Supplemental Writing to the Common Application

Class of 2016

When you visit the Common Application website to fill out and submit your application to Tufts, you'll notice that the application includes a supplement. The Tufts supplement consists of three required short response questions and a selection of optional essay topics. We’ve created this page to allow you to peruse the questions without having to leave this site. Visit the Common Application site when you’re actually ready to apply online.

Short Responses (Required of all Applicants)

  1. Which aspects of Tufts’ curriculum or undergraduate experience prompt your application? In short: “Why Tufts?” (50–100 words)
  2. There is a Quaker saying: “Let your life speak.” Describe the environment in which you were raised – your family, home, neighborhood or community – and how it influenced the person you are today. (200–250 words)
  3. For the second short response we asked you to consider the world around you. Now, consider the world within. Taste in music, food and clothing can make a statement while politics, sports, religion and ethnicity are often defining attributes. Are you a vegetarian? A poet? Do you prefer You Tube or test tubes, Mac or PC? Are you the drummer in an all-girl rock band? Do you tinker? Use the richness of your identity to frame your personal outlook. (200–250 words)

Optional Response Topics

We invite you to choose one of these topics and to prepare an essay of 250 to 500 words. Think outside the box when you answer. Take a risk and go somewhere unexpected. Be serious if the moment calls for it but feel comfortable being playful if that suits you, too. (And this section really is optional!)

  1. Science, math and society are filled with postulates, laws and theories like the Ninth Commandment, PV=nRT, Occam’s Razor and H.R. 3541. Warm air rises. Good (English) grammar requires “i” before “e” except after “c.” So pick a law, any law, and explain its significance to you.
  2. Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa told the New York Times, “The only way of not generating conflict is to do nothing, and I wasn’t elected to do nothing.” What issue quickens your pulse and inspires you to join the fray?
  3. Celebrate your nerdy side.
  4. The human narrative is replete with memorable characters like America’s Paul Revere, ancient Greece’s Perseus or the Fox Spirits of East Asia. Imagine one of humanity’s storied figures is alive and working in the world today. Why does Rapunzel work at Saks? Would Shiva be a general or a diplomat? Is Quetzalcoatl trapped in a zoo? In short, connect your chosen figure to the contemporary world and imagine the life he/she/it might lead.
  5. Why did you do it?
  6. Prepare a one-minute video that says something about you. Upload it to an easily accessible website (like YouTube, but we recommend using a privacy setting) and give us the URL and access code. What you do or say is totally up to you. (We are unable to watch videos that come in any form other than a URL link.)