“Why Attend Our College” Essays

Why College essays are one of the more popular types of essay prompts you’ll encounter. Here’s an example from the University of Chicago:

How does the University of Chicago, as you know it now, satisfy your desire for a particular kind of learning, community, and future? Please address with some specificity your own wishes and how they relate to UChicago.

Why do colleges care about our reasons for applying?

The main reason is that they want to see whether, and to what extent, we’re a good fit for the school. This is very important to them. They want to see that their offerings, both academic and extracurricular, as well as their values, align with our own. It’s our job as writers and applicants to convince them of this. 

Let’s start with some things you don’t want to do in a Why College essay:

Certain things are off limits like rankings, weather, and location, as these are superficial things that don’t really get at what’s special about the school and why we’re a good fit for it. 

Be careful not to copy and paste from other Why College essays you’ve written. Even if, for two schools, your primary reasons for applying are research and community engagement opportunities, each essay should talk about the specific research and community opportunities at each school. 

Don’t get the facts wrong. If you claim something about the existence of a certain research center or something about the mascot, make sure you’re not making any mistakes. 

Don’t focus too much on feelings, as this doesn’t help highlight why you’re a good match for the school. 

Here’s what you should do in a Why College essay

The first step should be researching the school as much as you can from as many different angles as you can (books, websites, student reviews, etc.). Research everything from academic offerings (classes, majors, professors, research opportunities) to values to extracurricular offerings. 

Once you have a list in front of you of all things you love about the school, figure out how best to structure your essay. For example, if the main things you love about a school are its artificial intelligence research opportunities, the variety of student-led news outlets, and the core curriculum, you can easily structure your essay around these three things, with each getting its own meaty paragraph where you go into more depth. 

Speaking of depth, make sure that, for each thing you mention, you elaborate on why it appeals to you, how it fits within your goals, and/or what you’d hope to take away from it. For example, don’t just state that you’re excited to take that unique class about the poetry of the rapper Tupac; tell us exactly why. 

By the end of the essay you want your reader to be thinking two things:

1. “Wow, this person has clearly done their homework. They know a ton about our school.” 
2. “They seem like an excellent fit. They’re interested in X, Y, and Z and they’ve spelled out exactly how they’d pursue these things at our campus.”