Diversity Essays are school-specific prompts that applicants must write in order to assess their fit with a school, academics and non-academics alike. It is a critical component of the application for US College Admissions. These can be requested at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, including transfer admissions from India. The diversity essay prompts can be used for both personal statements and supplemental essays. The main question that a prospective student must answer in this essay is how diversity has shaped who they are and, as an outcome, what that brings to the school.
The diversity essays must discuss a different aspect of the student’s personality, background, and interests to the school. To begin, common examples include a personal story, an extracurricular accomplishment, a failed attempt, challenges faced and lessons learned, and a creative hobby. For undergraduate applications, one of the best ways for the admissions committee to get to know an applicant is through the Common App Essay Prompts. It provides a qualitative picture of the student in terms of overall personality and identity, rather than just race and/or ethnicity. The Common App is similar to a college database for undergrad applicants. The essays are a projection of the student as an individual.
Below is the full set of Common App essay prompts.
- Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.
- The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?
- Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome?
- Reflect on something that someone has done for you that has made you happy or thankful in a surprising way. How has this gratitude affected or motivated you?
- Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.
- Describe a topic, idea, or concept you find so engaging that it makes you lose all track of time. Why does it captivate you? What or who do you turn to when you want to learn more?
- Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you’ve already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your own design.
How to Approach Writing a Diversity Essay
This essay should be written as a story from a student’s point of view, exhibiting how one’s upbringing influenced one’s personality. Essay prompt topics could include interests, talents, obstacles overcome, problem-solving abilities, decision making, or accomplishments, or anything else that brings meaning to the student’s individual non-academic profile and is not included on transcripts/certificates/grades.
Tips for drafting a diversity essay
- Incorporating main points into a story (take care of the transition and flow)
- Avoiding redundant or unnecessary details
- Being able to include both successes and failures as mentioned in the prompt
- Simple and easy language (this applies to any essay and not just diversity essays)
Lastly, Get External Help or Review
By all means take help to find out grammatical errors, or suggestions on how to write your diversity statement, or understand the required flow, but it must be an original one. Your professors or seniors at college or work or a counselor or someone you trust can be of assistance here. Nevertheless, if you don’t find suitable help among your acquaintances, worry not, since you can always hire an efficient SoP writing service like OnlineMacha who has experienced expertise in drafting diversity statements as well. Once you have received adequate feedback, make the necessary changes to your SoP and prepare your final draft which should be compelling, contain strong sentence variety, and be free of spelling and grammatical errors.
At OnlineMacha.com we understand that a winning essay requires time and thoughtfulness since you want to sell yourself to the admission committee to be accepted by the university. Thus, in order to do that, you need to put your best foot forward, and OnlineMacha.com does just that! If you are looking for a true edge over the competition to gain your place then we are here to provide you the help that you need with our Professional SOP Writing Services.
