Central Maryland College Essay Coaching

To nail UMD's supplementals, focus on using travel, research, curiosity, and a recent experience as launchpads to capture the essence of what makes you a detail-oriented and multifaceted applicant.

In addressing these short answer prompts, you’ll want to brainstorm ideas that demonstrate your depth as a person, humanizing you for the reader by explaining the connections between your personality, intellectual interests, and cultural experiences.As with any admissions essay, one of the keys to picking the right topic or response is to find something that you truly care about.Whether it’s fixing old car engines or cartooning, the breadth of your knowledge on the subject is what matters. By unpacking niche interests or domain-specific topics, the reader will understand a few things: first, that you’re a passionate person who puts themselves fully into an academic pursuit, hobby, or cause (in other words, the kind of person who makes a campus a better place). Second, that you absorb details and master topics, ideas, or processes (the kind of focus competitive schools like Maryland expect admitted students to exhibit in their studies). This is especially relevant in considering the “last Monday” question, but you’d be wise to find ways to work in your deep interest in the travel, academic interests, and something you may not know about me prompts.Note: As these questions feature a sentence stem that trails off, you’re best off picking up where the ellipses ends and including similar language to the stem as you open your response. (For example, opening with "If I could travel anywhere in the world, I'd...")Let’s look briefly at each short response prompt here.The Travel Question: This is an opportunity to explain how your interests, family background, or academic pursuits connect you with the broader world. Maybe your passion for marine biology is pushing you to explore the Galapagos Islands to retrace Darwin’s footsteps. Or maybe your passion for street art has you itching to explore the museum and cityscape masterpieces of Paris’s counterculture.No matter the destination you choose, a legitimate connection to something you care about and are knowledgeable regarding will guarantee an invested, personal touch in your writing. Does this mean that your first draft will be perfect? Of course not. The writing process necessarily involves bad drafts. Trust that your passion and knowledge will be suffused into the emerging draft as you work, with your care and interest guiding the process.Ask yourself whether you've used the essay as a wedge for a meaningful aspect of who you are. Like the Galapagos and Paris examples, how does your desired destination impart something about your passion and knowledge?The Research Question: This is your chance to write like a nerd. What fascinates you, and who has published something especially fascinating on the subject? If you engaged in meaningful research yourself in high school, use this space to show that off. What discovery made your research worth it?If you don’t have lots of firsthand experience with research, you’ll need to use this space to find a way to connect existing research you’ve come across in an area of interest to your academic curiosity and to display your familiarity with and understanding on the kinds of research that takes place at schools like Maryland that are known for their research. Avoid trying to sound like a foremost expert by exaggerating your experience. What works here is an informed, genuine tone of curiosity and clear appreciation for knowledge and breakthroughs.The Beyond Academics Question: For this question, think about your interests in school and in your personal time that wouldn’t show up on your application. Maybe despite your intended major in computer science and your leadership in STEM academic honor societies, you had a life-changing experience in social studies class where a unit on American history pushed you to research your family’s background in the U.S. outside of school.Maybe you’re working on learning a third language just for the experience, despite your carefully crafted resume emphasizing your expertise in healthcare. Consider the entire academic world outside of your major. In that remaining realm, what excites you?The Last Monday Question: This one throws many applicants for a loophole. It practically invites you to let your guard down and to share something silly, irrelevant, or frivolous. While it might be a good time to show off some personality, keep in mind that this context is still performative and fairly high stakes.Something about taking care of a relative for a few hours before a big cultural celebration involving multiple generations of your extended family? Constructive, and personal. On the other hand, a response about sitting around, cycling between apps? Not likely to inspire faith that you’ll be a reliable member of Maryland’s learning community. Your topic need not be profound or impressive on its face. Look for something meaningful in the small moments.The Something About Me Question: Much like the Last Monday question, the Something About Me question is a bit of a trap. Try not to slide into the confessional mode or into a focus on facts about you that are silly for the sake of silliness. Instead, what’s something seemingly small that you find deep meaning in?What’s a fact about you that’s easily overlooked, but contains universes of meaning to you? Your focus doesn’t have to be on something mindblowing, but the way you use the focus you choose is what you’ll be judged on.Say you decide to write about how you know how to cook the perfect steak. On its face, it’s a topic that doesn’t add much to a college app. But if you can capture the poetry in motion you feel while cooking a steak, and use it to make clear the pride you feel in completing the process, your audience is likely to gain respect for you and start to understand that you’re a person who cares about doing things the right way as a matter of principle.No matter the “something” you choose or the deeper idea you use it to convey, remember that this depth is the potential upside of your response.