Highly influenced by the school’s Jesuit history and globally-focused core curriculum, the Santa Clara University supplemental essay prompts ask applicants to consider how ethics and morals can be applied in a secular educational setting. Although the school is by no means dominated by religion, its guiding principles stem from values like charity, compassion, warmth, and connection. Below you’ll find our tips for how to write the Santa Clara University supplementals, as well as some example essays to give you a sense of what you can do to stand out in your application.
Want to get an even better sense of what Santa Clara is looking for? You’ll find an extensive, by-the-numbers look at its offerings, from enrollment and tuition statistics to student life and financial aid information, on its Common Data Set. For deep insights into how this private liberal arts college envisions student success (and how it wants to grow and evolve), read through its most recent self-study report—a simple way to get a strong idea of what Santa Clara values.
What are the Santa Clara University supplemental essay prompts?
Santa Clara University Supplemental Essay Prompt #1
At Santa Clara University, we value our diverse and inclusive community. Our campus learning environment is enriched by the lived experiences of people from different backgrounds. What people, places, events, or circumstances have shaped the individual you are today and how you could contribute to our community? (150- 300 words)
Santa Clara University Supplemental Essay Prompt #2
At Santa Clara University, we push our students to be creative, be challenged, and be the solution. Think about an ethical dilemma that you care about that our society is currently facing. This can be something happening in your local community or more globally. How can an SCU education help you prepare for and address this challenge? (150- 300 words)
Santa Clara University Supplemental Essay Prompt #3
Why are you interested in pursuing the [Division or Major] selected above? (50 words). (Important note: This is tucked into the Academic Section of Santa Clara's Common App page.)
How to Write Each Supplemental Essay Prompt for Santa Clara University
how to write Santa Clara Supplemental Essay Prompt #1
At Santa Clara University, we value our diverse and inclusive community. Our campus learning environment is enriched by the lived experiences of people from different backgrounds. What people, places, events, or circumstances have shaped the individual you are today and how you could contribute to our community? (150- 300 words)
Some schools want to know how, based on your experiences, you’d contribute to their campuses. The key here is to a) share some experiences you’ve already been a part of and what you’ve learned from them, then b) connect these experiences to particular opportunities available on their campus.
Help the admission officer reading your application visualize you at their school.
For a fuller “How will you contribute” guide + examples with analysis, check out that link, but here’s the short version.
Essentially, a way to think of this kind of prompt is that it’s a combo of “community/identity/background” and “why us” prompts: use some of your response to show how you’ve become who you are, and then show how those experiences shape what you will bring to the college through linking to specific opportunities/groups/details. Connect your unique upbringing, in a very broad sense of the word, with what the school offers and how you will make a great team.
STEP 1: BRAINSTORM (ALL ABOUT YOU).
Do the “If You Really, Really Knew Me” Exercise. Yup, the same one mentioned above.
STEP 2: RESEARCH THE COLLEGE (LEARN ALL ABOUT THEM).
Make a copy of the “Why us” Essay Chart 2.0, research the school you’re writing your essay for, and fill in the first two columns. (This is the same chart mentioned above.)
Once you’ve done these exercises, you’ll have a better sense of:
YOU: A bunch of different talents/skills/identities/qualities that you’ll bring to a college campus, and
THEM: A variety of programs/courses/clubs/affinity groups that your college offers.
STEP 3: CONNECT YOU… TO THEM (I.E., THE COLLEGE YOU’RE APPLYING TO).
Make connections between what the school offers and what you’re interested in.
Here’s an example written for MIT’s version of this prompt:
Example:
“I don’t have a mommy – and no, I was not adopted.” This was an early attempt, (albeit from a five-year old’s perspective), to proudly explain to my classmates that I had two dads (yes they are gay!) and was conceived via invitro-fertilization. Looking back, this statement undoubtedly triggered several conversations around my classmates’ dinner tables. Years later, I learned how my simple declaration broadened many family’s perspectives.
I was raised as part of a community that proudly celebrates diversity and encourages change through personal interaction. My parents and I are not the kind to go to protests. While we greatly respect those loud voices, we find influencing others on a personal level can be a more effective way of instigating change. Throughout my formative years, being part of one-on-one personal interactions within a predominately heterosexual community allowed me to witness the dismantling of stereotypes one person at a time.
At MIT, I aspire to perform similar roles, broadening perspectives and strengthening the LGBTQ+ climate through personal relationships. By being open with my gender identity, having a great sense of humor, and embracing my peers and professors in thoughtful, relaxed one-on-one conversations, I hope to develop strong bonds founded in mutual respect. Just as MIT can be considered the home of science, MIT should be a home for the LGBTQ+ community. My dream is to form relationships that have a cascading effect at MIT through developing new champions and strengthening the climate for LGBTQ+ students, faculty, and staff. (247 words)
Tips & Analysis:
Share (a core part of) your world view. We’d recommend thinking about everything that Santa Clara is getting elsewhere, through your personal statement, activities list, and additional info section. Then assess: what aren’t they seeing yet? Remember, your essays’ primary function is to help a reader see who you are, what you value, what you bring to their campus and community. This essay uses the prompt as an opportunity to share a core part of their growing up, and how that shaped their values (celebrating diversity, encouraging change, personal engagement)
Half for you, half for them. Give or take—it doesn’t have to be a perfect 50/50 split. But notice that about 60% of the word count here is used to share specific details and insight gained from the student’s background. Then, about 40% is used to connect to specific aspects of the college community that the student wants to engage with, and how they want to do so (using specific examples and verb phrases) in order to show how they’ll contribute to the school. Be sure you’re including a decent amount of word count that gets really specific with how whatever aspects of background/identity you’ve discussed in the first half will allow you to add to the lives, perspectives, and understanding of other students in the second half. (And for more on how to mostly show, but probably tell a little in college essays, head there.)
And here’s another example essay, written for other schools’ versions of this prompt. Though note that ideally, you’d spend a bit more of your word count on the “how will you contribute” elements than the essay below does.
Example:
A large aspect of my identity is my low-income family of eight. As one of the eldest siblings, I was expected to financially contribute as soon as I could work. The majority of my summers were spent shelving products, filing papers, and answering customers’ questions. I quickly discovered the difficulty in earning a paycheck and appreciated my parents more. My family has been my rock—ever since we faced homelessness. Homelessness allowed me to understand my family’s financial situation, but most importantly, it resulted in bonding emotionally. At that moment, family was the one thing I knew I could call home.
Over time, the comforting feeling of my family began to disappear. As my parents are devoted missionaries and pastors, I regularly hear their conservative perspectives of Christianity. Throughout my life, I’ve shared similar personal values with my family, denying my bisexuality up until last year. This identity realization impacted me emotionally and physically. I was afraid to come out to anyone, worried that my faith would be questioned and I’d be treated differently. I felt powerless and miserable; mental struggles sometimes limited my motivation. One day, I sought professional help and found solace with my school counselor. After spending endless nights contemplating coming out, I told my close friends. I found acceptance from some and learned who were my real friends, the support system that I’m grateful for. My true identity hasn’t changed. Rather, coming out allowed me to be more open-minded, inclusive, and taught me to value conversations where I can bring a fresh perspective.
Above all, I’ve learned that my experiences shape me into the multifaceted person I am today. They propel me to openly contribute to my Entry, the Gender and Sexuality Resource Center, and most importantly, the everyday interactions with my Williams peers and faculty members. (300 words)
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how to write Santa Clara Supplemental Essay Prompt #2
At Santa Clara University, we push our students to be creative, be challenged, and be the solution. Think about an ethical dilemma that you care about that our society is currently facing. This can be something happening in your local community or more globally. How can an SCU education help you prepare for and address this challenge? (150- 300 words)
SCU’s “Why us?” essay has a bit of a twist. Instead of asking you to consider how SCU will help you in your major or future career, this prompt is asking you to think a little more altruistically. What ethical dilemma makes you pause, makes you think, or makes you search for a solution?
Through your response, SCU is trying to find the answers to two questions:
Do your values align with ours?
Are you the kind of student who cares about their community and is ready to take action to improve it?
As you tackle this essay, consider shifting your main focus away from SCU’s course catalog and toward its Student Organization Directory and other on-campus resources to see what specific opportunities SCU offers to resolve your challenge.
This is a new prompt for SCU this year, so we can’t share a specific example with you. But we’ve still got you covered. This essay, written for Northwestern’s “Why us?” prompt, addresses SCU’s prompt well, with just a few key changes (which we’ll explore below).
Here’s an essay written for Northwestern’s old “Why us?” prompt that addresses SCU’s prompt well, with just a few key changes (which we’ll explore below).
Example:
In the words of Will, who spent six years inside the California Youth Authority: “It doesn’t make sense to take a kid out of the community to show him how to live in the community”. Confining 60,500 youth like Will every night, our dysfunctional juvenile justice system lies at an insidious intersection of racism, poverty, and unequal educational opportunity.
As the sole school of its kind in the nation, Northwestern’s School of Education and Social Policy (SESP) will help me navigate this web of issues. As a Social Policy major, I’ll learn to develop policies targeting the school-to-prison pipeline or youth homelessness. Practical experience is paramount in understanding how institutions impact individuals, and vice versa. SESP provides this through research and the practicum internship, while Summer and Chicago Field Studies offer even more ways to get involved with criminal and social justice organizations. Specifically, I want to work with Ascend Justice to advocate for those affected by the child welfare system.
Northwestern also nurtures my fascination with math. By participating in MMSS, I’ll merge my love for numbers and analysis with my ardent interest in the social sciences, building an intensive foundation in mathematical models to understand concepts that drive decision-making and collective action. Or through MENU, I’ll explore exciting advanced mathematical topics, like geometric topology and combinatorics.
SESP’s flexible coursework and the quarter system let me dive deeper into other academic interests: linking policy in times of political transformation to environmental studies, taking classes in psychopathology to better understand the criminalization of mental illness, and pairing French with philosophy in “Les Formes du Mal.”
Northwestern gives me the profound and focused education I seek, while fostering all my AND’s, providing me with the tools and perspective I need to strive toward my goals.
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Tips + Analysis
Identify a challenge you connect with. You may be tempted to select women’s rights or global warming as the challenge you care most about, but is it really? Don’t be tempted to pick an ethical dilemma based only on its attention-grabbing headlines or its trending hashtags. #JustSayNo. Instead, identify an issue—big or small, local or global—that hits you in the feels and makes you want to stand up and take action now. This student does just that in the first half of the essay: passionately outlining the shortcomings they see in the juvenile justice system.
Mind your audience. Before you start writing, take some time to really look through SCU’s mission, vision, and values and see if (and how) they align with yours. SCU offers a Jesuit-based education with origins in the Catholic Church, which means its values and beliefs likely skew somewhat conservative. If your chosen challenge is potentially divisive or controversial, think about how that could resonate (or not) with your audience.
Be clear. This student opened with a compelling quote and a shocking statistic to convey the gravity of the holes in the juvenile justice system. But it would’ve been even more helpful to have given some context to that quote—were they a volunteer with the California Youth Authority and a mentor to Will? By showing us that they have direct, hands-on experience with the topic, this student could’ve made their personal connection to (and understanding of) the issue clearer and more compelling.
Play the long game. SCU wants to understand more than just how an SCU education will help you understand your dilemma. They also want to know how that education is going to help you address that challenge. SCU doesn’t want you to be a passive bystander; instead, school officials want to see you take action and create change, using what you’ve learned on campus. One way this student could’ve better crafted their response to match this prompt is by being more specific about their future actions than simply saying they’d “get involved with criminal and social justice organizations.” How would they make an impact? What, exactly, does “get involved'' mean? These are the details that will elevate your essay and make it ( and you) stand out.
Stay the course. This student does an excellent job of answering the prompt in the first half of their response, but they go off course in the second (at least, in relation to answering this SCU prompt) and bring in a whole new field of interest. Keep your essay focused on one dilemma and one challenge, and keep your “Why us?” responses locked in on that target.
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And here’s an example written for Santa Clara.
Example:
With pediatric dental disease as the most common chronic untreated disease, 75 million adults lacking dental insurance, and a 30% increase in dental costs over the last 20 years, limited access to oral healthcare presents complex ethical dilemmas. These dilemmas arise when decisions are made about how limited dental health resources are spread across an increasing population. Taking small steps in the right direction, I collaborated with local businesses (Jain Center of North America, 7-11, Center for Implant Dentistry) to host a Smile Drive initiative to distribute donated oral hygiene products to local NPO dental clinics and homeless shelters. At SCU, I hope to take these efforts further by exploring the complexities of healthcare infrastructure and the socioeconomics behind dental healthcare access. I’m confident SCU’s strong emphasis on a holistic approach to education through their CORE curriculum will enable me to craft multidisciplinary solutions, drawing upon various fields in biology, macroeconomics, public policy, and social sciences.
The Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship, the Center for Sustainability, and the Center for Student Involvement, would help me spread awareness of and devise solutions to affordable oral healthcare, patients’ fears of dentists, and a lack of dental education. With the Arrupe Engagement opportunity and the Healthcare Ethics Internship through the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, I can apply theoretical knowledge and effectively address the economic, environmental, and ethical implications of distributing limited amounts of oral healthcare to progressively larger cohorts of underserved communities.
Participating in SCU’s chapter of the Global Dental Brigades, I plan to engage with the service learning programs and outreach initiatives while collaborating with local dentists. By working with real patients in need, I’ll gain a stronger understanding of the ethical concerns behind the oral healthcare disparities firsthand.
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how to write Santa Clara Supplemental Essay Prompt #3
(Important note: This is tucked into the Academic Section of Santa Clara's Common App page.)
Why are you interested in pursuing the [Division or Major] selected above? (50 words).
This essay prompt pops up once you select from drop downs in the Academic tab in the Common App.
This is a standard (but very short) “Why Major” prompt. For a larger guide to the “Why Major” essay, click here. Below is a condensed version.
One possible approach:
Think of this as a quick origin story.
Step #1: Imagine a mini-movie of the moments that led you to your interest and create a simple, bullet-point outline.
Step #2: Put your moments (aka the “scenes” of your mini-movie) in chronological order, as it’ll help you see how your interests developed. It also makes it easier to write transitions.
Step #3: You’ll likely want to include a specific thesis that explicitly states your central argument—in this case, what you want to study and why. This thesis can come at the beginning, middle, or end of your essay.
With 50 words, you’ll probably only have space for 2-3 sentences. Or 1 longer one.
And last, a quick tip: Be sure this essay is consistent with your personal statement if you’ve mentioned aspects of your major/career there.
Here’s an 89 word example written for a 100 word prompt (so you’ll have about half this space), to point you in the direction to head.
Example Essay:
My decision to major in Electrical Engineering was inspired by my desire to improve security through technology. When I lived in Mexico, my father’s restaurant security system lacked the ability to protect our property from robbers, who would break in multiple times a year. Thanks to the influence of my cousin, who now studies Autonomous Systems, I developed an interest in electrical engineering. I am inspired to not only improve my father’s security system, but contributing to security innovations for larger companies and perhaps, one day, national security. (89 words)
Special thanks to Julia for contributing to this post.
Julia published her first “book” on the elusive Pika in elementary school and has been writing fervently ever since. She’s thrilled to unite her quirky love of grammar and master’s in psychology to help students tell their most meaningful stories. Her favorite punctuation mark is the apostrophe because, in the words of Imagine Dragons, it’s “a symbol to remind you that there’s more to see.”
Top values: Collaboration | Family | Productivity
