ILLUSTRATION BY GREG MABLY
Craft a narrative. Your supplement should remain consistent with the rest of your application including your Common Application essay and recommendations. Once an admission officer finishes reading your file, we ask ourselves if it made sense, if it captured different parts of your personality and identity without compromising a sense of cohesion. Together, as a whole, we want it to reflect a multifaceted individual with a story that feels complete. —Greg Wong, Associate Director of Admissions Take all of your essays and give them to someone who only kind of knows you, like a parent of a friend or a former teacher. Ask them to read through your essays and say what they learned about you solely from those essays. If the person they describe back to you is exactly who you are, leave your essays as is, you’re done. If the person they describe back is a shell of who you are or is missing some fundamental component of your personality, go back and add that voice to your essays. —Yulia Korovikov ’13, Assistant Director of Admissions
When we read your supplement, we are looking for clues about who will arrive on our campus in the fall. What perspective will they bring, which classrooms will they gravitate towards, what kind of roommate will they be? The best way to arm us with the answers to these questions is to talk about recent you, not ten years ago you. Of course you should tell us where you’re coming from as it pertains to your perspective today, but beyond that you should avoid stories from your childhood. Essays about what questions you asked at the dinner table as a toddler, or how you wore the same superhero costume every day of third grade, tell us little about the person we will actually be meeting in a few months. Tell us about that person, so that we can find the fit in them for Tufts. —Meredith Reynolds ’11, Associate Director of Admissions
The third question of the supplement is meant to be fun, especially the prompt: “What makes you happy?” But it’s also a bit of a Catch 22: this prompt provides the most authentic glimpse into an applicant’s personal life but you also need to keep in mind that you’re applying to college. Essays that are missing an intellectual spark tend to fall the flattest. You want to tell us about how your fascination with Christian rap defies stereotypes surrounding Asian women? Awesome. You plan to share the story about the Pokémon Volleyball video game you created? Can’t wait. These are both great (and real) examples of essays that combine the perfect blend of silly and studious, which reflects the Tufts’ student body as a whole: students who take their work very seriously, but don’t take themselves too seriously. —Gracie Marshall ’15, Admissions Counselor
“Let your life speak” feels big, but the strongest responses stay small. Focus on doing justice to one topic, rather than glossing over huge portions of your existence. We don’t want you to do it all, we want you to give us one quality glimpse. —Meghan Dangremond, Associate Director of Admissions 29