How to Make a Supplementary Application Stand Out

Most supplementary application answers are fine. That is the problem. A reader with six minutes and a rubric moves through a hundred fine answers a week, and the ones that stand out are not the ones with the biggest activity; they are the ones where something specific happened and the applicant noticed. This page takes three ordinary drafts, the kind everybody writes first, and rewrites each one line by line, so you can do the same to yours.

By the AcceptMe team 10 min read Updated

What “stand out” means to a reader

It does not mean unusual. Readers are not impressed by a startup, a nonprofit or a trip; they have read those. It means three things, and they are the same three at every program:

  • Something happened. An event, with a time and a place and other people in it, rather than a description of a role.
  • You made a choice in it. A moment where there were two options and you picked one, and can say why.
  • You noticed something afterwards that is specific enough that nobody else would have written it.

Everything below is one of those three being missing and then put back.

Draft one: the activity list in disguise

Prompt: “Tell us about an activity that is important to you and what you learned from it.” 1,500 characters.

Before

Volleyball has been an important part of my life since Grade 8. Over the past four years I have developed as a player and a person, and in Grade 12 I was named captain of the senior team. As captain I lead warm-ups, organise team bonding events and act as a liaison between the players and the coach. This role has taught me the importance of communication, responsibility and leading by example. Volleyball has also taught me time management, as I balance practices and tournaments with my academics. I am grateful for everything the sport has given me and I hope to continue playing at university.

What is wrong: nothing happens. Four years, a title, a list of duties and three abstract nouns. The reader learns that the applicant played volleyball and was captain, which was already on the activities list. The rewrite keeps the same activity and finds one week.

After

In October our senior volleyball team lost a starter to a concussion three days before regionals, and the coach asked me, as captain, who should take her place. The obvious pick was our best server. I said the Grade 10 who had barely played, because she had run the drill we were weakest at every practice for a month and the server had not. The coach disagreed. I asked for one practice to show him, ran the drill with her in the rotation, and he changed his mind. We lost regionals anyway, in three sets, and she made two errors that cost points. What I learned is more awkward than “trust your instincts.” I had made a good call for the wrong reason: I picked her because I had watched her work, and I had not watched the server work, because I assumed I did not need to. Since then, when I am asked who should do something, I check whether I actually know or just feel confident, and the difference has come up more often than I expected.

  • Works: one event with a clock (three days), a decision with two options, other people who disagree.
  • Works: the result is a loss. Readers do not need a win; they need the choice and the noticing.
  • Works: the learning is specific, slightly uncomfortable, and states a current habit.

Draft two: the challenge with no learning

Prompt: “Describe a challenge you faced and how you handled it.” 1,500 characters.

Before

One of the biggest challenges I have faced was when my family moved to a new city in the middle of Grade 10. I had to leave all my friends behind and start over at a new school where I did not know anyone. At first it was really hard and I felt very alone. However, I decided to put myself out there and join clubs. I joined the robotics club and the debate team and slowly started to make new friends. By the end of the year I had a great group of friends and was thriving at my new school. This experience taught me that I am resilient and that I can overcome any challenge with a positive attitude.

What is wrong: the arc is real but every step is summarised. “Put myself out there” is four words standing in for the hardest part. The rewrite spends its characters on the moment the applicant nearly did not.

After

We moved to Kitchener in February of Grade 10, which is the worst month to arrive: every group had formed in September and the semester had already turned over once. For six weeks I ate lunch in the library and told my parents it was fine. The thing that changed it was not confidence. It was a poster for the robotics club that said “no experience needed,” and the fact that the meeting was at lunch, so I could go without having to explain to anyone why I was free. I went and said nothing for two meetings. In the third the team’s wiring harness kept failing and I noticed a solder joint from where I was sitting, because my dad had taught me to solder when I was eleven. I said so, they fixed it, and after that I had a job. I would not call the year “thriving”; by June I had three friends and a robot. What I learned is that I did not need to be brave, I needed a room where being useful was easier than being new. I have gone looking for that room on purpose twice since.

  • Works: the six weeks in the library is the challenge, shown rather than named.
  • Works: the turning point is a specific, slightly lucky, physical moment, which is how turning points actually happen.
  • Works: the reflection rejects the cliché in the first draft (“I am resilient”) and replaces it with a rule the applicant now uses.
  • Note: “three friends and a robot” is honest scale. Readers trust modest numbers.

Draft three: the why-this-program brochure

Prompt: “Why do you want to study this program?” 250 words.

Before

I have always been passionate about engineering. From a young age I loved taking things apart and figuring out how they worked. Your program is one of the top engineering programs in Canada, with world-class faculty, state-of-the-art facilities and an excellent co-op program that will give me real-world experience. I am especially drawn to the innovative, hands-on approach to learning and the strong sense of community. I believe that this program will give me the skills and knowledge I need to achieve my goal of becoming a successful engineer and making a positive impact on the world.

What is wrong: every sentence could be sent to every engineering program in the country by every applicant, and it is. There is one fact about the applicant (took things apart) and none about the program that is not on its homepage. The rewrite needs one real moment and one checkable detail.

After

The thing that made me want to study engineering was a broken dishwasher and the wrong fix. Ours died in Grade 11 and I watched four videos and replaced the pump, which took a weekend, and it still did not drain. The actual problem was a two-dollar check valve I had not known existed. I had solved the wrong problem confidently, which I now think is the most useful thing that has happened to me. I want this program specifically because of the first-year design course where teams build for a real client and get graded partly on whether they found the right problem before building anything. I read the project brief from last year on the department page; the clients were a community garden and a daycare, and the write-up said two of the teams had to restart after the client visit. That is the failure I want to practice in first year rather than in a job. I am also applying because co-op starts after second year rather than fourth, and I would rather learn I am wrong about what I like early. I do not know which discipline I want yet. I know I want to be the person who finds the check valve.

  • Works: the moment is small and true, and it sets up the exact quality the program claims to teach.
  • Works: two program-specific facts with a reason each. Both must be checked against the program’s own page; if either is wrong, the answer collapses, which is also why it stands out when they are right.
  • Fix, before submitting: “I read the project brief from last year” is only usable if you did. Do it. Twenty minutes on the department’s page produces the detail.

The rewrite process, so you can run it on your own draft

  1. Find the event. Read your draft and underline every sentence that describes something that happened on a particular day. If there are none, the draft is a description; pick one day and start there.
  2. Find the choice. Where were there two options? If the story has none, look for the moment you nearly did something else. That is usually the real story.
  3. Cut the first sentence. Almost always. Then cut the last one if it contains “beyond.”
  4. Replace every abstract noun (leadership, resilience, communication, passion) with the thing that would make someone use that word about you.
  5. Write the noticing. One sentence about what you understood afterwards that you did not before, and one about what you do now because of it. If the first one could have been written by anyone, it is not yet yours.
  6. Check the number. One checkable specific per answer: a date, a count, a score, a name of a thing. This is the step first drafts miss most often, in essays and in interview runs alike: the result reads “I did a really good job” and the reader has no way to weigh it. “The customer came back the next week” or “I got 100 on the assignment” is the same sentence with the weight put in, and it is what lets a reader understand the size of what you did.
  7. Read it aloud. Any sentence you would not say to a friend is a sentence an adult wrote, and readers can tell.
The drafts above did not get longer or more impressive. They got narrower. Standing out is almost always a matter of choosing one moment and spending the whole limit on it.

Where to go from here

The examples library has six full-scoring answers at real limits, one per question type, with the notes a reader leaves. If your worry is that you have no material to narrow down to, the no-extracurriculars guide finds the events inside a part-time job and a family. The feedback guide covers who should read the rewrite and how to ask. Small programs read hardest: the Western Integrated Science supplemental application guide shows what a 60-seat program looks for in the same rewrite. Then run the process above with a second pair of eyes: paste the draft and its question into AcceptMe’s essay coach and it will mark the sentences with no event under them, the abstract nouns and the padding, tagged works, tighten or fix, without writing a word for you.

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