Personal Essay
Frequently Asked Questions about your Personal Essay
Answers
Does Dartmouth require more than one admissions essay?
The only required supplements are the First-Year supplement and the Peer Evaluation.
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Is there any specific prompt for the Personal Statement?
No, not exactly. The Common App proposes the following topics and any of them are fine (including a "Topic of your choice"):
My advice to you is to make sure that whatever your topic, your writing style and content is personal. Everything you say should help the readers of your file get to know you as real person, especially those intangible qualities that can't be easily understood elsewhere, including creativity, leadership, sense of humor, passion, compassion, intellectual curiosity, self-awareness, social-awareness, and more. Your personal statement is not just an essay or writing sample, it's our way of getting to know you and what you'll bring to Dartmouth.
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How long should my Personal Essay be?
As long as it needs to be and no longer.
As for a minimum, the Common Application suggests 250 words.
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