hamilton college supplemental essay 2023

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How to Write the Hamilton College Essays 2023-2024

You might recognize Hamilton College for its namesake—Alexander Hamilton—but like the man who lent his name to the school, Hamilton College has so much to offer. The combination of an excellent liberal arts education with the serene surroundings of upstate New York attracts thousands of applicants each year.

Hamilton requires students to submit two essays. In this post, we’ll break down how to approach each essay to stand out from other applicants and maximize your chances of admission.

Read this Hamilton essay example to inspire your writing.

Hamilton College Supplemental Essay Prompts

Prompt 1: Please take this opportunity to write about your interest in Hamilton and why you believe it is a place where you can thrive. Be open. Be honest. Be brief. (200 words)

Prompt 2: We each bring different backgrounds and perspectives, and we teach one another about the world through our individual and shared experiences. How will Hamilton shape your perspective, and how will your perspective shape Hamilton? (200 words)

Please take this opportunity to write about your interest in Hamilton and why you believe it is a place where you can thrive. Be open. Be honest. Be brief. (200 words)

This is your standard “Why This College?” essay , which is used to gauge your interest in the school and how you might fit in with the campus community.

Before writing, you should clearly identify your college goals—both academic and extracurricular. Do you hope to learn a special skill, cover a particular topic, or get training for a certain career? Are there passions of yours that you hope to nurture? Why do you have these goals—what is the story behind them?

After identifying these goals, you’ll want to describe how Hamilton specifically can support them. Look up your academic department’s courses and research opportunities. Peruse the student activities list . Browse Hamilton’s social media accounts and the profiles of alumni in your intended field. Watch student life videos on YouTube.

You don’t have a lot of space to work with, so you’ll ultimately want to narrow your list down to 2-3 goals and then elaborate on ways in which Hamilton can support them.

Here are a couple of example responses:

• A student who wants to go into environmental policy to regulate businesses might want to take the course Environmental Policy & Economics at Hamilton. Outside the classroom, they hope to join the Climate Justice Coalition. Sustainability has been important to this student ever since a fast fashion garment factory once polluted their town’s water.
• A student who wants to eventually get an MD/MBA wants to major in Data Science and is interested in the elective Seminar in Health Care Systems to learn about issues related to cost and accessibility. They also appreciate Hamilton’s emphasis on data ethics and social impact, since they hope to one day run their own startup that makes healthcare more convenient and accessible.

We recommend mentioning at least one academic resource and one extracurricular one, and you should also take care to demonstrate alignment with Hamilton’s values. For example, the previous student shows this alignment by indicating their interest in data ethics and social impact, which is one of the three categories of electives in the Data Science major at Hamilton.

We each bring different backgrounds and perspectives, and we teach one another about the world through our individual and shared experiences. How will Hamilton shape your perspective, and how will your perspective shape Hamilton? (200 words)

For this prompt, Hamilton wants to know about an aspect of your background or personality that will influence how you will interact with the Hamilton community. If you think of the first prompt as a “Why This School?” essay, then this one should be a “Why You ?” essay. This is your opportunity to communicate what makes you unique and how that will be an asset at Hamilton. It might help you to consult our guide to writing a diversity essay , even though this prompt isn’t exactly the same thing.

Since the word count is relatively short, students might be tempted to just focus on how Hamilton will shape their perspective and how their perspective will shape Hamilton, but we caution against this. Rather than writing a cookie cutter essay that says something like “ Hamilton will teach me to be more open-minded toward new ideas…”, the focus of your essay should be on what your unique perspective is and how it came to be.

You might be asking yourself, what is my perspective? It can be anything—from values to beliefs to or from identity to traditions. Below are a few examples to get you thinking about the range of potential answers:

• Working at your family’s restaurant makes you value hard work and accountability
• Being a racial minority and facing discrimination has taught you to approach everyone with kindness
• Growing up with multiple siblings made you highly competitive in a way that motivates you to reach your full potential
• As an avid surfer, you strongly believe in trying to reduce climate change to help ocean life
• Your passion for photography makes you appreciate the beauty found in the little details

The key thing to notice is that in each of those examples there is a perspective, but also a description of what influenced or brought about that perspective (e.g, a passion for photography led to the perspective that mundane little things can contain beauty). In order to get “full points,” so to speak, with the admissions officers, you need to show where your perspective came from. This is the deeper elaboration that turns a decent response into a really good one.

In order to fully elaborate on your perspective and show what influenced it, you should include an anecdote. Storytelling is the most engaging and effective way to convey such a point to your reader, and it makes the essay flow more smoothly.

Once you have a strong anecdote that shows your unique perspective, you can apply it to Hamilton. When talking about how Hamilton will shape your perspective, consider how your perspective might be challenged or supported. Will you be taking classes that question your perspective? Will you join a group of like-minded students who share your perspective?

Go beyond a basic answer like “At Hamilton I will experience new ideas from a range of diverse perspectives.” Include predictions on how your perspective will be shaped with specific examples:

“In Digital Technology and Social Transformations , I will not only find support for my belief that social media can bring about societal change, but I will also learn how to effectively harness the power that social media holds.”

You aren’t quite done yet. Along with discussing how Hamilton will shape you, you need to explain how your perspective can shape Hamilton. Now, you might not be influencing the campus as a whole, but you will have an impact on your classmates, the people in your dorm, and members of any organizations you join. Explain how you will share your perspective with any group you’ll interact with and how you anticipate that perspective affecting them.

Where to Get Your Hamilton Essays Edited

Do you want feedback on your Hamilton essays? After rereading your essays countless times, it can be difficult to evaluate your writing objectively. That’s why we created our free Peer Essay Review tool , where you can get a free review of your essay from another student. You can also improve your own writing skills by reviewing other students’ essays.

If you want a college admissions expert to review your essay, advisors on CollegeVine have helped students refine their writing and submit successful applications to top schools. Find the right advisor for you to improve your chances of getting into your dream school!

Related CollegeVine Blog Posts

Tips for a Good College Essay

Hamilton: words matter.

As a college with a long tradition of emphasizing writing and speaking as cornerstone values, we like to say that students come to Hamilton to find their voice. In our admission process, we seek students who embody that aspiration and demonstrate that potential in their application essays and short-answers, and their communication with us.

But don’t let that intimidate you. Really good writing is hard, and takes lots of practice (and you will get plenty of that in college!). We do not expect perfection, but we do hope to get to know you a little bit better through your writing. Think of it as your chance to have a voice, and a seat at the table with the admission committee who is reading your application. What do you want them to know about you?

The Hamilton Admission Team offers these tips for you to consider when sitting down to write your college application essays.

College Essay Tips

• It goes without saying that your essay needs to be written by you.  Believe it or not, the voice of a teenager is very different from a parent’s, and we’ve gotten pretty good at spotting the differences.
• Choose a topic that’s right for YOU – something about which you’re passionate. If you’re not interested in what you’re writing about, chances are no one will be interested in reading it. The best ideas for topics come when you least expect them...write them down as soon as you are inspired, and keep a running list on your phone.
• Share something that’s unique to your experience, or information that we’re unlikely to learn about you elsewhere in your application. Most important is for you to be real and be yourself; unless you want to be a theatre major, it is way too hard to try to be what you think we want you to be. (And, truly, we just want you to be you.)
• In sharing something about yourself, you don’t need to share everything about yourself. It is ok to be personal, and writing about growth and mistakes is good (perhaps even welcomed); but resist the urge to be too casual or to over-share.
• If you are passionate about an issue, don’t avoid it because it may be controversial. At the same time, your essay topic does not have to be world-changing and does not have to demonstrate you are perfect. Sometimes the simplest topic leads to the best essay.
• Be a good storyteller. Use a strong opener – catch our attention right from the start. Poignant moments in time, with a little bit of reflection, often make great essays.
• Show rather than tell. Use anecdotes, examples, and descriptions. Make it your best, most engaging writing. Trim the fat. (And resist the urge to use the thesaurus!)
• Revise often and early, proofread carefully, read it aloud, and don’t be afraid to start over. It is ok to have someone else look over the essay to help you catch things you missed, but don’t over-edit and make it sound like a research paper. 
• Remember, substance and voice are better than perfection.
• You’ve got a great essay in you!

Sevin Sins of Writing

Professors at Hamilton work closely with students to improve their writing. It’s a process that combines instruction, collaboration, and practice. And while accuracy in style and grammar is just one element of what makes good writing, the Writing Center offers these handy tips.

Essays that Worked

We have collected just a few of the exceptional essays written by newly enrolled Hamilton students (with their permission, of course). They offer a glimpse into the diverse backgrounds and experiences, as well as the writing talents, of our newest Hamiltonians. Enjoy!

Office of Admission

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Supplemental Essay?

Does Hamilton have any supplemental essays? I couldn’t find any on Common App.

If I recall correctly from threads in previous years, Hamilton may invite a brief, optional statement regarding fit after required materials have been submitted.

The Hamilton supplemental essay should appear in your portal after applying. I strongly encourage you to complete it, even if they say it’s ‘optional’.

In previous years, there have been several optional items available in the Portal, including the short answer essay.

There is a Hamilton Hello option. Anybody knows what the question is? I only have 60 seconds for it

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Our Analysis of the 2023-2024 Supplemental Essay Prompts

This year's batch of supplemental essay prompts was released on august 1st. here's what those prompts reveal about the changing priorities at colleges and universities..

Thanks to the perceived essay loophole Chief Justice Roberts’ Supreme Court decision language created—establishing that students can write about racial identity when tied to other experiences and characteristics—there has been much speculation that colleges would scramble to add diversity-related questions to their applications. Now that the Common App has reset for 2023-24, we can see colleges’ new supplemental questions. Did this bear out? So far, we’d say: yes. Yes it did. Here are a few overall trends and changes we’re noticing in the 2023-2024 supplemental essay prompts.

An increase in DEIB-related essays

This comes as no surprise. It’s important to note that many colleges already had prompts that asked students to reflect on their identities, on their communities, or on how they would contribute to diverse campuses; schools like Duke, Michigan, and Syracuse have included questions like this on their supplements for years now. But other schools have made notable changes since June’s decision: University of Miami, for example, replaced their question about the ibis (which, admittedly, we are not terribly sad to see go); American University scrapped their “why AU?”; and UVA retooled the essay questions they had only just retooled last year (even though UVA’s Dean J admitted she really liked last year’s version).

Here are the new versions of those schools’ supplemental essay questions:

University of Miami

“Located within one of the most dynamic cities in the world, the University of Miami is a distinctive community with a variety of cultures, traditions, histories, languages, and backgrounds. The University of Miami is a values-based and purpose-driven postsecondary institution that embraces diversity and inclusivity in all its forms and strives to create a culture of belonging, where every person feels valued and has an opportunity to contribute. Please describe how your unique experiences, challenges overcome, or skills acquired would contribute to our distinctive University community.” (max 250 words)

American University

“At American University, Inclusive Excellence is a cornerstone of the academic experience for our students, and we deeply value the learning that is inspired by the diversity of backgrounds and life experiences that all our community members bring with them. Please share why you would like to join this community.” (max 150 words)

All Applicants (300 words or less):

“What about your background, perspective, or experience will serve as a source of strength for you or those around you at UVA?”

(…and read more about UVA’s new legacy-based optional question here ).

More choice for students

Many colleges who have introduced new questions have included these questions as one of several choices. BU, for example, introduced a new question—“Reflect on a social or community issue that deeply resonates with you. Why is it important to you, and how have you been involved in addressing or raising awareness about it?”—but kept their classic “Why BU?” as an alternative option. Offering prompt choices—which schools like Tufts, Boston College, Villanova, Emory, and University of Richmond have done for quite some time—allows for students to write about their identities if they wish and on their own terms.

…Except at Harvard

As one of the defendants in the Supreme Court case, Harvard has lots of eyes on its post-SCOTUS decision making. Its response to the decision? Eliminating the previous optional (er, “optional”) essay and instituting five required essays. Very Harvard of them. And yes, one of them is directly about diversity:

“Harvard has long recognized the importance of enrolling a diverse student body. How will the life experiences that shape who you are today enable you to contribute to Harvard?”

Less emphasis on “why us?” essays

While this isn’t true everywhere, we saw a few surprising changes at some “why us?” stalwarts. Perhaps most notably, Tulane’s “why us?” essay—which, for many years, famously had an 800-word limit—is now a mere 250. And while last year Tulane had three different robust supplemental essay questions, now it’s just the one. Truly, our jaws are on the floor (yes, at this time of year, this counts as Very Exciting News. We essay editors don’t get out much in August). Equally shocking: no “why Indiana?” question for Indiana University in Bloomington. In fact, no supplement at all! That’s one way to lower the barrier to entry and boost application numbers (just ask Northeastern).

For tips on how to tackle these essay questions, check out our College Essay Hub . And if you’re looking for more in-depth, one-on-one support, reach out to our college admissions team!

Caroline Hertz

Class of 2022

These essays are in addition to three similar collections from the  Class of 2026 , Class of 2018 ,  Class of 2012 , and  Class of 2007 .

Sage Tzamouranis

Ridgefield, conn..

There is nothing more irrepressibly badass than the old women of southern Greece. They have never seen a dentist. They can clean their own teeth, thank you very much, all two of them. They are familiar with loss.

The women are like the olive trees, which reside in soil so dry that it crunches under your feet as you walk. Somehow, they manage to grow anyway; persistence and stubborn endurance are all they know. The trees can grow through rock, live without rain. They stagger, twisting and turning toward the heights despite the farmer’s careless pruning; the mere matter of amputated limbs will not stop them.

When I was 5 or 6, I thought that my Yaya was the most beautiful woman in the world, with her wiry white hair fresh out of curlers and laugh lines showing around her eyes like a map of all of her times spent smiling. She used to sing a song called “Μαρ?α με τα Κ?τρινα,” “Maria in Yellow,” and we would laugh because Yaya also had a yellow dress, but she did not emulate the risqué behavior of Maria, who couldn’t decide whom she loved more, “τον ?ντρα σου ? τον γε?τονα” her husband or her next-door neighbor.

As I got older, I realized that there are more worry lines than laugh lines. Deep trenches of lineaments cross her forehead, revealing the hardships of a childhood spent in poverty. More prominent than her crow’s feet are the wrinkles etched into her eyelids, from squeezing her eyes tightly shut, trying to block out the pain of having her daughter taken from her, after only 18 years on this earth, by the unrelenting grip of an untimely death. The most recent are the lines chiseled around her thin mouth, as if out of marble. They are from pursing her lips in an attempt to suppress the pain after my Papou was taken by the same merciless hands that took her daughter away, but this time, those hands looked like cancer.

The yellow dress went away after Papou died.

As did the levity with which we used to make fun of Maria’s foolish infidelity. The black clothes are suffocating; they invite the sun to beat down with more cruelty than before.

Once the sun starts to set and the day cools, my Yaya and the other women of the village venture out of their homes, carrying olive-oil lamps to their husbands’ graves, the lineaments of their faces illuminated by the lanterns. The lines are unforgiving, the trenches have been dug, the stalemate between the want of joy around the eyes and the stubborn endurance of suffering around the silent lips wages on.

However, I know a secret. When the sun sets in southern Greece, it rains.

No matter how helpless the olive trees look, rain will come. When Yaya gets home from the cemetery, she closes the shutters and peels off the black clothes, folding them carefully and placing them on the dresser, next to Papou’s old bifocals.

Yaya has a secret drawer of floral nightgowns that she only wears when the day has ended and the sun can no longer punish her misfortune. Maria’s yellow dress is long gone, but the pinks and blues and purples are still there. I like to think that the other widows also have secret stashes of light, brightly colored clothing. The olive trees flourish and yield fruit despite the oppression of the sun. There can be beauty in spite of loss.

Dylan Morse

Ithaca, n.y..

I kept a firm grip on the rainbow trout as I removed the lure from its lip. Then, my heart racing with excitement, I lowered the fish to the water and watched it flash away.

I caught that 10-inch fryling five years ago on Fall Creek using a $5 fly rod given to me by my neighbor Gil. The creek is spectacular as it cascades down the 150-foot drop of Ithaca Falls. Only 100-feet further, however, it runs past a decrepit gun factory and underneath a graffitied bridge before flowing adjacent to my high school and out to Cayuga Lake. Aside from the falls, the creek is largely overlooked. Nearly all of the high school students I know who cross that bridge daily do so with no thought of the creek below.

When I was a toddler, my moms say I used to point and ask, “What? What? What?” Even now my inquisitive nature is obvious. Unlike my friends, I had noticed people fly fishing in Fall Creek. Mesmerized by their graceful casts, I pestered Gil into teaching me. From that first thrilling encounter with a trout, I knew I needed to catch more. I had a new string of questions. I wanted to understand trout behavior, how to find them, and what they ate. There was research to do.

I devoted myself to fly fishing. I asked questions. I woke up at 4 a.m. to fish before school. I spent days not catching anything. Yet, I persisted. The Kid’s Book of Fishing was replaced by Norman MacLean’s A River Runs Through It . Soon Ernest Hemingway’s essays found their place next to Trout Unlimited magazines by my bed.

I sought teachers. I continued to fish with Gil, and at his invitation joined the local Trout Unlimited Chapter. I enrolled in a fly-tying class.

There I met Ken, a soft-spoken molecular biologist, who taught me to start each fly I make by crimping the hook to reduce harm to fish, and Mike, a sarcastic Deadhead lawyer, who turns over rocks at all times of year to “match the hatch” and figure out which insects fish are eating. Thanks to my mentors, I can identify and create almost every type of Northeastern mayfly, caddisfly, and stonefly.

The more I learned, the more protective I felt of the creek and its inhabitants. My knowledge of mayflies and experience fishing in many New York streams led me to notice the lack of Blue-Winged Olive Mayflies in Fall Creek. I figured out why while discussing water quality in my AP Biology class; lead from the gun factory had contaminated the creek and ruined the mayfly habitat. Now, I participate in stream clean-up days, have documented the impact of invasive species on trout and other native fish, and have chosen to continue to explore the effects of pollutants on waterways in my AP Environmental Science class.

Last year, on a frigid October morning, I started a conversation with the man fishing next to me. Banks, I later learned, is a contemporary artist who nearly died struggling with a heroin addiction. When we meet on the creek these days we talk about casting techniques, aquatic insects, and fishing ethics. We also talk about the healing power of fly fishing. I know Banks would agree with Henry David Thoreau, who wrote “[Many men] lay so much stress on the fish which they catch or fail to catch, and on nothing else, as if there were nothing else to be caught.”

Initially, my goal was to catch trout. What I landed was a passion. Thanks to that first morning on Fall Creek, I’ve found a calling that consumes my free time, compels me to teach fly fishing to others, and drives what I want to study in college.

I will be leaving Fall Creek soon. I am eager to step into new streams. 

Addison Amadeck

Kirkland, wash..

It’s 6:52 a.m. on a frosted-over Friday in September, and my dad and I are running late as we wind down our steep hill to school. My dad ducks down and peeks out the sliver of visibility at the bottom of the windshield. I sit on my hands to keep them warm as sherbet skies rise behind the Cascades. We are harmonizing to The Wood Brothers’ “Keep Me Around.” He sings the melody; I try to find the major third. We click into tune on a word, then I wince as my pitch slips to dissonance until I slide back in. We belt out the lyrics: “Hello, I’m Faith, and I might be blind,” I hit the minor fifth. “But I’m the one who’s gonna keep towin’ the line,” I climb to the octave. “And you land on your feet almost every time,” I drop down to the one, exploring different tones within the key.

At some point in everyone’s life, a promise stops being forever. Marriages end in divorce, BFFs drift apart. But no matter how many times a promise is broken, I’ve always wanted to believe that someone will keep one to me.

That night, my dad was due to fly home. And he did: most of him anyway. I noticed that no matter how much I stared at him, he wouldn’t make eye contact. He eventually sat down and looked at me. In that moment, I didn’t know if I wanted to hear the truth or anything but. Anything other than: “I’ve been drinking.”

My ears rang. My mind went blank. All I could hear was the same toxic phrase in my head, over and over, as I stared at a freckle on the wall. I started to worry that if my dad couldn’t keep this promise, no one would ever be able to keep one to me. I couldn’t understand how after all the years of work he’d done, after how much he’d grown, after missing my 7th birthday while in rehab, he could just throw it all away. I had always assumed that this promise would be kept, especially from my dad, and I couldn’t help but feel disappointed and betrayed.

After that night, dad immediately resumed working his AA program, but I found myself stuck to work out my emotions alone. After weeks of songwriting and immersing myself in music, I determined that trust, vulnerability, and acceptance are love’s inherent ingredients. The behavior of others is unpredictable. I found I could apply my acceptance of his relapse to different experiences in my life, whether teenage gossip or catastrophe. I can’t control the actions of others; I can only alter my perspective.

I look over at the driver’s seat on that September morning. My dad plucks the strings of the stand-up bass as I beat the drums on the dashboard. We sing at the top of our lungs, “Try askin’ the dark where the light comes from.” No matter the pitch, every note can be harmonized. I need only transcribe the key.

Alexander McLaughlin

Lexington, mass..

Throughout my childhood, I felt the need to be in control — a need which came to an abrupt halt in June of 2015. I laid down on the balcony of a hotel in the middle of Old San Juan, Puerto Rico, staring down the long, straight street that led to the pier. My fresh shirt had long collapsed against my damp chest as the sun ascended into the sky. A crescendo of voices from the street market far below snapped me out of my daze and reminded me of how different this place was from my home. On this trip, the powerful combination of travel and soccer taught me that liberation actually doesn’t come from being in control, but rather comes from fully immersing myself in my surroundings and opening myself up to those around me.

Under the Puerto Rican sun, I stood up from the balcony, using my arm to raise myself off the sizzling tile. I strained my ears in an attempt to make out the rapid Spanish coming from the streets below. As my chest swelled with feelings of curiosity and excitement, I decided it was time to explore. I’d been taking Spanish for six years, mastering every tense and memorizing every irregular conjugation, but as I stepped onto the cobblestone streets of Old San Juan, I was too nervous to string more than two Spanish words together. I dribbled my soccer ball between the street vendors and their stalls, each one yelling to convince me to buy something as I performed a body feint or a step over with the soccer ball, weaving myself away as if they were defenders blocking my path to the goal.

My previous need for control had come from growing up with strict parents, coaches, and expectations from my school and community. Learning in an environment without lenience for error or interpretation meant I fought for control wherever I could get it. This manifested itself in the form of overthinking every move and pass in soccer games, restricting the creativity of my play, and hurting the team. After years of fighting myself and others for control, I realized it was my struggle for control that was restricting me in the first place.

A man hurrying by bumped into my shoulder as I continued down the street, bringing my mind back to the present. Nobody there knew who I was or cared about my accomplishments. I seemed to be removed from the little town as I continued to wander. I felt naked as my safety blankets of being recognized or at the very least understood on a verbal level were stripped away, for the Puerto Ricans did not care about my achievements or past life. I was as much of a clean slate to them as they were to me.

I learned that when I open myself up to others, I am free to attain this rare state of creativity in which I can express myself without restraints or stipulations.

Alexandra Reboredo

Hialeah, fla..

When my mother started a cosmetology business to support our family, I lost my sense of home. Our dining table was no longer for sharing a steaming plate of white rice, ground beef, and black beans. Instead, it was for crisp white towels, bundles of thin, pointed wooden sticks, sterilized tweezers and scissors, and hundreds of bottles of polish.

At first, her clients were quiet. I heard nothing but the gentle hum of the air conditioner accompanied by the whirring of the electric foot rasp, and the occasional ring of a phone echoing through the hallway of closed doors. As her clients returned, they developed familiarity — the one with bleach-blonde hair in heaping curls bound together on the top of her head, her shrill, high-pitched voice wanting her nails lacquered in the darkest crimson; the 50-year-old Cuban woman who always brought pastelitos and complained about her single life, hoping a new haircut would bring her the man of her dreams; the hearty laugh that boomed through the house every Saturday morning was my human alarm clock when a mother of three was happy to have a break from tracking her toddlers. My mom had become a therapist attending her clients’ hands and feet under a white-bulb lamp with watchful eyes and open ears.

“Mami, why don’t you talk to me?” I’d ask as she was hunched over the sink and up to her elbows in soap suds.

“Why don’t you come out of your room for once?” she’d scold in Spanish.

Maybe she had a point. To me, “home” was a small room with a twin bed, a desk piled with yearbooks, magazines, newspapers, and a dresser covered in college flyers, polaroid photos, and an assortment of candles. It was my own world. To my mom, however, “home” was where family met work — all her little worlds collided. Six years after she fled from Moldova to Cuba, she and my father headed for the U.S. by raft. My mother left her own family behind, but keeps the door open to those who seek to be a part of ours. Reluctantly, I realized I had to open my own door as well.

Now, when I hear the voices of my favorite clients through the paper-thin wall separating my bedroom and the dining table, I join them. Vivian, dyeing her roots to hide the gray, recounts the stories of her son hitching rides through France, Ukraine, Italy, and Spain. My mother — the diligent listener — occasionally chimes in with questions. Tania comes in for her weekly manicure at 3:50 p.m., complaining about the day’s difficult clients at the attorney’s office where she works. Lily comes on Fridays, taking clients’ phone calls and documenting therapy sessions on her laptop while my mother tends to her toenails. From these women who seek comfort and find vanity, I hear endless stories about family betrayal, the neighborhood chisme about who’s being evicted from the apartment complex, and complaints about overcharged phone bills.

These conversations constructed my new “home”: maybe someday I’ll backpack across Europe, or work for a law firm, or travel with clientele right in my pocket. In the meantime, my mom and I talk more than ever before, trading the whereabouts of my day at school for the moments she shared with her clients. We share our own moments together — and a new definition of home.

Mitchell Greene

St. petersburg, fla..

It all comes down to the essay. Before the college application process began, I was already keenly aware that an essay has the potential to impact and change lives. A personal essay, written before I was born, has influenced my life and is, in a way, responsible for my existence!

Eerily similar to the college application process, there were many qualified donor applicants. Choosing one donor from the pool of applicants was an insurmountable task for my mom until she realized there was an essay buried in the back of each profile. After reading my donor’s essay, she chose him because he spoke so eloquently about his passion for music and the arts.

My donor’s file is the first item I packed when I recently had to evacuate my home during a hurricane. I treasure and protect the papers because they contain the only insight I have into half of my DNA. His essay is the sole connection I have to a man I will never meet. I will never know more about my donor than what he chose to reveal in his personal essay.

When I was in second grade, I read the essay for the first time and learned the donor was a professional musician and an accomplished guitar player. This knowledge was the catalyst for me to begin exploring my own musical abilities. I quickly learned to play the clarinet and joined the elementary school band. As soon as I was physically big enough to carry around a mini Fender electric guitar, I begged to take guitar lessons. Perhaps it was subconscious at the time, but while many of my elementary school friends were playing sports with their dads, I was looking for a way to connect to my donor through music. During middle school and high school, my enthusiasm for music and performing accelerated in tandem with my talent. In addition to pursuing instrumental music, I began singing in theatre and in an a cappella group.

Through his writing, my donor taught me that when someone is passionate about something, they are willing to make sacrifices and to suffer for it. I have made numerous sacrifices to be a conscientious student at a challenging school and, at the same time, be fully committed to a rigorous performing arts program. My former athletic endeavors and successes are now a distant memory. Over the years, I have missed many social events and spending time with friends and family. I am proud of my academic record, although I suspect my GPA would be a little stronger if I would not have devoted so much time to music and theatre! Looking back, the sacrifices were worth it, and I would not change the decisions I made!

There is not a time I play my clarinet or guitar, step up to a microphone to sing, or take a bow after a performance that I do not wonder what my donor would think of me. I am still searching for a connection to him through performing and music. I am thankful his personal essay swayed my mother to choose him as my donor, and that his writing compelled me to discover and pursue all of my passions in the classroom and on the stage.

Charlotte Guterman

Andover, mass..

I used to whirl this world recklessly, close my eyes, point a finger, and imagine living wherever I landed: in Tel Aviv or Tegucigalpa or Islamabad. After each imagined journey, I traced my way home. Traveling through the Sahara, over the Andes, and past the Nile, until I reached just above Boston, just below New Hampshire. Until I was safe in my little house in a town too small to see.

Once, after looking at my model Earth, I asked my mother about East Germany. She laughed wearily, “That map is old.” And I realized that so many places I had imagined no longer existed. On my globe, the Soviet Union would always spread across a whole hemisphere, the northern ice sheet would never slide into the sea, African nations doomed to divide and recombine and divorce bloodily would forever lie flat and whole beneath my palms.

When my parents divorced my world moved. It was packed up and driven to my mother’s new house where it stood in a corner as I grew up. Each week I walked between two homes, charting the topography of awkward phone calls, overnight bags, and email conversations. At first I mourned the loss of that confident sense of place and of belonging that I experienced when I was little. I felt like I was searching for a feeling, for a country that didn’t exist anymore.

But as I continued to navigate my way through this different type of geography, I would occasionally go back to the hollow model world, watch it wobble on its axis and begin to understand how to live, even grow, despite imperfection.

I am now taller than the globe; my mother has the armoire and my father kept the couch. Yet I do not feel split in half. I no longer have one home to trace my way back to, but I don’t mind. I have learned to make homes for myself: in the art rooms of my high school, in a tent at camp each summer, in the people I am surrounded by — my friends. In my mother, in my father. I have found small places for myself, hung drawings on their walls, bought carpets for their floors, come to know myself beneath their roofs.

I am an artist. I am a writer. I am a daughter. I have paint under my nails and charcoal dust in my hair. I check out too many books from the library and always bring them back overdue. I scribble notes on my hands and in my journals and find scraps of paper in my pockets. I am perpetually in love with hiking boots, the clunky kind. I am an okay cook. I am an awful liar.

I am developing self-awareness, but I still have so much to learn. I want to speak new languages. I want to read all the time. I want to travel to actual countries and take pictures on a bunch of disposable cameras because there is something magic about those blurry images that develop in the dark. I want to scale real mountains, close my eyes and sit cross-legged on their tops while the whole world around me spins wildly into the future.

*These essays were published in the Hamilton Magazine and illustrated by Andrew Vickery. These essays follow three similar collections from the Class of 2026 ,  Class of 2018 , Class of 2012 , and Class of 2007 .

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The essay demonstrates your ability to write clearly and concisely on a selected topic and helps you distinguish yourself in your own voice. What do you want the readers of your application to know about you apart from courses, grades, and test scores? Choose the option that best helps you answer that question and write an essay of no more than 650 words, using the prompt to inspire and structure your response. Remember: 650 words is your limit, not your goal. Use the full range if you need it, but don‘t feel obligated to do so.

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Test Requirements

We encourage applicants to enter any available test scores in the QuestBridge National College Match application. Students who do not have standardized test scores can still be selected as Finalists if the rest of their application is strong; however, they should ensure they meet the standardized testing requirements for each college partner they're interested in. 

QuestBridge accepts unofficial test scores! Applicants or school counselors can submit these documents. 

Test requirements will be updated in fall 2024. 

2023 test requirements.

Amherst College

• Amherst is test-optional. The test-optional policy applies to all applicants - domestic and international - applying for first-year admission. At their own discretion, students may choose to submit SAT/ACT test scores for consideration in the application review process. Amherst will not consider SAT Subject Tests. You can learn more about Amherst’s test-optional policy here .  

Barnard College

• Barnard has extended their temporary test-optional policy for incoming students starting in Fall 2024. To learn more about Barnard's test-optional policy, please view their website .

Boston College

• BC has adopted a test-optional policy for first-year applicants during the 2023-2024 admission cycle. 

Boston University

• BU is a test-optional institution. Read more about BU's Test Optional Policy to decide your test plan.

Bowdoin College

• Bowdoin is a test-optional college. Read more about Bowdoin's Test Optional Policy to decide your test plan.

Brown University

Brown is test-optional for the 2023-24 application cycle. If this describes your situation, please know that your application will not be disadvantaged in the admission process, and will receive full consideration by Brown's admission committee.

If you do have scores you would like to share, you may request official scores from the College Board and/or ACT. Do not use the rush reporting service.

California Institute of Technology

• Caltech has implemented a five-year Moratorium on requirement and consideration of SAT and/or ACT test scores. The Caltech Undergraduate Admissions Office will not be accepting or reviewing any standardized test submitted.

Carleton College

• Carleton has adopted a test-optional policy for first-year applicants applying for admission for entry in Fall 2024. This policy means results of the SAT or the ACT are not required, but you may still submit them. 

Case Western Reserve University

• Case Western Reserve University is a test-optional institution. Students will have the ability to indicate whether they would like CWRU to consider their standardized test scores when completing the CWRU Questbridge Supplement.

Claremont McKenna College

• CMC offers students the option to apply without consideration of their SAT or ACT scores. Learn more about CMC’s test-optional policy .

Colby College

• As a test-optional institution, you may choose whether or not to submit your test scores with your application to Colby.

Colgate University

• Colgate University will offer Fall 2023 applicants the option to apply without consideration of their SAT or ACT scores. Learn more about Colgate’s test-optional policy .

College of the Holy Cross

• Holy Cross has been test-optional since 2005. Applicants may indicate their preferred testing policy on the QuestBridge Supplement and may also update their testing preference and/or submit additional test scores via the applicant portal.

Colorado College

• Colorado College is a test-optional college. Please review CC's test-optional policy to determine your test plan.

Columbia University

• For 2022-2023, Columbia offers students the option to apply without consideration of their SAT or ACT scores. 

Dartmouth College

• Dartmouth College is test-optional for applicants to the Class of 2028 .

Davidson College

• Davidson is test-optional for the SAT or the ACT. Learn more about Davidson’s test-optional policy .

Denison University

• Denison has practiced test-optional admission since 2008. No student is at a disadvantage by not submitting scores. Students who choose to have their scores considered may self-report them through their Denison applicant portal.

Duke University

• ACT, writing exam optional; OR
• SAT, with essay component optional

Emory University

• Emory University is test-optional, meaning students can apply without submitting their SAT or ACT score(s) in the 2023-2024 academic year. Learn more about Emory’s test-optional policy .

Grinnell College

• Grinnell is test-optional for students applying for admission in 2023-2024. Learn more about Grinnell's test-optional policy .

Hamilton College

• Hamilton offers students the option to apply without consideration of their SAT or ACT scores. Learn more about Hamilton’s test-optional policy . 

Haverford College

• Haverford College offers students the option to apply without consideration of their SAT or ACT scores. Learn more about Haverford’s test-optional policy .

Johns Hopkins University

• Hopkins is test-optional for applicants through 2026. You will be able to self-report scores on your QuestBridge application. Your Hopkins supplemental form will allow you to indicate your test-optional status for their review process.

Macalester College

• Macalester has a Test-Optional admissions policy. This includes ACT, SAT, SAT II, AP, and IB. There will be no penalty for students who choose not to submit test scores in the selection process.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

• MIT requires either the SAT or the ACT from all first-year applicants. They do not require the ACT writing section or the SAT optional essay.

Middlebury College

Middlebury is currently test-optional. You do not have to submit standardized test scores with your application. A lack of scores will not factor into your application review. If you would like your standardized testing to be considered, you can submit either the SAT or the ACT. Learn more about Middlebury's test-optional policy .

Northwestern University

• Northwestern offers students the option to apply without consideration of their SAT or ACT scores.

Oberlin College

• Oberlin College is test-optional for the 2023-2024 application year. 

Pomona College

• Pomona College has adopted a test-optional policy for students applying for first-year and transfer admission through Fall 2024. Under this policy, SAT or ACT scores are not required to apply but students may choose to self-report them on their applications. Learn more about Pomona's test-optional policy .

Princeton University

• For the 2023-24 application period, Princeton will review applications with or without test scores, leaving the decision in the hands of the applicant. Learn more about Princeton's standardized testing policy . 

Rice University

• Rice will allow first-year applicants to undergraduate, degree-seeking programs for the 2023-2024 application cycle to submit SAT or ACT test scores, if they choose. Students who are unable to submit tests, or prefer not to submit test scores, will be given full consideration in the admission selection process. Learn more about Rice's 2023-2024 testing policy . 

Scripps College

• Scripps offers students the option to apply without consideration of their SAT or ACT scores. Learn more about Scripps’ test-optional policy .

Smith College

• Smith College has been test-optional since 2009 and remains test-optional today. The submission of SAT or ACT scores is optional for all applicants.

Stanford University

• For the 2023-24 application period, Stanford will review applications with or without test scores, leaving the decision in the hands of the applicant. Visit Stanford's Standardized Testing page for more information.

Swarthmore College

• Swarthmore offers students the option to apply without consideration of their SAT or ACT scores. Learn more about Swarthmore’s test-optional policy .

Tufts University

• Tufts University offers students the option to apply without consideration of their SAT or ACT scores. Learn more about Tufts’ test-optional policy .

University of Chicago

• UChicago offers students the option to apply without consideration of their SAT or ACT scores.

University of Notre Dame

• For the 2023-2024 application cycle, Notre Dame offers students the option to apply without consideration of their SAT or ACT scores.

University of Pennsylvania

• Penn offers students the option to apply without consideration of their SAT or ACT scores. Learn more about Penn's test-optional policy .

University of Southern California

• For the 2023-2024 application cycle, USC offers students the option to apply without consideration of their SAT or ACT scores. Learn more about USC’s test-optional policy .

University of Virginia

• In response to COVID-19, UVA will not require applicants to submit the SAT/ACT for the 2023-24 application cycle. Students who are unable or choose not to submit test scores will not be disadvantaged in any way. Students who wish to include testing as part of their application may continue to do so. Students who choose to submit testing may choose to take either the ACT or the SAT.

Vanderbilt University

• Vanderbilt offers students the option to apply without consideration of their SAT or ACT scores. Learn more about Vanderbilt’s test-optional policy .

Vassar College

• Vassar does not require applicants to submit SAT or ACT scores. Vassar will use the superscore for the SAT or ACT. If a student submits both the SAT and ACT, Vassar will use the higher of the two scores to evaluate the application.

Washington and Lee University

• W&L offers students the option to apply without consideration of their SAT or ACT scores. Learn more about W&L’s test-optional policy .

Washington University in St. Louis

• WashU offers students the option to apply without consideration of their SAT or ACT scores. Learn more about WashU’s admission requirements .

Wellesley College

• Students applying for entry in the fall of 2024 have the option to apply without consideration of SAT or ACT scores. 

Wesleyan College

• Wesleyan is entirely test-optional and does not require the submission of standardized tests in the admissions process. You should submit the combination of test results you feel best represents your academic achievement and potential. This can range from a full set of SATs and SAT Subject Tests, an ACT, and AP exam scores, to a combination of results from different evaluations, or no test results at all. Learn more about Wesleyan's test-optional policy .

Williams College

• Williams offers students the option to apply without consideration of their SAT or ACT scores. 

Yale University

• Yale offers students the option to apply without consideration of their SAT or ACT scores. Learn more about Yale’s test-optional policy .

Submitting your scores

All applicants should submit unofficial test score reports to your QuestBridge application. Either the applicant or the school counselor can upload these documents.

If you are selected as a Finalist, check the school application requirements to see if you must request that the College Board and/or the ACT send official score reports to the colleges you are ranking, or to the college partners you are applying to for Regular Decision. If you are applying to any schools that are test-optional, you will be able to submit a request directly to the school to indicate whether or not you would like to have your test scores reviewed.

Typically the August or September test dates in your senior year are the latest dates in which QuestBridge can receive test scores to evaluate you for the National College Match. Finalists may submit scores taken from later fall dates directly to the college for consideration. In order to be considered by colleges for the Match, tests must be taken by October at the latest. Check the Application Requirements pages for the schools you are interested in to make sure the last acceptable test dates are not earlier.

Non-native English speakers should visit the Application Requirements page for each college partner they are interested in for details on additional required testing such as TOEFL or IELTS.