Princeton Essays 2025-2026
If you are applying to Princeton University for regular decision, you are in the right place. In this article, we will cut through the ambiguity and noise surrounding how to approach Princeton’s supplemental essays, enabling you to show the university how you will both benefit from its extensive offerings and enrich the academic and social experience of your peers, two of the main factors Princeton and other elite colleges consider when evaluating applicants.
1a. For A.B. Degree Applicants or Those Who Are Undecided
As a research institution that also prides itself on its liberal arts curriculum, Princeton allows students to explore areas across the humanities and the arts, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. What academic areas most pique your curiosity, and how do the programs offered at Princeton suit your particular interests? (Please respond in 250 words or fewer.)
Remember, whatever it is you intend to study, many other applicants will want to study the same thing. To truly differentiate yourself, open this essay with a personal anecdote that only you could write, one that illustrates why you are drawn to a particular general academic area or reveals why a specific academic specialization prominent at Princeton personally appeals to you.
The key to making this essay stand out is establishing a unique personal connection to either your intended major or Princeton’s academic offerings, grounded in your lived experiences. Once you’ve crafted a strong hook that demonstrates this connection, you can begin naming professors, institutes, capstone projects, and experiential learning opportunities that align with your interests. Avoid listing classes that other universities also offer. Cite the flexibility of the curricular, and how taking classes in multiple disciplines, in true liberal arts fashion, will broader your horizons concerning your favorite academic subject.
For every academic opportunity at Princeton you mention, provide a personal reason, rooted in or building upon your initial anecdote, explaining why that opportunity appeals to you specifically. Remember, many applicants will highlight the same programs, but only your personal reasoning can set you apart.
To conclude the essay, demonstrate how you will use Princeton’s academic offerings to make a positive, tangible impact on the world, and explain why creating that change would mean so much to you on a personal level.
1b. For B.S.E Degree Applicants
Please describe why you are interested in studying engineering at Princeton. Include any of your experiences in or exposure to engineering, and how you think the programs offered at the University suit your particular interests. (Please respond in 250 words or fewer.)
Everything we discussed for the 1a applies here.
2. Princeton values community and encourages students, faculty, staff and leadership to engage in respectful conversations that can expand their perspectives and challenge their ideas and beliefs. As a prospective member of this community, reflect on how your lived experiences will impact the conversations you will have in the classroom, the dining hall or other campus spaces. What lessons have you learned in life thus far? What will your classmates learn from you? In short, how has your lived experience shaped you? (Please respond in 500 words or fewer.)
Princeton titles these next two questions as “Your Voice.” This designation is intentional. The admissions committee chose that label because they genuinely want to hear your voice. They want your personality, not just your intellect or analytical mind, to shine through. Write your response to this and the next question in the same tone and cadence you would use if you were speaking with a friend, or someone you just met at Princeton, rather than addressing an admissions officer.
With that established, you can begin this essay in one of two ways. The first is with a vivid personal anecdote, an experience that has significantly shaped your perspective and the way you see the world. Elite colleges like Princeton seek students with strong, well-formed viewpoints who enjoy expressing them. This ensures that their campus remains a place where interesting conversations actively contribute to intellectual and personal growth. When describing your anecdote, use natural language, the way you would retell it to a friend.
Alternatively, you can open the essay with an imagined scene of yourself at Princeton. This setting might be a student club, a classroom, a professor’s lab, or an institute talk. If you start with a personal anecdote, make sure to explain how that experience shaped the perspective you plan to bring to Princeton, and how it will influence your contribution to a specific student space on campus. Think of this essay as the complement to your first Princeton essay: if that one is about why Princeton academics, this one is about why Princeton student life.
Be sure to name and cite specific student spaces and describe how you’ll contribute to them. For instance, you might discuss challenging Eurocentric narratives in a history class, sharing your entrepreneurial experience in a student organization, or talking about how you created your own academic opportunities because your household couldn’t afford enrichment programs. Perhaps you’ve deeply engaged with a particular author’s work and plan to share insights from those books with peers.
The key to acing this essay is showing how you’ll actively enrich your fellow students’ learning and growth in concrete, student-centric settings.
If you begin your essay with your imagined “dream day” at Princeton, continue by narrating that day in detail. After describing each student space you visit or contribute to, give a personal reason for why that space matters to you and why you want to share your particular insights there.
The prompt asks, “In short, how has your lived experience shaped you?” You should answer that by showing who you are through the actions you will describe yourself doing in this essay at Princeton.
To conclude, you can reflect on your day (or even your first semester) at Princeton. You might discuss what you personally hope to gain from sharing your insights and hearing others’ in return, or create a full-circle ending by showing how attending Princeton, and engaging in these activities, will deepen or complete the perspective your experiences have given you.
3. Princeton has a longstanding commitment to understanding our responsibility to society through service and civic engagement. How does your own story intersect with these ideals? (Please respond in 250 words or fewer.)
Like the previous essay, you should use the same language and cadence you’d use when speaking to a friend or someone you just met at Princeton. Even if you’ve never done anything formally related to civic engagement, you can still write an excellent essay. We’ve all been affected by laws or policies in some way. It could be the long traffic jams in your hometown caused by zoning decisions made years ago, political rhetoric in D.C. that personally impacts you or someone you know, or changes in school funding that shaped your opportunities.
Once you identify a personal way in which your life has been influenced by civics, connect that experience to how you’ve served others, even in ways not directly tied to civic engagement, or how that experience will shape the ways you hope to engage in Princeton’s many civic opportunities.
Also, remember that service doesn’t have to mean organizing a large community initiative; it can be as simple as taking responsibility in your household or being a supportive friend to someone going through a difficult time.
To conclude your essay, describe what you’ve gained from acts of service or civic engagement, or how you hope to make an impact through them, in light of how your story connects to these ideals.
4.
Please respond to each question in 50 words or fewer. There are no right or wrong answers. Be yourself!
What is a new skill you would like to learn in college?
What brings you joy?
What song represents the soundtrack of your life at this moment?
Whatever you do, don’t overthink these. As long as you avoid saying anything that could be a red flag, all that really matters is that your unique voice shines through. Red flags to look out for are expressing political or moral hot takes, negativity toward others, deriving joy from anything mean spirited, such as pranks, and songs with NSFW lyrics or by controversial artists.
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.
