How to Write the University of Michigan Admissions Essays

 

 

The University of Michigan Excerpt

Admitted students share a drive to pursue academic excellence in a challenging and rewarding academic environment.  What do you want the readers of your application to know about you apart from courses, grades, and test scores?

According to Michigan admissions (via their website):

“The essay demonstrates your ability to write clearly and concisely on a selected topic and helps you distinguish yourself in your own voice.  Your essays should reveal how you have become a leader at your school and in your community. Be sure to explain to what heights you have taken your training in your extracurricular passions. How have you connected your studies and your non-academic passions? Try to reveal how the combination of coursework and related activities has inspired original thinking on your part.

We also look for students who are curious about new ideas, people, and experiences, those who push boundaries and are not content with status-quo. What do you want the readers of your application to know about you apart from courses, grades, and test scores?

The types of students admitted consisted of applicants who assert clearly their life goals, apply relevant experience with specific details (show, don’t tell), and make a clear connection to the college/major of interest at UMichigan (since students have to dual apply to a college of choice). The applicants also suggest how they will contribute to the college community with their skills and experience. Sharing what they learned and how they grew from the relevant experience also reveals a student who will “push boundaries” and grow as a Michigan student, not accepting the status quo. Some Michigan applicants effectively use extended metaphors and strong imagery to paint their stories of learning and success.

Supplemental Essay Example:

Prompt:Choose one of the communities to which you belong, and describe that community and your place within it. (Required for all applicants; minimum 100 words/maximum 300 words)

My classmates on our robotics team speak my love language.

I discovered this in tenth grade when I was immediately drawn to their vitality. There are people who CAD all our ideas into a detailed 3D model, and there are manufacturers who CNC the designs into reality and piece them together with the fabrication team, and there’s me: programming/scouter. We’re like a huge family, supporting each other both in and outside the robotics classroom. Each of us can live-out our roles in the spirit of true teamwork in the FIRST Robotics Competition every year. There I can mingle with an even larger community I adore: the FIRST Robotics community. We laugh and cheer together: for our individual teams and for other teams. As a scouter, it’s also my job to connect us with other teams. During events, when I find a connection with someone I never knew before, I welcome it like they are our own teammates-even if we later appear on the opposite side of the field.

When participating in our outreach programs, it fulfills part of my purpose to give back. The world is losing potential engineers due to financial burdens. So, I co-founded a project called BoarBot in which we design robots that are inexpensive and easy to build. Teams under budget that are competing for the first time can learn a lot about engineering while building. The simple design is competitive, so novices can use it to compete at the same level as everyone else. When we released our first design into the community, it caught the attention of many rookie teams. One team built our model and competed with us in the same District competition. We became great friends, and that rookie team eventually won the “Rookie All-Star” award in the District competition!