Nowadays, top-tier schools are focusing more on supplemental essays as the college admissions landscape becomes increasingly competitive. Christopher Rim, the CEO of Command Education, confirms this, stating, “With years of expertise in college admissions consulting, I have seen firsthand the power of supplemental essays to make or break a student's application.”
This means that you should place extra vigilance on even the smallest aspect of your supplemental essay, especially the hook.
This is the first thing that admission officers see. That's why you must place extra vigilance when writing this part.
We will explore how to do this.
The Value of Hooks in Supplemental Essays
A hook is the first point of grabbing the attention of admission officers.
It can be a powerful tool to create a strong first impression that can change the perception of your entire essay. Therefore we will explore the purpose of a good hook with examples.
The Purpose of a Good Hook and Examples
Apart from the obvious benefit of giving a good first impression, there are several other uses for a good hook.
Let's explore some of them:
1. Generate interest and engagement:
A good hook should spur the admission officer to continue reading your essay. It should also ignite some level of eagerness to uncover more about what you have written.
2. Set the tone and direction:
Depending on whether your essay will be light-hearted or have a more serious tone, the hook should establish this at the beginning. This helps to direct the rest of the essay so that the admission officer is prepared for what you have to write.
3. Make a memorable first impression:
The impression you make with the hook can last throughout your essay. It can be even more effective if you lead back to the hook in the body and the conclusion, to create a unified unit for your entire essay.
Some useful examples of hooks are available on John Hopkins' list of college essays that worked. Here are a few:
- Hook for a transfer essay by Summer S.:
“Growing up in a multicultural household, stories have largely shaped my childhood.”
- Hook for a first-year application essay by Ellie L.:
“Entropy is the property that provides the basis for the second law of thermodynamics, which states that the universe naturally gravitates toward disorder.”
- Hook for an essay by Pablo D.:
“Friday night, September the 16th 2022 and I am packing for my pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, Spain.”
What Do Universities Look for in Supplemental Essays?
By understanding the requirements of a university in your
essay, you can better craft a more compelling hook. This will show admission
officers that you understand what is required right from the beginning of your
essay.
Here are a few examples of renowned universities and what they look for.
Harvard Supplemental Essays
As stated by Harvard University, they seek essays that provide insights into your character, experiences, and aspirations.
This means a strong hook for a Harvard Supplemental essay can involve a personal story. You can showcase an experience of resilience and innovation or a transformative moment.
Yale Supplemental Essays
Yale University indicates that they place an emphasis on both intellectual curiosity and your desire to contribute to the Yale community.
Therefore, your hook for a Yale University supplemental essay should reflect your passion for learning or a unique intellectual pursuit. Combine that with your commitment to foster positive contribution when you join the institution. That should give a reflection to admission officials that you understand what the university requires.
Stanford Supplemental Essays
According to Stanford University, they are looking for applicants to reflect on their personal experiences and show how such experiences shaped their personal perspectives.
To write a powerful hook for such a requirement, you can highlight a process of self-discovery and personal growth. Add in your commitment to make a meaningful impact within society. With that, you will fit in with the needs of the institution.
Duke Supplemental Essays
The key factors that Duke University considers are passion, enthusiasm, and a proactive approach to problem solving.
Therefore, your hook should allude to some sort of creativity or an innovative mindset. It should start off by reflecting your enthusiastic nature and a sense of dealing with problems in creative ways. Doing this will set you apart from other applicants.
What Can Happen if You Don't Have a Hook for Your Supplemental Essay?
The requirements for your essay may not explicitly state the need of including a hook. In fact, there is typically no explicit structure for supplemental essays.
However, the inclusion of a hook is paramount in such an essay.
Here are potential pitfalls that you could avoid simply by including a hook.
Alienating an Admissions Officer by Showing Privilege or Appearing Out of Touch With Reality
Your essay may encompass aspects that may seem out of touch with the rest of society. But once you include a hook that gives some context to what you are about to say, it can change the perception of your essay.
The hook prepares the admissions officer to consider the context of your essay in a specific perspective. If you don't prepare the reader appropriately, they might not assess the context in the right perspective.
Using Your Hook to Give Context to the Essay
The body of your essay will likely feature topics and details that provide complex aspects and deep narration. Therefore, a hook can give an overall picture of what the entire essay would be about. This will help the reader to understand what you are going to write about.
Your hook will give your essay better context than having the reader go through sentence by sentence before figuring out what you want to say.
Becoming Forgettable
If you don't have a compelling hook, your essay may become easily forgettable.
The role of a hook is to capture the interest of the reader and to put a memorable image into their minds so they never forget what you have written. You can capture the true essence of your essay within just one sentence and use that to ingrain in the reader everything you needed to say in the whole essay.
This can make someone remember your writing even after going through many other applications. That is what you want to stand out among thousands of other applicants.
How to Write Amazing Hooks for Supplemental Essays
Supplemental essays tend to be brief while capturing the true motivations that you have for applying to the university. The hook helps you capture that essence of your essay in an even shorter span of just one sentence. This means that you need some expert skill in writingan amazing hook for a supplemental essay.
Follow these steps and you can produce something amazing:
1. Understand the essay prompt
You need to understand the essay prompt intimately. Figure out not just the answer that you have to give, but why the prompt is being asked in the first place. Capturing the true reason for the prompt will help you in writing a hook that actually captivates the interest of admission officers.
2. Identify your unique angle
Your essay, and more importantly, your hook should set you apart from everyone else. Figure out what is unique about your personality, experiences, or aspirations. Once, you find out what is actually special about you, put that at the very beginning. When you have something unique to present, you can easily stand out from everyone else.
3. Consider the tone
The tone of your hook plays as much a role as the message you are presenting. You cannot present a serious message in your essay while being humorous in the hook. That’s because the tone will prepare the reader for what you have to say and it will ensure that the message is delivered effectively. Therefore, take time to think whether you need to be thought-provoking, bold, passionate, humorous…
4. Create a narrative:
An engaging story can be a powerful way to make readers love your essay. It draws in the reader's interests and makes them engaged in your narrative. It can also put the reader into your shoes to help them understand exactly what you are saying and why you are saying it. Statistics and figures may be impressive but they might not connect emotionally with the person reading your essay. That's why a story can be extremely powerful.
5. Be genuine and authentic
Despite understanding all those other factors mentioned above, you should always remember that authenticity is critical. Admission officers can detect false narratives if you are not being authentic. Your story has to make sense and has to show your true character.
If there are discrepancies in how you write and what you write, it might seem that you are not being genuine. Admission officers are not looking for someone who will lie about their experiences and their knowledge. For example, you cannot expect someone who is applying for a first degree to have the same level of competency and passion as someone going for a postgraduate degree. Your experiences will be different and how you view the world will also be very different.
Therefore, always present your true self.
Critical Components of a Good Hook for a Supplemental Essay
The starting sentence of your essay needs to blend creativity, strategic thinking, and self-awareness. Authenticity is also a crucial component.
How you merge these concepts together and create a powerful opening statement is a challenge.
Fortunately, there are many ways to solve this challenge.
Command Education provides some useful insights that you can adopt in order to provide a holistic hook. Here are a few things to keep in mind:
1. Intellectual curiosity:
Your opening statements should portray your curiosity in the chosen field of study. Your passion for learning and intellectual exploration should be clearly evident.
2. Drive to improve your community:
You need to show that you are keen to contribute to the community of the institution that you desire. You don't necessarily have to state that, but you can indicate that through the narration and your experiences.
3. Determination and resilience:
Life is always full of challenges and academic pursuits are even more challenging. Institutions are looking for resilient students who will overcome obstacles to pursue their chosen field of study.
4. School fit:
Your opening statement should show that you understand the school's culture, values and programs. You should not portray anything that would be contrary to that. And make sure that your motivations, your character and your experiences will match perfectly with the school you have in mind. Don't mention things that will be contradictory to this motivation.
Using Hooks in the Common Supplemental College Essay Prompts
Looking through many prompts for supplemental college essays, you will typically find a range of questions that are often asked by many institutions.
Of course, quite a number of prompts are unique for each institution. For example, UChicago's famous extended essay prompts that delve into unconventional territories, asking about your favorite snacks, inspirational figures, and other esoteric topics. Even so, if you have a grasp of the most common questions, you will be better placed to answer these prompts and it will put you at a better place to create the perfect opening statement.
Here are the common questions you will find in supplemental essay prompts.
The “Experiences” Question
This is the most prevalent supplemental essay prompt. You will find it in schools like Princeton, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and Tolan. They typically ask students to explain how their experiences uniquely prepared them for college life.
A good hook for this prompt can highlight a particular experience that changed your previous understanding and perspective in life to direct the journey that you are taking in academic life.
The “Why This School” Question
The “Why this school?”question is a staple for many college applications. You will find it in such colleges as the Universityof Chicago, Yale University, Tufts and many more.
There is no guesswork in creating an opening statement for this prompt. You have to understand the institution, its values, its programs and culture. That means intensive research on all those aspects.
The “Diverse Perspectives” Essay
Many schools are seeking students who will contribute positively to the institution's diversity. You will likely find this in such prestigious schools as Emory and Duke.
An opening statement for this prompt will show that you have a rich background that is inclusive with all types of cultures. Your openness to new experiences will be a good thing to include.
The “Challenges Overcome” Essay
You will find this prompt in institutions like Columbia. Here, students are required to show how they overcame obstacles either academic or in other areas of life.
When writing about overcoming challenges, you can highlight what you learned or the new perspectives that you developed after going through those experiences.
The “Unique Interest” Question
You'll find this question in schools like Brown University and UNC.
Here, you should show your passion beyond the classroom. A vivid explanation of such interest will show the authenticity of your passion. Don't make it generic since that will appear to be untrue.
Conclusion
As you can see, hooks are a necessary part of supplemental essays.
It may seem as a simple opening statement, but it plays a pivotal role in changing how your essay is perceived and even creating better outcomes for your university application.
But keep in mind that the true value of your hook comes in a truly captivating body. You need to have something to say so that your opening statement leads in to that message. If the body of your essay is not valuable enough, you may need to rewrite it in order for your hook to be effective.
Frequently Asked Questions
To help you further understand issues regarding supplemental essays and hooks, here are a few questions that you may still have.
Do supplemental essays change every year?
Supplemental essay prompts generally change every year and they tend to be different from one school to the other. However, some institutions may retain consistent prompts every year. Therefore, you should check with your specific target institution to find out what they do.
Which colleges require supplemental essays and which ones don't?
Many colleges have a specific set of supplemental essays. According to Kristin Moon, a Forbes contributor, only 80 out of 800 plus colleges in the Common App do not have supplemental essays for the 2023-24 admission cycle.
The colleges include but are not limited to:
· University of Toledo
· Whitman College
· Temple University
· Skidmore College
· University of South Florida
· Dillard University
· Augusta University
· Mercer University
· Hampshire College
· University of Colorado-Denver
· Northeastern University
· Florida Gulf Coast University
· New Jersey Institute of Technology
· Allegheny College
· University of Connecticut
· Oberlin College
· St. Lawrence University
· University of Cincinnati
· University of Albany
· University of Arkansas
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