How to Write the NYU Supplemental Essay (with an Example!) [UPDATED FOR 2024-2025]
Let’s talk about how to write NYU's supplemental essay....
How do you write NYU’s supplemental essay, Lisa? What are they asking for? I don’t know where to start!
The NYU supplemental essay for the 2025-2026 college application cycle is finally out! And it’s a doozy!
Year-in and year-out, the NYU supplemental essay is one of the supplemental essays I get asked about most often (along with the Stanford roommate essay), so I’ve put together this guide to help you as you start tackling this challenging new essay.
Do I have to Write the NYU Supplemental Essay?
To be clear, the NYU supplemental essay is optional. The essay is in the optional, pre-checked Writing section and is not a required part of the NYU application.
To drive that point home, NYU notes that the essay is for “if it feels right for you to tell us a little more about yourself in the application” and “it really is optional!.”
So no, you absolutely can submit your NYU application without ever writing the supplemental essay.
That being said, NYU received more than 120,000 applications last year for its class of 2029, and its overall acceptance rate dropped to a new low of 7.7%. With NYU admitting fewer than 1in every 10 applicants, most applicants are going to be doing anything they can to stand out in that enormous pile of applications, and the supplemental essay is one way to do that.
So while you don’t have to write the supplemental essay, if you’re serious about applying to NYU, I would strongly suggest thinking long and hard about it!
And here is NYU's supplemental essay prompt for 2025-2026....
The NYU supplemental essay prompt [updated for 2025-2026]
So here’s the NYU supplemental essay prompt for the 2024-2025 college application cycle:
“We are looking for students who want to be bridge builders—students who can connect people, groups, and ideas to span divides, foster understanding, and promote collaboration within a dynamic, interconnected, and vibrant global academic community. We are eager for you to tell us how your experiences have helped you understand what qualities and efforts are needed to bridge divides so that people can better learn and work together.
Please consider one or more of the following questions in your essay:
Tell us about a time you encountered a perspective different from your own. What did you learn—about yourself, the other person, or the world?
Tell us about an experience you’ve had working with others who have different backgrounds or perspectives. What challenges did your group face? Did you overcome them, and if so, how? What role did you try to play in helping people to work together, and what did you learn from your efforts?
Tell us about someone you’ve observed who does a particularly good job helping people think or work together. How does this person set the stage for common exploration or work? How do they react when difficulties or dissensions arise?
How to Write the NYU Supplemental Essay: a Breakdown
So where to start with this essay prompt?
Well, as all my students know, I first like to take a step back and think about what the college trying to get at with a question before trying to put together an answer.
The reason is because with NYU receiving over 120,000 applications a year at this point, if they’re asking a question, there has to be a good reason they want to read another 120,000 essays. If NYU is asking a question like this, there’s something specific they want to know about you, something important that’s going to help them say “yes” or “no” to your application.
When writing the NYU supplemental essay, rememnber to answer the question!
College Essay Coach Pro Tip: Unlike personal statements prompts which are open to all kinds essays, supplemental essay prompts are asking you about something specific that they want to know about you. Supplemental essay prompts often ask you to tell the admissions committee something about your background, what you plan to do in college, or how you interact with people.
These are not theoretical questions. They actually want to know those specific things about you, so please don’t go off on tangents. You usually only have 150-300 words to answer the question!
Step #1 to acing any supplemental essay prompt is answering the question that the admissions committee is asking!
So what does NYU want to know here and why?
Well, this one is easy to figure out. NYU wants to know how you interact with people who think differently than you and/or may have different beliefs, may come from different backgrounds, and/or in some cases, just flat out disagree with you.
And in particular, NYU wants to know how you have connected with and maybe even worked together with people who are different from you in the past. What are your experiences with people from different backgrounds? How do you describe those experiences? And how has your background influenced how you act in those situations?
NYU's supplemental essay question is tryiing to get a sense of what you would lbe like in a diverse university community with many points of view.
Why Is NYU Asking this Question?
The reason for this supplemental essay is also pretty obvious.
Colleges have always been been places that students from a wide, wide range of backgrounds come together to form a learning community. To foster a vibrant university community, it is vital that schools find students who are going to be able to connect and learn from students of different races, religions, cultures, and backgrounds.
And that’s especially true of a school like NYU which is in New York City, a diverse global city where over 200 languages are spoken and which serves as the home to a kaleidoscope of faiths.
In particular, at a time when protests on college campuses have become a cultural flashpoint and college are just bracing for more, knowing how a student has handled being in situations with people who aren’t just like them and may disagree is an issue that can weigh heavily in a college admissions committee’s decision.
The NYU Supplemental Essay Step #1: Bridge Building with Someone with a Different Perspective
Okay, all that being said, where to start with the NYU essay?
In fact, in this case, NYU makes it very explicit exactly what they’re looking for: “…we are looking for students who embody the qualities of bridge builders—students who can connect people, groups, and ideas to span divides, foster understanding, and promote collaboration within a dynamic, interconnected, and vibrant global academic community.”
So above all, what you need to do in your answer to NYU is show how you are a “bridge-builder” who can “connect people, groups,” “foster understanding” and “promote collaboration” in a “vibrant academic community.”
So as you approach this question, clearly the most important thing for you to do is to show NYU that you are what they are looking for: a student who is a bridge-builder!
This is in no way a theoretical question! Looking at NYU’s own guidance on this essay, the admissions committee wants to learn about “where you will turn to for inspiration, and what experiences have shaped you and resonate with you.”
Over and over, NYU’s guidance states that they want to know about YOU. But how to do this 250 words or less?
The NYU supplemental essay for 2025-2026 is all about how you build bridges.
How to Write the NYU “Bridge-Builder” Supplemental Essay for 2025-2026
NYU is actually straightforward in their guidance for this question, giving you 3 points to consider in your answer. Please note: this year’s question doesn’t require you to address all three points in your answer. You can address one or more than one point, but whatever you do, you need to get to the heart of their question.
This year the heart of NYU’s bridge-builder question, the question that you really ultimately need to answer is this: How have you learned to become a bridge-builder? How has your understanding of building bridges evolved over time? And tell us within the context of a personal experience.
NYU Bridge-Builder Essay: Picking a Topic
The three points of guidance:
A Time You Encountered a Perspective Different than Your Own and What You Learned,
An Experience You’ve Had Working with Others Who Have Different Backgrounds or Perspectives, and/or
Observing Someone Who Is Particularly Good at Helping People Think or Work Together
Are essentially the most likely experiences in which you may have learned something meaningful about building bridges with someone with a different perspective from yourself.
Something to note about this guidance: It’s asking you for a specific experience that you’ve had. It’s not supposed to be a general statement. They want you to tell a story about a real experience, so it’s not asking about a generalized understanding of different perspectives. This is asking for an experience personal to you and what you learned from the experience.
This could encompass many different aspects of your life from the global and political to the very personal. What matters is that this needs to be about you, what’s important to you, and your understanding of this kind of conflict needs to have evolved in some way through the experience OR your understanding could have evolved from observing someone else building bridges.
In other words, this needs to be something more meaningful to you than, “I was president of Student Council and I needed to get the Secretary to make posters for our pep rally…”
Remember: Going to a university that prides itself so much on being at the crossroads of the world will inevitably involve meeting people whose perspectives are different than yours, and NYU wants to know how you’ve wrestled from these situations in the past and how you’ve grown from them.
So take a minute, and think about your experiences with people you’ve had meaningful disagreements with. This could be in school, at a conference, in church, in your neighborhood, etc. Or maybe you’ve had to work together on a project with people from different backgrounds like on a student council or city project. Maybe you’ve observed someone exceptionally good at bringing people together like a teacher, priest, or maybe someone you’ve observed working on a project.
Start making some notes on possible experiences to write about, because next we’ll start outlining an answer.
The NYU supplemental essay asks how you've built bridges in your school, community, or personal life in the past.
NYU Bridge-Builder Essay: Outlining Your Essay
When you are writing about a personal learning experience like this, there should generally be 5 parts to your answer…
NYU Bridge-Builder Essay Step #1: What Was the Situation? Why was it important?
The first step of writing the NYU bridge-builder essay is to give a brief description of what the situation was and why it was important. In short, what was the bridge that needed to be built?
This could be political, e.g. you have one set of political beliefs and you encountered someone with very different beliefs or whose beliefs stem from a different background. Or it could be that you had to work on a project with someone with very different perspectives than yours, e.g. you had to work on an environment project together and committee members had very different viewpoints on how to allocate resources based on their backgrounds and perspectives.
Whatever it was, describe it and why it was so important clearly in 2-3 sentences.
NYU Bridge-Builder Step #2: How Did You Feel?
A key part of maturity and self-awareness is acknowledging and owning how you feel in situations. In this case, encountering someone of a significantly different background who probably holds very different points of view may very well stir deeply uncomfortable feelings within you.
In describing this situation and how you learned from it, try to remember what it felt like and describe those emotions. “Uncomfortable,” may be one, but what else did you feel? “Confused,” “Angry,” “Upset,” “Guilty,” “Sad,”... these are just a few possibilities.
The NYU supplemental essay asks how you envision building bridges at NYU... and beyond!
NYU Bridge-Builder Step #3: What Did You Learn? What Was the Shift in Your Perspective?
This can be the hardest part of these kinds of essay for many students, but it’s also the point of many college essays. What did you actually learn from the experience?
By that, I mean, how did your understanding change? In this case, what have you learned about learning and working with someone with a very different background and viewpoints than yourself? In most cases, it’s not matter of your viewpoint changing to match this other person’s viewpoint, but rather that your perspective on the viewpoint will have shifted in some way. (Note: Their viewpoint may have shifted as well!).
What matters most is that you’re able to reflect on this experience, and articulate some way in which you’ve grown!
Whatever it is, write 2-3 sentences about this growth.
NYU Bridge-Builder Step #4: What Did You Tangibly Do Afterwards?
In other words, as a result of your shift in perspective, what you did you do afterwards tangibly in the actual world?
And please know, your tangible actions could be big or small. You may have spoken to this person differently or you may have started an activist group at your school. Maybe you started having more open discussions in meetings or you started a research project around it. What matters is that something changed both in your understanding and in the way you act in the world.
Write 2-3 sentences about what you did afterwards as a result of your growth.
NYU Bridge-Builder Step #5: What Does This Mean for You Now?
Now, unlike the rest of the essay which is about your past growth, the final part of should be a reflection on who you are now and your vision of building bridges at NYU and for the future
I often tell my students that college essays are about helping admissions officers make sense of your application. The essays help admissions officers answer the essential questions of “Who are you?,” “Why have you done what you’ve done?”. “Where do we think you’re going in the future?”
So part of this question is to help the NYU’s admissions committee understand who you would be on their campus: How would you interact with NYU’s diverse, international community of students, faculty and staff? How would you connect with your fellow students and help foster connections between your classmates? Is there an issue that you would want to bring members of the NYU community together over to accomplish something greater?
And ultimately, looking out into the future, are you someone that NYU may one day point to as an example of how their alumni promote collaboration in an ever-changing and global world? Is there something you’ve been passionate about bringing together people for? If so, is this something you plan to continue with beyond college? Or is there another problem that you plan to collaborate with others on to solve?
Whatever it is, jot another 2-3 sentences down on it.
The NYU Supplemental Essay: Putting It Together
If you’ve been following along on this guide, you probably have the beginnings of a draft for the NYU supplemental essay by now. It may be more of a rough outline, but it should give you someplace to start.
What this look like when you put it all together though?
Here's an example of the NYU supplemental essay!
An Example of the NYU Supplemental Essay
Because this is a new prompt for the 2026-2026 college application season, I don’t have an actual example of a successful essay, but I’ve put together an example of what a successful essay may look like based on essays that some of my students have written for other applications:
Growing up as a preacher’s son, I thought everyone’s parents spent 12 hours a day in deep prayer. It’s wasn’t until I started school that I realized that these marathon prayer sessions weren’t quite the norm.
I also realized that even though I loved my mom, I actually despised many of her views as a preacher. It was painful to realize how hateful my mom’s views were to marginalized people like my best friend who is openly gay.
At first, I tried to “correct” her views, but my mom remained steadfast. But over time, I realized our dialogue could not be about “right” or “wrong.” They had to be about understanding each other, and that’s how I approach every conversation now—even when viewpoints are very different. I have no desire to be “right.” Curiosity thrives in me—why do they have this viewpoint? How can I understand them?
It was in this spirit that I co-founded my school’s first Genders and Sexualities Alliance Club with my best friend. It’s a place where students of all genders and sexualities can come together to work to effect change and also to understand each other better.
At NYU, I can’t wait for the opportunity to be curious about everything and everyone. I’m looking forward to continuing to promote dialogue among students from different backgrounds and with different viewpoints in in solving problems we all face like climate change. I expect to change, understand, be understood, and to grow with my fellow classmates.
Writing the NYU Supplemental Essay: Last Thoughts
Above all, remember, the NYU admissions committee needs to be able to see you as a student at NYU and participating as a vital member of their community. Paint that picture for them!
How would you engage with your fellow NYU students, and what of your experiences can give them some indications of what that would be like?
If you can start from there, you will be well on your way to acing this supplemental essay!
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Are you applying to the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn)? Check out my guide: How to Write the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) Supplemental Essays (with Examples!)
Are you applying to Stanford? Check out my Guide to the Stanford Roommate Essay.
Are you applying to the University of Southern California (USC)? Check out my guide: How to Write the University of Southern California (USC) Supplemental Essays (with Examples!)
Or How to Write the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill (UNC) Supplemental Essays (with Examples!)
Are you applying to Carnegie-Mellon University (CMU) ? Check out my guide to How to Write the Carnegie-Mellon (CMU) Supplemental Essays (with Examples!).
Are you applying to Vanderbilt ? Check out my guide to How to Write the Vanderbilt Supplemental Essay (with an Example!).
Are you applying to Brown ? Check out my guide to How to Write the Brown Supplemental Essays (with Examples!).
Are you applying to Tufts? Check out my guide to How to Write the Tufts Supplemental Essays (with Examples!)
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