As a prestigious liberal arts and Ivy League institution, Brown University has high expectations from its applicants regarding the quality of their written essays. However, these supplemental essays are by no means unapproachable. With proper planning and execution, successful essays can reflect extremely well upon an applicant. You have the opportunity to showcase multiple facets of your personality and demonstrate the abilities that will help you thrive at Brown. In this article, we will guide you through how to write the Brown University supplemental essays.
Brown University’s 2026-2027 Prompts
Supplemental Essay Questions
- “There is something distinctive about Brown students. It is a blend of intellectual curiosity, creativity, and humility. A commitment to collaboration. An openness to new ideas and perspectives. A desire to make the world better. And it is resilience: the ability to recover and thrive after experiencing difficulties.” From President Christina Paxson’s 2025 Convocation Address. How will you use these characteristics or others to shape your approach to the Open Curriculum? (150-250 words)
- Students entering Brown often find that making their home on College Hill naturally invites reflection on where they came from. Share how an aspect of your growing up has inspired or challenged you, and what unique contributions this might allow you to make to the Brown community. (150-250 words)
- If you could teach a class on any one thing, whether academic or otherwise, what would it be? (100-150 words)
- Brown students care deeply about their work and the world around them. Students find contentment, satisfaction, and meaning in daily interactions and major discoveries. Whether big or small, mundane or spectacular, tell us about something that brings you joy. (100-150 words)
General Tips
One of the key features about each of these Brown University supplemental essays is their length: they are short. Limiting each response to 250 words maximum can be challenging, especially when discussing complex interests or topics about which you are passionate. The key to writing a succinct yet impactful essay is to limit the words spent on narrative or objective descriptions and instead devote space to emotions, thoughts, and reflections. For instance, compare…
“Painting brings me joy. When I was five years old, my father bought me my first set of paintbrushes. Since then, I have painted every day, joining art clubs in middle and high school and collaborating with peers on projects in the community. We painted murals and posters for events and local exhibitions, learning and meeting new people as we did so. My skills have improved over time, and I aim to continue my development as an artist and a creative in college and beyond.”
…to the following:
“Painting brings me joy. Ever since receiving my first set of brushes at five years old, I have embraced the challenge of setting color to paper to create brilliant images. As I improved over time, I searched for ways to share the satisfaction of art with others. Orchestrating community projects allowed me to connect with peers and express my gratitude for my hometown. As I continue to develop my skills, I will spread that joy to an even broader audience in college and beyond.”
These two passages have the same word count. However, the second much more effectively gives the reader a sense of who the writer is and what they value about their interest in painting. Instead of simply listing the factual details of an interest or event, academic or otherwise, you can give the reader a glimpse into your emotions and thought processes. Doing so will increase the impact of each word, allowing you to convey your meaning more succinctly.
Brown University’s Supplemental Essay Questions
“There is something distinctive about Brown students. It is a blend of intellectual curiosity, creativity, and humility. A commitment to collaboration. An openness to new ideas and perspectives. A desire to make the world better. And it is resilience: the ability to recover and thrive after experiencing difficulties.” From President Christina Paxson’s 2025 Convocation Address. How will you use these characteristics or others to shape your approach to the Open Curriculum? (150-250 words)
This first prompt is Brown’s new twist on the “Why X University?” essay. Instead of asking why you want Brown, it asks how you would use a set of Brown-student traits to make the most of the Open Curriculum. President Paxson’s quotation hands you seven starting points: intellectual curiosity, creativity, humility, collaboration, openness to new ideas, a desire to make the world better, and resilience. Pay attention to the phrase “or others,” too. You are welcome to name a characteristic of your own, as long as you can show it in action.
Essentially, the Open Curriculum at Brown University allows undergraduates to forego the general education and distribution requirements mandated by most colleges and universities and instead enables students to formulate their own paths of study. Some students even develop their own majors based on personal interests that they enter with or discover along the way. This first essay asks applicants to consider how they would make the most of this unique flexibility.
First and foremost, research the Open Curriculum. Read about how current and past students have approached this opportunity, and consider how you would do so yourself. Then, brainstorm. Write out a list of your academic interests. Let these interests range from your intended major to potential interests that you would like to develop further, and everything in between. For now, the more the merrier!
Next, choose one or two characteristics and tie each to a concrete choice you would make at Brown. For example:
- Curiosity might lead you to pair a neuroscience concentration with a poetry workshop you would never have had room for under a traditional set of requirements
- Humility might mean taking a course far outside your comfort zone with the Satisfactory/No Credit option, so you can focus on learning rather than protecting a GPA
- Resilience might mean sticking with an unfamiliar subject after a rough first assignment and requesting a narrative evaluation from your instructor to see exactly where you can grow
- A desire to make the world better might inspire you to design an independent concentration that connects public health, economics, and the needs of your hometown
Whichever traits you pick, ground them in evidence from your life so far. A sentence or two about a moment when you actually showed curiosity or resilience will make your plans for Brown believable, and it keeps the essay about you rather than about the Open Curriculum itself. With only 150-250 words, aim for one anecdote, one or two characteristics, and one clear picture of how you would build your own path of study at Brown.
Students entering Brown often find that making their home on College Hill naturally invites reflection on where they came from. Share how an aspect of your growing up has inspired or challenged you, and what unique contributions this might allow you to make to the Brown community. (150-250 words)
This second prompt asks Brown applicants to discuss their backgrounds, past adversity, perspectives, growth, and/or community involvement. But 150-250 words is not much room to tell the story of your upbringing! If possible, choose a specific 1-3 anecdote(s) to share. Your anecdote(s) should be from your childhood and involve details about your unique upbringing.
If you have a cultural background, unusual childhood experience, or significant period of growth in your personal history, now might be the time to bring it up in your application. This essay gives you the meaningful opportunity to engage with a part of your past that otherwise wouldn’t have made it into your application. Generally, applications focus on high school experiences, but this essay can (and probably should) focus on an experience before high school.
One pitfall that many students fall into when writing this essay is cliché. It is really easy to describe your childhood in a generic way. But the more personal and, frankly, odd you can get in this essay, the better. Authenticity will go a long way to helping the reader remember your essay long after reading it.
Consider these questions to get your brainstorming going:
- Did you have a weird childhood habit or hobby that ended up teaching you a life lesson?
- Did you suffer bullying and come out stronger, more empathetic, and/or more sure of who you are?
- Did you have a mentor who shaped you?
- Did your hometown have a unique tradition that influenced your worldview?
Remember, growth is key in this essay. After you’ve selected your specific topic and your discrete, brief 1-3 anecdotes, make sure you clarify at the beginning of the essay who you once were. Then, by the end of the essay, clarify who you are now. Displaying growth will not only evidence your maturity but also demonstrate your college readiness and ability to answer a challenging essay question.
If you could teach a class on any one thing, whether academic or otherwise, what would it be? (100-150 words)
This prompt toes a fine line: many students who answer this question earnestly end up sounding full of themselves. There are three main ways to answer this question. First, you can suggest teaching a class on something you legitimately have deep knowledge of. Second, you can suggest teaching a class on something you obviously have no knowledge of. Or, third, you can suggest teaching a class on something you might have some knowledge of.
If you already have deep knowledge of the subject of your imaginary class, then humbly clarify this before listing your reasons for wanting to teach a class on it. Specifically, these should be reasons other than “I am (already) an expert in this topic.” For instance, you might be an extremely talented potter, but your pottery talents don’t come up elsewhere in your application. Thus, you’ll need to discuss your pottery talents briefly, authentically, and modestly before describing why you’d like to teach a pottery class.
If you obviously don’t have knowledge of the subject of your imaginary class, then you’ll want to briefly express why you’d like to know about this topic before explaining why you’d like to teach a class on it. And again, your reasons for teaching this class need to be more than just that you’d like to be an expert who is capable of teaching a class in it. For instance, if you’d like to teach a class on how to safely jump out of a plane, you’re going to first want to clarify why you’d like to be an expert in jumping out of planes before explaining why you’d like to teach other people how to jump out of planes.
If you have some knowledge of the subject of your imaginary class, then you’ll want to clarify the limited extent of your knowledge before explaining why you’d like to learn more about this topic and teach a class on it. For instance, if you would like to teach a class on particle physics, you’ll want to briefly express how much/little you know about the topic. Then, you’ll want to explain why you’re compelled to learn more and to teach people more about particle physics.
When wrapping up your brief reflection, you may want to give an indication of how you will teach the class and/or to whom you would like to teach the class. That said, this is totally up to you and depends on how many words you have left over.
Brown students care deeply about their work and the world around them. Students find contentment, satisfaction, and meaning in daily interactions and major discoveries. Whether big or small, mundane or spectacular, tell us about something that brings you joy. (100-150 words)
Lastly, this fourth supplemental prompt is the most open-ended. This is not just a simple “extracurriculars” or “other interests” prompt, because it is so broad in its scope. As long as it brings you joy, any topic is on the table, academic, artistic, intellectual, philosophical, culinary, athletic, or otherwise. If you feel that your application so far has not done justice to an important part of yourself, then this is the time for you to address what’s as yet unsaid.
The prompt goes so far as to note that the topic can be “big or small, mundane or spectacular.” Therefore, if something specific comes to mind as you read this, then chances are it would make a strong essay, whatever it may be. The most important consideration in choosing a topic for this essay is to select something that truly does bring you joy. Readers can tell when the excitement in your tone is genuine, and that realness is what sells your essay.
As you brainstorm ideas for this essay, restrain yourself from writing about a topic that you think you “should” write about. If your true passion is baking chocolate chip cookies for your little sisters when they are feeling down, but you feel like you should write about coding because it seems more “sophisticated” or “academic,” choose the former. A genuine essay will stand out every time.
As you describe what brings you joy, try to draw the reader into your excitement. Invite them to enjoy the activity or the project with you and show them why it is that you love it. Make them love it too! Vivid descriptors and sensory details can go a long way in essays like this one. This is especially if your passion has a sensory component. Allow yourself and your readers to be swept up in “contentment, satisfaction, and meaning.” Joy is infectious, so fill your essay with as much of it as possible.
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