Emory Essays 2025-2026

Emory University recently released its supplemental essays for the 2025-2026 admissions cycle. In this article, we will explain exactly what they are looking for in responses from applicants, so you can write an essay that will get you admitted there.

1. What academic areas are you interested in exploring at Emory University and why? (200 words).

For a school as competitive as Emory, it is vital that you choose majors that align most closely with your applicant profile. Contrary to what admissions officers say, elite colleges don't favor undecided students or those who want to start over. Students who have pursued one focused interest throughout high school, going all in through research, competitions, and tackling real-world problems that intersect with that interest, and who state their intention to continue this path in their application will always be favored over students who are undecided or want to begin anew in college.

Thus, it is critical that you examine all of your extracurriculars and classes and put yourself in the shoes of an admissions officer who doesn't know you, who will never truly know you, and who will spend at most eight minutes reviewing your application. Ask yourself: given what they will see, what would they think is my favorite subject, or the real-world problems I'm most passionate about solving? Then choose majors that best align with their likely assessment. Once you enter Emory, you can always change your major, but to get admitted, even if you are genuinely undecided, it is vital that you curate the extracurriculars you report and align them with fields of study the university offers.

With that out of the way, once you select the appropriate academic areas, you should begin this essay with a vivid personal anecdote that establishes a strong personal connection to these fields of study. Perhaps it could be how a real-world problem intersected with your life, exposure to some natural phenomenon that sparked your curiosity about the world, or an event that simply left you with lingering questions. From there, explain how your chosen fields of study would enable you to satisfy this deep-seated need to dive deeper into the experience you use as your hook and personal motivation. Feel free to be technical to demonstrate that you understand what these fields of study entail.

Following this, explain how the resources at Emory will enable you to pursue these fields of study or tackle a real-world problem. In doing so, mention specific professors and research centers by name. Finally, paint a picture of how you'll positively impact the world using your Emory education.

2. In addition, answer one of the following questions. (150 Words)

Emory University has a strong commitment to building community. Tell us about a community that you have been part of where your personal participation helped to change or shape the community for the better. (150 Words)

For this essay, begin with a strong, first-person vivid anecdote showcasing what a community meant to you. From there, express clearly what compelled you to go above and beyond in your participation in your community. You should connect what this community meant to you with your reason for exceeding expectations in your involvement. Next, tangibly show how your participation made a visible change in your community. For this essay to be successful, you want to show a striking before and after. Given the short word count, it is acceptable if the "after" is shown vividly while the "before" is discussed more briefly.

Reflect on a personal experience where you intentionally expanded your cultural awareness. (150 Words)

For this essay, I'd start with a vivid experience where you encountered something that challenged your sense of cultural norms and customs. Make it clear what aspect of your personally accepted customs was being challenged. I'd then explain how it made you feel and how this experience recontextualized your reasons for seeking out this opportunity in the first place. From there, I'd discuss how you managed to bridge the gap between what you understood as the norm and this new experience, which was the norm for someone raised in a different culture, and how it tangibly refined some notion or perspective you held. To conclude, I'd discuss how this experience shaped your future goals and aspirations.

Emory University’s unique mission calls for service to humanity. Share how you might personally contribute to this mission of service to humanity. (150 Words)

There are two approaches for this essay.

The first is to start with a vivid first-person description of an event in your life that enables you to make a strong personal connection to a problem, concept, or life goal. Then, connect this experience to taking advantage of Emory's unique opportunities to tackle something related to the subject matter of your opening hook. Be as specific as possible and allow the reader to visualize you as a student at Emory, participating in one or two endeavors there that will make a difference in the world. Conclude by showing the reader the type of impact you hope to have made on the world by the time you graduate from Emory, or how your experience at Emory will help you make a noticeable positive contribution to the world. The key is to conclude with a strong image of how you will change the world for the better in some way.

The second approach is to write a completely hypothetical scenario of how you envision using your Emory education 5 to 10 years after you graduate to make a real impact in the world. Show the reader your potential workplace, the problem you are solving, and connect the tasks you do as part of your job to solving this problem with experiences you've had at Emory. For example, if you write about giving a presentation on technical topics, you might cite how conducting research with a professor at Emory in a certain field prepared you to communicate these ideas or translate them into solutions for real-world problems. You want to both show the reader your vision for how you will change the world using your Emory education and identify which aspects of your Emory education you believe will be most impactful in helping you change the world. For this approach, write entirely in the first-person perspective.

In a scholarly community, differing ideas often collide before they converge. How do you personally navigate disagreement in a way that promotes progress and deepens meaningful dialogue? (150 Words)

There are two ways to start this essay. The first is a strong personal anecdote in the first person that establishes a connection to whatever topic you will reveal later in the essay that you disagreed about. The second is to describe how you felt when this person disagreed with you. Ideally, the person you are disagreeing with in this essay should be a fellow peer, because in college, that will be primarily who you'll be having disagreements with.

The purpose of this essay is to demonstrate to admissions officers that you are someone who will benefit from being part of an intellectually vibrant and diverse community where disagreements are bound to happen, and that when disagreements emerge, both parties, even if their minds don't change, end up becoming more educated as a result.

After your hook, either explain the nature of the disagreement, making it clear what you were disagreeing about, or provide a personal reason why this disagreement was something you couldn't just let slide. For the remainder of the essay, you want to show the disagreement in detail and explain to the reader how both parties learned something from it, especially what you learned. You want to give them a specific, tangible lesson that you gained from the experience.

To conclude, you want to explain how this experience encapsulates in general how you navigate disagreements, mainly that you always seek to truly understand the reason why you are disagreeing with someone, and try your best to make a learning opportunity out of it.

If you want your college admissions essays to be the decisive factor that gets you into your dream school, schedule a free consultation with an admissions expert today to have all of your questions answered.