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Early Action/Decision: Nov 1
Regular Decision Deadline: Feb 1
The Requirements: One essay of 250 words and four optional essays of 200 words each
Supplemental Essay Type(s): Why, Activity, Community
Activity Essays like this one are more common than noise-canceling headphones in college dorm rooms. The most strenuous part, however, is selecting the activity you want to write about. So, we return to our favorite mantra: tell admissions something they couldn’t glean from anywhere else in your application. If you wrote your Common App essay about your time scooping ice cream at your local creamery, focus on a different activity or work experience that reveals a new aspect of your personality. This can be a great opportunity to highlight your leadership skills and any accolades you may have received. Were you nominated as captain of your ultimate frisbee team? Were you tapped to manage a team of volunteers at the food pantry? No matter what you choose, it should probably be something you’ve been involved in for a while, so you can demonstrate your growth and the impact that you have had on others.
Now’s the time to put on your research hat and spend some time exploring The University of Tulsa’s campus or website so you can communicate your interest tofor admissions. In other words, show off your fit! Reference specific courses, professors, clubs, research labs, study abroad opportunities, and aspects of the campus culture that particularly excite you. Beyond what you would gain from your education, you should also think about what you would contribute to their community. Make sure to tell admissions something new that they wouldn’t already know about you by reviewing the rest of your application!
Our advice for this prompt is quite similar to our advice for the first Activity Essay. Take the opportunity to offer admissions deeper insight into the things that occupy your time outside of school. If you wrote your Activity Essay on a work experience, maybe you want to write a bit about an extracurricular club or hobby that fills your weekends. Remember that saying you like to hang out with friends and scroll through social media will not differentiate you from other applicants; instead, try to hone in on something specific that you can tell a story about.
This is a classic Community Essay, through and through. Admissions officers want to know what you, specifically, will bring to the TU community. Where do you come from? What has shaped you as a person and how has that made your perspective unique? What you address can be reflective of larger cultural constructs or a trait specific to you and only you. Consider why your particular background or experience will be useful in an academic setting. How will it help inspire and/or inform others? Were you raised by a community that included many cooperative families? Do you identify as nonbinary? Have you lived on three different continents? What has influenced your identity? What do you believe and how will your worldview bring something of value to the community at TU?
If you think your application to UTulsa would be incomplete without an essay on _________ (fill in the blank), then this essay is for you. Maybe 200 words wasn’t enough for you to describe your personal interest in TU and address your family’s ties to the school, so you’d like to use this space to talk about visiting the Gilcrease Museum with your mom, an indigenous alumna whose art is featured there, and how campus already feels like home. Or, perhaps, you had a rough year in school and you’d like to explain the special circumstances that affected your academic performance. Finally, it’s worth noting that this submission is completely optional, so if you don’t feel like you have anything obvious to contribute here, feel free to skip it!
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