We won’t sugarcoat it: writing the WashU supplemental essay is hard.
Why?
Simply put, WashU is a prestigious T15 school. To be competitive among other applicants, you need high-quality writing. Yet, it must be impossibly short enough for a tiny word limit. In other words, you’re given a nearly improbable task.
That’s why, despite its short length, the WashU essay demands a lot more brainstorming and drafting than you think.
So, expect to rewrite, rewrite some more, and rewrite again.
It’s going to be painful.
Fortunately, we’ve provided a comprehensive guide that answers some of the most important questions about the WashU essay including our deconstruction of its importance, essay examples, and how to write the WashU essay in a way that stands out!
Ready? Let’s go!
Table of Contents
- How Important is the WashU Essay?
- WashU Supplemental Essay Prompt.
- WashU Supplemental Essay Example That Worked.
- WashU Common App Essay Example That Worked.
- How to Write the WashU Supplemental Essay.
How Important is the WashU Essay?
The WashU supplemental essay is very important.
This includes both the supplemental essay and the Common App essay. Both are going to be used to provide you with a fair assessment of your fit with the campus.
However, a lot of our students ask us whether the WashU essays are going to be more important than the GPA. Or, the other way around.
Well, we’ve posted this chart we sourced from Washington University’s Common Data Set below. It contains how WashU ranks college admissions factors in importance.
As you can see, the application essay is actually equally as important as your academic rigor, class rank, academic GPA, test scores like SAT/ACT, and letters of recommendation.
Washington University in St. Louis does not hold one academic factor as more important than another, according to their Common Data Set.
By holding all these factors equal in value, we come across a rather problematic situation.
The WashU’s supplemental essay is very deceptively catastrophic.
How? Well, it’s in the essay prompt itself and its rules. We’ll explain this further in depth in the next section.
WashU Supplemental Essay Prompt.
“Please tell us what you are interested in studying at college and why.
Undecided about your academic interest(s)? Don’t worry—tell us what excites you about the academic division you selected. Remember that all of our first-year students enter officially “undeclared” and work closely with their team of academic advisors to discover their academic passions. You can explore all of our majors and programs on our website.*”200 Words Max
WashU in St. Louis Supplemental Essay Prompt; Common App
When you read WashU’s supplemental essay prompt, you’ll notice 2 things: this is a rather simplistic essay prompt, and you’re not given much room to write what you want.
This is very devastating for a lot of students because of the importance of the essay in conjunction with other factors like GPA and standardized tests.
WUSTL weighs the supplementary essay equally to GPA, class rank, class rigor, and test scores. Nonetheless, the essay takes far less time to complete than the years of dedication that come with earning high academic marks, beating everyone else in your class, struggling through advanced courses, and preparing for the SATs/ACTs.
This is what makes Washington University’s supplemental essay so devastating: despite consisting of only 200 words, the essay has equally as much of an impact on your admissions rate as does 4 years of academic performance.
You could easily undo years of work just by carelessly answering the WashU supplemental essay in a manner that doesn’t stand out from the rest of the admissions pool.
Yikes.
With that said, let’s take a look at some successful WashU supplemental and Common App essay examples that you can draw inspiration from.
WashU Supplemental Essay Example That Worked.
“Look, one word: speed.
It’s no secret that speed makes our world go round. Developments in finance, real estate, food, design, art, and many other disciplines are evolving at a faster rate than we can imagine.
Gastronomy is ever-changing. New financial strategies lift businesses into success. Creative artistic styles and productions flourish faster now than ever before.
And, we have our educators to thank for that.
But, we don’t.
In fact, our educators get little to no support from communities around. Being a teacher means being the “bottom of the barrel” in career notoreity. Yet, they take the brunt of labour to polish and shine our future financial analysts, chefs, game designers, and more.
That includes computer scientists. Can we make self-driving cars? Yup! And streamline businesses to maximize efficiency? You bet!
But, the teachers get no support. That’s why I’m so compelled to make the world of teaching easier through the use of artifical intelligence. If our world is evolving so fast, what if we helped our teachers work better, faster, and stronger?
Well, who knows? I don’t. Not unless I figure out for myself at WashU!”
WashU Supplemental Essay Example That Worked –WUSTL Computer Science Essay
WashU Common App Essay Example That Worked.
“Charlotte, NC.
White picket fences. American flags. Girls giggling about something. And, of course, “boys being boys” —connotation varying depending on whether the Panthers or the Hornets won that season. It’s the same everlasting charm of North Carolina.
There’s an underbelly. It’s not physical; but, it certainly feels that way. I can’t articulate it in one fell swoop of intellectual conciseness. But, I can show it.
My scoutmaster, upon discovering his son was gay, disowned him and hasn’t seen him since. Now, in his late fifties, when the ceremonial lighting is just right, I see the wrinkles on his face twisted from nights of grief and mourning for his son. That overwhelming prideful shame carved his face. Even during those ceremonies when he exclaims how proud he is, we know he wishes his son were on that stage.
My business: [Redacted]. Despite how fulfilling a challenge it is, I’ve seen the self-improvement industry subtly denigrate one’s confidence. It’s ironic. The stronger I see influencers get, the weaker they feel. The bigger they get, the smaller they feel. The more they lift, the heavier their internal load.
I do believe I can explain it: North Carolina’s underbelly of boys being boys and anti-homosexual boyscout rituals and powerlifting… things.
As a boy, a man, an Asian man living in a conventionally masculine community, it’s an unending internal scream. Why a scream? Well, what other way is there to communicate when no one will listen?
It’s the feeling that something — some abstract problem too difficult to define— is wrong about the way we think about masculinity.
It’s that feeling of trying to speak up for once about how tiring it is to act out manliness only for other men, women, their brothers, and their sisters to sweep it under the perfect “welcome” rug and say, “well, y’know; that’s just how them boys are…” or “you’re just insecure” or, if they may be so facetious as to use this excuse, “we don’t talk about them negative stuff in the house of God.”
The very word “masculinity” can’t be introduced into polite conversation without resurrecting the exhumed cacophony of horrible emotional reactions. Husbands getting angry. Wives sweeping under rugs. Daughters feeling threatened. And… of course, boys being boys.
One must curse, or scream, upon hearing the word escape through uncomfortably pressed lips. But, I can’t scream. No one can. We may only let our yearning screams for acceptance, validation, frustration, fear, insecurity, and every spectrum of human experience boil within each muscle fiber of our being.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned through my years of having to be smart enough as an Asian male, big and “natural enough” as a powerlifter, cool enough, and all the enoughs, it’s that my soul internally yearns to be treated as an individual with a beating heart. I’m not numbers on a chart, or stats on a sheet.
Yet, fighting this dehumanization taught me how to be human again: by sacrificing my intrinsic desire for men to be… anything. True masculinity transcends societal “oughts” and “shoulds”. So, I lifted without the expectation of getting bigger. I accepted if friends wanted to split bills. I demonstrated vulnerability and emotional openness.
And, well, it was hard.
Letting go of toxic masculinity in a patriarchal white community was brutal. My peers in Charlotte all agreed that, “We need to smash the patriarchy! You go girl… er, bro.”
But, when I do exactly that, my community’s patriarchal head reads once more. “Find the most obtuse and inefficient methodology!” “Lift heavier weights than reasonably manageable!”
It’s not perfect; but, it’s a journey. It’s the Asian male journey through a white picket fence community where the American flags wave and the girls giggle about stuff and the Panthers must defeat the Hornets and where, one day, hopefully, the boys can truly —in the most genuine and meaningful sense— be boys.“
Example Common App Essay That Worked –Accepted Into WashU in St. Louis.
How to Write the WashU Supplemental Essay.
Before we get to the meat of the guide, we want to cover the “ideal WashU candidate.”
Take a look at this.
As you can see, Washington University in St. Louis has listed on its website the kinds of students they have on its campus. Like other prestigious universities, they’re quite proud of how their students have large ambitions and goals for societal change.
In addition, there is a seemingly startup-like and entrepreneurial streak at WUSTL that may influence the kind of impression you want to give the school. Note their statement on their official website.
“Beginning in early 2021, Washington University in St. Louis is launching an 18-month strategic planning process to develop a roadmap that will guide the university’s direction over the next decade. We seek to be bold, transformative and collaborative as we consider our next steps, building upon the university’s already strong foundation.”
WUSTL Strategic Priorities –What Washington University is Hoping For in Future Students.
Now, does that mean you need to develop projects vying for VCs and seed funding? Nope! It’s not mandatory. However, if you’re someone with an entrepreneurial self-starter streak, you may be more likely to appeal to WUSTL’s future goals.
1. Short is Sweet.
This goes with any college essay, whether it’s 200 words or 1,000.
Short is sweet.
Though, of course, there are stylistic moments when longer descriptions are going to be more appropriate than curt straightforward ones.
As a general rule, the WashU supplemental essay should keep descriptions short enough that they can be easily read in one read without being confusing. Easy readability is key. Additionally, you should be keeping your wording sophisticated by using the right diction.
In other words, the balance between sophistication and shortness.
This is not exactly easy, though.
To be both short and sophisticated, we actually recommend starting your WashU supplemental essay by answering the question in approximately 1,000-1,200 words. Sounds crazy, right? Well, it is; but, it’s also the best way to get ALL your ideas on paper.
Often, our students have A LOT more reasons why they want to pursue the major they’re applying for than they think. They may have initial surface-level reasons such as interest and financial stability.
But, if they truly take the time to write down all their reasons for applying for a certain major in 1,000-1,200 words, they will discover a lot more about their passions for the field than originally intended.
Is it far above the word count? Sure. But, the coming ideas will be worth it.
Once you have a solid 1-1.2k word essay, you can reduce your ideas into condensed and concise words that best encapsulate your ideas in 200 words.
2. Connecting to Your Overall Application’s Theme.
Note: you’re not obligated to do this step if you believe it’s not possible with your application. Some applicants don’t have a general them in their resume or background history. And, that’s fine! This section is just for students who can and are willing to implement a general theme into their application and bind it to their essays.
Sometimes applicants will have an overall “theme.”
They’re more like constant elements that pop up in previous experiences, work, projects, and other parts of the resume.
For instance, let’s say you’re an applicant applying to WUSTL for computer science. Maybe you had the following:
- Competed in a robotics competition that you narrowly won but struggled due to unexpected emergencies like manufacturing custom parts that are impossible to make.
- Family emergency regarding a rare disease.
- Having an upward trend in academic performance during your junior year after meeting and speaking with a personal mentor.
- Creating your own computer science blog and suddenly ranking on Google’s first page for a few articles.
- Finding creative ways to teach students how to code in your “Learn 2 Code” club without having to bribe them with candy.
There are a lot of themes hidden between the lines in these 5 items. However, one can infer that one big theme is “unexpected change.”
Things can change for both better and worse in ways we don’t expect. Yet, we can make the most of the situation and perhaps even make disadvantages into advantages.
This theme would be a great one to write about in your WUSTL supplementary essay. And, it would make your entire application feel more “complete.” In comparison, an essay with an unrelated theme that doesn’t align with your previous experiences could seem rather arbitrary, random, and ultimately not conducive to your original impression.
3. Don’t Underestimate Personality.
This is a bit of a complex concept to explain. But, it’s important to note when writing your WashU supplemental essay.
The personality and character you portray in your essay are going to make a massive difference in the quality of your application.
This is because the essay is the primary medium from which WUSTL measures this dimension.
Take a look at Washington University’s Common Data Set in Section C7 once more.
Notice how the only other factors that are judged as “very important” just like GPA and test scores are the two factors: talent/ability and character/personal qualities.
Ask yourself this: how can WashU even know what your talents and character are? They can know your talent to “some” degree if it’s tangible talents such as solving a Rubix cube or licking your elbow.
But, most of your true talent and personality are going to shine through the WashU supplemental essay and Common App essay.
These are the only qualitative factors outside academic performance that use words. So, your admissions officers will be screening your essays very carefully to determine what your talents and personal qualities are like and how they fit in their campus.
Before you start writing your WashU supplemental essay, we would actually recommend you write out a few things first in a bullet point list:
- Talents.
- Skills/abilities you earned through great effort.
- Personal character traits.
- Philosophies you’ve developed with experience.
Make a great list of these. Then, from the list, choose which ones you think would fit your character best.
Once you have an element to choose from, try to incorporate it into your WashU supplemental essay as a draft. As you edit it through revisions and rewrites, try to consider whether the admissions officers are going to pick up on your talent, skill, character, or philosophy.
Of course, you can’t just say that you’re stoic or that you have strong grit and determination. Instead, you’ll need to show and not tell.
This can be achieved through writing subtly. And, we’ll show how to do that in the next section.
4. The Power of Subtlety.
“But, I’m a nice guy! Trust me!”
–Not a Nice Guy
Ever had a person tell you they were nice? Often, it’s a bit awkward that they even have to tell you that to begin with.
Why do I need your reassurance? Why try to convince me that you’re nice?
Of course, the men who say “I’m a nice guy” often weaponize their “niceness” to try to woo the opposite sex.
It doesn’t work very well.
Now, men being entitled to a woman’s heart is not the same as trying to get into Washington University. But, the principle still stands: if you’re trying to directly tell the WUSTL admissions officers that you’re kind, talented, hard-working, etc, they’re going to have a hard time REALLY believing you.
So, what gets people to truly believe that you’re talented, kind, hard-working, and every other characteristic that would “woo an admissions officer?”
Well, it’s the art of subtlety!
When you’re writing the WashU supplemental essay, let the admissions officer come to the conclusion themselves. They must infer that you’re kind/determined/hard-working, etc. You don’t just directly tell them.
This can be done by writing your experiences, ideas, and beliefs in a light that frames you as someone who is the characteristic you’re aiming for.
Here’s an example:
“I was no stranger to mistakes.
And, having grown up from a family knee-deep in the finance industry, I was made aware from an early age of just how many mistakes businesses made in their everyday operations that as my parents put it: “it’s a miracle anything in this world operates at all!”
I was let out of the details of course, what with client-confidentiality at all; though, it wasn’t like my 12-year-old mind would comprehend “fiduciary liability” and other finance “stuff.”
Nonetheless, I recognized mistakes were everywhere. And, I wasn’t exempt.
I could have done my assignments earlier. I could have earned more points during the basketball game than I did.
There were even mistakes I knew I could easily avoid that I still did anyway!
“Don’t eat a chocolate cupcake for breakfast. That’s not healthy. Don’t put it in your mouth. Have a salad. Don’t. Do. It. Gosh darn it, why did you eat the muffin Joey?”
So, bad news: I’m full of mistakes because I’m human. Good news?
I’m full of mistakes because I’m human.
There’s a… [cont.]”
Example of Subtlety in WashU Supplemental Essay.
In this example, we could have mentioned that we recognize our own mistakes and are humble enough to learn from our own shortcomings. However, we don’t really do that.
Instead, we show the admissions officers that we’re humble through the mindset and attitude we take toward mistakes. We show them what we believe in without actually telling them the kinds of characteristics in and of themselves. That way, admissions officers can come to their own conclusions about you.
If you implement these 4 elements into your WashU supplemental essay, you’ll be writing leagues ahead of other students.
Of course, if you still need help with the WashU supplemental essay, the Common App essay, or college admissions consulting and advising services in general, we recommend you work with us. Schedule a free phone consultation with us, and we’ll get back to you within 24 hours! Our expert college admissions advisors and editors have helped students craft fantastic essays that got them accepted not just into WashU but other prestigious universities like Rice, Duke, UPenn, Brown, NYU, GT, Harvey Mudd, and more!
