The biggest Cornell essay change this year is not hidden in any one prompt. Rather, it is the prompt that is no longer there.
For applicants applying in the current admission cycle, Cornell has dropped the 350-word Cornell University question about community and lived experience. This decision highlights three important trends that I am already tracking in this application cycle:
- Fewer supplemental essays overall. Whether colleges describe the change as an effort to lower barriers and reduce application stress or are responding to the unwelcome task of reading bland AI-assisted writing, many students will have fewer supplemental essays to complete this year.
- Schools that have eliminated their school-specific essays this cycle include: Georgia Tech, University of Georgia, University of Miami, UNC-Chapel Hill, and Tulane.
- Schools that have reduced the number of their supplements (besides Cornell) include: Wake Forest, Washington University in St. Louis, and Santa Clara University.
- Fewer community- and identity-based questions in particular. After the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision ending race-conscious admissions, prompts about applicants’ background, identities, communities, and lived experiences proliferated as colleges sought other ways to understand how personal circumstances had shaped them. As the current administration has increased scrutiny of admissions practices that might use concepts like “lived experience” as proxies for race, some colleges are retreating from that language and this type of supplemental question is becoming less common.
- Supplemental essays that are focused more specifically on the student’s interest in the school, also known as the “Why Us” essay type. Cornell’s writing supplement fits this category.
This year, beyond the Common App personal statement, Cornell’s writing supplement is entirely college- or school-specific. The corresponding prompt appears within the Common Application only once an applicant selects the Cornell undergraduate college or school to which they are applying.
That matters because, at Cornell, the college or school supplement is a critical component of a compelling application. As an Assistant Director of Admissions at Cornell, I often turned to that supplement first. If a student had not made a convincing case for the academic home they were targeting, the rest of their file could not overcome it.
A strong Cornell supplement usually answers four questions:
- Why this specific Cornell college or school?
- Why this field or major?
- What have you already done as evidence of this interest?
- What will you contribute or build at Cornell?
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What Changed This Year
The removal of the university-wide Cornell essay makes the college-specific essay carry more weight. Last year, the community question gave applicants a separate place to talk about identity, belonging, lived experience, or contribution to a broader community. Students can still mention broader campus-wide activities such as The Cornell Daily Sun, Big Red Marching Band, debate, project teams, affinity groups, or other communities in their supplement, but those references should be secondary. The heart of the answer should justify the student’s academic home inside Cornell.
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
By applying to Cornell’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS), you are also applying for direct entry into one of our 20 majors. From here, you would be part of a community dedicated to purpose-driven science; working within your major and across disciplines to tackle the complex challenges of our time.
Why are you drawn to studying the major you have selected and specifically, why do you want to pursue this major at Cornell CALS? You should share how your current interests, related experiences, and/or goals influenced your choice. (500 word limit)
What the current prompt emphasizes: Applying to CALS means applying for direct entry into one of its 20 majors. The prompt asks why the student is drawn to the selected major and why that major at Cornell CALS.
What CALS is really looking for: specificity. A CALS essay should not read like a general enthusiasm for biology, the environment, food, animals, agriculture, communication, or science. CALS is purpose-driven and applied, and the student needs to show why the selected major is the right platform for the interests they have already begun pursuing. The strongest answers connect current interests, prior experiences, and goals to the particular CALS major, then explain why Cornell’s version of that major matters.
College of Architecture, Art, and Planning
How do your interests directly connect with your intended major at the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning (AAP)? Why architecture (B.Arch), art (BFA), or urban and regional studies (URS)? B. Arch applicants, please provide an example of how a creative project or passion sparks your motivation to pursue a 5-year professional degree program. BFA applicants, you may want to consider how you could integrate a range of interests and available resources at Cornell into a coherent art practice. URS students you may want to emphasize your enthusiasm and depth of interest in the study of urban and regional issues. (650 word limit)
What the current prompt emphasizes: AAP asks how the applicant’s interests connect directly with the intended major: architecture, art, or urban and regional studies. It gives architecture, BFA, and URS applicants slightly different angles to consider.
What AAP is really looking for: evidence of a developed creative or spatial practice. This is not a college a student should choose at the last minute because it sounds interesting. Architecture and art applicants, in particular, need to understand that their portfolio and prior body of work matter enormously. The essay should help the reader understand the thinking behind that work: what the student has made, observed, designed, studied, questioned, or imagined, and why AAP is the right environment for their next stage.
College of Arts & Sciences
At the College of Arts and Sciences, curiosity will be your guide. Discuss how your passion for learning is shaping your academic journey, and what areas of study or majors excite you and why. Your response should convey how your interests align with the College, and how you would take advantage of the opportunities and curriculum in Arts and Sciences. (650 word limit)
What the current prompt emphasizes: A&S leads with curiosity and asks about multiple areas of study or majors that excite the student. The prompt asks how those interests align with the College and how the student would use the Arts & Sciences curriculum.
What A&S is really looking for: intellectual range and interdisciplinary thinking with depth. The mistake is to interpret A&S as the place for a vague or undecided student. That is not really what the prompt is inviting. The plural framing also matters enormously. A student might connect biology and economics, classics and government, mathematics and philosophy, or computer science and linguistics. A strong A&S essay shows how the student thinks across fields and why a liberal arts college is the right structure for them.
Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy
Why are you interested in studying policy, and why do you want to pursue this major at Cornell’s Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy? You should share how your current interests, related experiences, and/or goals have influenced your choice of policy major. (650 word limit)
What the current prompt emphasizes: Brooks asks why the student is interested in studying policy and why they want to pursue the policy major at Cornell.
What Brooks is really looking for: a policy lens. This is not the same as a general interest in politics, debate, activism, or current events. A Brooks applicant should be able to name the kinds of public problems they care about – health, inequality, sustainability, governance, data, institutional design, social policy, economic mobility, or community systems – and explain why policy is the framework through which they want to study and act on those problems. The essay should clearly bridge the student’s prior experiences to the policy major, not simply assert that they want to make change.
Cornell SC Johnson College of Business: Dyson and Nolan
What kind of a business student are you? Using your personal, academic, or volunteer/work experiences, describe the topics or issues that you care about and why they are important to you. Your response should convey how your interests align with the school to which you are applying within the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business (Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management or the Cornell Peter and Stephanie Nolan School of Hotel Administration). (650 word limit)
What the current prompt emphasizes: The business prompt asks, “What kind of a business student are you?” It asks students to use personal, academic, volunteer, or work experiences to describe topics or issues they care about, then align those interests with either Dyson or Nolan.
What SC Johnson is really looking for: a defined business identity. Dyson and Nolan are very different pathways. Dyson applicants should make an analytical, economic, managerial, entrepreneurial, applied economics, or agribusiness case. Nolan applicants should make a hospitality, service, operations, food, travel, lodging, or customer-experience case. The prompt asks students to show what kind of problems they want to solve as business students and why their chosen school inside SC Johnson is the right one.
Cornell David A. Duffield College of Engineering
Long Essay 1: Fundamentally, engineering is the application of math, science, and technology to solve complex problems. Why do you want to study engineering? (200 word limit)
Long Essay 2: Why do you think you would love to study at Cornell Engineering? (200 word limit)
Short Essay 1: What brings you joy? (100 word limit)
Short Essay 2: What do you believe you will contribute to the Cornell Engineering community beyond what you’ve already detailed in your application? What unique voice will you bring? (100 word limit)
Short Essay 3: What is one activity, club, team, organization, work/volunteer experience or family responsibility that is especially meaningful to you? Please briefly tell us about its significance for you. (100 word limit)
Short Essay 4: What is one award you have received or achievement you have attained that has meant the most to you? Please briefly describe its importance to you. (100 word limit)
What the current prompt emphasizes: Engineering is the Cornell outlier in how its prompts are framed. Instead of one college-specific essay, Engineering requires two 200-word essays and four 100-word short answers. The long essays ask why engineering generally and why Cornell Engineering specifically. The short answers ask about joy, community contribution, a meaningful activity or responsibility, and a meaningful award or achievement.
What Engineering is really looking for: a problem-solving-plus dimension. The two long answers separate the two questions other Cornell colleges often combine: why this field, and why this college at Cornell. The short answers are a way of asking who the applicant is beyond their STEM credentials: What brings you joy? What voice will you bring to the Engineering community? What responsibility or achievement actually mattered to you? Strong Engineering applicants show rigor, but they also show humanity, collaboration, resilience, and a personal relationship to the problems they want to solve.
College of Human Ecology
Identify a challenge in your greater community or in the career/industry in which you are interested. Share how the CHE education, your CHE major of choice, as well as the breadth of CHE majors, will help you address that challenge. (600 word limit).
What the current prompt emphasizes: Human Ecology asks applicants to identify a challenge in their greater community or in a career or industry that interests them, then explain how a CHE education, their CHE major, and the breadth of CHE majors will help address that challenge.
What CHE is really looking for: applied, human-centered thinking. This prompt is about a challenge, not simply a subject. A strong response starts with a real problem the student has begun to understand, then connects that problem to a CHE major and to the broader ecosystem of Human Ecology. Notice that the prompt points students to the breadth of CHE majors, not to every possible Cornell offering. The essay should stay anchored in Human Ecology’s particular way of studying people, communities, health, development, design, policy, and systems.
School of Industrial and Labor Relations
Using your personal, academic, or volunteer/work experiences, describe the topics or issues that you care about and why they are important to you. Your response should show us that your interests align with the ILR school. (650 word limit)
What the current prompt emphasizes: ILR asks students to use personal, academic, volunteer, or work experiences to describe topics or issues they care about and explain why those interests align with ILR.
What ILR is really looking for: evidence of interest in work, labor, organizations, law, policy, business, and institutions. ILR is applied and interdisciplinary, but it is not a catch-all for students who are vaguely interested in social issues or business. Strong applicants often care about unions, workplace inequality, management, conflict resolution, employment law, labor economics, organizational change, human capital, or institutional power. The best ILR essays show the reader not only what the student cares about, but how that interest has already appeared in classes, work, research, advocacy, reading, family experience, or community involvement.
How To Approach Any Cornell Prompt
Many weak Cornell essays begin with Cornell’s motto, “any person…any study,” and then stay at that general level. I understand the appeal of the motto: it is expansive and genuinely central to Cornell. But as an admissions officer, I wanted the student to move quickly past the first page of the Cornell website and into the academic home they had selected.
For each Cornell supplement, a robust structure is simple even if the execution is always nuanced:
- Start with your academic interest
- ground it in what you have already done
- connect it to the specific college or school you are applying to, and
- show what you hope to build at Cornell.
The Bottom Line
Cornell’s current prompts are revealing because they are not really asking, “Why Cornell?” They are asking, “Why this Cornell?” The student who understands that distinction has a major advantage.
A strong supplement should make the application feel inevitable: of course this student chose this college or school; of course this major; of course these experiences led them here; and of course Cornell is the right next step.
FAQ
Does Cornell still have a university-wide supplemental essay?
No. For applicants applying for Fall 2027 entry, Cornell no longer has a university-wide essay question. Applicants answer the prompt only for the undergraduate college or school to which they are applying.
Is the Cornell supplement a general “Why Cornell?” essay?
Not at all. The strongest answer will be college- or school-specific. It should explain why that academic home inside Cornell fits the student’s interests, preparation, and goals.
Can students mention activities outside their Cornell college or school?
Yes, but those should be secondary. Campus-wide communities can add personality and contribution, but the essay should be centered on the student’s academic fit within the selected Cornell college or school.
Which part of the Cornell application matters most?
The transcript remains foundational. But for Cornell specifically, the college- or school-specific supplement is one of the most important pieces after the transcript because it shows whether the student understands the academic home they selected.
Should students reuse a general “Why [other school]” essay focused on a major?
No. Each prompt reflects what that particular Cornell college or school values. Reusing language about your general interest in a field of study from non-Cornell essays is one of the fastest ways to make this essay feel thin.
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After attending Castilleja School in Palo Alto, California, Heidi graduated cum laude with an Honors thesis from Dartmouth College as a double major in Classical Archaeology and Comparative Literature. At the University of Pennsylvania, Heidi was a Williams Fellow in the graduate program of Art and Archaeology of the Mediterranean World. She has conducted archaeological field work in Sardinia, Cyprus, Greece, and Turkey.
