Brown Supplemental Essays Guide 2026-2027
Brown University recently released its supplemental essays for the 2026-2027 admissions cycle. In this article, we will explain exactly what they are looking for in responses from applicants, so you can write essays that will get you admitted there.
Brown reshaped its supplement this year. You now write four required essays instead of six shorter pieces, and the old academic-interests Open Curriculum prompt has been replaced with one about the qualities you bring to it. Brown gives a suggested range for each essay, but aim for the top of it every time.
"There is something distinctive about Brown students. It is a blend of intellectual curiosity, creativity, and humility. A commitment to collaboration. An openness to new ideas and perspectives. A desire to make the world better. And it is resilience: the ability to recover and thrive after experiencing difficulties." —President Christina Paxson, 2025 Convocation Address. How will you use these characteristics or others to shape your approach to the Open Curriculum? (250 words)
Brown replaced its old academic-interests prompt with this one, and the shift matters. It is no longer asking what you want to study. It is asking who you are as a learner and how that will shape the way you handle the freedom of the Open Curriculum, which has almost no requirements and hands you both the freedom to design your own path and the responsibility that comes with it.
Do not try to claim every quality on Paxson's list. Pick one, or at most two, that are genuinely yours, or name a quality of your own that is not on the list, and prove it with a specific, vivid, first-person story rather than asserting it. If you choose intellectual curiosity, show a real moment when you followed a question far past where you were required to go. If you choose resilience, show a specific setback and what you did next.
Then connect that quality directly to your approach to the Open Curriculum, which is the part most applicants skip. Show concretely how the quality you demonstrated would shape the way you build your education at Brown: the unexpected pairings of courses you would take, how you would use the freedom to take a class Satisfactory or No Credit to explore something risky, how you would combine fields most schools keep separate. Name specific Brown courses, professors, or departments so the reader sees you have done real research.
Conclude by tying your approach back to the lived experience you opened with, so the way you would use the Open Curriculum reads as the natural extension of who you already are.
Students entering Brown often find that making their home on College Hill naturally invites reflection on where they came from. Share how an aspect of your growing up has inspired or challenged you, and what unique contributions this might allow you to make to the Brown community. (250 words)
For this essay, I'd start with a vivid, first-person description of an experience of yours that clearly demonstrates an aspect of your upbringing which has led you to form a specific perspective or life philosophy that will inform how you engage with other members of the Brown community. After introducing the anecdote and extrapolating the perspective it gave you, I'd explain how this perspective has either inspired you to pursue certain activities in your life or led to challenging situations, such as standing up to friends whose behavior you disagreed with. From there, I would show the reader you putting that perspective into practice by vividly writing, in first person, how you will positively interact with students at certain clubs and student spaces at Brown. Make sure to name specific clubs at Brown and real student spaces there. They want to see that you conducted thorough research on what Brown offers.
When the first Brown essay focuses on academics, this essay is about how you will socially contribute to Brown. It doesn't need to be written as a hypothetical, given that they provide ample space within it to show the reader relevant experiences in your life that shaped how you will interact with others. However, if you want to write as a hypothetical in which you demonstrate the specific ways you positively interact with members of Brown's community in social spaces by interspersing elements of your lived experience within the narrative, that approach works as well. You can write about labs and research too, with a caveat: I wouldn't include any academic or technical content here. Instead, I'd focus on showing the reader how you will socially interact with members of that lab, demonstrating that you can be someone who elevates the mood or atmosphere of a lab. Conclude with a powerful statement about either how being part of the Brown community will recontextualize any experiences you previously cited in this essay, or what you want the reader to know about the impact you will have on Brown's community.
If you could teach a class on any one thing, whether academic or otherwise, what would it be? (150 words)
Ideally, you should choose to teach a class on something related to your preferred area of study or your application's central theme. The reader wants to see what you are most passionate about and what academic or life lessons you can bring to Brown's incoming class to make it more vibrant. You can write this essay in a straightforward manner, no vivid imagery needed. The key is to articulate something that interests you deeply and that you'd love to share with others. Make sure the class you choose isn't already offered at Brown, do your homework.
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. (150 words)
The key thing with this essay is to pick something that you can do at Brown as well, something that gives you joy. As usual, you want to start with a vivid, first-person description. Begin with either showing the reader you doing this thing that brings you joy, or describing an experience of yours that facilitated your later experiencing immense joy from this activity. If you choose the former opener, explain why this means so much to you in terms of your previous experiences. If the latter, explain how this joyful activity relates to your essay's hook. From there, explain how this feeling of joy has enabled you to better participate in activities or opportunities related to your application's hook/spike or your preferred area of study. Finally, explain how much you look forward to continuing this activity at Brown, what it will mean for you to pursue this activity in a community as vibrant and open-minded as Brown. Remember, enable the reader to visualize you clearly in this essay; they really want to see that you are someone who can experience genuine joy.
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