Berry College 2026-27 Supplemental Essay Prompt Guide

Berry College 2026-27 Application Essay Question Explanation

The Requirements:  1 essay of 250 words

Supplemental Essay Type(s): Why, Community 

Berry believes that thriving communities are created by the people within them. In a brief response, we’d love to know two additional things about you: (limit 250 words)

1) What do you believe makes a community thrive?

2) What interests you most about Berry? 

In this short essay, Berry College wants you to tell them two separate things. First, they’re asking you to share your personal vision of a thriving community. In your mind—and drawing from your experience—what values, actions, ideas, or guidelines make a community succeed? Is inclusivity key to a thriving sports team or cast of a play? Is caring for each other crucial for a thriving family or neighborhood? Draw upon your experiences of what has worked (and what hasn’t worked) in your own communities to define your own set of community values. Note that the prompt highlights the importance of the people within communities. What have you personally done to improve your communities? 

Second, admissions wants to know what draws you to their school. While this may seem like a totally unrelated question, it’s not; use the values you defined in your answer to the first part of this question as a guide to identify aspects of Berry’s curriculum, school culture, and extracurriculars that attract you to their school. Will the First-Year Seminar provide shared experiences with your peers, a key aspect of a healthy community? Will the Signature Learning Experiences bring together students with shared interests to build a close-knit cohort with shared goals? Maybe your experience as a camp counselor has prepared you to join their ranks as a peer mentor. As you work on this essay, jot down every value, experience, and Berry fact you can think of. Then, since this essay is only 250 words, you’ll have plenty of material to pick from to make your answer as rich and persuasive as possible.