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Regular Decision Deadline: Jan 3
You Have:
The Requirements: 9 short essays ranging from 100 to 250 words each
Supplemental Essay Type(s): Community, Activity, Oddball, Why, Short Answer
Caltech’s supplement is chock full of short-answer questions. As you wade through questions about your academic interests, projects, and passions, remember that Caltech seeks students who aren’t afraid to dive into the deep end of the pool: “Failure […] isn’t anything to fear. Our question is: How will you handle that?” Spend some time brainstorming about all your interests and experiences, whether successful or not, and you’ll get through this supplement swimmingly. Read on for more detailed advice on your Caltech supplemental essays!
There’s only one trick to selecting a major or generating a straightforward list of your academic interests: be honest. If you already know what you want to major in or have it narrowed down to two choices, you’re set! Don’t waste time trying to strategize because choosing anything other than your true interests would be a misrepresentation of who you are and a disservice to yourself and the admissions office. This assignment will, no doubt, be most challenging for the undecideds, but ask yourself: how can I use this opportunity to reveal something about what excites me intellectually or academically?
You’ve only got 200 words, but if you chose wisely in the previous question, answering this one should be easy as pie. Whether you listed one or two interests, your goal here is to tell a cohesive story about your intellectual curiosity. Ideally, you should try to recount an anecdote that illustrates your engagement with your chosen field or demonstrates your ability to link together seemingly disparate fields. Perhaps you’re interested in both philosophy and astrophysics because each offers a way for you to contemplate our place in the universe. This is a great opportunity for you to explain how your intellectual interests relate to who you are as a person. Don’t waste it!
Admissions wants to learn more about a STEM topic that has monopolized your thoughts. When was the last time you went down an internet rabbit hole trying to research something? When were you extremely motivated to solve a problem or create something new? What topic are you hoping to be an expert on by the time you graduate college? Discuss an example of what truly fascinates you. Perhaps you’re really interested in the future of smart prosthetics. Maybe you’re obsessed with identifying Fibonacci sequences in the world around you. Share how you’ve already interacted with your area of interest: Did you attend a seminar about the topic? Have you read every book you can find on it? Do you have a personal connection to it? The bottom line here is to write about something that really fascinates you and share your enthusiasm for STEM.
For these two short answer responses, we recommend using concrete sensory details to pull your reader into the story. For the first one, try to remember the moment your passion for science was sparked and caught fire. Was it a trip to the local observatory? Was it when you were mesmerized by a grandfather clock at your uncle’s house? Trace this initial moment to today, explaining how you have developed your interest over time. How did this experience lay the foundation for your future STEM-related pursuits? Strong responses will make the readers feel like they’re in the room where it happened (“the room where it happened” – Hamilton). As you write your response, make sure you include every detail you can remember; once it’s all on the page, you can edit it down to meet the 200-word limit.
Now, for question two, think about a project you’ve done more recently that captured your attention and curiosity. What excited you about it? How did you develop your skills or interest in STEM as a result of your participation? If you’re applying to Caltech, we’re willing to bet you have a few experiences to choose from, so we recommend writing about the one that was most intellectually engaging for you.
Admissions is seeking to invite movers and shakers to campus who are excited and motivated to turn their dreams into reality. Whether you’ve been experimenting with robotics or spending your summers researching ways to integrate renewable energy into daily life, this is the place to share your story. Show Admissions that you are not only planning to be an innovator, but have already taken steps to incorporate this approach in your day-to-day activities. The more specific details you can incorporate into your essay, the more sincere and personal it will feel (and be!).
For this prompt, Caltech wants to know how its mission resonates with you, so think about how their values overlap with your own. This could be a great opportunity to recycle another supplemental essay you’ve written about engaging in conversation with someone who holds opposing beliefs or one you’ve written about embracing diversity and inclusion. If you don’t have any material to recycle here, don’t fret, odds are you have something to say about respect for a diversity of thoughts and ideas. Maybe you and your best friend pick a topic to debate over lunch every week so you can get deeper into both perspectives of each issue. Perhaps you started a suggestion box for your Robotics Club when you noticed that some members weren’t getting a chance to speak and share their ideas with the group. Whatever your story is, be sure to avoid generalizations and, instead, provide concrete examples. Anyone can write that they are respectful or open-minded, but not everyone is going to be able to exhibit those traits with real-life examples. Specifics are what stick in admissions’ minds!
Caltech knows that you are a multifaceted person, that your identity cannot be boiled down to nuggets of information on an application. That’s why Admissions is giving you this (albeit small) space to expand on an aspect of your identity. Scroll through your application (personal statement, activity list, major selection) and take a moment to think about what you haven’t been able to include yet. Perhaps you want to write about your identity as a first-born daughter of immigrants or the daily yoga practice that grounds you and enables you to better connect with people and places around you. Regardless of what you choose to write about, you don’t have a lot of words to play with, so we recommend brevity!
This is a great place to write about a hobby or interest that doesn’t relate to STEM. What do you do when you’re not busy with school, work, and other responsibilities? Do you love ‘90s sci-fi shows and their visions of what future technology could look like? Do you invent and play card games with your siblings? Do you meticulously research and select native plants to put in your garden? Don’t worry about choosing something that you think sounds good to admissions; stick with whatever truly brings you joy, and your unique qualities will shine through.
This is a great place to write about a hobby or interest that is, maybe, newer to you, one you’ve spent less time on. Have you been learning how to play guitar? Did you start taking kayaking lessons this summer? Choose something different from what you wrote about above so you can share as much about yourself as possible. For example, if you wrote about a sport in the last question, write about something artistic here. Above all, be true to yourself!
This is Caltech’s version of the Additional Info essay, which means that, unless you have something crucial to explain to Admissions, and there is absolutely NOWHERE else on the application for you to write about it, you should skip this essay. Think about it: If you were an admissions officer, would you really want to read one more essay per applicant? That being said, this essay is perfect for students who have encountered extenuating circumstances and need an opportunity to explain them. In fact, we recommend saving those details for an Additional Info essay, so that you can use the rest of your application to highlight other parts of your amazing personality. So, if something has happened that affected your academic performance, this is a great opportunity to give the 4-1-1 (that means “information” because, in the Stone Age of the late 1900s, we used our rotary phones instead of the internet).
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