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Writing BC Essays? Get an Edge with These Tips

Here are a few points we’re looking for when it comes to these boston college-specific essay questions..

Required Essay: Please discuss how you plan to achieve your short and long term career goals following graduation from Boston College. What challenges will you face and how will you leverage your academic and professional experiences to achieve these goals?

Our tip:  Be specific. Show us that you’ve taken the time to consider this question by providing detailed answers. Think about challenges that are specific to your candidacy, and how your strengths will balance them. This is one of our required essays (we read a lot of them), so authentic, thoughtful answers will stand out.

Optional Essay 1: Please introduce yourself to the BC community. Feel free to be creative in expressing your message.

Our tip:  Admissions essays (even when optional) are a great way to creatively share your personal interests, outside commitments, or passions with the admissions committee. Writing an optional essay shows that you’re serious about Boston College, and also gives you the opportunity to set yourself apart from other candidates. By telling us about yourself, you’ll become more than just a representation of your resume or scores. Feel free to portray your uniqueness, but ask a friend or colleague to proofread your essay before you submit it to keep it free of embellishments.

Optional Essay 2: If you have not had coursework in core business or if your standardized test scores are low, how you plan to prepare for the quantitative rigor of the BC MBA, MSF, or MSA curriculum?

Our tip:  This essay is an opportunity to highlight quantitative skills that you may have developed through professional experiences—that might not be reflected in your test scores or transcript. If you’ve taken an online course, say in statistics, in preparation for the quantitative aspects of our curriculum, you can also highlight this in the essay. From online courses to management books, the resources are endless. Tell us how you are making use of these to prepare yourself for business school.

Optional Essay 3: Explain an aspect of your candidacy in more detail.

Our tip:  At Boston College, we value both honesty and integrity. Take this opportunity to give context where it might be beneficial. Perhaps you’re worried that a low test score or a gap in your work history will jeopardize your chances of acceptance. Rather than listing excuses, provide background, tell us how you’ve grown from it, and why it will or will not affect you in your pursuit of a graduate management degree. (Or, use this as a chance to talk passionately about something on your resume—volunteer work, a previous internship, or anything else that you think makes you the perfect business school applicant.)

Optional Essay 4: What unique perspective will you bring to the Boston College community?

Our tip: As a Jesuit, Catholic institution, Boston College seeks to foster among its community a “care for the whole individual” ( cura personalis ). BC’s mission is rooted in the Jesuit principles of equality, respect, and care for everyone. Our students and alumni share a desire to positively influence and impact communities and organizations they serve by sharing their unique backgrounds and experiences with those around them. Taking into consideration your educational, cultural, social, economic, and/or other life experiences, share how your unique perspective will make an impactful contribution on our community.

Now that you know what to expect—and what we expect from you—start planning out your essays if you haven’t already. Once you’re finished, proofread, and proofread again, then send them our way. We look forward to hearing from you.

Looking for more admissions advice? You can take the following steps:

• Contact us at  bcmba@bc.edu  with your questions.
• Schedule a one-on-one appointment  with a member of the Graduate Admissions team.
• Register to attend App-y Hour  application support sessions.

Boston College (BC) 2023-24 Supplemental Essay Prompt Guide

Regular Decision Deadline: Jan 3

You Have: 

Boston College 2023-24 Application Essay Question Explanations

The Requirements: 1 essay of 400 words Supplemental Essay Type(s): Oddball , Community, Why

The writing supplement topics for the 2023-24 application cycle (400 word limit):

*please select one topic, each year at university convocation, our incoming class engages in reflective dialogue with the author of a common text. what book by a living author would you recommend for your incoming class to read, and why would this be an important shared text .

Calling all bookworms! This prompt asks you to discuss a book by a living author that has made a big enough impression on you to warrant your recommendation to others. At CEA, we always recommend that you choose an unexpected work in order to stand out from the pack. So, you might want to steer clear of books that were assigned reading in school. What have you read that stuck with you because of who you are and what you care about? Which characters did you relate to? Maybe you recently read a memoir that changed the way you approach presence. Why would your peers benefit from a new perspective on living in the moment? Perhaps the thriller you read last summer explores nuanced ethical dilemmas, a conversation-starter you think everyone should engage with. Try to be as creative as possible with your selection here and think about which books have really struck you at your core and why.

At Boston College, we draw upon the Jesuit tradition of finding worthwhile conversation partners. Some support our viewpoints while others challenge them. Who fulfills this role in your life? Please cite a specific conversation you had where this conversation partner challenged your perspective or you challenged theirs.

Whether you cherish early-morning car rides to school with your dad, late-night conversations with your sister on the couch, or chatting with your extended family over Zoom, we’re willing to bet there’s at least one person in your life who has challenged your perspectives or vice versa. And Boston College wants to hear all about it.

To make sure your response stands out from the pack, be as specific and purposeful as possible. Boston College has even gone so far as to ask you to cite a specific conversation, so follow through with a detailed account. Maybe you’ve had your beliefs challenged by a cousin who leads a very different lifestyle from you over Thanksgiving dinner. Or, perhaps, you’ve asked probing questions about your dad’s beliefs in order to better understand his worldview during a game of golf. If you can’t recall where you were at the time, no problem; but details are your friend here to add credibility. Whatever conversation you decide to write about, remember that BC is looking to accept thoughtful students to campus who are open to new ideas and engaging with diverse viewpoints.

In her November 2019 Ted Talk, “ The Danger of a Single Story ,” Chimamanda Ngozi Adichi warned viewers against assigning people a “single story” through assumptions about their nationality, appearance, or background.  Discuss a time when someone defined you by a single story. What challenges did this present and how did you overcome them?

This prompt will likely stick out to students who know what it’s like to be reduced to one aspect of their background or identity, and odds are, you’d have a specific memory in mind. As you write your response, you’ll want to make sure you summarize your account as succinctly as possible; that way, you can dedicate most of your words to discussing how you felt, how you responded, and how you overcame these challenges. You only have 400 words to work with, so you won’t be able to write a thesis on the general public’s preconceived notions about people living with a disability or women who choose to wear hijabs, but you can reveal more information about your background and experiences living in a world where stories are often assigned to you before you have the chance to introduce yourself.

Boston College’s founding in 1863 was in response to society’s call. That call came from an immigrant community in Boston seeking a Jesuit education to foster social mobility. Still today, the University empowers its students to use their education to address society’s greatest needs. Which of today’s local or global issues is of particular concern to you and how might you use your Boston College education to address it?

Admissions wants to know how you plan to use a BC education to address issues dear to your heart. What you focus on here can be reflective of larger cultural constructs or specific to your city or town. Maybe you have experienced environmental racism firsthand, having had your community’s air and water supply polluted by nearby factory farms for decades. Are you pursuing an Environmental Geoscience degree in hopes of eventually changing laws to improve the health of your community and others experiencing similar injustices? Perhaps you’ve been filming your family and friends since you could wrap your fingers around a camera, so you’re pursuing a degree in Film Studies in hopes of changing peoples’ hearts and minds about your community, however large or small that may be, through powerful documentary storytelling. Whatever path you’re on and issue you’re hoping to address in your career, be sure to use specific examples—both from your own past and from BC’s offerings—to distinguish yourself.

Human-Centered Engineering (HCE) Applicants only : One goal of a Jesuit education is to prepare students to serve the Common Good. Human-Centered Engineering at Boston College integrates technical knowledge, creativity, and a humanistic perspective to address societal challenges and opportunities. What societal problems are important to you and how will you use your HCE education to solve them?

This prompt, exclusively for Human-Centered Engineering Applicants, is incredibly similar to prompt #3, and our advice is the same: select at least one societal problem that weighs on your heart, explain its significance to you, and describe how you will take advantage of an HCE education to find a solution. You’d be wise to spend some time exploring the HCE program and BC’s offerings at large to show that you’ve done your research and dedicated time to thinking about your future goals and the steps you will take to achieve them.

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This edtech startup is the guidance counselor you wish you’d had in high school

The average public high school student in the U.S. gets about 38 minutes of guidance  about college over the course of four years. When Johan Zhang and his friends Zack Perkins and Vinay Bhaskara heard this statistic (while they were attending public high school together in New Jersey) they were pretty horrified.

“Each guidance counselor had to deal with a couple hundred students,” Zhang said. “No matter how good their intentions were, there was no way to help everyone.”

Luckily, Zhang, Bhaskara and Perkins had “near-peer mentors” at the time, people who were just a few years older than them who helped the young men navigate extracurricular activities, apply to colleges and just generally learn more about themselves.

But Zhang, Bhaskara and Perkins (pictured below) realized many public schoolers weren’t so lucky. “We found the admissions process unnecessarily stressful and filled with uncertainty,” Zhang said.

That's when the duo embarked on their first startup, then called Admissions Hero, and today known as CollegeVine .

The fast-growing edtech startup provides online “near-peer mentors” that guide public school students through everything from college applications, admissions essays, tutoring, test prep and much more. In return, the mentors (college students from some of the nation’s top universities) are paid competitively for their time.

“Public school students simply don’t have the same resources available to them that their peers at private school might enjoy, so we set out to level the playing field,” Zhang said. “For the first couple of years we operated Admissions Hero out of our dorm rooms, but then we started getting a lot of traction. People simply needed our help.”

While attending Harvard University (and working on CollegeVine) Zhang began working out of the Harvard Innovation Lab, a collaborative and educational space designed to foster innovation and entrepreneurship. It was there he met Jon Carson (pictured below), an entrepreneurial CEO with a background in building mission-driven teams, who would later become CollegeVine’s CEO.

“The business was growing at a very fast rate and was very profitable,” Carson said, when he described transitioning from mentor to CEO of CollegeVine. “It was about catching the wave. My take was, ‘these guys are going to be super successful in their lives and I get to be part of an early chapter, helping them develop some skills and learn how to build a company.’”

Today, CollegeVine has expanded its online mentorship program to 70 campuses with 300 active peer mentors — a number Carson expects to rise to 1,000 in the next couple of years.

“Society attaches enormous value to a college education and the skills you need to partake in the knowledge economy,” Carson said. “There is a ton of latent social capital that is walking around college campuses in the form of talented college kids.”

CollegeVine also values its pro bono work. “Pro bono work is a huge part of our identity,” Zhang said. “It’s who we are."

After the company was contacted by a high school student in Nigeria who wanted to go to a college in the U.S. but couldn’t afford tuition, CollegeVine gave the student free college admissions advice. The student was later accepted to the University of California, Berkeley with a full scholarship.

This year, CollegeVine is launching a pro bono program called “21 for 2021.” They will select 21 students for scholarships who demonstrate a willingness to pursue higher education despite financial or other difficulties.

Know a cool local startup? Send us a message here and follow us on Twitter @BuiltInBOS

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2 Great UChicago Essay Examples

UChicago is famous —or shall we say infamous—for their highly-quirky essay prompts. In previous years, students have been tasked with mind-boggling questions like “Find X,” or “A hot dog might be a sandwich, and cereal might be a soup, but is a __ a __?”

These essays may seem silly, but they invite students to share their personalities and perspectives as fully as they wish. UChicago is looking for creative thinkers, and these essays help them distinguish the “kind” of applicant they want. After all, most applicants will have stellar grades and test scores, so these essays are your chance to stand out and beat the odds of the very low acceptance rate.

UChicago requires two essays—one that is a typical “ Why This College? ” prompt, and the other, your choice among seven zany prompts. The seventh option actually allows you to make your own prompt, or pick one from previous years.

In this post, we’ll go over some strong UChicago essay examples from real applicants and share what they did well and what could be improved.

Please note: Looking at examples of real essays students have submitted to colleges can be very beneficial to get inspiration for your essays. You should never copy or plagiarize from these examples when writing your own essays. Colleges can tell when an essay isn’t genuine and will not view students favorably if they plagiarized. 

Read our UChicago essay breakdown to get a comprehensive overview of this year’s supplemental prompts. 

Essay Example #1

Prompt: “There is no such thing as a new idea” – Mark Twain. Are any pieces of art, literature, philosophy, or technology truly original, or just a different combination of old ideas? Pick something, anything (besides yourself), and explain why it is, or is not, original.

As I entered the bare-walled room, I could see the sky was painted blue through the tinted windows. It was my first day in my new high school where I’d have to spend the next two years. I wanted to make new friends.

I started walking towards a boy, introduced myself and exchanged pleasantries. After a few minutes of conversation, the topic of music came up and I introduced him to my love for the iconic classical ambient hit ‘Clair de Lune’. He put on my headphones, the song started playing, and he was amazed by the music’s ethereal, mellow, and serene chords. Or so I thought.

You know that awkward feeling when you show a funny video to your friends and nobody laughs? It was equivalent to that.

As days passed, I started noticing everyone was only listening to the loud pounds of the bass, the buzz saw synths, the crispy hi-hats, and every other element found in Electronic Dance Music, also known as EDM. Realizing that people in my school didn’t like Clair de Lune because they were emotionally invested in only the EDM genre, I had an idea– “What if I create an EDM remix of Clair de Lune to reach out to the audience of both genres?”

I tried to understand what the composer was trying to express through his composition and attempted to create an impression of the classical piece. The main challenge was to add musical elements from relatively two of the most unconventional music genres– Classical and EDM. Incorporating the rich and sometimes heart-wrenching chord structure of Clair de Lune to the multiple layers of EDM saw synths, I adjusted the volume of my instruments to the intensities with which the notes needed to be played and panned the sound in different directions to set the appropriate ambiance.

A few weeks later, I uploaded my work to the various Discord music servers that I am a part of with shaky hands. Nervous of what people might interpret my work to be, I awaited the replies I would receive. The server was filled with users from North America, and since I was in India, I realized that most people weren’t active at midnight when I uploaded my mix. I called it a night and went to sleep. When I woke up, my inbox was flooded with a mix of appreciations and suggestions. The users from the server really liked my idea and it went on to become a weekly competition where everyone would try to incorporate multiple genres into one song. I also made my classmates listen to the mix and later made friends who were interested in music production.

Music has constantly been transcending and bridging different identities cross-culturally through the fusion of genres. The key lies in capturing the emotions and the structure linked to the song, but most importantly, working to understand diverse cultures.

This raises a critical question– are the genres we listen to now truly unique on their own or just a complex amalgam of countless genres throughout history? The answer is that it depends on how experienced an artist is at the art of impression. Honoring instead of degrading, studying instead of skimming, crediting instead of plagiarizing, and transforming instead of imitating will lead an artist to a remix instead of a rip-off. As an artist keeps repeating this process, they’ll make unique decisions– maybe they’ll add an inimitable form of reverb on the synth or include a cymbal crash in their alien music structure. Regardless, those small changes and preferences– in the long run– will amount to a magnitude of alteration in style and develop a completely new identity for an artist. This is when the art practically becomes original while bearing into itself countless unoriginal remixes and impressions of different songs, artists, and genres.

What This Essay Did Well

This essay is a great example of taking a prompt that seemingly has nothing to do with the student on the surface and turning it into an exposé of the student’s personality and interests. The point of every college essay is to reveal who you are, so even when the prompt asks for something unrelated like a piece of art or technology, the ability to tie that back to you is key.

The reader is taken on a journey from seeing the defeat this student felt when no one liked their music taste, to their determination to produce a remix, to the success and positive impact caused by their creativity. Having a well-defined beginning, middle, and end creates a good pace and makes it easy to follow.

Another positive aspect of this essay is the way the student describes music and their process. When you write about your hobbies or interests in an essay, your passion, as well as your expertise, should shine through. The reader can clearly tell this student cares about musical motifs and sound mixing through their description of classical and EDM music, but they also demonstrate their knowledge in this area by explaining the steps they took to produce a remix.

What Could Be Improved

While this student did a great job of turning this prompt into a story about themselves, a definitive answer to the prompt fell through the cracks. After an entire essay focused on them, the student generalized in the last paragraph in an attempt to answer the prompt. The result was an essay that ended on a good note, but didn’t leave the reader with a final impression of the student.

To make sure the ending was as strong as other parts of the essay and that there was a concrete answer to the prompt, this student should have tied the lessons they learned through their experience into their perspective on originality.

For example, they could have decided there’s no such thing as originality because even when they were developing their remix they relied on known aspects of music to recreate genres. On the flip side, they could have concluded that of course there are new ideas because even though they had influences, the comments on the Discord server said they had created something no one had ever seen before. 

It’s okay to take a stance in a prompt like this one. You aren’t being evaluated on whether you picked the “right” answer because there is no right answer. The important part is to connect the answer back to the rest of the essay, and thus emphasize how the answer relates to you.

Essay Example #2

Prompt: Due to a series of clerical errors, there is exactly one typo (an extra letter, a removed letter, or an altered letter) in the name of every department at the University of Chicago. Oops! Describe your new intended major. Why are you interested in it and what courses or areas of focus within it might you want to explore? Potential options include Commuter Science, Bromance Languages and Literatures, Pundamentals: Issues and Texts, Ant History… a full list of unmodified majors ready for your editor’s eye is available here. —Inspired by Josh Kaufman, AB’18 

When I shared the video of me eating fried insects in Thailand, my friends were seriously offended. Some stopped talking to me, while the rest thought I had lost my mind and recommended me the names of a few psychologists. 

A major in Gastrophysics at UChicago is not for the faint hearted. You have to have a stomach for it! I do hope I am accepted to it as it is the only University in the U.S. with this unique major. My passion for trying unique food such as fish eye has made me want to understand the complexities of how it affects our digestive system. I understand that Gastrophysics started with a big pang of food, which quickly expanded to famish. Bite years are used to measure the amount of food ingested. I look forward to asking, “How many bite years can the stomach hold?” and “How do different enzymes react with the farticles?” 

Gastrophysics truly unravels the physics of food. At UChicago I will understand the intricacies of what time to eat, how to eat and how food will be digested. Do we need to take antiparticle acid if we feel acidity is becoming a matter of concern? At what angle should the mouth be, for the best possible tasting experience? When I tried crocodile meat, I found that at a 0 degree tilt, it tasted like fish and chicken at the same time. But the same tasted more like fish at a negative angle and like chicken at a positive angle. I want to unravel these mysteries in a class by Professor Daniel Holz in gravitational gastrophysics, understanding the unseen strong and weak forces at play which attract food to our stomachs. 

I find that Gastrophysics is also important for fastronomy. I want to learn the physics of fasting. How should we fast? Hubble bubble is a good chewing gum; an appetite suppressant in case you feel pangs of hunger. I have read how the UChicago Fastronauts are stepping up to test uncharted territories. Intermittent fasting is a new method being researched, and UChicago offers the opportunity for furthering this research. Which is better: fasting for 16 hours and eating for 8, or fasting for 24 hours twice a week? It is just one of the problems that UChicago offers a chance to solve. 

I can also study the new branch it offers that uses farticle physics. It is the science of tracking farticles and how they interact with each other and chemicals in the stomach space. It could give rise to supernovae explosions, turning people into gas giants. It would also teach about the best ways to expel gas and clean the system and prevent stomach space expansion. 

I want to take Fluid dynamics 101, another important course in Gastrophysics; teaching about the importance of water and other fluids in the body, and the most important question: what happens if you try to drink superfluids? 

I hope to do interdisciplinary courses with observational gastrophysicists and work with environmental science majors to track how much methane is given by the human and animal gastrointestinal tract in the atmosphere and how much it contributes to the global climate change. I believe, with the help of courses in date science, they have been able to keep a track of how much methane is entering each day, and they found that during Dec 24-Jan 3 period, a spike in the methane and ethane levels could be seen. Accordingly, algorithms are being programmed to predict the changes all year round. I would love to use my strong mathematical background to explore these algorithms. 

These courses are specially designed by the distinguished faculty of UChicago. Doing interdisciplinary research in collaboration with biological science students to determine what aliens may eat, with fart historians to know more about the intestinal structure of medieval Italians, Japanese, Chinese, Swedish and French people to better their lives is what I look forward to. The Paris study abroad program is an immersion course into fastronomy, where I will have the opportunity to test my self-control with all the amazing French food and desserts around! 

My stomach rumbles now, so I am going out to try out new food – hopefully it will be in Chicago a few months later. 

What the Essay Did Well

This is a fun essay! This student’s voice is present and their goofy personality is especially evident. Not only did they change the name of their major, but this student incorporated word play throughout the essay to showcase their imagination. Phrases like “the big pang of food”, “bite years”, “fastronauts”, and “farticle physics” keep the tone lighthearted and amusing. 

Beyond the humor and creativity that makes the reader chuckle—always a great way to stand out—this student still manages to incorporate aspects of their real intended major that fascinate them. While it might take a little extra connecting the dots to get from gastrophysic to astrophysics courses, the reader still understands what this student wants to study at UChicago and how they might use this knowledge.

While this essay definitely takes some risks, it’s safe to say that they paid off. They are able to delve into their love for astrophysics all while maintaining vivid, engaging language. The writing style is simultaneously playful and mad-scientist-esque. Truly “geeking out” about their interests makes for a great essay.

Even extremely creative essays like this one can always be made stronger. In this case, it would have been nice to get more background on what drew this student to astrophysics (not gastrophysics). We get a sense for their love of trying new foods, but the essay is lacking an explanation that relates to astrophysics. 

Obviously, in an essay about gastrophysics, astrophysics would be out of place. But given this student’s level of creativity, they could have found a punny way to tie their interest in space into the essay. It doesn’t need to be too extensive, but since this effectively serves as UChicago’s “Why This Major?” essay, a strong essay should include more background on why the student wants to pursue their actual major (not the fake one).

Where to Get Your UChicago Essays Edited

Do you want feedback on your UChicago essays? After rereading your essays countless times, it can be difficult to evaluate your writing objectively. That’s why we created our free Peer Essay Review tool , where you can get a free review of your essay from another student. You can also improve your own writing skills by reviewing other students’ essays. 

If you want a college admissions expert to review your essay, advisors on CollegeVine have helped students refine their writing and submit successful applications to top schools. Find the right advisor for you to improve your chances of getting into your dream school!

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Your chance of acceptance, your chancing factors, extracurriculars, umass boston political science.

Hey everyone! I'm interested in studying political science and UMass Boston is on my list of potential schools. Can anyone speak to the quality of their political science program? Are there any research or networking opportunities available for students within the program?

Hello! UMass Boston has a well-regarded political science program that offers a variety of courses and opportunities for its students. The program focuses on providing a comprehensive understanding of politics and government, both domestically and around the world.

In terms of research, the political science faculty at UMass Boston is engaged in various research projects, and there are opportunities for students to get involved as research assistants. This can help you gain valuable hands-on experience, develop critical thinking and analytical skills, and even work on publishing research papers if the opportunity arises.

Networking is also an important aspect of the program. UMass Boston hosts events, conferences, and guest lectures by distinguished scholars and practitioners, allowing you to interact with experts in the field and build connections. Additionally, with the campus being in close proximity to Boston's political and economic centers, you can take advantage of internships and work experiences at various governmental agencies, NGOs, think tanks, and other policy-related organizations.

Outside the classroom, you could join Model United Nations at UMass Boston, which provides a platform for further networking, skill-building, and international exposure.

Additionally, the program encourages study abroad experiences, which can expand your global understanding and connections in the field of political science - these are crucial skills as the politics of various countries become increasingly interconnected. Overall, UMass Boston's political science program is well-rounded and offers various opportunities for research, networking, and experiential learning to help you succeed in your academic and professional endeavors.

Good luck with your college search and future pursuits in this highly important field!

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