TABLE OF CONTENTS
(click to skip ahead)The University of Maryland is not only the largest institution in Maryland—with over 30,000 undergraduate students—but it’s also the largest in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. Their values include (but aren’t limited to) lifelong learning, interdisciplinary collaboration, respect, and inclusion, which you’ll get a sense for based on the types of prompts they ask you to respond to below.
If you’re hoping to join those 30,000+ students, you’ll have to write responses for 6 supplemental essays. Yup, the University of Maryland has 6 essay prompts—but fear not! While 6 may seem like a lot, each one only requires a max of 650 characters. That’s right, characters, not words. 650 characters amounts to about a paragraph, and since the University of Maryland essay prompts are pretty open, they should allow you to cover a wide range of topics, letting your experiences and values shine through.
Below, we’ll talk you through how to write the University of Maryland personal statement and supplemental essays, with examples and tips + analysis for how to write yours.
If you want to get a clearer sense of all that the University of Maryland is looking for, you can explore 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. And for insights into how the university envisions itself and its role, and how it wants to grow and evolve, read its strategic plan. Reading through these will give you a strong idea of what the college values.
What are the University of Maryland Supplemental Essay Prompts?
Prompt #1
If I could travel anywhere, I would go to… (650 characters)
Prompt #2
The most interesting fact I ever learned from research was… (650 characters)
Prompt #3
In addition to my major, my academic interests include… (650 characters)
Prompt #4
My favorite thing about last Friday was… (650 characters)
Prompt #5
Something you might not know about me is… (650 characters)
Prompt #6
Because we know that diversity benefits the educational experience of all students, the University of Maryland values diversity in all of its many forms. This includes (but is not limited to) racial, socio-economic, gender, geographical, and sexual orientation. We are interested in hearing about your own individual life experiences. In a few sentences, will you please describe how you have learned, grown, been inspired or developed skills through one or more components of diversity. (650 characters)
How to Write Each Supplemental Essay Prompt for Chapman University
Because the prompts below generally fall under the category of “short answer,” here’s a comprehensive guide to short answer questions.
One overall tip for the prompts below: use these as an opportunity to show your reader other aspects of your values/interests/skills/qualities/experiences/world view—things we aren’t already seeing in your personal statement.
How to write the University of Maryland Supplemental Essay Prompt #1
Prompt #1 If I could travel anywhere, I would go to… (650 characters)
A fun prompt that can be deceptively tricky! Whether or not you love traveling, what’s most important here is not the destination, and not the journey, but the explanation behind it. It’d be easy to call it a day after simply responding, “I’d go to Japan!”... but that doesn’t exactly help your reader get a clearer sense of who you are and what you value and why. So with 650 characters, you have a lot of space to show your readers why, exactly, you’d love to travel to [insert your destination here].
To help brainstorm ideas for this prompt, you can ask yourself:
The main question: Where would you go?
The more specific, the better. For example, if your initial answer is just “Japan,” you might consider going more specific by doing some research, so your response ends up being something like, “Hokkaido, Japan, because…” And you can take it a step further: “The Asahiyama Zoo in Hokkaido, Japan, because…”
And this isn’t just limited to location—you can time travel, too! See example below.
Examples of questions to gather specifics (you may or may not end up including all answers in your response):
Why would you go there?
What would you learn from visiting this destination?
Who would you go with?
Based on the above answers, you can ask yourself: What values show up?
There are so many possibilities for how this essay could be written based on the values that show up. For example, someone who values family might write about touring around Italy with their parents and siblings, or visiting family members in Taiwan, while someone who values adventure might want to try and get their SCUBA certification in Costa Rica.
The possibilities are endless!
Key to your approach: Just make sure to try and focus on values and experiences that haven’t reallly shown up yet in other parts of your application. So, if you’ve written about family somewhere else, you might want to tap into another value, and where that side of you might pick for an adventure.
Example:
I would go to the U.S Open in 1972 to watch defending champion Billie Jean King defeat Kerry Melville in straight sets. Afterwards, I would follow King as she advocates for pay parity between female and male athletes to learn how to effectively campaign and advocate for social justice causes. In observing King, I would love to channel her confidence in pushing against social norms to address the sexualization of women and young girls in sports.
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Tips + Analysis
Get creative, and give us the specifics. Notice that this student doesn’t just say that they’d travel to the U.S. Open, and leave it at that. They give us a specific year (they didn’t say time travel wasn’t allowed!) and a specific reason why—to watch Billie Jean King defeat Kerry Melville.
Tell us your hopes and dreams. This student took the opportunity to write about something that matters to them that they might not have had experience with in the past. For example, they write about the pay parity between female and male athletes, and that they’d learn how to campaign and advocate for social justice (value!) issues. While they may not have advocacy experience that they could tie to this experience, this response shows us that this is something they’d be interested in potentially pursuing in the future.
How to Write the University of Maryland Essay Prompt #2
Prompt #2 The most interesting fact I ever learned from research was… (650 characters)
If you don’t have formal research experience in a lab or under a university professor—no worries, you’re still all good here. Research could count as research done for a class or project, formal research in a lab type setting, or even independent research when you went down a rabbit hole for an interesting topic.
Ultimately, this response gives you a chance to show readers your (intellectual) curiosity. Think of this as an opportunity to not only show what you’ve learned from the research itself, but try to expand on it by considering what the takeaway is.
For example, did your research on a favorite marine animal species open your eyes to pollution and climate change? Or did it inspire you to become an environmentalist?
By thinking about what lessons you’ve learned from this research, it reflects, perhaps, how you might expand on your education at UMD.
Also, note that it doesn’t have to be tied to your major, but can be.
Example:
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Did you know William Shakespeare created the terms “wild goose chase,” “kill with kindness,” and “apple of my eye”? I didn’t until a few years ago. In the research process for a paper on Shakespeare’s legacy, I became fascinated by his immense contributions to the English language. Having read a Shakespearean play and poems every year for the last several years, I was well aware of his impact on the Western canon of theater and literature, but the sheer number of his coinages and idioms that we still use today shocked me. As an actor, I’ve been in many shows but never in a Shakespearean play——something I hope to explore at Maryland.
Tips + Analysis
Be transparent (=honest). In the example above (and the bonus example below), both students briefly indicate the type of research they engaged in when they came across these bits of information—one through an assignment, and the other, through personal research. Though you don’t necessarily have to state in what capacity you came across these facts, it gives the reader a bit more context around your activities, intellectual curiosity, and what you personally find interesting.
Reference other identities or parts of your application. In the example above, the student writes, “As an actor…” which allows them to bring in an identity/activity/interest that they might have not been able to write about yet. They’re able to tie Shakespeare’s impact on language and literature to theater and acting. If you like this tactic, you can reference this roles and identities exercise to explore roles/identities that you may want to share and use to frame some of your UMD responses.
Add a Why Us component. In 650 characters, this student wasn’t able to be too specific about what they hope to explore at UMD, but they do mention that they hope to be in a Shakespearean play once on campus. It’s a great way to not only show how they’d engage with student activities on campus, but it also shows the depth of their interest. If they had extra space, they could have gotten a tiny bit more specific, for example: As an actor, I’ve been in many shows but never in a Shakespearean play—something I hope to explore through UMD’s Maryland Shakespeare Players.
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Bonus example:
Through personal research, I discovered that the 138-acre Belward Farm, some of the last undeveloped land in Gaithersburg, MD, will be developed into a life science center and retail pavilion against the wishes of its original owner. From this work, I realized profit-driven choices can often come at the expense of natural resources, requiring people such as myself to advocate to local leaders to ensure their decisions reflect and balance the long-term sustainability of both the environment and community.
How to Write The University of Maryland Supplemental Essay Prompt #3
Prompt #3 In addition to my major, my academic interests include… (650 characters)
While this prompt also asks you to tap into your intellectual curiosity, it’s asking you to think beyond your major, and to consider your other academic interests. If you don’t already have a response, ask yourself:
Is there a subject or topic at school that I really enjoyed, but aren’t planning on majoring in?
Even if there may not have been a specific class that I loved (as a whole), were there any interesting topics I’d like to dive deeper into in college? (For example, if you didn’t love biology but somehow found genetics really interesting).
By asking yourself these questions, you have a starting point. From there, you could expand on how you became interested in this subject, what you’ve done to further your learning (whether independently or academically), and you even have an opportunity to include a Why Us component, if you have space (e.g., At UMD, classes like X and Y will allow me to…).
If you’re absolutely enamored with your major and are finding it difficult to come up with a response for this question, one thing to consider is how other fields might relate back to your major.
For example, if you’re majoring in engineering or computer science, how might a field like biology, or even literature or foreign languages, influence engineering or CS and make you better in those fields? By considering how other fields or areas of study influence your main area of study, you might find some interesting questions at the intersection of two fields.
Example:
From Stromae to Matisse to Tintin, I love French culture. Growing up in London and living in Europe, I was surrounded by many people speaking different European languages. After studying Latin for five years, I began Italian and French and continue to improve in both of them, practicing my French fluency in class and furthering my Italian conversational skills at home. My love for languages has also led to my increasing curiosity about the art of different cultures and how a culture’s language and art help to make a society distinct. I hope to minor in French and to further develop my understanding of the Francophone world.
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Tips + Analysis
Include your academic plans. While not all students have an idea of what they want to study in college, this essay would be a great place to write about any interdisciplinary interests or something you hope to double major or minor in. While the student in the example wrote about how they’d minor in French, you can still write about other academic interests and curiosities by naming a class or two in areas that are unrelated to your major.
Tie in other experiences and curiosities. This student included an aspect of their upbringing (growing up in London), their background studying languages, and even how they became more curious about other topics, like art. Including all of these components gives us more details about the student, but also how they approach learning—they show that they’re not just limited to their major, and not even their minor, but that their intellectual curiosity extends beyond. If you can, try and think about the origin of your interests, what initially inspired you to dive deeper, and how you might want to pursue it in college; for example, is there a minor, another major, or perhaps a club or research lab where you can combine your academic interests?
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And here’s another example:
For my International Baccalaureate Biology Higher Level course, I conducted independent research on the antibiotic properties of Manuka honey; this project sparked my interest in researching natural remedies. I am fascinated by natural remedies because they could potentially hold untapped solutions to some of the world’s most devastating diseases. After watching my grandfather struggle with MRSA, an antibiotic-resistant infection, I wish to use my future studies to unlock the power of natural medicine to increase the accessibility and affordability of medical treatments.
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How to Write The University of Maryland Supplemental Essay Prompt #4
Prompt #4 My favorite thing about last Friday was… (650 characters)
A seemingly mundane question about a random Friday, but perhaps one that asks you to consider how seemingly small moments in life can still be filled with meaning. To brainstorm, you could think about:
What happened last Friday? (retracing your steps through the day to reflect)
And more specifically:
Who did you spend time with?
What did you do after school?
Was there something fun you learned in class or in an extracurricular activity?
Did something happen that gave you a new perspective?
Finally, after you ask yourself those questions:
How did these things make me feel? (happy, grateful, lucky, nostalgic, etc.)
What lessons did I learn from this experience?
By recalling these details, you may find that you have more to write about than you realized.
For example, perhaps your friendship with your best friend, how grateful you are for your dog for cheering you up, or even about a concept you learned in class that got you really excited about learning.
Depending on when you’re reading this, last Friday might’ve been an exciting one for you, and you could talk about an event or how what happened influenced your perspective on something.
The possibilities for this are pretty wide open. What you write about doesn’t have to be the most exciting thing ever—and that might just be the point.
Example:
Playing tennis with my best friend. Even though we aren’t related by blood, we are practically twins. He and I frequently have fun debates, the most recent being whether the Comic Sans or Times New Roman font is better. We explore our school town of Bethesda during our open lunches; each day is a little adventure. I feel so lucky to spend time with him, whether that entails tennis or some other activity.
Tips + Analysis
Feel free to move beyond ‘last Friday.’ This student answers the question, simply by saying “playing tennis with my best friend.” From there, they expand on the nature of their relationship with their best friend, which goes beyond the ‘last Friday’ time frame. As long as you’ve answered the question, you can elaborate by bringing in other moments (Your reader is trying to understand who you are—they aren’t going to be mad at you for answering and then expanding).
Include rich details. Details and specifics are a great way to make an essay uniquely yours. This essay would have been more generic had the student said, “He and I frequently have fun debates and we like to explore our town”—many other students could likely copy and paste this same sentence into their own essays. However, this student made their essay theirs by detailing which fonts are better (more specific than just debating in general, and shows us something that they’re interested in) and the city they live in, which could evoke a certain setting for the reader (compared to San Francisco, or just “our town”). Give us a window into your life!
Leave the reader with a value or lesson. Though we preach about including values in lessons, both of the examples above and below end their essays with a sense of gratitude (above: “I feel so lucky to spend time with him”) and/or a lesson (below: “Now I was the older ‘sibling’ teaching it to Frankie”). Neither of these have anything to do with ‘last Friday’ but are an extension of these small moments shared with others.
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And here’s another nice example:
Taking my five year old god-sister Frankie out to dinner for her birthday. It was the first birthday I was able to spend with her, and we spent the night talking about all things five-year-old, including how excited she was to start Kindergarten, specifically cooking class and playtime with her new friends. As her birthday present, I gave her her first watch (decorated with sparkly pink unicorns and rainbows) and taught her how to distinguish the hour from minute hands. It reminded me of how my older brother taught me to tell the time when I was five. Now I was the older ‘sibling’ teaching it to Frankie.
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How to Write the University of Maryland Supplemental Essay Prompt #5
Prompt #5 Something you might not know about me is… (650 characters)
Consider this the free space on your bingo card.
This is your opportunity to pick anything you haven’t been able to cover in any of the other UMD essays or your personal statement. Because this is what we’d consider the “free space,” consider brainstorming topics for each of the other 5 UMD prompts first, and come back to this one last.
Ask yourself:
Looking at the topics I chose for the other 5 UMD essays (+ my PS)...
Is there any part of myself that I feel like is missing?
Are there any values I haven’t been able to include yet that are important to me?
Are there any experiences I haven’t been able to write about yet that have shaped me?
Is there an extracurricular activity that I’d love to expand on and give more context to, beyond just the facts? (i.e. any important lessons learned or important values shown)
Calling this a “free space” might make it seem easier than it is, but with a little bit of thought, brainstorming, and drafting, this may be the response that helps readers get a more complete picture of who you are and what’s important to you.
Example:
On the underside of my right forearm, I have a tattoo. Drawn in black ink are two intricate curves, the eating disorder recovery symbol, there to remind me every day of my resilience, strength, and bravery. It serves as a message to myself to rely on my resources and support system. Additionally, it symbolizes the support of my family, who sat with me when I got the tattoo, just as they were with me through every hardship that it represents. No one is immune to adversities, but when storms come, I am able to look at my arm and remember that I’ve endured this before, and I got through it last time, so I can do it again.
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Tips + Analysis
Focus on the lesson, not the challenge. This essay is structured like a narrative; while they couldn’t focus too much on what they did due to the word count, they did show us the challenge and the lessons learned from it. Notice that they focus the majority of the essay on the values and the lessons learned. Not only do they pinpoint lessons of resilience, strength, and bravery, but they also highlight the value of family and the lesson of relying on resources and support.
Begin with a surprising fact. One way to draw readers in, especially with such a short essay, is to begin with a surprising fact. Both the writer above (“I have a tattoo.”) and below (“Although I can’t speak the language, I have learned songs and prayers in Arabic…”) start with strong sentences and then later explain the significance of their tattoo and the language. You could also use this as a tactic to brainstorm ideas—you could try to come up with 5 surprising facts, and see how you can expand on them. What’s the story behind these facts?
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And here’s another example:
Although I cannot speak the language, I have learned songs and prayers in Arabic, first through family tradition and then through my own research. I am the descendant of immigrants from Syria and Armenia, and incorporating new Arabic traditions, such as reciting the Lord’s prayer in Arabic, into holiday celebrations helps me honor my family and religion by surrounding myself with the culture they left behind. These seemingly small traditions help me connect with relatives who I was not able to meet and reconnect with those I have lost.
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How to Write the university of maryland Supplemental Essay Prompt #6
Prompt #6
Because we know that diversity benefits the educational experience of all students, the University of Maryland values diversity in all of its many forms. This includes (but is not limited to) racial, socio-economic, gender, geographical, and sexual orientation. We are interested in hearing about your own individual life experiences. In a few sentences, will you please describe how you have learned, grown, been inspired or developed skills through one or more components of diversity. (650 characters)
This is a (pretty short) “diversity” prompt—for a complete guide to diversity prompts, check this out.
Think of this as a way to demonstrate how you contribute something to the college campus/community that other applicants may not (or you do so in different ways, with different insights/perspective).
UMD’s version of this prompt is pretty wide open, since they offer a range of “how you have learned, grown, been inspired or developed skills through one or more components of diversity.”
Notice that that phrasing allows you to talk about aspects of your own diversity (which they define broadly), and/or about ways you’ve engaged with others who are different from you in some way, and how those experiences have helped you grow/develop.
Because this prompt (like all the others) is so short, we’d recommend first trying to draft in three sections, with one sentence each focusing on the following:
Clearly/directly set up an aspect of your diversity or engagement with diversity.
Offer one or a few quick but specific examples of how that diversity has impacted your life experiences.
What lessons/insights you’ve gained from those experiences.
Maybe you focus on a discussion of a tricky/complex issue you had, and how you engaged in productive conversation that led to better mutual understanding.
Or how some aspect of your background/experience led you to interpret a book or text in class differently, and insights you gained.
Or ways you’ve engaged with a community you weren’t initially a part of, and how that engagement led to your growth.
Or ways you experienced some form of bias, or witnessed someone experiencing some form of bias, and what you did and learned.
Or many, many other ways—again, “diversity” and how you’ve experienced it and grown from it is really broad. (It seems like the only way you haven’t experienced some aspect of diversity and its impact is if you’ve lived an incredibly sheltered life. And in that very rare case, hey, useful to realize that now, and start engaging.)
Here’s a nice example essay.
Example:
My homeschool classroom was a melting pot. My classmates came from all over the world: some were children of Ecuadorian and Pakistani immigrants, while others grew up on army bases. My perspective broadened when we met at each other’s houses, eating different cuisines and observing each other’s diverse familial structures. From witnessing the struggles to put down roots in military families and the challenges faced by kids whose parents hardly spoke English, I developed deeper empathy for my friends whose experiences differed from my own. Since then, the ability to see the world through the eyes of another has been an incredible asset to me.
Tips + Analysis
What values will you bring? In this example, the student writes that they “developed deeper empathy” and how this has been an asset to them. Beyond the experience of interacting with their classmates, this not only gives them an opportunity to highlight a value that they haven’t yet been able to write about, but it also allows admissions officers to see how they’ll interact with others at a university that values diversity.
Weave in examples. If you have extra space, demonstrating the value through small examples or reference to other activities would further strengthen the value. For example: “…the ability to see the world through the eyes of another has been an incredible asset to me, like when tutoring children in math or volunteering at the local homeless shelter.”
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And here’s one more example:
At my middle school lunch table I grew closer to my friends by understanding their life experiences, learning about Judaism from Brielle whose Bat Mitzvah was fast approaching; a few words in Chinese from Samantha after she attended Chinese school; a French phrase from Ines whose family speaks the language at home; and the fundamentals of Sikhism from Gurnoor, who volunteers at her Gurdwara each weekend. I am grateful to have had an early exposure to my friends’ unique cultures because it gave me an appreciation for diversity that informed my efforts to support inclusion through my work in the Art of Sonder Club.
Special thanks to Elica for contributing to this post.
Elica (she/her) is a college essay specialist who has a love of language in all forms; she has degrees in linguistics, has taught academic writing at the university level, and has been coaching students on their college and graduate school admissions essays for over 7 years. When she’s not working with students or writing, Elica can be found reading, printmaking, and exploring nature.
Top Values: Collaboration | Curiosity | Patience
