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Carleton College is a great liberal arts school of 1,995 undergraduates in Northfield, Minnesota. It’s been steadily climbing in the rankings over the last few years and a lot of people are starting to take notice. Fortunate for them, unfortunate for us. It used to be one of our favorite to suggest to students. We’re happy for them though. Really.

If you’re like us and you read through dozens of college supplements every week , you begin to realize that they have a lot in common. But you’re probably not like us, which is why we’re here. You’re welcome. There are a few supplements that are particularly unique, but most supplements all aim to understand the same thing: 1) why are you applying to their school and 2) what will you bring to the community both inside and out of the classroom? These questions come in different words and formats. Though you should feel free to explore a wide range of reasons, activities, academic topics, as well as reveal aspects of your personality, there are a few things you just shouldn’t touch. Here are 10 things to steer clear of in your college supplement—this goes for any and all supplements.

Pitzer College is located in Claremont, CA and is one of the Claremont Colleges. The other colleges in the consortium include Harvey Mudd, Pomona, Claremont College, and Scripps. Pitzer has about 1,000 students and emphasizes student participation and mindfulness (their motto is “Mindful of the Future”). As such, their supplement is outward-facing and asks you to write about your contributions to and observations about the world. Our advice on how to ace this supplement below.

Claremont McKenna is a small liberal arts college with around 1200 undergraduate students. The curriculum has an emphasis on economics, government, and public affairs, though it’s a liberal arts college, so it offers classes in a large number of disciplines. The college is located in Claremont, CA, close to Scripps College, Harvey Mudd College, Pomona College, and Pitzer College. All of these schools are part of a consortium called the Claremont Colleges. They share a lot of information and resources, and have different focuses though they are all wonderful schools in their own right. Claremont McKenna’s supplement is pretty straight to the point--read on:

Haverford College is a small liberal arts school of about 1,290 undergraduate students. Campus calls Haverford, MA home, and it’s definitely homey. The majority of classes on campus are taught seminar-style. The college has a 9:1 teacher to student ratio, which speaks to its focus on not only student to teacher but student to student interaction. Classes are for the most part discussion-based, with an emphasis on debate and open dialogue. Haverford believes that every student has more autonomy than the normal college student, given their academic structure and their Honor Code. The Honor Code plays a big role in the college’s supplement, so it’s important that you read through it and really understand it before you dive into the supplement. We break it all down below.

Bates College is a liberal arts college located in Lewiston, ME. Bates is a top tier school of about 1,700 undergraduates where we’ve sent many of our students, and they absolutely love it.

USC’s supplement is not the easiest to tackle, but it’s also not hard if you look at the prompts from an objective perspective. That said, if you are applying to USC you’re going to have to do some work. Like most other top-tier colleges, they have a few supplemental questions for you to answer. We happen to love the USC long-answer supplements because they make you interrogate your reasons for applying more so than other universities. USC has two longer supplements to tackle. The first is:   

Of course, there is no right answer to this question. Every year more colleges ask you to list your favorite books. While we think this is an excellent question because a person’s taste reveals a lot of them, we often see students pick books that may not cast them in a good light. 

Colgate is a top liberal arts school in Hamilton, New York. Every year it gets slightly more competitive and for good reason. This year, Colgate has four supplemental questions.

The “Why X school?” question on the college application is often considered one of the easiest. You research the school and find classes that catch your eye and extra curriculars that match your interests. Unlike some of the more amorphous Common App questions, there’s a relatively standard formula. Syracuse’s supplements, however, throw a bit of a wrinkle into the equation.