Brainstorm — decide what’s most impressive to say before getting to the prompts 

Prompt’s essay-writing method starts with figuring out what you want to say. (Then we slot that into the essay prompts that are available.)

So what should you say on your college application? Easy. Your entire task is to show admissions officers that you will succeed in college and beyond.

Okay, but how do you show an admissions officer you’re likely to succeed? This is also, surprisingly, not that hard: you do it by talking about your experiences that show one or more of the 5 Traits Colleges Look for in Applicants:

• Drive (grit)
• Initiative
• Contribution
• Intellectual Curiosity
• Diversity of Experiences

That brings us to brainstorming. Before you can begin talking about your community, background, aspirations, or dreams, you need to write down all of your high school experiences, which is easier said than done. Brainstorm things like your:

• Academic interests
• Extracurricular activities and interests
• Self-learning and independent projects you’ve undertaken
• Work experiences and substantial domestic obligations
• Any other skills you’ve developed or meaningful experiences you’ve had

If you create a free Prompt account, you can develop these ideas through our brainstorming modules. 

At the end of this process, you should have a solid idea of what experiences you’ve had that best show off one or more of the 5 Traits.

This is important with a wide set of prompts like MIT’s — you don’t want the prompts themselves to turn you around, confuse or distract you. Instead, with this method, you can use each prompt as a tool to say the things you already know you want to say about yourself to further your application. 

Let’s go one by one.

Q1: Dreams/Background — Focus on your actions that relate to your dreams and your background

The first prompt is:

Describe the world you come from; for example, your family, clubs, school, community, city, or town. How has that world shaped your dreams and aspirations? (250 words or fewer)

Now, this is arguably the only “tricky” one in the bunch. The concern here is that you might spend too much time talking about “the world you come from,” as the first part of the prompt asks, rather than “your dreams and aspirations,” which comes at the end. 

That’s why we re-ordered those two things in our descriptor above: Your dreams/aspirations + background.

Similarly, tackle those elements in that order as you write this answer. That way, you won’t get lost in the “background” part. 

In addition, even as you’re describing your “dreams,” spend the time talking about what you’ve done so far that shows these dreams are going to take you somewhere real. The best way to ensure you do this is to use lots of I-statements and make sure most of your sentences talk about actions you’ve taken. 

Q1: Dreams/Background — Examples

Instead of making up examples (which is what we usually do in these supplement guides), we’re going to analyze actual essays of admitted students, which MIT’s student newspaper has published a few years ago. 

Please note that Prompt strongly believes that influencers shouldn’t influence your college essays and that, for essays that get published in flashy places, you don’t know if the essay got that student in or if they got in despite what was maybe a bad essay. 

That being said, these are fun to discuss, especially if we keep a critical eye. 

Dreams/background example 1 — 

I remember when my elementary school playground used to be the unconquered lands waiting to be explored by a ragtag gang of eight-year-olds. Under the guise of bandits, we started recess by tramping across desert dunes in a heated game of tag. When the sand became too much of an obstacle to plow through, we took to digging into the earth as pirates, eager to find the precious hidden booty of Dr. Phillips island. We always hooted with excitement as soon as the ivory sand gave way to wet, black dirt because we thought it meant we were approaching the plentiful land of China, a target destination for all avid adventurers.

When I entered middle school, I began my hobby of writing. The transition brought a brand new academic world that no longer allowed me the time to discover uncharted lands within my home, so I had to find another outlet for my tireless imagination to roam free. Through words, I could still express the childish dreams of my youth. After many years of pursuing this vibrant passion, I hope to share this wild ingenuity with the world. I hope to inspire discussion of important issues while keeping true to my original intentions of being a visionary creator.

• Word count: 209
• Strong: The student answered both parts of the prompt fully, connecting both pieces in a cohesive way. 
• Strong: The student shows strong intellectual curiosity, both in the first paragraph (playing games with young friends) and in the second (doing their own writing on their own time).
• Weak: The essay calls back to the student being eight years old and then to a hobby that starts in Middle School. That’s fine, but our general rule is to stick as closely as you can to your high school years, as those are of most interest to admissions readers.
• Weak: The paragraph describing the student’s writing hobby is extremely vague. It would be more impressive to have concrete examples of what they managed to write in their own time. As-is, it’s clear this student puts a lot of time into their self-motivated writing, which is good, but more specifics would help propel this even further.

Dreams/background example 2 — 

“One day, I will take you abroad,” my mother promised me while depicting her happiness in Switzerland when she saw snowflakes falling from the sky for the first time. Since that time, I have longed to see snow and to encounter exotic experiences that I could not find in Thailand.

However, living in a middle-class family, she did not have a chance to keep her promise. She never spent money on nonessential items. Yet, she cherished her children’s education: I always got the books I wanted to read. Having faith in my dream, I continued searching for an opportunity to travel overseas without spending her money.

In seventh grade, I learned that there was an International Biology Olympiad (IBO) hosted by various countries. Driven by my dream to travel around the world, I asked my mother to buy my first biology textbook and devoured it with a hope that one day I would see the snow like my mother. After five years of traveling in the biology world, I made it: I explored Denmark as a participant in IBO. Now, I receive a scholarship from the Thai government to study in the States, providing many opportunities to follow my fascination with biology. However, I will not forget what my mother dreamed 10 years ago.

“One day, we will travel together,” I dream.

• Word count: 222
• Strong: Again, this student fully answers both parts of the prompt.
• Strong: We see many examples of this student’s intellectual curiosity, both in obvious ways (wanting to buy a bio textbook!) and more nuanced ones (being excited about travel).
• Strong: There’s a strong sense of some of what drives this student, with better specifics than the example above on what they’ve done to follow their dreams, both in biology and in terms of traveling. 
• Strong: The essay ends with a show of kindness and contribution - this student has not only brains but also heart, in that they credit their mother with so much of their success and they want to share their ability to travel with her. 
• Weak: Although this essay is great overall, it still might have squeezed in even more specificity on some of the student’s actions. For example, what does “five years of traveling in the biology world” mean? What did they sacrifice and achieve to make that happen? It’s never a bad idea to have MIT understand how hard you worked on something like biology!

Q2: Field of study — Show your history of success with this particular topic

Here is the question again:

Pick what field of study at MIT appeals to you the most right now, and tell us more about why this field of study appeals to you. (100 words or fewer)

Though short, this is a classic “Why Major” essay. We strongly suggest you read our article on great “Why Major” responses for deeper guidance here. 

In a nutshell, you want to show MIT that your track record in your likely field of study is strong — that you can cut it. To do so, you need to:

• Have detail and specifics on what makes you good at and enthusiastic about your chosen field (hopefully much of this can come from your big brainstorm) +
• Research MIT’s department website, its news site, and maybe even student paper for ideas of how you would pursue this study on campus and what others have done in the field. 

You don’t have much room to go on about this, so keep it short and to the point. As you read your answer over, ask yourself if you come off as someone who will succeed in this field. That’s the main concern in the reader’s mind. 

Q2: Field of study — Example

Note: The Tech didn’t publish any examples of this essay, so we’ll invent one just to show you how it might work. 

Field of study — Example 

As someone who’s grown up around boats, it makes my heart thrill to know that I could major in Ocean Engineering. There’s a course on “Hydrofoils and Propellers!” I have upgraded my family’s power boat’s propeller and ridden on many hydrofoils as part of the Cape Yacht Club racing team. I’ve always loved fiddling with machinery — from creating my own automatic garage door opener, to being the Head of the Robotics club. But working with boats is my dream. An OE major I met when I visited shared that A Perfect Storm is required reading and it’s my favorite book!

Notes:

• Word count: 100
• The student’s enthusiasm for the field is apparent.
• The student gives many specifics about what related activities they’ve engaged in. (It’s also fine to talk about coursework you’ve taken, papers you’ve written/researched, etc. …)
• The student gives many specifics about Ocean Engineering at MIT.
• Overall, the reader gets the sense that this student will succeed in this field of study.

Q3: Something you do for fun — Show off intellectual curiosity, initiative, or contribution

Here is the prompt again:

We know you lead a busy life, full of activities, many of which are required of you. Tell us about something you do simply for the pleasure of it. (200–250 words)

This is a fun prompt, and you can treat it as such. You don’t need to fit a “serious” pursuit in, but you do need to stay focused on your ultimate goal of showing the admissions team that you can succeed at MIT. 

The easiest of the 5 Traits to focus on here is intellectual curiosity, but others could fit well instead, particularly initiative — what fun, unusual thing did you make happen or do you regularly make happen? Contribution might also work if your fun activity is about bringing people together or helping animals or something along those lines. 

Go back to your big brainstorm and try to find a few outside-the-box ideas that could work here in a playful spirit while still showing something important about your character. 

Q3: Something you do for fun — Examples

Something fun — example 1: 

Assessing the angles of each wire, I adjust and even out imperfections. Within my hands, fuzzy limbs transform into their final form. Voila! My finished sculpture is born of nothing but a handful of pipe cleaners and my imagination. I bend these fuzzy sticks into a multitude of life forms: trees, birds, dogs, dragons... Pipe cleaners may seem childish to use in art — but to me, they are colorful and comforting, flexible and versatile, and there are no boundaries to what I can create with a few fuzzy sticks.

• Word count: 89 (note this is under the currently required word count).
• Strengths: This essay shows initiative and drive — the student has developed the skill to do a lot with pipe cleaners, and obviously takes that love far. 
• Strength: This essay follows the spirit of the prompt well. This is definitely not “I do Biology research for fun,” which would be wrong. 
• Weaknesses: There’s not a lot of specifics about the art project. When and where does the student make these sculptures? What do they do with them? What’s the trickiest form they’ve achieved? It would be great to have a little more specificity to understand that this fun activity also really shows skill. 

Something fun — example 2: 

Oftentimes I find myself alone in the secluded areas of the campus, sometimes imagining it to be the wilderness. When it is dusk, I can see how the lights of the houses echo the stars above, and the wind that blows through the pine leaves seem to murmur in understanding. During these moments, when I am sitting by myself on a rock overlooking the fields, I feel aloof yet connected to the rest of the world. Of course, tripping on foxholes alone in the dark isn’t the smartest idea (especially when on crutches), but I need to get out there.

• Word count: 100 (note this is under the currently required word count).
• Strength: We see hints of initiative in this student going out to do something only for themselves, even though it’s difficult. You get a sense of personality.
• Strength: As with the essay above, this essay feels real and faithful to the spirit of the prompt.
• Weakness: Similar to the essay above, the essay might have spent less time on pretty descriptions and more time on why they love this pursuit. Do they love the wilderness? Have they been out there? An essay on exploring the wilderness might naturally lend itself to more examples of initiative while still staying true to this student’s spirit. 

Note: since MIT has increased this essay’s word count, we can speculate (without knowing) that they liked the answers they were getting but wanted more detail about those activities: why students pursue them; how they pursue them; what they’ve learned from those pursuits. 

That’s how we as essay coaches analyze them and it jibes with the history of this question. 

Q4: Contributing to your community — Tell a concrete, specifics-filled story of a tangible difference you’ve made

Here is the prompt again:

At MIT, we bring people together to better the lives of others. MIT students work to improve their communities in different ways, from tackling the world’s biggest challenges to being a good friend. Describe one way in which you have contributed to your community, whether in your family, the classroom, your neighborhood, etc. (200–250 words)

MIT is committed to the idea that it helps the world. It’s on a lot of its marketing materials and is reflected in how it talks about itself. The school has had a reputation for being cold in the past, and they’re serious about changing that perception and reality. 

With that as background, you know they’re looking for students who will make MIT a warm campus for other students and do good after they graduate. To convince them, you don’t have to be grandiose. Just be sure to tell a real, concrete, and detail-filled story of a time you contributed. 

Q4: Contributing to your community — Example

This is a newer question, so we don’t have examples from The Tech. This one is invented. 

Community — example

My grandmother lives in a remote area of Michigan, by herself. Although she is social and has many friends, I know she’s often lonely and misses us. After a visit to her on my Spring Break of sophomore year, I vowed to call her weekly. In fact, I call her after swim practice on Tuesdays, which is a twenty-minute walk from my home. It’s the perfect amount of time to chat and it makes getting home go by fast. 

The only time I stopped calling was the second half of last Fall semester when I broke my shoulder and didn’t swim. I fell out of the habit and couldn’t quite make it work as before. What was funny was how I quickly realized that I missed chatting with my grandmother — I’ve been getting at least as much out of this “kind” act as she must be. I was so happy when I got my weekly-calling groove back again.

Every week, I learn something from my grandmother. Sometimes, it's something amazing, like the time she raised money with her first-grade class (in the 1930’s!) to go toward repairs for the USS Constitution! Sometimes, it’s something important, like the fact that she wants extra paid care to come check on her (which I relayed to my mom). But mostly it’s small things, like the new neighbor who moved in, the TV show she hated, or the stewed tomato recipe she pulled off. 

Notes:

• Word count: 240
• This essay shows contribution, as well as initiative of deciding to make this habit happen.
• The essay makes the reader think that the student would probably be a kind, considerate person who would make a great addition on campus. 
• The essay is about a small example, but it works because it fleshes that example out and shows that the kindness behind it is real.

Q5: A challenge you faced — Talk about your initiative or drive in the face of an imperfect situation

Here is the prompt again:

Tell us about a significant challenge you’ve faced or something that didn’t go according to plan that you feel comfortable sharing. How did you manage the situation? (200-250 words)

This prompt is a great set-up for initiative and drive. Look through your list of brainstormed experiences and see if you can find something that would fit here, importantly, something where things really went wrong or looked dire. 

MIT wants to see how you’ll fare in the real world. The real world is a place where things seldom go smoothly. The operative words in this prompt are the last ones: “How did you manage the situation?”

Q5: A challenge you faced — Examples

Challenge — example 1:

My first and most important research project to date almost ended with failure. In 2013 I started a project at Semmelweis University under the guidance of Professor Peter Csermely. The subject of my research was to explore how network-based methods could help to find novel drug targets, which could be used to design drugs with potentially low side effects. I initially approached it by trying to establish a correlation between the number and/or frequency of known side effects to drugs and the ability of the corresponding drug targets to propagate changes in the human protein-protein interaction network (interactome). The change propagation in the network was measured by the "silencing time" (the number of simulation steps needed for a perturbation to dissipate), using an application developed by another member of the group. However, soon it became apparent that there was no connection between these two measures, and the project appeared doomed to failure. Nevertheless, I did not give up. I looked at the obtained results from another perspective, and after careful review of the collected data, I realized that all drugs with reported side effects seemed to have low silencing times, therefore, a larger impact on the network. I could confirm this by further statistical computations. I finally found that drugs with target proteins which were better spreaders of perturbations in the human interactome were more likely to have reported side effects. Thus, despite the initial difficulties, the research did actually bring novel results, which were later published in Nature Scientific Reports (nature.com/articles/srep10182).

• Word count: 256 — note: that is over the limit. We do not recommend going 6 words over. This student could easily have cut 6 words from his essay. Don’t lose points for something so easy.
• Strengths: This essay follows the prompt well, talking about a potential failure and the student’s management of that failure. 
• Strength: The essay is extremely concrete and detailed — we particularly like the link they give to their research! The essay has tons of details that makes you think: “Get this student onto MIT’s campus now!”
• Strength: The essay shows initiative and drive in how the student overcame the issue. Also intellectual curiosity in the student doing this high-level research so young.
• Weakness: The only weakness is that the “challenge” doesn’t really come off as that serious. If they could re-work it to show how dead the project seemed at one point, that might make it seem that this student is really resilient and able to deal with hard facts. 

Challenge — example 2:

I overlooked my anxiety each time my brain froze mid-answer. However, I realized the destructive effect of this problem when two hours had passed with me just staring at the Asian Physics Olympiad test. I prepared myself in an attempt to tackling the experimental section. In the rush, I spilled corn syrup over my arm. This triggered my eczema to kick-in fiercely. My skin turned red and irritated; I couldn’t help but scratch until the pain outweighed the itchiness. I broke a banana that was on the table into pieces and rubbed it against my arm to moisturize and calm the inflamed area.

By the time I switched back to the test, a neglected anxiety problem was at its peak, a sticky area covered my arm, empty test pages were sitting on the table, and only two hours were left. I knew it wouldn't end well. I stopped looking at the clock every five seconds and calmly realized: I don't give my fullest for egos, prizes, or even myself; I'm doing my best only for the past Ebrahim who did everything to get here. My mind cleared. I held the pencil and started writing.

Being a half-point away from becoming among the first Saudis to get a prize in the APhO won’t let me forget this experience. I never faced test-anxiety again because my perspective on test-taking changed; from counting on myself and stressing mid-situation to counting on what I learned in the past and my efforts. I used this perspective and found that solutions started to come in my mind quicker.

• Word count: 262 — again, over!!! Agh! This drives us nuts. This student definitely could have gotten within the limit with just a little extra time devoted to snipping words out. 
• Strong: The essay is simply delightful.
• Strong: The essay really shows what seems like an actual, for-real disaster. In this, it’s stronger than the one above.
• Strong: The essay gives us so many examples of concrete problem solving, from using a banana to calm eczema(!) to finding a way to calm deep anxiety that changes how the student approaches tests. The student seems extremely resilient and full of initiative and drive.
• Strong: The student does some great “showing off” in a natural way — mentioning how close they came to getting the prize, for example. A college essay isn’t the place to be modest about your achievements.
• Weaknesses: Except going over the word count, not really!

Additional Info section — read our guidance to decide whether and how to use this

Here is the prompt:

There is also one final, open-ended, additional-information text box where you can tell us anything else you think we really ought to know.

In the Common App, the Additional Info section can be an enormous asset. But it’s also highly anxiety-producing for many students. This “extra” question functions in pretty much the same way. 

That’s why we recommend you learn all about the admissions-boosting possibilities of the “Additional Info” space — as well as its real pitfalls — before deciding how to tackle this question in your own application. 

Helpful info on all the “other” stuff you’ll consider as you apply to MIT (and other schools)

A few helpful resources for the non-supplement parts of your application:

Activity List: MIT has its own take on the activity list:

Please use our form, not a resume, to list your activities. There is only enough space to list four things—please choose the four that mean the most to you and tell us a bit about them.

That being said, the principles are the same as you’ll need for the Common App Activity List, so brush up with our article and you’ll be in great shape. 

Submitting test scores: MIT is not test-optional. 

Early options: MIT offers Early and Regular Action. Read our Early Admissions article so you know how to approach this decision. 

BTW, here’s our guidance for approaching any college supplement + here’s where you can find our guides for almost every college’s supplements. 

Feeling inspired? A great place to start is at our College Essay Help Center. 

More articles on Prompt.com’s admissions-boosting methods:

• Work with a college essay coach
• Strong essays increase your chance of admission by up to 10x
• Don’t let influencers influence your college essays
• Should I apply test-optional?
• Early admissions: Everything you need to know
• College Essay Help Center