I could totally title this "The Secret to Admissions"...

...But that would be disingenuous. All it really is, like so much admissions advice, is something that makes tremendous sense when you think about it -- but too many people get too caught up in the process to realize or remember.

I want to talk about those ubiquitous supplemental prompts -- generically, "Why this school?" and "Why this major?"

"Why this school?" prompts show up in a number of different formulations, from Syracuse's "Who is the person you dream of becoming and how do you believe Syracuse University can help you achieve this?" to Tulane's straightforward "Please describe why you are interested in attending Tulane University" to Boston University's "What about being a student at Boston University most excites you?" For majors, we get USC's "Describe how you plan to pursue your academic interests at USC. Please feel free to address your first- and second-choice major selections." vs. UMass Amherst's awkwardly question-marked "Please tell us why you chose the Majors you did?", but the essential question is the same: "Why do you want to do what you're pitching to do?"

For the "Why this school?" prompt, particularly, there is a classic mistake -- you don't need to tell the school what's awesome about them, because they already know. It doesn't add anything to your application to tell them something about themselves they're already quite aware of.

So what do you do?

Take a moment to look at this from the other side. As an applicant, you want them to admit you. You want them to want to admit you. So how do you make it easy for them? You help them visualize you at that school. Your future at that school. Your future contributions as an alum of that school.

Two good approaches here:

1. Instead of telling them what awesome stuff they have, tell them what you plan to achieve by taking advantage of their awesome stuff. For instance, if they just built a shiny new science building and you want to be a bio major, describe all the awesome science you're looking forward to doing there and how the lab equipment and whatnot they invested in will help you do super-cool research.

2. Tell them about the moment when you felt so at home, so "right" on their campus, that you knew this was the school for you. Paint them a vivid picture of what you were doing on their campus -- you want them visualizing you in that setting -- but bring that same vividness to describing your feelings so that they're feeling as comfortable and inspired as you were in that moment.

If it's not hard for them to see you on their campus, doing your thing, thriving, excelling, graduating and going on to something awesome, or even just going on to being the kind of person with a good career and good memories of college who reliably donates money... then you're making it easier for them to say Yes. After all, look how much you care about the school that you figured out where you'd fit into the campus and community!

With "Why this major?" prompts, you have much the same opportunity to get them picturing you doing the thing you want them to let you do. Talk about the things that make you happy about that major. Now is the time to be passionate at least as much as pragmatic -- you may be studying business because you want to follow your parent into the family business when you graduate, you can say that, but don't leave out why this is something you care so much about. You may be studying biology because you want to go to medical school (this is arguably a terrible reason to major in biology, as I lay out here), but even if that's true, make sure you also talk about why biology lights you up and fascinates you. Because it had better, if you're going to study it for the better part of 4+ years.

Of course, if the rest of your profile isn't right for them, this won't save you. These essays are also usually short -- 100 to 250 words, often. (I could fit 3-7 of them in this post!) So you need to use your space wisely. By avoiding the key mistake in approaching these prompts and instead using them as an opportunity to show them what they could have by accepting you, you might just give yourself an edge over the crowd.

Good luck!