If you’re writing the Vanderbilt additional info essay, you are most probably concerned with explaining blemishes in your transcript.
When applying to such a competitive school, it’s fair to assume everyone wants to show their best accomplishments to the admissions office. Yet, there are moments when things don’t go our way. Maybe we failed a class. Perhaps we had to take a gap year. Or, we even went through personal issues that tanked our academic performance.
If you’re one of these people, the Vanderbilt additional info essay will be crucial to your success.
Even elite schools understand and empathize with students that things don’t always go according to plan. That’s why the additional information prompt exists in Vanderbilt’s online application. It’s a chance for you to show the best of yourself whilst explaining some details and circumstances that otherwise fell through the cracks.
Writing the Vanderbilt additional info essay well and articulately is crucial in helping the school understand your unique qualifications or circumstances. This is especially true when taking into consideration its holistic admissions policy.
“Put another way, we take into consideration more than just your academic profile – we look at all parts of your application to get to know your passions, achievements, and interests, academic or otherwise.”
Vanderbilt Official Website
In this article, we’ll cover everything you need to know about how to answer the Vanderbilt additional info essay prompt and include a successful example essay.
Table of Contents
- Vanderbilt Additional Information Prompt
- How to Write the Vanderbilt Additional Information Essay
- Vanderbilt Additional Information Essay That Worked
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Vanderbilt Additional Information Prompt
Do you wish to provide details of circumstances or qualifications not reflected in the application? You may use the space below to provide any additional information you wish to share.
6500 characters
Vanderbilt Additional Information Prompt
One of the strangest things about the Vanderbilt additional info essay prompt is how students seem to assume this prompt in particular doesn’t demand as much attention as the rest of the prompts. There’s something more “factual” and “straightforward” about this prompt that makes it more of a statement than it is a personal essay.
In truth, this essay still demands much attention and care. It’s especially the case since this essay will help you address unusual circumstances or performances not originally indicated in the transcript. So, you’ll need to be capable of capturing the AO’s attention whilst convincing them of your value to the Vanderbilt community.
We outlined how to do that in the second section below. It’s separated into 4 parts: addressing mistakes, turning weaknesses into strengths, the power of honesty, and how to demonstrate maturity in the essay.
How to Write the Vanderbilt Additional Information Essay
Addressing Mistakes or Bad Parts of Your Transcript
When addressing weaknesses or mistakes in your transcript, it’s crucial to talk about them in as much detail as possible. Remember: the admissions office has the job of analyzing your mistakes or inconsistencies to the best of their degree.
If you’re afraid of looking bad or looking silly and thus keep your explanation vague and foggy, you’ll be going against the entire purpose of the Vanderbilt additional information section, to begin with. The reason the additional information essay prompt exists in Vanderbilt’s application is that they need to have a more holistic and in-depth look into your inconsistencies.
If you don’t specify what exactly your problems were, they can’t analyze your situation and come to a conclusive decision.
Let’s say you write about the sudden dip in academic performance during the Spring of your Sophomore year. What happened? What about it made achieving top-performance improbable? How would you explain this to someone who has not had this experience?
A good example of this is having a father who was recently promoted to a high-paying position that demanded a lot out of them. Thus, this led to a broken family and in effect a lack of fatherly exposure in the Spring quarter. The generalized issue cascades into a constellation of congruent issues such as confidence issues, shyness, anxiety, FOMO, and a myriad of other issues that hinder academic performance.
When you’re hyper-specific about what exactly your problem is, this gives admissions officers an easier time understanding what your issue is. Now, there are other things you can do such as transition the weaknesses into strengths, which we’ll cover in the next section.
Making Weaknesses in Your Transcript Into Strengths
One of the most crucial elements in writing your Vanderbilt additional information essay is making sure that your writing is compensating for yourr weaknesses. You can do that by making sure your write your weakness into a strength.
In our example essay, we show exactly this principle. The applicant writes that their gap in academic years is due to a personal project in travelling and self-development. There are many people who are not willing to go on such a personal and dangerous journey. Yet, our applicant shows that there was a level of spiritual and personal importance to travelling the world and developing the maturity and character growth in doing so.
By showing that they used the gap in their academic years in a productive way, they were able to make their application stand out because their weakness really isn’t all that bad. In fact, this method is used to help admissions officers better understand WHY the student may have had the weaknesses in their application to begin with.
If you are able to justify the reasons behind your insufficiencies by demonstrating the strength of character or logic behind it, it can work in your favour.
Another example may be lower academic performance. Why did you have lower performance? Was it because you realized you had to learn in a different manner to adapt to a new learning environment much different from the original one? If so, you can write about how you learned to adapt over time to unusual circumstances and, because of this, can learn and perform under ever-changing environments. This is a strength, especially for universities. The univeristy life can be hard, and even a major change for people’s lives. So, showing you can learn over time through adaptation can explain your lower performance and even serve as a strength in the admisisons process.
Honesty is the Best Policy
This is crucial.
Most students believe they’re clever and can somehow outsmart admissions officers. However, any admissions officer can often smell a lie from a mile away. They’ve seen enough to determine which students are being honest and truthful and which are flirting with untruths.
It’s common for students to downplay the everity of their experiences or the harshness of their mistakes. Try not to get caught up in doing little linguistic tricks in an attempt to sway admissions officers into sympathizing with your insufficiencies.
Instead, try to be truthful and clear to admissions officers about what your reasons for your mistakes in your transcript were. If you’re honest and truthful, you can show admissons officers that you’re capable of being trusted whilst being a force for self improvement that is positive. You would demonstrate the right mindset a student needs in improving in their insufficiencies.
Think of the Vanderbilt additional information section as a test. The test of honesty and specificity reveals both your mindset and attitudes towards your mistakes. Maybe it’s not even the mistakes that you made in your transcript that get you rejected; rather, it’s the temperament and personality you responded with as a result that seals the application to the rejection pile.
Demonstrating Maturity in Your Character
This step should be woven into not only your Vanderbilt additional information essay, but all your essays in general.
When writing about your mistakes and inconsistencies in the additional information section, you have the perfect opportunity to let your positive character and personality shine. Everyone makes mistakes and everyone has hiccups in their personal academic journey. This is normal. However, some people have the maturity to grow from them, whilst others don’t.
In our example essay, the client used their gap in the academic years to show that they took the chance to do some self development before jumping back into school. They were looking to start an entrepreneurial journey at Vanderbilt; and, due to their high order of goals, they needed to develop more as a person.
This shows admissions officers that the applicant both has the patience and the maturity of character needed to tackle a future in entrepreneurship. What normally would be a blemish in the application is now used as a strength becasue it opened the opportunity to show maturity and good decision making skills.
Vanderbilt Additional Information Essay That Worked
“When I graduated high school in 2019, I decided to take a gap year.
I could have sat in the front of a lecture hall; instead, I sat in a Spanish school in Quito, Ecuador, where I learned to speak Spanish fluently in 10 weeks. I could have commuted to class on a hip fixie bike coupled with the quintessential Fjallraven backpack; instead, I narrowly avoided getting kidnapped by human traffickers in Colombia.
Living and bonding with dormmates; living and bonding with host families. Sitting next to peers in class; sitting next to chickens on a bus. Dancing at parties; salsa dancing at night. Working in Starbucks coffee shops; working on Peruvian coffee farms. Comfort. Danger. Knowledge. Adventure.
I had every reason to attend school instead of traveling. I barely even gathered enough money from my entrepreneurial endeavors to fully self-fund my travels. Yet, a part of me knew exploring the world was a wiser choice.
Of course, this was against the wishes of everyone I knew. I was no stranger to, “I don’t know. That sounds kind of dangerous.”
However, I spent my gap year doing exactly what I wished. I went on a solo spiritual journey around the world, six months in South America, and two weeks in Asia (before it was cut short by the pandemic).
Oftentimes ideas are met with great opposition; that is the nature of entrepreneurship. Though, I believed traveling around the world before continuing my education was the right decision despite the plethora of obstacles.
As an entrepreneur, it would be unwise to attend such a resourceful and fitting institution unprepared. To attend in my early naive state would have meant losing the potential to capitalize on opportunities for business and personal development from my most valuable years. Rushing into school to bootstrap my initiative impatiently would compromise both my future success and the success of those I aspire to help.
I invested my gap year into crafting my character such that, if I undertake my entrepreneurial journey at Vanderbilt, I would be prepared for the fight ahead. Abroad, I have tackled scary circumstances; I have explored the unfamiliar and witnessed the beauty of it. I have developed the grit and strength of character to brave the unknown.“
Example Vanderbilt Additional Information Essay
If you’re still struggling to write about your unique circumstances or successes in the Vanderbilt additional information essay, consider scheduling a free 30-minute phone consultation with our admissions advisors. Vanderbilt is no easy school to get into. So, it’s useful to get as much free help as you can.