University of Virginia (UVA) 2024-25 Supplemental Essay Prompt Guide

University of Virginia (UVA) 2024-25 First-Year Application Essay Question Explanations

The Requirements: 1 essay of 250 words, 1 essay of 250 words for applicants to the School of Nursing only

Supplemental Essay Type(s): Why, Community

How to Write Compelling University of Virginia (UVA) Supplemental Essays

UVA is looking for students who not only are academically successful, but also “have the potential to make a difference in their community, in the UVA community, and in the world.” They want students who “show kindness, care, and compassion to others and demonstrate character and integrity in all they do.” Unsurprisingly, their supplemental essays focus heavily on community and service to others, so your job here is to illustrate how you will harmonize with your future cohort. Thinking about your background and identity, try to pinpoint ways you have been uniquely positioned to support others through your personal values, perspectives, or characteristics and how you’ll bring those qualities with you to grounds. By drawing on your personal history to weave together a story of kindness, compassion, and integrity, you’ll be sure to impress admissions with your supplement! Read on for more detailed guides for each essay.

UVA Prompt Breakdowns

What about your individual background, perspective, or experience will serve as a source of strength for you or those around you at UVA?  Feel free to write about any past experience or part of your background that has shaped your perspective and will be a source of strength, including but not limited to those related to your community, upbringing, educational environment, race, gender, or other aspects of your background that are important to you. (250 words)

Odds are that this isn’t the first “diversity” essay prompt you’ve come across this year—even if the prompt doesn’t explicitly use that word. However, if it is, please read on! UVA wants to accept students from a range of backgrounds who will contribute to an inclusive community. This prompt uses the phrase “source of strength” twice, which tells us that they want to hear about not only what makes you you, but also how these characteristics will sustain you and support those around you. What you focus on here can be reflective of larger cultural constructs or specific to you and only you. Is there anything you can teach your classmates about your hometown, traditions, culture, orientation, identity, race, or ethnicity that they might not already know? Maybe you began practicing meditation and discovered Buddhism during your sophomore year and you hope to spread some wisdom and mindfulness on grounds next fall. Perhaps you were raised on a farm and have a very special relationship to all living things (plants, animals, people, etc.) around you. How will you incorporate this element of your identity into your college experience? Show admissions that you’re eager to make your mark in their community.

Students applying to the School of Nursing are required to answer this question in around 250 words. 

In the field of nursing, you will encounter and impact real human lives. Please explain why you feel this is important as you choose this field as your future.

As a nurse, you’ll need both deep medical knowledge and the ability to interact with all kinds of people. This prompt wants you to highlight the interpersonal aspect of nursing. It’s tempting to talk in grand general terms about how medicine can impact people’s lives for the better, but take note: this prompt focuses on your future. Think about what effect you want to have on your future patients. Perhaps a nurse empathetically educated you about your condition when you were hospitalized as a child, and you want to be that person for someone else. Maybe you feel strongly that non-native English speakers aren’t being served in your small hometown and strive to be the first fully bilingual nurse in your community. Whatever drives you, be sure to center your potential impact on real people as a future nurse. 

If you have a personal or historic connection with UVA, and if you’d like to share how your experience of this connection has prepared you to contribute to the University, please share your thoughts here.  Such relationships might include, but are not limited to, being a child of someone who graduated from or works for UVA, a descendant of ancestors who labored at UVA, or a participant in UVA programs. 

Now that UVA is no longer explicitly considering legacy in their admissions process, admissions has added this question to identify not only those whose parents went to UVA, but also those whose ancestors labored at UVA. This reflects the university’s ongoing reckoning with its own founding, which included the use of enslaved labor. Here, anyone with personal or historic ties to the university, including students who attended summer programs there, can describe their unique connection. If you don’t have a connection, that’s okay! Most people won’t. If you do, however, read on.

This question doesn’t just ask you to state your tie, it asks you to explore how that connection has primed you to contribute to the community. Maybe your mom was an RA and has shared all the steam tunnel routes with you, so you can initiate your roommates into this UVA tradition. Perhaps one of your ancestors built the iconic Rotunda, and you look forward to educating your classmates about their legacy. Maybe you attended a summer program and fell in love with the Jeffersonian architecture, inspiring your passion for historic preservation. Remember, your job here is to explore how your personal connection to UVA will make you a contributor to campus life.