The Foreign Service Journal, June 2020

56 JUNE 2020 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL EDUCATION SUPPLEMENT will write about that this season. The sor- row of being far away when her grand- mother died? She feels sad even thinking about it, making her reluctant to write; and even stateside kids have lost faraway grandparents. What about her lifelong love of basket- ball? Rachel has won numerous awards and intends to play at the intramural level in college. She decides that would make a better topic for Michigan’s “extracurricu- lar activity” essay. That leaves dogs. Rachel, a devoted dog-lover, has volunteered at rescue organizations in three different countries, and—surprise, surprise—the family has ended up adopting three dogs. Rachel could write the story of adopting each dog and how important volunteering was to her, while throwing in colorful details that illustrate her familiarity with each country. Perhaps most important, this is an essay Rachel can’t wait to write. But first, she needs to brainstorm top- ics for the supplemental essays to make sure no topics overlap. Sorting the Supplemental Essays Word limits vary widely on supple- mental essays, so Rachel may have to expand or contract an essay when tweaking it for different colleges. While students should never go over a word limit, they can be well under it if the essay is cogent and well written. In fact, most admissions officers prefer a shorter, tightly constructed essay over one that’s longer but rambling. Why this college? Rachel will write about her passion for history in the first part of this essay, setting a descriptive scene about how she became fascinated with the ancient world upon encoun- tering Cleopatra’s Baths off the Aegean Coast of Turkey. Rachel enlists her friends and family to help her brainstorm topics for the main essay.