Macalester College is a private university located in St. Paul, Minnesota (more on that later). It’s small, with an undergrad population of 2,220 (and a freshman class size of about 500). The acceptance rate is 25%. Most students hail from Minnesota. Here’s how we recommend you tackle the supplement:
Macalester is one of few highly selective liberal arts colleges located in the middle of a metropolitan area. Students benefit from the strong sense of community on campus and opportunities to engage in academic, social, and civic engagement options in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Have you thought about how Macalester's location might impact your experience? If so, in what ways?
This one is a toughy.
Location isn’t usually the primary driver of why an applicant chooses a school. Sure, people might choose schools in New York, New Orleans or Amsterdam for the location, but many schools are appealing in spite of their locations, often in rural areas where the campus itself is really what’s going on. In fact, we always encourage our students to demonstrate the ways in which a university’s academics are the primary driver of their interest. Alas. Macalester is different and they want you to talk about St. Paul, Minnesota.
Consider this as a “Why Macalester?” supplement. As we said above, you’ll want to draw a connection between you and Macalester vis-à-vis academics. Think of it like a Venn Diagram with the middle area being what you and Macalester have in common academically. We encourage our students to develop an academic area of expertise throughout high school. This should be specific. Like, astronomy instead of just science.
Your first paragraph should be an origin story of sorts about how you came to be enthralled with that academic area of expertise. This doesn’t need to be a big, grand tale. It should be simple. Like, you went camping on a family trip in middle school and spent the whole night outside of the tent stargazing.
Then, you’ll want to ID the program or major at Macalester that most closely corresponds to your academic niche. A note to the nervous: you’re not actually declaring a major. You can ditch astronomy and go in undecided once you get in. Talk about two high level courses you’d want to take in this discipline and the professors that teach them. Get specific. What kind of research are they conducting? Have you read their books? Next, you’ll want to talk about an extracurricular or organization that fits within your niche.
Finally, you’ll want to talk about the location. Do your research here. Find something you can talk about in detail, ideally related to your academic area. Going with the astronomy example, perhaps there’s a renowned observatory in town. You should also talk about the culture and vibe of the city.
The one thing to keep in mind when filling out any supplement is that if you’re not interested in writing a response, you probably want to reconsider applying to that school. Every school’s supplement is an indication of the vibe of that school. They want to attract students who would fit in and you probably want to attend a school where you’ll be a good fit, so use the supplement as a good gauge of culture. In this case, St. Paul is clearly integral to life at Macalester. So, if it’s not an interesting city to you, you might want to reexamine your college list.
Need help writing a college supplement? Call us. We’re experts at helping students match with their perfect schools