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University of Rochester’s 2023-24 Essay Prompts

Meliora short response.

The University of Rochester motto of Meliora – or “ever better” - deeply integrates critical core values into all that we do. These core values of equity, leadership, integrity, openness, respect and accountability define not only who we are, but also who we hope to become. Please use the space below to highlight a time, creative idea or research experience when you put into action one or more of these characteristics in order to make yourself, your community or the world ever better.

Select-A-Prompt Short Response

Please select one of the following prompts to respond to in 200 words or less.

American social reformer, abolitionist, writer and statesman Frederick Douglass said, “Some know the value of education by having it. I knew its value by not having it.” Explain ways in which your background, educational experience, and opportunities have directly influenced you and your ability to do good in the world. What specific moments of growth, lessons learned and resilience in your life have prepared you to promote positive change for your community and the world?

Dr. Donna Strickland, University of Rochester alum and 2018 Nobel Prize winner in Physics said, “There’s no point in me being anything other than me.” The University of Rochester encourages each student to embrace the intersectionality of their identity and create their own individual curricular path and experience. What qualities and experiences make you the best version of yourself? What unique elements of your background, perspectives, and experiences will you bring to our community?

Susan B. Anthony, champion of abolition and women’s rights, once said “Organize, agitate, educate must be our war cry.” As you look to join our community of doers and disruptors, in what ways do you envision using both the curricular flexibility and co-curricular opportunities to invoke change for marginalized groups? How has your unique lived experience shaped you and prepared you to be a changemaker here?

The University of Rochester benefactor, entrepreneur, photography pioneer and philanthropist George Eastman said, “What we do during our working hours determines what we have; what we do in our leisure hours determines what we are.” How have the ways you‘ve spent your time enabled you to grow as a person? What challenges have helped define you and your role within your many communities?

Common App Personal Essay

The essay demonstrates your ability to write clearly and concisely on a selected topic and helps you distinguish yourself in your own voice. What do you want the readers of your application to know about you apart from courses, grades, and test scores? Choose the option that best helps you answer that question and write an essay of no more than 650 words, using the prompt to inspire and structure your response. Remember: 650 words is your limit, not your goal. Use the full range if you need it, but don‘t feel obligated to do so.

Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.

The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?

Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome?

Reflect on something that someone has done for you that has made you happy or thankful in a surprising way. How has this gratitude affected or motivated you?

Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.

Describe a topic, idea, or concept you find so engaging that it makes you lose all track of time. Why does it captivate you? What or who do you turn to when you want to learn more?

Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you‘ve already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your own design.

What will first-time readers think of your college essay?

University of Rochester 2024-25 Supplemental Essay Prompt Guide

Early Decision: Nov 1

Regular Decision Deadline: Jan 5

University of Rochester 2024-25 Application Essay Question Explanations

The Requirements: 1 Essay of 250 words

Supplemental Essay Type(s): Community

The University of Rochester benefactor, entrepreneur, photography pioneer and philanthropist George Eastman said, “The progress of the world depends almost entirely upon education.” In what ways do you envision using the curricular flexibility and co-curricular opportunities at the University of Rochester to promote progress and change within the communities you inhabit? (250 word limit)

The University of Rochester wants to know two things here: 1) how you will take advantage of the resources and academic flexibility they offer and 2) how you will use that to improve your communities. Your “community” can be just about anything, from your neighborhood to your gender identity to rugby fans worldwide. Think about what kind of advancements you’d like to see in the world and how those relate to one of your communities. Then spend some time on University of Rochester’s website to understand how you might use their courses, research opportunities, student clubs, or other unique offerings to start making those changes. Maybe you’ll major in Politics and pair a Language and Cognition cluster with a Russian Literature and Culture cluster to prepare for a future career as a diplomat to your grandmother’s native country. Perhaps with a double major in International Theater and Black Studies, you will study abroad through the Theatre in England program, gaining insight into how different cultures express cultural clashes on stage with the aim to found your own theater promoting Black creatives. Show admissions that you have an idea of how your time at U of R will help you promote progress in your communities. 

Note that while you have the option to write an essay for this question, you may send in a work of art or an abstract describing your related research instead. This is a great option for students who express themselves more authentically through outlets other than writing. However, if you choose one of these options, you’ll still have to send in a short explanation of how your response relates to creating positive change within your community. 

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How to Apply

Be a yellowjacket.

We invite you—the curious, the capable, and the engaged—to apply to our diverse and talented community of changemakers and innovators.

Our promise to you is a holistic, integrated review of your unique academic ability, extracurricular engagement, and ethical character. We strive to admit students who’ll work to make each other, the University, and the world ever better.

As one of the world’s leading research universities, Rochester’s mission is to help our students and scholars learn, discover, heal, create, and make the world ever better . Embedded in that ideal are the values we share: equity, leadership, integrity, openness, respect, and accountability.

As a charter member of the Character Collaborative , we evaluate applicants within the unique context of their environment and their opportunities inside and outside of school. Highly trained admission professionals assess their academic achievement, extracurricular engagement, and ethical character, in order to admit a diverse group of students who will work to make each other, the University, and the world ever better in alignment with Rochester’s mission and values.

Our holistic review process for undergraduate applicants includes, but intentionally goes beyond, numerical representations of academic performance, though we certainly expect strong performance in challenging academic coursework. We hope to understand much more about each applicant than simply their grades and standardized test scores. The students for whom Rochester is the best fit are driven by their intellectual curiosity and seek out opportunities for growth.

Our admission criteria connect directly to our students’ undergraduate experiences and outcomes through the College Competencies , Rochester’s framework for students to tell their story and serve as leaders in our shared future. They were created to ensure Rochester students are prepared with the skills employers and society seek in 21st Century college graduates.

We value the individuality of our students and the ways they have already, or intend to customize their educational experiences to explore broadly AND dig deeply into specific academic areas. As students prepare to apply or interview for admission, we encourage them to consider the following:

• What are you interested in?
• What makes you interesting?
• What are your values?
• How have you improved yourself and your community?
• How will you make the world better?

The Office of Admissions collects both legal and preferred name. Please note that the default name for all communication from the Office of Admissions is preferred name, which includes email, print letters, communication to parents/caregivers, and the MyROC student admissions portal. Should students be admitted and choose to enroll at the University of Rochester, the preferred name will be used on class rosters and many internal resources, while all legal documents (including transcripts and financial aid documents) will use legal name only.

This must be completed as part of the application process. 

The University of Rochester benefactor, entrepreneur, photography pioneer and philanthropist George Eastman said, “The progress of the world depends almost entirely upon education.” In what ways do you envision using the curricular flexibility and co-curricular opportunities at the University of Rochester to promote progress and change within the communities you inhabit? (250 word limit)

First-year applicants

Apply online for early or regular decision using either the Common Application or Coalition for College Application.

Transfer applicants

We accept transfer students for both the fall and spring semesters, with applications reviewed on a rolling basis.

International applicants

Not a US citizen or permanent resident? Apply as an international student, which may mean some additional steps.

Check your application status

Once you have submitted your application, use MyROC, our online undergraduate admissions portal, to monitor your application status, upload materials, see admissions decisions, get merit scholarship notifications, and more.

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Personal Statement and Essays

Professional school applications require a significant amount of writing. All parts of your application should be well polished, from short answers to specific questions, to long research statements. The personal statement, common to almost all applications, is an especially important piece of writing. It is usually an open-ended opportunity for the applicant to discusses why (s)he is interested in his/her chosen profession and what qualifications (s)he has. The length of the essay is restricted.

Some thoughts about personal statements:

It should demonstrate you are a thoughtful, careful, and well-prepared candidate.

It should contain no grammatical (or other) errors, it should be well organized, it should make good use of the space allotted, and it should be tailored for its intended audience.

Assume your audience is a practicing member of the profession you are seeking to join.

Readers of your essay will have access to the rest of your application, so your essay should do new work for you. You may consider including important and relevant information not included elsewhere in your application, or expanding on the significance of one or two qualifications or experiences treated only briefly elsewhere in your application.

A narrative summary of information available in the rest of your essay will rarely add anything to your application.

If there is a specific prompt, be sure you answer the question(s) in that prompt.

Prize clarity and honesty above rhetorical flourishes. Readers view your personal statement as the best chance to get to know the real you (prior to the interview). So write about what is important to you. Standing out for your writing style is less important than demonstrating you are a good fit for the program you are applying to.

Find the right balance of generalization and concrete detail. Reason from evidence. When summarizing your motivation for applying, draw on specific experiences that crystallized those motivations for you. Conversely, when describing an important experience that demonstrates your qualifications, take time to reflect on the significance of that experience.

Make it personal, and specific to you. Your audience has likely read any book you could quote and encountered hundreds of creative and canned “Best Essays.” What they don’t know and want to know is who you are, what you want to do, why you want to do it, and why you think you are qualified to get it done.

What are your chances of acceptance?

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How to Write the University of Rochester Application Essay 2017-2018

The University of Rochester is a private research university located in upstate New York. While situated only a few miles from the shores of Lake Ontario and minutes away from downtown Rochester, the university is surrounded by a quaint, residential neighborhood. Founded in 1850, Rochester has since become famous for the Institute of Optics, the first place in the world to offer a degree in optics, as well as the Eastman School of Music.

Rochester is home to a wide range of majors — from materials science and clinical psychology to financial economics and biotechnology, there should be no surprise that 16,503 applications were submitted for admission to the Class of 2020. Slightly fewer than 6,000 students were accepted, leading to an acceptance rate of 35%. Of the 1,338 members of the class, one-third were accepted early decision.

When applying to the University of Rochester, you’ll not only want to have a high-school GPA above the average of 3.8 and ACT or SAT scores above the 90th percentile, but also a stellar application essay. All applicants, whether they apply through the Rochester application portal, the Common Application, the Universal College Application, or the Coalition Application, will need to answer a prompt in 250 words or less. Below, you’ll find the text of the prompt as well as numerous strategies and tips to help you write the perfect supplement!

Want to learn what University of Rochester will actually cost you based on your income? And how long your application to the school should take? Here’s what every student considering University of Rochester needs to know.

University of Rochester Essay Prompt

As frederick douglass once said….

Fugitive slave, abolitionist, entrepreneur, feminist, intellectual, and Rochester luminary Frederick Douglass said, ‘Man’s greatness consists in his ability to do and the proper application of his powers to things needed to be done.’

You’re showing us your ‘ability to do’ in this application. Please describe also how you apply your ‘powers to things needed to be done.’ Explain why you want to join our Rochester community of independent thinkers who create positive change and make the world ‘ever better.’

The toughest part of this essay is undoubtedly the word limit — this prompt is not only asking you to explain “Why Rochester?” but also how you use your talents to improve your community and the world around you. With only 250 words, you need to pay special attention to detail to how you organize your response.

In order to craft a cohesive essay, you’ll need to weave a common thread between the two parts of the prompt. In other words, as you are describing how you make the world a better place, you need to link your action back to why you’d like to attend the University of Rochester.

Choose a Relevant Topic

To answer this prompt effectively, you first will need to decide what you’ll be writing about — of the many activities and community service projects you’ve done throughout the years, which one best exemplifies your passion for improving society? Pick something that is easy to understand (and therefore doesn’t require a lot of explanation), but also something that’s powerful.

Alternatively, a great subject for your response can come from unexpected activities as well. For example, while being the drum major in your high school marching band doesn’t immediately seem like a way to improve society, you could explain how you improved your band community by instilling confidence in less-experienced players to discover their motivation for music.

If you’ve done any sort of activism (like participating in a political campaign, or lobbying for a cause you believe in) or community service (such as a soup kitchen or pro bono tutoring), you could try to focus in on that. Choose one of your unique talents and explain how that “ability to do” allowed you to thrive in your selected activity.

For example, maybe you’re a natural leader, and got a group of friends together to protest the anti-environment policies of a local politician. Or perhaps you’re an avid computer programmer and designed an app to help people quit smoking.

Maybe you should consider an entrepreneurial approach: If you realized a previously unmet need of a group of people, and addressed it (like opening and running a school store in your high school to provide low-cost supplies to students), you can certainly utilize it in the essay. As long as you show how your ability/talent helps you to improve the world, you’re sure to impress the reader.

Relate Specific Examples to Rochester

At the same time, you also need to tie your activism back to the University of Rochester. Check out the university website, and find a program , research opportunity , club , or course that is aligned with what you’ve already been doing to change the world. Explain how you’d take advantage of the resources available at Rochester to continue your quest to improve not only your home community, but the university’s community as well.

For instance, if you were very involved with a science research program back in high school, and were developing a device to easily desalinate water for third-world nations, you could explain how excited you are to conduct further research in the department of chemical engineering at the Hajim School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

If you were volunteering for a local campaign during high school, you could write about how you found the syllabus for PSC 237: U.S. Policymaking Process particularly exciting. The more you look into the opportunities available at Rochester, the stronger your essay will be!

Or, Align Your Personality with Rochester’s Student Body

Alternatively, another great tactic to use in constructing your essay is to try to connect your own personality to that of the Rochester student body. You want the reader to feel like you belong at Rochester, and that your unique personality would be an asset to the university community.

Explain how your upstart, persistent, and hardworking mentality would fit in with what you’ve learned about Rochester through the application process. Don’t worry as much about specifics to the school if using this tactic — the goal is to make the admissions committee believe that you belong, and descriptive, powerful language can certainly accomplish it!

The Bottom Line

Hopefully our analysis of the supplemental essay prompt has helped you to fine-tune your plans for your University of Rochester application!

Best of luck with your application, and GO YELLOWJACKETS!

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How to Write the University of Rochester Supplemental Essay 2024–2025

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The University of Rochester , founded in 1850, is located in the artsy tech hub known as the “ Flower City .” The University of Rochester’s accomplished alumni include actor Lance Reddick, novelist Shirley Jackson, and Nobel Prize-winning economist Richard Thaler. In addition, the University of Rochester produces many physicists, politicians, engineers, musicians, and artists. If you’re hoping to follow in their footsteps, you’ll need to nail your University of Rochester supplemental essay first. This post will break down the prompt’s complexities and give you the tools you need to succeed.

University of Rochester’s 2024-2025 Prompt

The university of rochester benefactor, entrepreneur, photography pioneer and philanthropist george eastman said, “the progress of the world depends almost entirely upon education.” in what ways do you envision using the curricular flexibility and co-curricular opportunities at the university of rochester to promote progress and change within the communities you inhabit (250 words or fewer), we’ll review your essay.

Receive edits in as little as 24 hours

Contextualizing the Prompt

This prompt begins with some crucial historical context. In brief, this context may shed light on the ambitious vision the University of Rochester holds for their applicants.

The first part of this prompt provides a brief biography of George Eastman. Eastman was the founder of Kodak, the successful photography company. Why is the prompt written in this way, and how are you as the writer expected to respond to it? There are a few nuances here. First, Eastman’s donations have had a significant impact on the University of Rochester community. These contributions have strengthened the University of Rochester’s offerings in music and medicine, among other areas.

In addition, Eastman’s contributions to the film and photography industries through his work have impacted the city of Rochester. The Rochester Film Festival , as well as The Institute of Optics at the University of Rochester, are world-renowned for their scientific and artistic contributions.

When the University of Rochester’s admissions team poses this question, they attempt to see you as an applicant within the broader context of the University of Rochester’s mission and societal contributions. The admissions officers are not just hoping to fill a class of well-rounded, intellectually engaged students. In short, they are seeking future change-makers. In other words, it’s your job to help the reader see how you fit into Eastman’s legacy.

University of Rochester Short Essay Question

This is the only University of Rochester supplemental essay prompt, so you’ll need to make it count if you choose to write it. That said, you may also provide a creative response or a research response to this prompt, if that is preferable to you. Here’s we’ll focus on how to approach the essay response. Let’s dive in.

This prompt may seem confusing on its surface, opening with a quote and ending with the expectation that you will promote “progress and change” in your community. Ultimately, though, this is a “Why University of Rochester?” essay. Let’s break it down.

As shown above, the first part of the prompt is important historical context. That said, the second part of the prompt is the actual question you’ll need to answer. In it, you are asked to envision the ways you will maximize the opportunities available at the University of Rochester. Ideally, you will not just mention which opportunities you wish to seize. Moreover, you will need to describe how you’ll seize these opportunities and why it’s important that you have access to these opportunities. The prompt implies that the “why” is because you will enact positive societal change. In your essay, though, you’ll need to get more specific than that.

Specificity is key to nailing this essay. In 250 words, you can compose a few paragraphs (approximately one double-spaced page). That said, it’s not a lot of room to tackle all of the different questions embedded in this prompt. You can start with an outline. Research the specific opportunities you intend to pursue at the University of Rochester. Then, write down a few reasons why these opportunities excite you. Next, brainstorm a short list of goals these opportunities will help you reach. Lastly, write down a few positive impacts that these goals will have on the communities you inhabit.

In addition, remember to think broadly as you brainstorm ideas, write up your outline, and compose your first draft. The “communities you inhabit” could be as specific as your immediate family. Or, they could be as broad as the climate you live in. Similarly, the opportunities you hope to seize at the University of Rochester could be as small as taking a particular course. Alternatively, they could be as great as your imagination stretches. That said, whatever opportunities you choose to describe, be sure to express how these opportunities are specific to the University of Rochester.

If you need help polishing up your University of Rochester supplemental essays, check out our College Essay Review service. You can receive detailed feedback from Ivy League consultants in as little as 24 hours.

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