Amherst is a private liberal arts school in Massachusetts. The school, which is about two hours from Boston, consistently ranks highly on the list of top liberal arts schools. Amherst is competitive when it comes to admissions and has about an 8% acceptance rate.
Amherst asks students to select one of 3 essay options for their supplement. That being said, Option C is only for Amherst's Access to Amherst (A2A) program, so for most students, the choice will be between A and B. We don’t recommend you choose B.
Option B is to “submit a graded paper from your junior or senior year.” Don’t do this option. Their acceptance rate is low and you want to put your best foot forward. This means writing a supplement. Choosing Option B is giving up an opportunity to show how you are interesting and creative. So with B and C out of the way, let’s talk about Option A.
Option A has multiple prompts. You only can write about one. It can be confusing so make sure you read the supplement carefully as you select the prompt you would like to respond to. Each prompt asks the writer to respond to a quote. They start by explaining what they are looking for all of the prompts:
Option A: Please respond to one of the following quotations in an essay of not more than 300 words. It is not necessary to research, read, or refer to the texts from which these quotations are taken; we are looking for original, personal responses to these short excerpts. Remember that your essay should be personal in nature and not simply an argumentative essay.
The last line is really important. This isn’t an argumentative essay. Your response to any of these prompts should be a story. It should have a beginning, middle, and end and show a little bit about how you think about the world. This is not the place to try to sound smart or aloof or precocious. It is about bringing the reader into your world. We like all of the prompts in option A this year, but some might not be the right fit for all students. Let’s break down the prompts.
Prompt 1: "Rigorous reasoning is crucial in mathematics, and insight plays an important secondary role these days. In the natural sciences, I would say that the order of these two virtues is reversed. Rigor is, of course, very important. But the most important value is insight—insight into the workings of the world. It may be because there is another guarantor of correctness in the sciences, namely, the empirical evidence from observation and experiments." -Kannan Jagannathan, Professor of Physics, Amherst College
This is a long quote and there is so much there. You could take this in a lot of different directions, but we would suggest telling a story about the time your intuition about something was correct even though empirical evidence/qualitative facts/etc weren’t on your side.
These stories do not have to be scientific. It’s honestly probably easier to write if it isn’t. You could write about how when you cook, you never follow a recipe when it comes to your spices. You could talk about helping a stray dog because somehow you knew “he wasn’t going to bite.” Most people use their intuition all of the time. Do some brainstorming of when it worked for you. Remember that whatever you choose to write about should feel like a story.
Prompt 2: "Translation is the art of bridging cultures. It's about interpreting the essence of a text, transporting its rhythms and becoming intimate with its meaning… Translation, however, doesn't only occur across languages: mentally putting any idea into words is an act of translation; so is composing a symphony, doing business in the global market, understanding the roots of terrorism. No citizen, especially today, can exist in isolation—that is, untranslated." -Ilan Stavans, Professor of Latin American and Latino Culture, Amherst College, Robert Croll '16 and Cedric Duquene '15, from "Interpreting Terras Irradient," Amherst Magazine, Spring 2015.
This is a beautiful idea and it really boils down to empathy. We think that most students should have a story that fits this prompt. Don’t worry about writing about something too small. Small moments of empathy work well for a prompt like this.
You can write about a time you explained something to someone. For example, if you showed a new student around your school and gave them information on how to succeed. Or you could write about a time where you helped someone who was feeling out of place. Maybe you welcomed someone into your already established friend group or made a friend feel comfortable at an event where they didn’t know anyone at. Whatever you chose to write about should show how you use empathy in your daily life and the type of caring person you are.
Prompt 3: "Creating an environment that allows students to build lasting friendships, including those that cut across seemingly entrenched societal and political boundaries… requires candor about the inevitable tensions, as well as about the wonderful opportunities, that diversity and inclusiveness create." -Carolyn "Biddy" Martin, President of Amherst College, Letter to Amherst College Alumni and Families, December 28, 2015.
This is a good prompt that might not be for everyone. If you don’t have a story about you doing this, it isn’t for you. As for all of these, you want to tell a story and not state a hypothetical. “This is how I would act in a situation I made up in the hypothetical” is not a good answer to this question.
You can write about a disagreement between you and someone in your world. It can be a friend’s dad, a coworker, a distant family member, etc. It is less important who it is about and more important for it to have a satisfying ending. Your story should introduce a significant disagreement and then show how you actually bridged that gap. For a story like this, you need to be able to tell exactly what happened and how it all ended. If no stories are coming to mind that can fit this structure it’s best to skip this prompt.
Prompt 4: "Difficulty need not foreshadow despair or defeat. Rather achievement can be all the more satisfying because of obstacles surmounted." -Attributed to William Hastie, Amherst Class of 1925, the first African-American to serve as a judge for the United States Court of Appeals
This question is really just a good life lesson: working really hard for something and failing a few times before succeeding can make the success sweeter. For this prompt, you need a story about a challenge that was fulfilling because of how hard it was. Don’t choose a story where you don’t succeed in the end. Success, in the end, is important for a question like this.
For example, let’s say you were involved in a mutual aid project where you needed to collect toiletries for people experiencing houselessness and at first you were trying to get donations from businesses. You try your hardest only to be rejected again and again. After the ump-teenth CVS slams the door in your face, you decide to ask for help from the community and everyone on your block starts donating. In the end, you got what you needed and you made great connections to the community. This is the type of story that works well here.
When approaching this supplement, we suggest sitting with these prompts and really thinking about stories from your life that connect to them. Telling an engaging story will really make this supplement work. It may take a little brainstorming but it will be worth it.
If you still have questions, contact us here!