How to Write the Brown University Admissions Essays

 Brown Excerpt

 by Sarah O'Neill, Coatesville, Supreme Editing

According to Brown Admissions (via their website):

 

Brown seeks students eager to embark on their intellectual journeys and possess an intense curiosity and a drive to make an impact. They are interested in how your unique talents, accomplishments, energy, curiosity, perspective, and identity might contribute to the ever-changing tapestry of Brown. This is what you should aim to reflect in your personal essay.  Brown is most famous for its open curriculum and the freedom and opportunity it provides students to chart their academic journeys. 

 

Common App Personal Essay + Brown’s Specific Questions. 

Your Brown Essays hold significant weight in your application. They are a platform to showcase your ability to think creatively and take intellectual risks and your active engagement in problem-solving with an entrepreneurial spirit. Brown students are encouraged to confront, address, and solve real-world problems, so your application should highlight instances where you have actively contributed to this type of thinking and action. Brown is looking for students who are passive learners and active contributors to society.

 

Brown is looking for students who are deeply passionate about their work and the world around them and can contribute to the rich tapestry of ideas and perspectives that make up the Brown community.

 

In Ivy history, the types of students admitted consisted of applicants who share personal qualities of exploration and leadership in creative ways. The essays have a strong reflective learning that is relatable to human nature. All the Brown essays start with an engaging and descriptive image to establish the narrative story and setting. The challenge is clear in the opening, and the learning/reflection is clear in the essay's conclusion. The applicants explore their identity and the world and how they fit into it throughout the development of the personal story. Students are humble, expressing knowledge of their own journey but not claiming to have solutions for everyone else. The key is that they show that they are persistent learners willing to continue their growth at Brown. Stories are unique and very specific to the applicant’s passions.  They marry the concrete details with Brown’s offerings.  

 

Supplemental Essay Example:

Prompt: 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)

“My Crismass Wishlist” was written at the top of a handwritten note we received while going through all the present wishlists of families for the toy drive. Under the title, “A blue blankit,” “Clothes size XS,” and “Lego for broter” were listed with a hand-drawn Christmas tree and a big “tank you” in block letters. While parents usually fill out the slip to keep the presents confidential for the kids, this note was written by a seven-year-old girl whose parents could not speak English. 

Growing up in a family of immigrants, I connected with her story of filling roles of English communication for her parents. Despite having only learned English when I moved to the U.S. at age six, I was helping my parents send messages to friends or family and translating lengthy documents by age ten. Language wasn’t the only challenge of coming to America; in fact, the communal generosity so impactful for my family and me has also been the driving force in my passion for community service and advocacy. The note, seemingly small and hastily made, instantly validated all the long hours I had spent organizing, delegating, and planning the drive. Having grown up as a kid whose parents couldn’t afford presents every Christmas, reminders like these force me to reckon why I feel so deeply fulfilled while giving back to my community, whether that is picking out or wrapping a girl’s presents, not just for her but also for the kid in me. 

 

 by Sarah O'Neill, Coatesville, Supreme Editing

 

 



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