Rice, technically William Marsh Rice University, is a private research university in Houston Texas. Rice’s sprawling campus is right next to Houston’s Museum District. The University has many excellent science programs which include some lesser trodden paths like artificial heart research and space science. Rice’s acceptance rate hit a record low last year at about 9%. With that in mind, let’s break down the ins and out of the Rice supplement.

University of North Carolina Chapel Hill is a public research university. It is one of the oldest public universities in the US and boasts over 70 courses of study. The school has a largely suburban campus and has about 20,000 undergraduate students. Since it is a public school, the acceptance rate for instate students is much higher than its out-of-state acceptance rate. The in-state acceptance rate is about 42% while the out-of-state rate is only about 10%. Their supplement isn’t too long, but there are a lot of questions (thankfully, most of them are short answers.) This is our advice on how to tackle UNC’s supplement.

Wake Forest is a private research university in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. They are known for their strong liberal arts program. Wake Forest also has a large Greek system and strong sports programs for a midsized school. Wake Forest has about a 25% acceptance rate. Their supplement is one of the more creative supplements out there but also asks some standard questions. The first trick of the Wake Forest Supplement is that not all the writing prompts are under the section titled “Writing.”

Emory is a private research university in Atlanta, Georgia. While it was founded by Methodist Episcopal Church in the 1800s, they are not very religious today. You don’t need to be methodist to go and the school has a wide range of religious communities on campus including Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, and interfaith. Emory’s acceptance rate is around 13%. Emory has two distinct academic pathways for freshmen, Emory College of Arts and Sciences and Oxford College.

Boston College is a private Jesuit research university in Boston, well technically Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. While the school is Jesuit, you do not need to be religious. That being said, many students are Catholic and the campus does look like the Hunchback of Notre Dame might live there. They approach education by “educating a person as a whole.” The College has 4 undergraduate schools including a popular business and management school. BC is a midsized school with about 9,000 undergrads. It has an acceptance rate is around 19%. There supplement only has one question and it gives you options on what to write it about. So let's get into the ones we would choose, skip, and how to approach the BC supplement.

Notre Dame is a mid-sized private Catholic research university located just outside of South Bend, Indiana (Pete Buttigieg, anyone??). It’s probably the country’s most famous Catholic school, but they don’t require you to be religious to attend. Culturally, ND is nuts about football (Rudy, anyone???) and while religion might not be a prerequisite, school spirit might be. Over the last few years, their acceptance rate has gotten even lower, hopping from 19% last year to 14% this year.

Tulane is a private research university in New Orleans. Tulane is a great choice for students who are looking to go to school in the south. They also house a business school and many research programs. Last year their acceptance rate was about 8%. Tulane’s competitive to get into so if you apply, you have to make sure you are handing in a strong application. Part of that is their supplement. It’s only technically 3 questions, (more on that later,) and they are optional. While Tulane says they are optional, with an 8% acceptance rate, we don’t really consider them optional. With such a low acceptance rate, you need to take any opportunity to put your best foot forward and make your case as a student. In that spirit, we want to give you tips and tricks on how to approach the Tulane supplement.

Pomona College is a tiny liberal arts college located in Claremont, California. Even though the school itself is small, it’s a part of the Claremont Colleges, which includes Scripps, Pitzer, Harvey Mudd, and Claremont McKenna. Each school has it’s own ~vibe~ and specialty, and students at Pomona often gravitate towards the social and natural sciences. It’s a top tier liberal arts school, consistently ranking in the top 5, churns out as many PhD candidates as the Ivy League, and has a three BILLION dollar endowment. With this comes a 6.6% acceptance rate, down almost 2% from last year.

Syracuse University is a private research university in… well, Syracuse, NY. Syracuse’s acceptance rate data swings from 45% to 69% (nice), so we’re not entirely sure since they don’t publish the data themselves and don’t submit a Common Data Set. Syracuse is medium-sized, with about 15,000 undergrads, and is known for their journalism, communications, education, and architecture programs.

Founded in 1900 by steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, Carnegie Mellon first started as Carnegie Technical Schools, then became the Carnegie Institute of Technology, and then merged with the Mellon Institute of Industrial Research to become the school we know today. A midsized private research university in Pittsburgh, PA, Carnegie Mellon has an acceptance rate around 15%. Based on their history, you’re correctly assuming its a top school for technical majors, including computer science, data science, robotics, and machine learning. But, they’re also home to the first ever drama school in the US! According to them, “past and present faculty and alumni include 20 Nobel Prize laureates, 13 Turing Award winners, 26 members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 39 fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 91 members of the National Academies, 142 Emmy Award winners, 52 Tony Award laureates, and 12 Academy Award winners.” Impressive.

Santa Clara University is a private, mid-sized Jesuit university in Santa Clara, CA – which is near big hubs like San Francisco and Silicon Valley. The university has churned out countless big-name political leaders, like Gavin Newsom, Janet Napolitano, and Leon Panetta, as well as tons of business leaders like Brendan Eich, creator of JavaScript, and David Drummond, former CLO of Google. SCU has an acceptance rate of around 50%, and is known for their business and engineering programs.

Boston University often called simply BU, is a private research institution in Boston, Massachusetts. Boston has a lot of colleges, but BU is the largest with about 32k undergrads. BU has an acceptance rate of about 14%. BU’s acceptance rate has been falling pretty dramatically over the last ten years and has become competitive to get into. Their supplement is fairly short, but we wanted to break it down to give you the best chance of getting in.