The required essay asks why Dartmouth is a good fit. Write a hypothetical scenario showing yourself engaging with specific opportunities—name professors you'd work with, research centers you'd join, classes you'd take. Connect each engagement to your experiences, interests, and values. They want to see you've done your homework and have a singular objective.

• Required Essay: "What aspects of Dartmouth's academic program, community, and/or campus environment attract your interest? How is Dartmouth a good fit for you?"

Both prompts in Set 2 test the same thing: can you articulate what makes you distinctively you? Don't tell your whole life story—open with a vivid, seminal experience that shaped your perspective. Show how that perspective evolved and how it will allow you to contribute to Dartmouth's intellectual diversity. The goal is demonstrating you'll enrich the community.

• Set 2 Options: "Let your life speak" (environment/upbringing) OR "Be yourself. Everyone else is taken." (introduce yourself)

If you choose "What excites you?"—focus on an academic subject, creative act, or positive impact on others. Write vividly, first-person, showing what it feels like when you're fully engaged. Make the reader feel your excitement. Convince them the world needs you to study this at Dartmouth. Connect it to your lived experiences and show how pursuing it will make an impact.

• Set 3 Option: "What excites you?"

The Dolores Huerta prompt asks about impact—and "impact" means tangibly improving real human lives, not increasing shareholder value. Open with a vivid experience that motivates you, or show yourself already making a difference. Even small actions count: explaining a concept to someone, helping with homework, raising awareness. Conclude with how you'll use your Dartmouth education.

• Set 3 Option: "In what ways do you hope to make—or are you already making—an impact? Why? How?"

The Jane Goodall prompt tests whether you'll thrive in an intellectually diverse community. Describe a disagreement—ideally with a peer, since that's who you'll be debating in college. Show both parties learning something, even if minds didn't change. Give a specific, tangible lesson you gained. Conclude with how it impacted your goals or recontextualized your experiences.

• Set 3 Option: "Tell us about a moment when you engaged in a difficult conversation or encountered someone with a different opinion."

This prompt invites you to geek out about a single topic. Use technical language if it helps you make a deeper point, but make sure the reader feels your enthusiasm. Include the lived experiences that shaped your curiosity and moments when engaging with this subject made you feel alive. Balance passion with awareness of the broader world—connect fascination to real people and problems.

• Set 3 Option: "Celebrate your nerdy side."

The Kermit prompt asks how difference has shaped your identity. Show how difference generates new ideas, sparks intellectual conversations, broadens horizons. Reflect on how being around diverse people fostered your growth. If being different has been challenging, show how you overcame those challenges and how your difference helped you become more fully who you are.

• Set 3 Option: "How has difference been a part of your life, and how have you embraced it?"

The Mindy Kaling Theater Lab prompt invites you to share a story of failure—but choose this only if you experienced an unusual or significant struggle with substantial stakes. Don't write about failing a test. Begin with how you failed or how you envisioned success before everything unraveled. The most important part: how you turned things around. Take responsibility. Show how failure became indispensable to your growth.

• Set 3 Option: "Share a story of failure, trial runs, revamping, reworking, or journeying from bad to good."