University of Washington Essays 2025-2026
University of Washington Supplemental Essay Prompts 2025-2026
University of Washington recently released its supplemental essay for the 2025-2026 admissions cycle. They do not accept the Common App essay. That means it is especially important to read the prompts for the essays that they do request from applicants. 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.
1. Tell a story from your life, describing an experience that either demonstrates your character or helped to shape it. (650 words)
Think twice before you copy and paste your Common App essay. Despite being the same word count, the University of Washington is looking for something more specific than what the Common App essay asks for. They are looking for a story from your life—a singular story, not the story of your life. Unless your Common App essay focuses on telling a specific single event from your life, don't copy and paste it here; write a new essay.
Given that your essay must be a single 650-word story, it needs to be written with sufficient depth. They also ask that your story demonstrates your character or helps to shape it. In other words, they want a story where you were challenged in some way. Perhaps your beliefs were challenged, you faced an emotional setback, you or someone close to you became sick, or you encountered a major academic obstacle during research.
As usual, you want your essay to have a great hook, a vivid opening scene that draws the reader in. You can either introduce the challenge immediately or establish a sense of comfort or familiarity within the narrative before introducing the challenge that completely upends it.
Be specific and detailed about how you overcame the challenge, how it affected you, and what physical and emotional hurdles you had to overcome. Show, don't tell. Help readers visualize you tackling this challenge and let them feel how your beliefs were challenged and what it felt like for you.
To conclude the essay, instead of telling the reader what you learned, something they should be able to infer on their own, show them. You can do this by concluding with a scene from your life after the challenge has taken place, where you demonstrate yourself putting into action the lessons you learned from the obstacle you overcame.
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.
