We've already posted the 2008 essay questions on the Office of Admission website, but I thought I'd post them here as well. See this as a hint. If you spend time working on college applications this summer, work on your essays. A lot of the time we spend reviewing applications is spent reading essays. Analyzing transcripts and reading forms can get a little dry, which makes us really look forward to getting a sense of personality from your essays!
(1) Please answer the question that corresponds to the school you selected on Part I of your application in half a page, or roughly 250 words.
College of Arts and Sciences: What work of art, music, science, mathematics, or literature has surprised or unsettled or challenged you, and in what way?
School of Engineering: Discuss experiences that led you to choose an engineering education at U.Va. and the role that scientific curiosity plays in your life.
School of Architecture: What led you to apply to the School of Architecture?
School of Nursing: Discuss experiences that led you to choose the School of Nursing.
(2) Answer one of the following questions. Limit your response to half a page, or approximately 250 words.
- What is your favorite word, and why?
- Describe the world you come from and how that world shaped who you are.
- Discuss something you secretly like but pretend not to or vice versa?
- What issue of local,national,or international significance concerns you? Why?
- "We might say that we were looking for global schemas, symmetries, universal and unchanging laws - and what we have discovered is the mutable, the ephemeral, the complex." Support or challenge Nobel Prize winner Ilya Prigogine's assertion.
(3) Please write on a topic of your choice.
If an essay question for another college piqued your interest, feel free to submit your response to that question. Please limit your submission to one page, or approximately 500 words.
