Texas A&M University is a value-driven public research institution founded in 1876. With numerous colleges, schools, and campuses, Texas A&M provides myriad academic and extracurricular opportunities to students. Their vibrant athletics community brings with it many traditions, strong campus culture, and even unique terminology. Texas A&M’s accomplished alumni include numerous musicians, CEOs, athletes, politicians, actors, and more. Hoping to join their ranks? First, you’ll need to nail your Texas A&M supplemental essays. Let’s dive in.
Texas A&M’s 2024-2025 Prompts
Required Short Essay Questions
- Tell us your story. What unique opportunities or challenges have you experienced throughout your high school career that have shaped who you are today? (750 words or fewer)
- Describe a life event which you feel has prepared you to be successful in college. (250 words or fewer)
- Tell us about the person who has most impacted your life and why. (250 words or fewer)
Optional Short Essay Question
- If there are additional personal challenges, hardships, or opportunities (including COVID related experiences) that have shaped or impacted your abilities or academic credentials, which you have not already written about, please note them in the space below. (250 words or fewer)
General Tips
The Texas A&M supplemental essays may feel intimidating at first glance. They potentially cover a lot of the same ground. For instance, a “life event that you feel has prepared you to be successful in college” might prominently feature “the person who has most impacted your life.” However, your application will greatly benefit from each essay having a distinct focus. If you can successfully write each of these essays about different topics, then you’re well on your way toward providing the Texas A&M admissions team with a holistic understanding of who you are as a person.
Therefore, you should consider reading through the essay prompts thoroughly before you begin writing them. Then, try to come up with the topics that you want to write about. Again, do this before you begin writing any of the essays. This will allow you to strategize so that your essay topics don’t overlap!
While providing redundant information about yourself isn’t necessarily a bad thing, providing new information in each portion of your application allows the admissions team to build a much more nuanced profile on you. In addition, you will show that you are a multidimensional person with diverse experiences and interests. Lastly, by focusing each essay on a unique topic, you also provide the reader with more food for thought about you. The more the reader is thinking (positively) about you, the better odds for your application.
Texas A&M Required Short Essay Questions
Tell us your story. What unique opportunities or challenges have you experienced throughout your high school career that have shaped who you are today? (750 words or fewer)
This prompt is very open-ended, and it has a relatively high word limit. To many students, that might make this prompt sound rather difficult. That said, there’s a good chance you’ve already written this essay. On the Common App website, Texas A&M’s admissions team remarks, “If you have already answered a similar prompt via your Common App essay(s), please feel free to copy and paste your Common App essay(s) into the appropriate box.” In other words, if you are submitting a Common App essay, and the essay you’ve written also fulfills this prompt, then you should feel free to reuse that essay here. (Looking for tips on how to write a strong Common App essay? Check out article here.)
Note that not all Common App essays will fit Texas A&M’s prompt. To be specific, their prompt focuses on your high school career and its opportunities and challenges. If your Common App personal essay is devoted to discussing a time in your life that was not within your high school years, then you should not reuse that essay here. Similarly, if your essay does focus on your high school years but neglects to discuss any unique opportunities or challenges you have experienced, then you may need to write a second essay.
When writing this essay, you can take a similar approach to how you wrote your Common App essay, in the event that you have written one. Focus on discussing yourself and your unique life experiences. Telling a story from your life is a great way to keep the writer engaged, but it needs to be backed up with specific, concrete descriptions. Try to immerse your reader in the story by showing instead of telling. In other words, highlight sensory details: what do you see, hear, touch, smell, and taste? Use these details to show your emotion and growth to the reader.
Describe a life event which you feel has prepared you to be successful in college. (250 words or fewer)
This prompt is open-ended, but most students will want to either focus on a challenge they’ve overcome and/or a lesson they’ve learned. For instance, you may have attended a pre-college program that you feel has prepared you for college. If so, describe the specific lessons you have learned and how you believe they will translate into an experience at Texas A&M.
Most students won’t have pursued a pre-college experience, though. If that sounds like you, think about the challenges you have faced in your life that might reflect or foreshadow the challenges you are likely to face in college. Focus on one life event that has been particularly impactful. Occasions when you have displayed resilience, strength, courage, and/or maturity are all good candidates for this essay. If you have gained self-confidence through a particular challenging experience, then consider writing about that experience here.
Lastly, you can also focus on a lesson or lessons you have learned in your life thus far. For instance, perhaps a teacher gave you a key piece of wisdom that continues to influence you. Perhaps you educated yourself on a complex topic using online resources. Or perhaps you worked a job that has given you the work ethic and perspective that can only benefit a college student. This job may even have provided you with the necessary funds to attend college. Whatever lesson you choose to write about, specifically explain what that lesson is. Then, extrapolate how that lesson will help you be successful in college. Remember, even a bit of confidence can go a long way. Don’t shy away from humility in this essay!
Tell us about the person who has most impacted your life and why. (250 words or fewer)
This essay prompt asks you to write about a person who has significantly impacted your life. That said, there is also an implicit question about who you are. In other words, as you write about this person, consider the ways your reader might use your description of this person to extrapolate who you are. For instance, if you write about how you admire this person’s consideration of others, the reader will understand that you place a high value on being considerate to others.
You can (and should) take the extra step of expressing to the reader not only why this person is important to you, but also how they have impacted. After describing the lessons this person has taught you, describe the ways that these lessons resonate with you. You can indicate how your thinking patterns or worldview have changed as a result of this person’s influence. Be specific!
Whether this person introduced you to a new political ideology or taught you how to bake bread, this person has evidently changed your life in some way. If you are able to identify that change, ascribe it to that person, and express it to the reader, then your essay should successfully show the reader who you are.
Texas A&M Optional Short Essay Question
If there are additional personal challenges, hardships, or opportunities (including COVID related experiences) that have shaped or impacted your abilities or academic credentials, which you have not already written about, please note them in the space below. (250 words or fewer)
For many applicants looking back at their applications, something seems missing. If there was a drop in your grades during sophomore year and nowhere else in your application did you have the opportunity to explain this situation, this essay is your chance.
If you faced a significant hardship in your personal life, perhaps you want to explore that hardship here. Or if you faced a financial or other barrier to participating in certain extracurricular activities (for instance, you were accepted into a selective academic summer camp but couldn’t afford to attend), then you may wish to provide those details in this essay. Make sure to only discuss these topics if you have not yet addressed them in another section of your application.
The above are just a few of the many examples of topics you could write about in this essay. Before beginning your draft, think about your application as a whole. Does it truly show you as you are? As a student, classmate, friend, and family member? If so, then remember, this prompt is optional. But if not, you’ll want to provide details here. “Details” is a key word. You’ll need to be specific for the admissions team, who doesn’t necessarily know you very well, so they can fully understand the situation you choose to describe. Once again, be genuine and specific, and this essay has the potential to strengthen your application.
If you need help polishing up your Texas A&M supplemental essays, check out our College Essay Review service. You can receive detailed feedback from Ivy League consultants in as little as 24 hours.
