How has your life experience contributed to your personal story—your character, values, perspectives, or skills—and what you want to pursue at Hopkins? (350-word limit)

The Hopkins Admissions page shares a solid approach to writing this essay, the core of which we’re sharing below in italics. What can be better than advice straight from the horse’s mouth, right? You can find the full post here. Under Hopkins’s advice is our build on how to think about which personal experience(s) will yield the best essays. 

Picture your life in college. What does your community look like? Which aspects of your identity are most important for you to develop and nurture?  

Now jot down some thoughts about experiences or parts of your identity that have had a significant effect on your life. Maybe it’s a hobby you love, a cultural tradition, or an instance when you discovered something new about yourself. 

Once you have a list, think about how each of these will continue to play a role in your college life. Choose one to focus on and spend some time building it out. 

Keep in mind this essay is not an exercise in “tell us everything you know about Hopkins.” While it’s important for the admissions committee to see you’ve done your research and understand what Hopkins has to offer, simply listing what you hope to pursue on campus is only half of the puzzle. Be sure to connect the dots by explaining why you wish to pursue those things, and how they’ll help you remain connected to and grow in your identity. 

Admissionado’s build: this is great advice, which we highly recommend following! The initial writing exercise to generate the list is a perfect place to start. As you review that list, DO think about how each item will continue to play a role in your life, as Johns Hopkins suggests. We ALSO recommend thinking about your personal transformation associated with each list item, and any direct action you took in connection. 

You’re the hero and this is your journey… and every hero’s journey involves transformation and action. Even if you’re talking about, say, a cultural identity you’ve had your entire life… think about this: have you ever had a realization about what it means to have this cultural identity, or a cultural identity that diverges from most people around you? How has that shaped how you think about the world? About community? About your role in the world or community? And then, what ACTIONS did this realization spur you to take?

Now, take this set of reflections and turn your gaze forward to your life at college / Hopkins and beyond. How does this particular lived experience inform how you would navigate college life at Hopkins? Going back to the Johns Hopkins adcom’s advice, don’t just list a bunch of things that Hopkins offers. For each list item that’s still looking promising, try to connect it to something (or some things) Hopkins offers UNIQUELY – either it’s something you can only find at Hopkins, or Hopkins’s brand of it is uniquely suited to you in XYZ way(s). And keep in mind this piece of advice from Hopkins:

Be sure to connect the dots by explaining why you wish to pursue those things, and how they’ll help you remain connected to and grow in your identity. 

You want your story to have a through-line: something unique about your lived experience, how it’s shaped your perspective, actions and/or motivations, how Hopkins’s resources will uniquely meet your needs for learning and community, and where this specific journey is pointing you, going forward. If you’ve got that – and your past and future hang together enough for the reader to say, ‘yep that makes sense, I’m tracking the logic here’, you should be well on your way to a first draft!