 Every year I have the pleasure of reviewing a number of rice supplements. I dedicate a video to discussing how you can most effectively tell your story with rice. Thank you for joining me on my channel. This is Write Your Acceptance. I'm Dr. Josie. Make sure you hit subscribe so you don't miss a video. So this is a promise for all students. Prompt one, please explain why you wish to study in the academic areas you selected. The first few are very short at 150 words. Actually just filming a Columbia video and the last couple of their supplements, this would fit nicely. A nice recycle by the way. So this is 150 as to why the academic areas that you selected, right? So you can think kind of two parts, very efficient because it's a very short supplement. The first one could be a mini story asked to you engaging in the discipline. The example I gave was an engineering student who loves to make kind of bridges out of popsicle sticks and then they test them with, you know, using various weights. And so they can describe in story form how they kind of, you know, put one weight after another after another until it collapses and that kind of weird feeling of satisfaction that they get when the bridge collapses. So like a very short example, evidence of you engaging in the discipline. I've also seen students that are interested in philosophy and English and writing communications kind of talk about a presentation that they give a five minute kind of presentation and with kind of their fear of public speaking, kind of how that mixed up into the content and delivery, but how they love the research and the argumentation and all that stuff. So then the first half is you kind of directly engaging in the discipline in some way. And then the second half could be why that major, why that academic area at Rice specifically. So you can mention a course and that would be an interesting way of really showing very rice specific detail. So prompt two, based upon your exploration of Rice University, what elements of the rice experience appeal to you? This is your why us essay. I have a couple of videos where I give you examples of why us essays or the kind of roadmap that you need to kind of think about what types of research you need. So I'll link up my typical like general why us video up top so you can have that there 150 words. This is kind of like a I'm getting in and get out, right? So like you want to be very, very efficient. You want to mention very evidence based information of rice. So like if you mentioned a course at the end of the first supplement, you don't necessarily need to mention a course here, but you can mention a discussion panel that they have annual kind of workshop or conference. You can mention kind of professional development opportunities in the, you know, business school or like resume developing. If you're interested in, you know, a type of internships that you are interested in within the undergraduate experience, you can mention a professor that you want to learn from. You can mention community service activity that you'd like to do in the broader community. So it's a why rice, but definitely don't kind of borrow from anything that you would have mentioned at the kind of tail end of the first supplement. Prompt three is 500 words. So it is rice is lauded for creating a collaborative atmosphere that enhances a quality of life for all members of our campus community. The residential college system and undergraduate life are heavily influenced by the unique life experiences and cultural traditions each student brings. What life perspectives would you contribute to the rice community? So this prompt can be considered kind of like your identity essay. You want to showcase what you are hoping to bring yourself to rice and many students kind of forget that. So you definitely want to add that in at the end, but you want to show kind of you taking charge, taking initiative, being kind of engaged in community. Essentially you are vying to be part of their community, right? And they're talking about this prompt as being a kind of community oriented community building essay, right? So examples from previous students. They, one student spoke functional French, not completely fluent, but they spoke enough, right? And one time they went to Paris for the first time and we're really excited. They were taking a tour of a museum. I forget which one and their tour guide kind of just looked blue in the face and got sick right at the beginning and she took over and she was basically kind of conducting the tour in French, in her functional French. It wasn't perfect, but like, you know, so she would sometimes kind of swap into an English word here and there, but it was amazing and the rest of the tourists really kind of appreciated it. And she made strangers instant friends and that was just such a great and kind of stepping out of a vulnerable experience into kind of like a very small leadership role, but fun. And she shows how important she built community around vulnerability, right? And about putting herself out there. Another one, I have a couple students who have taken jujitsu and who then have taught jujitsu to like the first crop of like the younger kids, six, seven year olds in the very place that they would take jujitsu themselves. So, so it's kind of, you know, you start with a mini story of like you in the middle of things, right? And kind of show you kind of building this community in some way, engaging with people, an interest surrounding an interest for you, and then kind of explain how that was of value to you and what you learned. And then don't forget those last couple lines to Rice, I would bring this sense of adventure or this kind of joyous openness for new experiences. So what about, what's that kind of elevator pitch? How does the experience boil down to one or two lines? That's where you're going to bring to Rice. That's ideally how you would want to end that essay, in my opinion. Okay, so the rice box. One of Rice's long standing traditions is the box. A question on our application, where we ask all of our applicants to share an image of something that appeals to them. The box gives you the opportunity to present us with an image that shares something about yourself, your interests or what is meaningful to you. This image is not used for evaluative purposes in the application, but allows you to put your stamp on the application about who you are, aside from what you have achieved. Be sure to choose an image that speaks for itself and does not need an explanation. That is super, super important. The box must be a two dimensional image that is uploaded in the Common Application or the Coalition or uploaded to the Rice Admission Student Portal. Okay, so I love the box. I'm question. Technically, it's not an essay, I know, but I wanted to talk about it because I feel like they say it's not for evaluative purposes, so it's not going to kind of factor into their application decision for you. But it's still a nice way of adding kind of some visual rhetoric, right, to your application. So it could continue a conversation of community story that you mentioned in the previous essay, in the previous supplement. It could be a picture of that or it could be kind of, it could be complimentary in a visual format, and that's very, it could be powerful. So I've had students that do community service by a soccer clinic every summer, and they talked about that in their main essay, in their Common App essay, and then they show a picture of them with like all of the kids around another one who donated soccer cleats. This one for some reason is very heavy in soccer. And so then they show their kind of like a visual image of their kind of foundation. I've also seen students kind of, you know, they talked about the jujitsu experience, they would be like in their jujitsu kind of uniform. I don't know what that's called, I'm sorry. So make it personal. The most important thing from a supplemental perspective are the essays because that is where you are kind of mic and hand talking directly to them. This is important though too, because it's complimentary and it's a fun way to kind of visually, like they say, add a stamp, put a stamp onto your application. Do you have an image that you're not sure if to add to the box or not? Comment below or any questions on the supplements. I'd love to help you out. Okay, so here we're going to talk about kind of school specific essays that are extra essays fun. So if you are applying to the School of Architecture, you have a couple more. Architecture applicants are not required to enter prompt three. So you would skip the third prompt of the previous supplement, but you'll enter one and two here. So prompt one. Why do you want to study architecture? What research have you done, experiences have you had or anything else you would like to expound on to explain this decision? So this is 250 words. Because you have the 150 of the why school, like why us, right? You want to think about this 250 as new information that you'd like to give. So figure out another story, another experience within your major, within the kind of subject matter that you can kind of start with or end with. You want to kind of take a step back and think about your supplements holistically. When you have like four or five supplements that you need to get through for any one specific school, don't only start with like story, then explanation, story, then explanation, kind of switch it up, right? Sometimes you'll do an explanation or define kind of the buzzword of the prompt and then do a story and then go into explanation. So kind of flip it around, but know that you want to kind of balance between creative elements and critical thinking and reflection. So this why architecture, you want to essentially kind of give more information as to why this is your professional passion calling, but I would anchor it in an experience that you can kind of like draw upon and then reflect on prompt to please expand on relevant experiences and motivations outside of your academic trajectory that have inspired you to study architecture, focusing on aspects that are not accommodated by other prompts in the application, more on why architecture 250 words, but this one is completely different. If you really spend time lingering on the words of this prompt, it says outside of your academic trajectory, right? So it should not be within a classroom, it shouldn't be a classroom project. I really kind of urge students to kind of push their philosophical mojo here a little bit. Architecture is a very multidisciplinary subject, right? You have urban planning and design and engineering, like there's so many kind of subjects that infiltrate or that combine to create architecture, right? And there's so many kind of creative and academic elements. So you can kind of really think about different aspects that you've engaged with thoughtfully and kind of use that, for example, student examples that I've had in the past. One of my favorite essays that a student wrote about is like this nearby park by their house that nobody would go to, like it was kind of run down and it was just this like dead space that nobody would engage in. They took it to the association of their house kind of compound and then nearby other ones, the ones surrounding the park. And the student actually with a couple of friends started a coalition of fundraising to refurbish the park. So it started with kind of like the eerie kind of sound of like swings, like park swings kind of swinging by themselves, kind of like Halloweeny. And then it went into what they did. And then it came back to a many story about kids like playing and laughing and you hear them accessing the space in a different way that they weren't using completely before. And then they go into how that that is the beauty of architecture. You are kind of reimagining what's possible with any given space. You are re-inviting and creating belonging for people. So notice how kind of completely different that is from like building a bridge or like a class project. It has community, it has engagement, it has leadership, and it has kind of the philosophical ideals of what architecture is to that student. All right, so if you are applying to the Rice-Baler medical program, here are your prompts. What aspirations, experiences, or relationships have motivated you to study in the eight-year Rice-Baler medical scholars program. So this is 500 words. This is your kind of typical medical school personal statement, but like not on steroids, right? So like they know that you are coming from high school. They know that you don't have the, you know, four or six years of experience that a student coming from an undergrad or post-bac experience would have, right? But if you are committing to eight years and medicine is your calling, ideally you've had experiences, clinical experiences of some sort, volunteering experiences that have allowed you to have some patient contact that have allowed you to or you've already shadowed physicians, medical conferences. So these types of medically related experiences that have reinforced this big commitment because it's a huge commitment to do right out of high school, right? So you want to talk about kind of those formative experiences and relate them to why they've clarified your conviction for this program so early on. I have a few medical school personal statement essay samples and videos on this channel actually because I also work with students getting into medical and dental school. So if you want to see those for this prompt specifically, that would give you more kind of actual material that you can look at and think about. So prompt two, outside of academics, what do you enjoy doing most? 300 words. So here you want to essentially show that you're not a robot, right? So that you kind of enjoy doing other activities, that it's not just kind of medical and kind of STEM related experiences. So all right, I guess it can be a STEM related experience, but it's not like strictly academic school. I need to study for this. I need to pass this AP test and I'm going to volunteer at this one, you know, place that you've already mentioned in the previous essay. So think about all of these essays as holistically offering different aspects of who you are. What do you enjoy? What do you find joy in, right? So like kind of give him any story, explain, and that'll kind of be great complementary material to the previous essays. Prompt three, describe the most difficult adversity you have faced and describe how you dealt with it. 300 words. I don't know if this is a necessary supplement prompt, but I think it's a very interesting and productive prompt because I really want to see that you are resilient, that you have, that you've navigated obstacles. It's really not this kind of opportunity for you to kind of low ball yourself or come hard down on yourself, right? You don't want to focus too much on anything negative. What you want to do is kind of state the adversity, state the issue, the problem, and then focus most of the essay on how you shifted courses, how you adapted, how you essentially were able to overcome whatever said obstacle in adversity because you were able to be adaptable to the change that you needed to. So like you are expressing your resilience and you're showing that through an example. If you found this helpful, please give us a like, make sure you subscribe, share with all your friends, and I'll see you soon. Thank you so much.