Breaking down UMichigan's confusing supplemental prompt

When UMichigan officially released their supplementals for this year, I was disappointed to see they'd stuck with what I think is one of the worst prompts I've seen:

At the University of Michigan, we are focused on developing leaders and citizens who will challenge the present and enrich the future. In your essay, share with us how you are prepared to contribute to these goals. This could include the people, places, experiences, or aspirations that have shaped your journey and future plans. (Required for all applicants; 100 word minimum; 300 word maximum.)

My students are equally confused by this question. Because the wording is so cryptic, it can feel like the admissions officers behind the prompt are trying to trick you. But I think the vagueness of the wording is actually them trying to be generous: they are trying to create a question general enough to invite a wide range of responses. They're casting a wide net, but as I've written about before, vaguely-worded prompts tend to provoke equally vague responses. One's brain simply doesn't know what to do with "Tell me your life story" type prompts.

So, what I'm going to do is break this prompt down into smaller, more manageable questions that still fall under the umbrella of what they're looking for.

The idea is to create your own custom prompt by stitching together the questions that spark a response from you. Once you have your new, custom prompt, just pretend you are responding to that question instead of UMichigan's.

Step 1: Find an example of a time when you've "challenged the present"

Since challenging the present could mean almost anything, here are three more specific prompts that will encourage you to get concrete and example-based, instead of lofty and abstract ("I believe in the importance of thinking big, no matter what.")

• What's a time when you've challenged the status quo? (i.e. your school always did a tradition a certain way, or there were only right-handed desks in the classrooms)

• What's a system you've overhauled or changed in some way? (i.e. advocating for school uniform changes, re-thinking the onboarding system for volunteering opportunity)

• What's an assumption you've confronted? (i.e. a scientific theory you thought about in a new way, an inherited belief system you outgrew, something a teacher said that you pushed back on)

Step 2: Connect it to an origin story

The prompt is also asking about "the people, places, experiences, or aspirations that have shaped your journey and future plans." This makes me feel like they're not just looking for an extracurricular essay but some depth and insight into how you got to be the way you are.

This all sounds very fancy but really it's as simple as looking at what you've chosen to answer for Step 1 and then asking, "how did I become the kind of person who would do the thing I talked about in Step 1?"

For example, let's say you advocated for your school to get more left-handed desks. Sure, you took this action because you're left handed, but try to think of the deeper origin story of why you would be someone who would push back on a system in the first place.

Here are some prompts to help you get that deeper insight:

• Who showed me it's possible to [challenge the status quo, overhaul a system, confront a challenge]? (i.e. my dad would always go to town hall meetings to speak his mind, Abraham Lincoln's biography)

• Is there an ideal in my family, community, culture, or religion that I am aspiring to, that caused me to want to [challenge the status quo, overhaul a system, confront a challenge]? (i.e. my family debated everything even pulp vs. no pulp OJ, I connected to the long tradition of Muslim scientists who treated investigating the world as a form of worship)

• Did I read something or watch something or hear something that ignited the wish to [challenge the status quo, overhaul a system, confront a challenge]? (i.e. a YouTube video on The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a unit in US History on Reconstruction, a podcast on biohacking)

Step 3: Connect it to a future aspiration

Since this prompt is also asking you about enriching the future, it seems the AOs also want to know how this is all going to play out in the years to come. Remember, you're not signing a contract or making a final decision on your career. You can paint a vivid hypothetical vision of your future without committing to it. Here are two ways of prompting this:

• How could I expand upon [what I talked about in Step 1 or Step 2] during college? (i.e. I want to continue looking for ways to make campus more accessible to everyone by joining the university's student government)

• How did the experience of [what I talked about in Step 1 or Step 2] inform what I want to do in the future career or what I want to study? (i.e. I hope to become a sustainability consultant for an architectural firm)

So, once you stitch the three steps together, you should have one prompt with three questions that could look something like this:

What's a system you've overhauled or changed in some way? Who showed you that it was possible to overhaul that system? How did this experience inform what you want to do in the future?

What's great is you can now answer these more concrete questions one at a time, like this:

What's a system you've overhauled or changed in some way?

My school's newspaper went online when I was a freshman. It seemed like everything had to be digital in order to keep up with the times. Sure, it was easier to publish articles, and the newspaper was always accessible to students, but the newspaper felt like it lost some of its magic. I still remember the feeling of the day when the print newspaper was published and how everyone held one in their hand, and how for days afterwards, students would read it during lunch or breaks. They would point to an article over their friend's shoulder and tear off a funny photo of their friend on the soccer field. We lost that sense of community when we went digital. Even though I wasn't editor-in-chief, I asked permission to print a mini, printed paper each month. After the first issue, I was happy to see the papers scattered around lunch tables and desks, and I saw my friend casually pick a copy up, even though I know she never checks the online paper.

Who showed you that it was possible to overhaul that system?

I was partially inspired to make this change because of my dad. He's a bit salty about everything going digital. Anytime there's a QR menu at a restaurant, he scoffs. He still reads his print newspaper every morning. I secretly appreciate this about my dad, and I think his preference for tactile media has rubbed off on me.

How did this experience inform what you want to do in the future?

I don't have any plans of becoming a journalist or a publisher in the future, but I think the whole experience has taught me that just because something is new or more modern, it doesn't mean it's better. The old reading room at my local library, for example, with its smelly carpet, was much cozier than the newly constructed one with its plastic chairs that look like sculptures. I hope to work as an architect one day, but I want to make sure that I don't erase the little touches that make a space feel homey, because sometimes it's the small things we underestimate that actually create a sense of community.

^ All this applicant would have to do is delete the prompts and combine the paragraphs, and they'd have a great response for UMichigan's terrible prompt.