Mount Holyoke College 2025-26 Supplemental Essay Prompt Guide

Mount Holyoke College 2025-26 Application Essay Explanations

The Requirements: 1 optional essays of 250-400 words

Supplemental Essay Type(s): Why, Community, Oddball

Please select one of the three prompts below. Your essay should be between 250-400 words. The submission of the Writing supplement is optional.

What unique characteristic about Mount Holyoke makes you interested in attending?

The admissions department at Mount Holyoke wants to know why you’re applying. First things first, take a look at the other two prompts below. If neither of them spark any ideas or inspiration, this might just be the perfect prompt to select, since you should definitely have material for this one. A classic Why Essay like this one is a time-honored supplement tradition, and your answer can reveal a lot to admissions about your potential fit and overall commitment to the school. Spend some time on the Mount Holyoke website (if you haven’t already) and get to know what they have to offer. Explore all areas of social and academic life to build your list of reasons, big and small. You’d be wise to include as many specific references in your response as possible; demonstrate your authentic interest in Mount Holyoke and admissions is sure to take note.

Every day, our students cultivate the competence, confidence and courage to make an impact — whether on a personal, community or global level. Tell us about the context in which you have grown up, what forms your aspirations and how your community has shaped your outlook.

This is a classic Community Essay, through and through. Admissions officers want to know how your background and community have made you into the person you are today. Where do you come from? What you address can be reflective of larger cultural constructs or a trait specific to your immediate family. Consider how your particular background or experience will help you contribute to Mount Holyoke’s campus community. How will it help inspire and/or inform others? What has influenced your identity and your aspirations? What do you believe and how have your experiences molded you into the kind of person who cultivates the competence, confidence, and courage necessary to make an impact? As long as you are revealing new information about yourself that will help admissions to envision you as a community member next fall, you’re on the right track.

What do you find fascinating? Choose a person, place, concept, idea, or theory and tell us why!

Mount Holyoke wants to accept intellectually curious applicants, so take this opportunity to rant and rave about your current obsession! Maybe you find Mughal culture captivating and can’t get enough of Mughal art, poetry, and architecture online. Where did your interest originate? Does it suggest a potential major in Art History? Or perhaps, after recently joining your grandfather on a fishing expedition, you’ve developed an interest in your local ecosystem. How does this passion connect to some of your other interests and what about fishing keeps you observing (quietly from above)? Maybe you’ve been bitten by the “Shakespeare didn’t write his own plays” bug and have spent hours on deep internet rabbit holes weighing the various theories and conjectures. How does this obsession relate to your interest in classical theater and British period TV shows? What was the last person, place, idea, theory, or skill you learned about that truly captured your imagination? The bottom line here is to discuss examples of what truly fascinates you while also reflecting on what these examples say about your personality traits, interests, or passions.