nugget of joy

- He knows I’m into observational astronomy and despite him being a nuclear astrophysicist himself he will email me (and some of the other observationalists) interesting articles and videos about astronomy, usually and around 2am, the poor insomniac

- He became a dad yesterday! In his email he said “sorry, I won’t be in this week, I’ll be frantically googling how to take care of a newborn instead”

for their supplemental writings, a lot of schools have a similar question that always boils down to “why do you want to attend our university?” all the tips i’m going to spell out here are things i’ve heard from various college counselors.

colleges ask this for a simple reason: they receive a SHITLOAD of applications. when they’re trying to decide who to admit, they want to pick people who are actually likely to attend the university if accepted. this question allows colleges to try and figure out if they are your first choice school or not.

what you want to do here, ideally, is game the system and convince EVERY school you’re applying to that you are their first choice. it requires a bit of extra work and a lot of extra googling and research, but if you weren’t willing to do that, i’m sure you wouldn’t have read this far in my post lol

a lot of people write the same essay for every school that asks this question. then, they just change the name of the school and send it off. they usually mention something vague about liking the “location”, “atmosphere”, “people”, “spirit”, etc. an essay like this communicates to an admissions officer that you don’t particularly care about their school. it’s not your first pick. you haven’t thought particularly hard about the decision to apply here.

you want your essay to make you stand out, so even if this school isn’t your first choice, pretend that it is. you can use the same basic framework for every one of these essays, but write them so that they couldn’t possibly apply to another school.

it’s time to namedrop. mention specific professors and classes that interest you within your major. explain that their program is the best program for you, and give reasons. cite facts and statistics. reference specific things about the school’s location (not just “it’s pretty”) and specific school traditions you want to take part in. things like this really convince a school that you care about attending their institution in particular, and you’re not just throwing their name in at the end of filling out your common app or whatever.