Northwestern Essays 2025-2026
Northwestern University Supplemental Essay Prompts: 2025-2026
Northwestern recently released their 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 essays that get you admitted there.
We want to be sure we’re considering your application in the context of your personal experiences: What aspects of your background (your identity, your school setting, your community, your household, etc.) have most shaped how you see yourself engaging in Northwestern’s community, be it academically, extracurricularly, culturally, politically, socially, or otherwise? (300 words)
The key to this essay is to vividly demonstrate, in first person, both your background and how it will lead to your contributions to Northwestern. Begin by painting a picture of how the most important aspects of your background, whether from your school or household, have influenced your identity. Provide a strong thesis regarding your values and interests and how they stem from your identity. From there, show in vivid, first-person detail how you will contribute to Northwestern. Allow them to visualize you in specific settings: conducting research, helping a student who is having a difficult day, participating in campus traditions, mediating disputes, and more. It is okay to focus one just one of the mentioned paths to engagement listed in the prompt. But I recommend picking two.
Be specific about the spaces you reference in your essay. Make it clear to the reader that you've done your homework by citing professors, clubs, campus research centers, traditions, or student spaces. Ideally, establish a strong personal connection between your identity and how you intend to participate in the opportunities available at Northwestern.
Conclude by explaining what you hope will be the tangible outcome of your participation in Northwestern's opportunities, emphasizing how your identity will enable you to meaningfully engage in these experiences.
For the remaining Northwestern essays, you need to select 1-2 of the following prompts to respond to. We strongly recommend that you choose exactly 2 of these prompts for your Northwestern application, no matter who you are.
The word limit for these essays is 200 words.
2. Painting “The Rock” is a tradition at Northwestern that invites all forms of expression—students promote campus events or extracurricular groups, support social or activist causes, show their Wildcat spirit (what we call “Purple Pride”), celebrate their culture, and more. What would you paint on The Rock, and why?
For this essay, I'd recommend structuring the entire piece as a scene of you painting at the rock. Throughout the narrative, you will show the reader the artistic choices you are making, allowing them to see your vision come to life. Interspersed within this narrative will be snippets of your lived experiences that explain to the reader why you have a personal connection to the artistic choices you are making and what they represent. I would conclude by discussing why seeing a visual representation of your painting's overall message would be so meaningful.
3. Northwestern fosters a distinctively interdisciplinary culture. We believe discovery and innovation thrive at the intersection of diverse ideas, perspectives, and academic interests. Within this setting, if you could dream up an undergraduate class, research project, or creative effort (a start-up, a design prototype, a performance, etc.), what would it be? Who might be some ideal classmates or collaborators?
For this essay, I recommend that you start by showing the reader the negative consequences of a real-world problem or discussing the implications that a current gap in theory presents. Next, I would explain how this class or project will be key to solving this problem, followed by a strong personal reason why this issue matters so much to you. I would then cite professors and clubs at Northwestern where collaborators and classmates interested in this project would most likely be found. Finally, I would conclude by discussing the tangible outcomes I hope this research or class would accomplish.
4. Community and belonging matter at Northwestern. Tell us about one or more communities, networks, or student groups you see yourself connecting with on campus.
Ideally, you should spend this essay primarily showing the reader how you hope to engage with communities on campus. This means writing in first-person perspective so the reader can visualize you as a student at Northwestern. Make sure to clearly demonstrate how you will contribute to these communities and how engaging with them will benefit you as well. This can mean coming up with hypothetical scenarios of you engaging with a club at Northwestern. It's perfectly fine to weave in some of your lived experiences to provide strong personal motivation for joining these campus organizations. Remember to be specific, mention club leaders by name and reference the actual names of the groups themselves.
5. Northwestern’s location is special: on the shore of Lake Michigan, steps from downtown Evanston, just a few miles from Chicago. What aspects of our location are most compelling to you, and why?
For this essay, you should focus on the importance of internship opportunities. Being close to Chicago, there are innumerable opportunities to take advantage of for gaining real-world experience. In this essay, you should research internships and companies in Chicago where you would like to intern, and explain how interning there will better prepare you for your career and help you advance your education. I would include personal reasons for pursuing some of the specific internship opportunities in Chicago that you cite in this essay. If you can write this essay from a first-person perspective, showing the reader and enabling them to visualize you taking advantage of the career and academic resources that the city of Chicago offers, that would be excellent. I would conclude this essay by discussing how, by taking advantage of the opportunities in Chicago, you will either contribute to the city in some way, or how you envision yourself growing as a person by being in such a vibrant and resource-rich city like Chicago.
6. Northwestern is a place where people with diverse backgrounds from all over the world can study, live, and talk with one another. This range of experiences and viewpoints immeasurably enriches learning. How might your individual background contribute to this diversity of perspectives in Northwestern’s classrooms and around our campus?
This is a perspective-based essay. This means it is vital that you put forward a well-thought-out, salient perspective on something that demonstrates you will add to the intellectual vibrancy of their incoming class. If you choose this prompt, there are two main ways you can start the essay. The first is a very punchy and bold way of describing your perspective; the second is a vivid personal anecdote that both establishes a personal connection to the perspective you'd like to share in this essay and can be used to argue and support it. From there, you either want to start arguing for your perspective with powerful descriptions of your lived experiences or start discussing how it will inform how you interact socially with members of Northwestern’s community. Finally, I would conclude with a discussion of how this perspective and your experiences will shape your goals and aspirations at Northwestern.
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