Type to search
Hanover, New Hampshire

Dartmouth College

dartmouth.edu
Ask a question
  • Overview
  • Cost & scholarships
  • Majors
  • Admission requirements
  • Essay prompts

Want to see your chances of admission at Dartmouth College?

We take every aspect of your personal profile into consideration when calculating your admissions chances.

Dartmouth College's 2022-23 Essay Prompts

Read our essay guide

Why This College Short Response

Required
100 Words

Dartmouth celebrates the ways in which its profound sense of place informs its profound sense of purpose. As you seek admission to Dartmouth’s Class of 2027, what aspects of the College’s academic program, community, or campus environment attract your interest? In short, Why Dartmouth? *

Read our essay guide to get started. Submit your essay for free peer review to refine and perfect it.
Submit or review an essay

Introduction short response

Required
250 Words

“Be yourself,” Oscar Wilde advised. “Everyone else is taken.” Introduce yourself

Read our essay guide to get started. Submit your essay for free peer review to refine and perfect it.
Submit or review an essay

Select-A-Prompt Short Response

Required
250 Words

Choose one of the following prompts and respond in 200-250 words:


Option 1

Labor leader and civil rights activist Dolores Huerta recommended a life of purpose. “We must use our lives to make the world a better place to live, not just to acquire things,” she said. “That is what we are put on the earth for.” In what ways do you hope to make—or are you making—an impact?


Option 2

What excites you?


Option 3

In The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, William Kamkwamba ’14 reflects on constructing a windmill from recycled materials to power electrical appliances in his family’s Malawian house: “If you want to make it, all you have to do is try.” What drives you to create and what do you hope to make or have you made?


Option 4

Dr. Seuss, aka Theodor Geisel of Dartmouth’s Class of 1925, wrote, “Think and wonder. Wonder and think.” What do you wonder and think about?


Option 5

"Not everything that is faced can be changed; but nothing can be changed until it is faced,” wrote James Baldwin. How does this quote apply to your life experiences?

Read our essay guide to get started. Submit your essay for free peer review to refine and perfect it.
Submit or review an essay

Common App Personal Essay

Required
650 words

The essay demonstrates your ability to write clearly and concisely on a selected topic and helps you distinguish yourself in your own voice. What do you want the readers of your application to know about you apart from courses, grades, and test scores? Choose the option that best helps you answer that question and write an essay of no more than 650 words, using the prompt to inspire and structure your response. Remember: 650 words is your limit, not your goal. Use the full range if you need it, but don‘t feel obligated to do so.


Option 1

Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.


Option 2

The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?


Option 3

Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome?


Option 4

Reflect on something that someone has done for you that has made you happy or thankful in a surprising way. How has this gratitude affected or motivated you?


Option 5

Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.


Option 6

Describe a topic, idea, or concept you find so engaging that it makes you lose all track of time. Why does it captivate you? What or who do you turn to when you want to learn more?


Option 7

Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you‘ve already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your own design.

Read our essay guide to get started. Submit your essay for free peer review to refine and perfect it.
Submit or review an essay

What will first-time readers think of your college essay?

Join thousands of students getting and giving peer feedback on college essays—all for free!
Submit or review an essay