Boston College (BC) 2025-26 Supplemental Essay Prompt Guide

Boston College 2025-26 Application Essay Question Explanations

The Requirements: 1 short essay of 400 words
Supplemental Essay Type(s): Community

How to Write Boston College Supplemental Essays

Boston College only requires one additional essay—whew!—and offers you several options to pick from. Each prompt aims to learn more about you from a different angle. A Jesuit university, Boston College encourages students to “combine reflection and self-discovery with action,” using their education to address society’s needs. As you select your essay prompt, pick the one that resonates most deeply with you and allows you to share something unique about your personality, values, or background. Read on to discover our Boston College essay writing tips!

We would like to get a better sense of you. Please respond to one of the first four prompts below (400 word limit). Students applying to the Human Centered Engineering major should respond to Prompt #5 instead.

Strong communities are sustained by traditions. Boston College’s annual calendar is marked with both long-standing and newer traditions that help shape our community. Tell us about a meaningful tradition in your family or community. Why is it important to you, and how does it bring people together or strengthen the bonds of those who participate?

This essay prompt probes the idea of community through the specific lens of tradition. Think about the groups you’re a part of and any rituals or traditions they have. Your community could be as delineated as family, gender, or religion, or as informal as your group of friends, the kids who wait at the same bus stop as you, or your fellow followers of a particular Twitch streamer. Perhaps you celebrate Chinese New Year every year at the community center, deepening your ties to your local Chinese American community and heritage. Maybe on the first Monday of every month, the kids at your bus stop take turns bringing fresh cookies for everyone, forging bonds across grade levels with people you wouldn’t have met otherwise. Whatever you choose to write about, make sure you discuss why that tradition matters to you personally and to your community as a whole. 

The late BC theology professor, Father Michael Himes, argued that a university is not a place to which you go, but instead, a “rigorous and sustained conversation about the great questions of human existence, among the widest possible circle of the best possible conversation partners.” Who has been your most meaningful conversation partner, and what profound questions have you considered together?

Whether you cherish early-morning car rides to school with your dad, late-night conversations with your sister on the couch, or chatting with your long-distance BFF over Zoom, we’re willing to bet there’s at least one person in your life with whom you ponder the big questions. And Boston College wants to hear all about it.

To make sure your response stands out from the pack, be as specific and purposeful as possible. Maybe you and your cousin compare your different lifestyles and discuss social pressures every year over Thanksgiving dinner. Or, perhaps you’ve asked probing questions about your grandma’s beliefs in order to better understand her worldview during monthly games of golf. Details are your friend here to add credibility. Whichever conversational partner and whatever important discussion topics you decide to write about, remember that BC is looking to accept thoughtful students to campus who are open to new ideas and engaging with diverse viewpoints.

In her July 2009 Ted Talk, “The Danger of a Single Story,” Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie warned viewers against assigning people a “single story” through assumptions about their nationality, appearance, or background.  Discuss a time when someone defined you by a single story. What challenges did this present and how did you overcome them?

This prompt will likely stick out to students who know what it’s like to be reduced to one aspect of their background or identity, and odds are, you’d have a specific memory in mind. As you write your response, you’ll want to make sure you summarize your account as succinctly as possible; that way, you can dedicate most of your words to discussing how you felt, how you responded, and how you overcame these challenges. You only have 400 words to work with, so you won’t be able to write a thesis on the general public’s preconceived notions about people living with a disability or women who choose to wear hijabs, but you can reveal more information about your background and experiences living in a world where stories are often assigned to you before you have the chance to introduce yourself.

Boston College’s Jesuit mission highlights “the three Be’s”: be attentive, be reflective, be loving – core to Jesuit education (see A Pocket Guide to Jesuit Education). If you could add a fourth “Be,” what would it be and why? How would this new value support your personal development and enrich the BC community?

Right away, this prompt is subtly suggesting you do some research on BC’s website to learn more about “the three Be’s.” Once you have a good handle on these, do some introspection about your own values and what you consider important for a college campus. Grab a notebook and brainstorm about the values you see in your own communities—your family, sports team, your gender identity, etc. You can also list some people you admire and write down the qualities you associate with them. Which of these values are most important to you? Why? Once you’ve identified a different value that you believe in strongly, discuss how it would guide not only you, but also the entire BC community. Maybe you value activism and would add “Be Bold” to the list to empower yourself and your fellow students to stand up your beliefs. Perhaps you have an insatiable thirst for knowledge and would add “Be Curious” to encourage students to conduct research and expand human understanding of the world. A strong answer to this question will show admissions not only what you consider your personal values, but also how those values would enrich their campus community. 

Human-Centered Engineering (HCE) Applicants only: One goal of a Jesuit education is to prepare students to serve the Common Good. Human-Centered Engineering at Boston College integrates technical knowledge, creativity, and a humanistic perspective to address societal challenges and opportunities. What societal problems are important to you and how will you use your HCE education to solve them?

Our advice for this prompt, exclusively for Human-Centered Applicants, is simple: Select at least one societal problem that weighs on your heart, explain its significance to you, and describe how you will take advantage of an HCE education to find a solution. You’d be wise to spend some time exploring the HCE program and BC’s offerings at large to show that you’ve done your research and dedicated time to thinking about your future goals and the steps you will take to achieve them.