Gonzaga University 2025-26 Supplemental Essay Prompt Guide

Gonzaga University 2025-26 Application Essay Question Explanations 

The Requirements: 1 short essay of 5-10 sentences

Supplemental Essay Type(s): Why, Community

In addition to your Common App essay, many colleges and universities, including Gonzaga, require an additional supplemental question. For Gonzaga’s question, we do not require this to be the same length as your essay. This is a short answer question instead. Your response should be between five to ten sentences with a limit of 300 words. The two prompts for you to choose from are:

Prompt 1: A Gonzaga education promotes dedication to human dignity, social justice, diversity, global engagement, solidarity with the vulnerable, and environmental stewardship. Reflecting on these values, how have you shown your commitment to standing for and with others in your actions?

If you choose this prompt, odds are you’re passionate about something impacting you, your community, or the world at large. You don’t have to be a protest organizer to impress admissions here; it can be just as bold to engage in a dialogue with family members from older generations on controversial topics or to utilize your creativity to draw informative comics that break down complex issues for TikTok. If you’re feeling stuck, maybe start by thinking about the topics that are most important to you. What keeps you up at night? Gun violence? Climate change? Food deserts? Next, think about what steps you’ve taken in your life to effect change and engage in difficult conversations in order to call on others to help and spread awareness. Ultimately, the key to writing an excellent response to this prompt is in the details. Don’t just tell Gonzaga about something you’ve advocated for recently; tell them why you did so, how you did so, and maybe even how you would like to continue engaging with or fighting for human dignity and justice in the future.

Prompt 2: Gonzaga’s Presidential Speaker’s Series invites leaders from around the world (such as LTC Olga Custodio, America’s first Latina military pilot or Cotopaxi founder Davis Smith) to share their work and passions with the GU community. If you were able to invite any living person to come and speak to the GU community, who would it be? Why would you want to invite them?

Gonzaga wants you to select a living person to speak to the GU community. A question like this one is probing for an inkling of your interests and motivations. Who do you admire? What are your aspirations? What kinds of things drive your curiosity? When you come upon a prompt that directly or indirectly asks you to demonstrate your academic or cultural knowledge, the key is to be confident and genuine. Don’t second-guess your own interests or strain to write about a topic simply because you think it will impress admissions—spoiler alert: they’ll be able to tell. It will be easier to write about someone you are genuinely interested in, and the results will be more personal and memorable! Which person would give you a chance to reveal something new about yourself to admissions, like an otherwise unspoken interest in politics, fashion, or ancient history?