How to use your Common App essay for Ivy League supplementals: Brown
Located in the small city of Providence Rhode Island, Brown allows students to design their own major and offers many research opportunities that are tailored for undergrads, with the ability to work on funding and research workshops closely with faculty.
If you’re applying to Brown, take a look at how you can use the work you’ve done for your Common Apps for your Brown supplementals.
Brown supplementals (2022-2023)
| TOPIC | PROMPT |
|---|---|
| Brown’s Open Curriculum allows students to explore broadly while also diving deeply into their academic pursuits. Tell us about any academic interests that excite you, and how you might use the Open Curriculum to pursue them while also embracing topics with which you are unfamiliar. (200-250 words) | 6 |
| Though you could use Common App #2 or #3 to help with this, the spirit of this question is ultimately asking you to articulate the subject(s) that incite the most passion and enthusiasm. | |
| Brown’s culture fosters a community in which students challenge the ideas of others and have their ideas challenged in return, promoting a deeper and clearer understanding of the complex issues confronting society. This active engagement in dialogue is as present outside the classroom as it is in academic spaces. Tell us about a time you were challenged by a perspective that differed from your own. How did you respond? (200-250 words) | 2, 3, 4 |
| This topic has a lot of overlap with Common App topics 2-4; if your Common App essay comes from one of these three topics, avoid redundancy. Focus on the situation and the transformation; you don’t have that much to work with in terms of word count. Make sure every single word is considered for efficiency, content, and impact. | |
| Brown students care deeply about their work and the world around them. Students find contentment, satisfaction, and meaning in daily interactions and major discoveries. Whether big or small, mundane or spectacular, tell us about something that brings you joy. (200-250 words) | 5, 6 |
| It’s important to see that they mention “small” and “mundane” in the same line here. These essays are usually substantiated with considerable experience in a field with big recognitions or awards. But, Brown emphasizes that they are just looking to see what it’s like when you experience joy while being a student. It will be important to be able to convey the joy you feel to the reader, not just explain a process. |
