supplemental essay cu boulder

How to Write the University of Colorado Boulder Supplemental Essays: Guide + Examples 2024/2025

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• What are the University of Colorado Boulder supplemental essay prompts?
• How to write each supplemental essay prompt for CU Boulder
• Prompt #1: "Why major + Why us" essay

Want to get a better sense of what CU Boulder is looking for? You’ll find an extensive, by-the-numbers look at its offerings, from enrollment and tuition statistics to student life and financial aid information, on its Common Data Set . For deep insights into how this university envisions student success (and how it wants to grow and evolve), read its strategic priorities . Reading through this will give you a strong idea of CU Boulder’s values.

What is the University of Colorado Boulder supplemental essay prompt?

What do you hope to study, and why, at CU Boulder? Or if you don't know quite yet, think about your studies so far, extracurricular/after-school activities, jobs, volunteering, future goals, or anything else that has shaped your interests. (250 words)

How to Write the Supplemental Essay for University of Colorado Boulder

How to write cu boulder supplemental essay prompt #1.

Think of this as two essays in one: a “Why Major” + a “Why us?” And while you can lean (pretty heavily if you want) into the “Why Major” part of it, since that’s the primary question in the prompt, it can be nice to show how you and Boulder will pair together well. So maybe consider devoting about half to two thirds of your word count to why you’ve chosen your major, then the rest on how you want to explore that field at CU Boulder. Note, though, that at 250 words max, you’ll have to be judicious in deciding which examples and details to explore.

To get you started, here’s a complete guide to the “Why Major'' essay . And here’s the full guide on how to write the “Why us?” essay . When you read through that one, pay close attention to the “Why Cornell” and “Why Penn” examples (our favorites).

And if the second part of the prompt (“if you don’t know quite yet”) really applies to you, then pay careful attention to the section of the Why Major guide above that talks through how to write a “Why Major” essay when you don’t know what you want to major in (yes, it is definitely still possible).

Action Items:

Read the “Why Major” guide. What mini-movie moments do you envision exploring? Note the prompt’s interest in exploring “what inspired your interests in this area,” specifically probing for “prior/current coursework, extracurricular activities, work/volunteer experiences, future goals, or anything else”—a long list that should give you lots of ideas on where to mine for content. Pro tip: Start with your Common App Activities List!

Reflect on what you want out of your college experience. Collect those insights using this chart . Identifying specific or niche interests and needs will help you find equally specific resources at CU Boulder and make your “we’re a perfect match” case (see more on this in the “complete guide” link above) more compelling. 

Spend at least an hour researching 10+ reasons why CU Boulder might be a great fit for you, mapping them out in the third column of the chart. 

Remember: The best “Why us?” pieces don’t celebrate how “x” school is the GREATEST SCHOOL OF ALL TIME. They’re more an explanation of why you and the school are the perfect match. Make sure to connect each of your Tech examples to your goals and interests. 

Create an outline that combines your mini-movie moments for the “Why Major” top, then outline the “Why us?” portion based on either Approach One, Approach Two (recommended), or Approach 3 (as explained in our “Why us?” guide).

This is a new prompt for CU Boulder, so we don’t have any examples specific to this school. But this essay, written for UT, offers a nice template for how to mash the “Why Major” with rich “Why us?” details.

Here’s a nice example essay, to illustrate how you can approach this prompt.

When I first learned about abstract algebra from brilliant.org, I was fascinated. I have been interested in math for as long as I can remember, but this experience shaped my interest in math as a career path. When I encountered Lagrange’s theorem, I was amazed by its generality and applications to number theory, and I really wanted to learn about the proof of this result. This inspired me to read more advanced texts, leading me to books such as Rotman’s Advanced Modern Algebra and Neukrich’s Algebraic Number Theory. I continued exploring these concepts at the Awesome Math Summer Program and The Ross Program. I developed an interest in cryptography because it provided me a way to use my abstract knowledge for something concrete and valuable. Cryptography inspired me to continue learning math because of the use of algebraic geometry and finite fields. At Boulder, I hope to take courses such as Algebraic Geometry and Theory of Rings to strengthen and expand my interests. I am also interested in finding a community of like-minded scholars at Boulder’s Math club QED. I hope to continue my interests in cryptography with MATH 4440 and use my knowledge in algebraic geometry to learn more about elliptic cryptography. These courses will allow me to gain the necessary knowledge to help me plan my career goals and possibly work in the field of cryptography, where I can help advance encryption methods.  — — —

Tips + Analysis:

Dive in. With 250 words, you don’t have a lot of space to meander. So while you can use a hook, we’d recommend keeping it pretty brief—probably a sentence, rather than a paragraph. And it’s fine to essentially not have one, or to use specific details about your journey as a hook: The essay above dives straight into his origin story, opening with a moment that set him on the course to becoming a mathematics superhero.

Show how you leveled up. In whatever way possible, it can be really nice in a “Why Major” essay to show how you have continued to grow and develop in your pursuit of a subject or field. One way we’ve referred to this is “showing curiosity with legs”—as in, showing curiosity is great, but it’s stronger to show how you then pursued that curiosity through really specific actions and details. Above, pointing out that he read “books such as Rotman’s Advanced Modern Algebra and Neukrich’s Algebraic Number Theory” then continued with various math programs nicely illustrates the depths of his exploration. And note that there can be other ways you show this kind of leveling up and pursuit of your interests—what actions can you share with a reader that can show how you have expanded your thinking and understanding?

Show how Boulder offers your next steps + how you’ll partner. The student above chose to make this a combo Why Major and Why Us (with the word count balance tilted almost two-thirds to the Why Major side). Notice that the second paragraph points to really specific aspects of what CU Boulder offers that will allow the student to continue leveling up—specific courses and communities that connect back to his primary interests, and how he and the school can partner together on his path forward. He has clearly taken some time to think about why he and the school belong together.

And here’s an essay, written for a very similar prompt for UT, that offers a nice template for how to mash the “Why Major” with rich “Why us?” details.

Leading E-Learning at Clear Careers, a startup helping students explore, experience, and expand their engagement in the professional world, and supplementing my schedule during quarantine with IBM's "AI For Everyone" and Harvard's CS50 led me to wonder what exactly is beneath the surface of a computer science degree and is it for me?  While it was intriguing to learn each emoji we tap and send so effortlessly is made up of patterns like this: 11111011000000010, I am fascinated and humbled by the human applications offered by AI. After further investigating AI, Cloud Computing, and the emerging field of Computational Sustainability, I feel driven to participate in the conversation around the responsible use of technology. With the knowledge gained from pursuing a CS concentration in Artificial Intelligence, Data Mining, and Machine Learning (ML), I hope to contribute to the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal #4 “to ensure inclusive and equitable education for all” because education is empowering.  In CS50, Professor David Malan teaches that there is a right way, a wrong way, and a more efficient way to code. I believe a cloud-based school employing AI would enable students to discover unknown fields of study and classes they enjoy, increasing retention rates and making education equitable. What if students worldwide could choose Urban Economic Development instead of simply History?  Home to the world's largest academic supercomputer and the National Science Foundation's AI Institute focused on ML, at UT's Machine Learning Laboratory, I would be proud to work alongside other Longhorns to innovate a high quality, globally accessible educational platform.  — — —

Click deep when doing your school-specific research: This writer clearly explored the UT website, finding specific examples of classes, programs, and learning approaches that could help her realize her vision to “participate in the conversation around the responsible use of technology.” She not only envisions herself in UT’s programs and classes, she shares how they’d help her learn and grow—for example, by allowing her to contribute to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal #4 (bonus points for specificity) and imagine a “cloud-based school” with AI technologies helping students “discover unknown fields of study and classes they enjoy.” Notice too how she dedicates more than half (144) of her 258 words on these UT specifics and still is able to clearly communicate her inspiration behind her interest in CS, and more specifically, AI. Try to incorporate 5-7 Why CU Boulder specifics in your essay, ideally 3-5 of which connect back to experiences you’ve had or skills you’ve built over time.

Showcase your values: Think about your college application as a whole, and your essays in particular, as an opportunity to convey not just your interests and goals but the core values that shape them. Why? Because it helps admission officials understand what motivates you, or in short, why you care. Don’t know what your values are? Take 5 minutes to do this Values Exercise , and weave your top 5-7 into your essay in a tangible but not overt way. In other words,notice how this student conveys a number of values—intellectual curiosity (wondering what’s under the surface of a CS degree), meaningful work (leading E-Learning at Clear Careers/wanting to contribute to that UN Sustainable Development Goal), hunger (supplementing her schedule during the pandemic with the IBM and Harvard courses), to name a few of the many sprinkled into this essay—without actually mentioning those values by name. This is where you’ll show rather than tell. Speaking of which ...

Use details to breathe life into your examples: You may have heard the advice, “Show, don’t tell.” We’re more in the “Show, don’t just tell” camp. For example, it’s perfectly fine to say you’re interested in a specific field—or as this student did in sharing that she’s “fascinated and humbled by the human applications offered by AI.” But she doesn’t stop there. She goes on to share why she’s captivated by AI, and what she hopes to do with knowledge in the field, like this: “After further investigating AI, Cloud Computing, and the emerging field of Computational Sustainability, I feel driven to participate in the conversation around the responsible use of technology. With the knowledge gained from pursuing a CS concentration in Artificial Intelligence, Data Mining, and Machine Learning (ML), I hope to contribute to the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal #4 “to ensure inclusive and equitable education for all” because education is empowering.”

Want advice on dozens of other supplemental essays?

Special thanks to Luci for contributing to this post.

Luci is an audiophile and storyteller with a love of all things radio and writing. In the wild, you might catch her struggling through a NY Times crossword puzzle, snuggling her abnormally fluffy dog Oreo, or saying her favorite expression “cool beans.” Crosswords, cute dogs, cool beans. What more could you ask for?

Top values: Interpersonal connections | humor | openness to new experience

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University of Colorado Boulder 2024-25 Supplemental Essay Prompt Guide

Regular Decision Deadline: Jan 15

You Have: 

University of Colorado Boulder 2024-25 Application Essay Question Explanations

The Requirements: 1 essays of 250 words  

Supplemental Essay Type(s):   Why

What do you hope to study, and why, at CU Boulder? Or if you don’t know quite yet, think about your studies so far, extracurricular/after-school activities, jobs, volunteering, future goals, or anything else that has shaped your interests.

This prompt is asking you to: describe what you want to study, explain why you like it so much, and address how you cultivated this interest. The admissions officer reviewing your application will expect you to connect your intended major to some prior experience and/or passion. In other words, tell a story. Lucky for you, we would have advised you to start with an anecdote anyway. The essays that stick with us are the ones that jump off the page with concrete descriptions from real life. What interests you and why? How have you gone about learning more about your major? When did your interest begin? What will this degree allow you to do? How have you already explored your inclination? While you don’t need to narrow in on the exact moment you became interested in geology or music education, try to focus on one significant experience. And if you’re going in undecided, take some time to explore CU Boulder’s academic offerings and choose a few to highlight in your response. Admissions doesn’t expect you to have your whole life figured out just yet–but they do expect you to put time and energy into your response.  

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• Required question (250 word limit):  What do you hope to study, and why, at CU Boulder? Or if you don't know quite yet, think about your studies so far, extracurricular/after-school activities, jobs, volunteering, future goals or anything else that has shaped your interests.

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The University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder) has introduced its new essay prompting requirements for the 2024-2025 application cycle, challenging applicants to articulate their academic interests and personal experiences in a clear and concise manner. To get you started on the right path, let's delve into the prompts and strategies for crafting a standout essay.

CU Boulder's Supplemental Essay Prompt

CU Boulder requires applicants to answer one supplemental essay prompt: “ What do you hope to study, and why, at CU Boulder? Or if you don't know quite yet, think about your studies so far, extracurricular/after-school activities, jobs, volunteering, future goals, or anything else that has shaped your interests. ” Your response should be 250 words or fewer .

Approaching the Prompt

When addressing CU Boulder’s supplemental essay prompt, you want to be concise yet thorough in outlining your academic aspirations or the various experiences that shaped your interests. Start by reflecting on your past experiences and future goals, particularly those that have led you to consider specific fields of study or career paths.

Tips for Success

Self-Reflection: Reflect on your academic journey so far. What subjects spark your passion? Were there any particular classes, projects, or experiences that stood out?

Extracurricular Ventures: Discuss any extracurricular activities or volunteer work that deepened your interests. Admissions officers want to see how outside-the-classroom experiences shape your academic desires.

Future Aspirations: Clearly outline your long-term goals. Why is CU Boulder the perfect place for you to achieve them? Do research on CU Boulder’s specific programs, faculty, and opportunities that align with your objectives.

Stay Within Limits: Practice brevity. Remember, you have just 250 words to make your case, so be precise and clear with your points.

Leveraging Sups AI

To enhance your essay, consider using Sups AI , an innovative AI-driven college counseling platform. Sups AI can help you brainstorm and get feedback on essays. Additionally, Sups offers one-on-one chats with current students, providing insider perspectives that can elevate your application. With its track record of helping over 10k students gain admission to top 50 colleges in the US, Sups AI is a valuable resource for crafting a compelling CU Boulder supplemental essay.

For further guidance, check out Sups AI to refine your essays and connect with mentors. Good luck!

How to Write the University of Colorado Boulder 2024-2025 Supplemental Essays

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Your chance of acceptance, your chancing factors, extracurriculars, cu boulder supplemental essay.

Hey all, I'm applying to CU Boulder and I've heard there's a supplemental essay involved. Can anyone share their experience with this essay and some examples that worked for them? Please and thank you!

Hi there! CU Boulder does have a supplemental essay as part of their application process. This essay is intended to provide more insights into your personality, interests, and goals beyond what's covered in your main personal statement. It's an opportunity for you to stand out and show the admissions committee who you are as a person, as well as a student.

The prompt typically asks why you're interested in attending CU Boulder and how you plan to contribute to their campus community. While the specific wording may change slightly from year to year, the core idea remains the same—demonstrate your interest in the school, your alignment with its values, and your plans to make a positive impact once you're on campus.

To approach this essay, consider the following:

1. Research CU Boulder and identify aspects that appeal to you - academic programs, research opportunities, extracurricular activities, clubs, etc. Be specific in your essay and show genuine interest in the school.

2. Think about how your experiences, values, and goals align with CU Boulder's mission and culture. Reflect on your own strengths and how you can contribute to the community or particular campus initiatives.

3. Share a unique aspect of your story, passion, or plan that demonstrates your fit for the university. This is where you can make your essay stand out and showcase something that isn't covered in the main personal statement.

For example, if you're interested in environmental sustainability, you could discuss CU Boulder's commitment to eco-conscious initiatives, mentioning specific programs you wish to join, like the Environmental Center or the Zero Waste Ambassador Program. You could share your own experiences with sustainability efforts and how you plan to contribute to the university's environmentally-oriented community. Remember to be authentic and true to yourself, as this will help your essay resonate with the admissions committee.

If you want even more specific guidance on how to tackle this essay, consider checking out CollegeVine's blog post breaking down how to write a successful response: https://blog.collegevine.com/how-to-write-the-university-of-colorado-boulder-essays. Remember that CollegeVine also offers both a free peer essay review service and paid reviews by expert college admissions advisors - sometimes, a second set of eyes is just the thing your essay needs to go from good to great!

Good luck with your application!

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How to Write the University of Colorado Boulder Essay 2018-2019

University of Colorado Boulder, also known as CU Boulder, is the flagship university of the University of Colorado system and one of the oldest public universities in the Southwest. UC Boulder is a large university, with more than 30,000 undergraduate students enrolled every year. Founded in 1876, the university has been home to 12 Nobel laureates and 20 astronauts. In addition to its academic prestige, their athletic teams have won numerous national championships, most notably in skiing.

Accepted students had an average SAT of between 1140 and 1370 and an ACT of 25-30. While CU Boulder is a less selective university, with an acceptance rate of 77%, the essay still plays a role in admissions. With the following guide, CollegeVine is here to help provide some tips on how to tackle this essay.

CU Boulder Application Essay Prompt

CU Boulder’s supplementary essay requires a response of between 250-650 words. This is a pretty wide berth, but overall it is best to stick to the longer end, in order to include as much detail in your response as possible.

As a vibrant community of learners dedicated to inclusive excellence, the students, faculty and staff at the University of Colorado Boulder seek to be open and respectful of contrasting beliefs and opinions. Every student has a unique life experience and a set of circumstances by which they are shaped and influenced. Your background may have been shaped by family history, cultural traditions, race, ethnicity, religion, politics, income, ideology, gender identity or sexual orientation.

Reflect on your unique background and tell us about a time when you had to relate to someone whose life experience was very different from your own. how did you approach the difference if put in a similar situation again today, would you respond differently if so, how.

There are three main points you want to get across in your response for this prompt: 1) how your background is unique, 2) how you related to someone else who is different from you and how you handled the situation, and 3) how you would react to the same situation today. Since the most important part of your response is the interaction between you and the other person, the bulk of your essay should be spent on points two and three.

However, it is still necessary to inform the admissions council of your unique background by devoting around a paragraph to discussing it. It is even more essential to convey the story you choose to tell effectively, and to end it with a brief, but comprehensive, overview of your current thoughts on your previous interaction.

Here, it is a good idea to comment on your growth as a person. Maybe you were inspired to interact with more people of different backgrounds through a service trip or time spent abroad. Talk about what you would have done differently in the situation you choose to describe, but also show how you’ve changed and matured since that encounter. Lastly, make sure to tie this into how you interact with others today, and how this will benefit you at UC Boulder.

How to structure your essay response:

• Point 1: Your Unique Background — this shouldn’t be just one characteristic, but a plethora of things that have culminated in your upbringing and development.
• Examples: You were adopted, your parents are significantly older than those of your friends, you have a disability, you’ve lived in the same house for all your life, you’ve moved often, or you had a full-time job all throughout high school.
• Point 2: The Story — discuss your interaction with someone different from you.
• Examples: “ I volunteered at my town’s local living center, and befriended an 88-year-old woman,” “During my sophomore year of high school, I participated in a student-exchange program, and spent a semester at a school in Warsaw,” “When I started babysitting my neighbor’s 11-year-old daughter, I had no idea that I would learn as much from her as she would from me.”
• Point 3: Personal Growth — reflect on the story from point two, focusing on what you would have done differently, and how the experience changed you.
• Examples: “I would have asked her more questions. What did she think the future would be like? What was her take on the war?,” “After that day, I decided I wanted to learn more about the immigration process. I signed up to help out at a refugee assistance center, helping recent immigrants improve their English skills.”
• Conclusion — tie your narrative to something specific at CU Boulder.
• Examples: “My time spent abroad, speaking a different language and really becoming integrated into the community, furthered my desire to study intercultural relations and inspired me to publish my own scholarship. The Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program at CU will help make this possible,” “INVST Community Studies will give me concrete skills that can help me further help out the community around me.”

Final Comments

CU Boulder takes great pride in really making an effort to get to know its students. It provides holistic and comprehensive academic advising in order to personalize undergraduate students’ schedules. This commitment toward individual support means that CU Boulder faculty and staff really care about getting to know each student.

Your essay should show the admissions committee some of what distinguishes you from everyone else. It should also convey your passion, drive, and strength of character. In commenting on your growth, discuss what your plans are for the future. In writing of the interaction between you and another person, show your strengths and how you make up for your weaknesses. Infuse your essay response with details that will make the admissions committee want to get to know you better.

Want help with your college essays to improve your admissions chances? Sign up for your free CollegeVine account and get access to our essay guides and courses. You can also get your essay peer-reviewed and improve your own writing skills by reviewing other students’ essays.

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How to Write The University of Colorado Boulder Supplement 2019-2020

The University of Colorado Boulder is a public research university. As its name suggests, it’s in Boulder, Colorado and about 29,000 undergraduate students attend the school. It’s a big school in a city setting, and students at Boulder love the outdoors. The most popular majors are computer science, psychology, and integrative physiology. The acceptance rate is around 80%.

At the University of Colorado Boulder, no two Buffs are alike. We value difference and support equity and inclusion of all students and their many intersecting identities. Pick one of your unique identities and describe its significance. (250-650 words)

Full disclosure, we have mixed feelings on this prompt. Essays that mention the word “identity” can be anxiety-inducing because they tend to make students feel that their job is to prove that they are unique by exclusively talking about their race, religion, ethnicity, political beliefs, grandparent’s voyage to America on a boat, sexual orientation, etc. But if you really think about it, we can’t always pinpoint how our unique characteristics came to be. They just exist. The good news here is that Boulder does not mention where your identity should stem from. They just want to get to know you better, and in fact the first sentence suggests that the school is not taking themselves all too seriously.

Starting this essay with a mindset of “I am _____ (enter fact about your background,) which means that I am definitely ________(enter adjective) is not the way to go. You don’t have to come from a certain background to possess a specific characteristic.

But this essay IS asking you to explain one of those characteristics, the prompt is just written in a strange way. In order to get down to what your identity really is, think small. Think about identity in a micro sense. Make a list of things that make you, you. Think about the things you care deeply about, your hobbies, your family traditions, your routines, the things that you do with your friends, random (and non-school related) things that interest you, small communities that you’re involved with, food, and anything else that comes to mind.

When brainstorming internally, we discussed the following identities:

The chef for our entire family

Technology master of our house (meaning that we teach our parents how to set up a new computer)

As you can see, the topics that we came up with are light and perhaps even funny. That’s what you’re looking for. Once you look over your own list, find a topic that will allow you to shed light on a personality trait that doesn’t appear elsewhere on your application. Did you tell them that you cook yet? Did you tell them that you’re really into gardening? Does Boulder know that you have a much older sibling that you rarely see, but have a special bond with? This is your chance to tell them.

It is also worth mentioning that there is no need to talk about any part of your identity that is triggering or upsetting to you. Like we said before, keep it light. If you’ve experienced trauma, we’re really sorry. And that should be addressed in the Additional Information section of your application. But this space is not meant for a trauma essay. Keep in mind that the reader of your essay is reading hundreds of these a day, and we’re willing to bet that they would love a bit of levity in their day.

If you need help brainstorming and getting on track with the application process, contact us here .