambelan was an immense honor, which shows them that he holds the culture to high regard ad respect.
Now, this doesn’t mean someone should pay lip service to foreigners for the sake of gaining higher acceptance rates. Instead, that should be sharing their experiences whilst having respect for the traditions and cultures of others.
Exploration as an Extension of Entrepreneurial Temperament
The will to explore is a common theme in this essay example. It’s peppered across the essay because the applicant shows that they are willing to get out of their comfort zone to learn new things in a new place that they are not familiar with.
Clearly, the applicant had the means to travel the world in a more luxurious and comfortable manner. Instead, they went out of their way to take a shoestring budget approach and explore that which they had never seen.
In fact, for many people applying to Vanderbilt for a business, management, or entrepreneurial background, showing an interest in exploration is crucial. The very lifeblood of entrepreneurship and startup culture is the will to explore the unknown. What is out there? What can we do that is new? What do we not know? How can it help us?
These make up the foundations of the proper mindset for someone looking to start their own business one day either during or after college. It’s also this mindset that admissions officers can see from the writing that will help the applicant stand out amongst the rest of the competition. Take a look at this part of the example essay they wrote.
“Nonetheless, fully integrating into a wildly different place, in a language I barely spoke, was exactly the humbling experience that would teach me to adapt to my surroundings whilst expanding my worldly curiosity.”
By showing the admissions officers their intrinsic desire to learn more and humble themselves with worldly experiences, the applicant shows that they have a deep curiosity that fits for the major they selected.
Think of what kind of temperament makes up the foundations of your future major and career goals. Do you have a future in Law? Will you get into Finance? What about Medicine? What kind of personality is required for the fields that you are looking for? Do your extracurriculars say anything about your temperament that would make you a great fit for your intended major and career path? If you know how to answer all of these questions, you’re one step closer to writing a fantastic Vanderbilt extracurricular essay.
Why Do These Traits Make This Essay Successful?
In case it needs to be said again, let’s drive the point home.
The admissions officers use the application essays as a metric to determine your character traits and how they will come into play when integrating you into their school.
The main reason why the four traits of the successful Vanderbilt extracurricular essay worked to get the applicant accepted is because it shows admissions officers that they would be a net positive for the school. Let’s take a look at each of them one by one.
- The Antidote to White Savior Complex
- The Intrinsic Desire to Learn
- Respect, Honor, and Dignity in the Wake of Other Cultures
- Exploration as an Extension of Entrepreneurial Temperament
In the first element, the admissions officers can see the applicant is not like any other white male entering a troubled community for the sake of increasing their admissions rate. The applicant is willfully trying to improve themselves and learn from places that they are alien to, and this requires a level of humility and maturity many high-achieving students can’t have.
In the second element, the intrinsic desire to learn shows Vanderbilt that the applicant is someone who can mentally and emotionally handle the struggles that will come their way in school. The desire and passion for learning on both an academic and spiritual level is crucial for students, especially those looking to attend at a prestigious university that asks a lot of them.
With respect, honor, and dignity for other cultures, it is clear that the applicant will fit in with Vanderbilt’s diverse community. The nature of college is diverse. Diversity is strength for universities because it takes the many nuances of other cultures, backgrounds, and opinions to create a community where true learning and self-improvement can thrive. Having respect and openness for other cultures shows Vanderbilt the applicant can no only handle the culture there, but thrive in it.
As for exploration, the intrinsic need to explore is a great fit for a future in entrepreneurship. When writing your own Vanderbilt extracurricular essay, it’s important to show the admissions officers that your temperament and personality is one that would fit in the particular industry and career path that you paved for yourself.
If you have any other questions about how to write the Vanderbilt extracurricular essay, don’t be afraid to speak with us. Schedule a free 30-minute phone consultation with us, and our expert college admissions advisors and editors will help you optimize your essays to stand out from the rest of the application pool.