University of New Mexico-Main Campus supplemental essays

Program-specific prompts

These apply only if you are applying to the named program or school.

• Honors CollegeRequired250 words max

  Why Honors College

  Why are you interested in joining the Honors College? How do you think Honors will contribute to your experience at UNM?

  How to approach it

  This is a why-us prompt. The trap is describing the school back to itself; rankings and campus beauty read as filler. Name the two or three specific things (a program, a professor's work, a structure like open curriculum) you would actually use, and tie each to something you have already done.

• Honors CollegeOptional200 words max

  What matters most

  Choose one of the items on your list and tell us why it's important to you.

• Honors CollegeOptional

  Anything else

  Is there anything else you'd like the admissions committee to know? This could include your strengths and challenges as a student, or information about your family or background.

  How to approach it

  Community and identity prompts reward specificity over significance. A small, true community described from the inside beats a broad label described from the outside. End on what you carry from it into a campus, not on a moral.

• Honors CollegeRequired250 words max

  Fifty years from now

  50 years from now, your picture is hanging somewhere, and someone is looking at it. Where is it, what is it doing there, and who is looking at it?

• Honors CollegeRequired250 words max

  A community you've built

  Community is an important value in the Honors College. Tell us about a community you have contributed to and why it is important to you.

  How to approach it

  Community and identity prompts reward specificity over significance. A small, true community described from the inside beats a broad label described from the outside. End on what you carry from it into a campus, not on a moral.