Featured Supplemental Essay Prompt For Brown University Applicants:

Brown’s Open Curriculum allows students to explore broadly while also diving deeply into their academic pursuits. Tell us about any academic interests that excite you, and how you might use the Open Curriculum to pursue them while also embracing topics with which you are unfamiliar. 250 Word Maximum.

Successful Supplemental Essay Example From Our Accepted Alumni Student:

My science curiosities were, admittedly, born from childhood idealism—from Encyclopedia fascinations to sheep’s brain dissections. But I gradually saw limitations in the medical field—in progress, in access. Witnessing Ammamma’s search for remedies and serving in downtown [City], I resolved to practice medicine with empathy toward diverse difficulties and stories.

I realized self-directed, interdisciplinary exploration—only at Brown—could help me follow that mission. Brown’s Open Curriculum, and a Biochemistry & Molecular Biology-Public Health double-concentration, would unite biomedical discovery with dissolving healthcare inequities.

From Molecular Mechanisms of Disease to Phage Hunters, I hope to explore microscopic interactions—mutations and bacteriophages—with large-scale implications. I’m fascinated by enzymology research, and I want to traverse new intellectual terrain at Brown—genetic defects, enzyme malfunctions, more. I can examine “meaning” far beyond my late-night mind-wandering in Free Will and Moral Responsibility. In Race, Racism and Health, I can investigate the institutions of a nation that, disturbingly, treats basic human rights as luxuries. While cardiology shadowing in [City], I met patients financially-unable to seek recommended treatment, others with diets shaped by inequity—neither due to personal choice.

At Brown, with a Social Innovation Fellowship, I’d promote food justice and healthcare access across Providence communities. Through CBLR courses like Urban Agriculture: The Importance of Localized Food Systems, I can bridge disciplines and make service-based change. And the researcher in me will determine how to change cardiovascular outcomes through community initiatives—in Providence, [City], beyond.

I hope not only to heal, but also to be a change agent—ensuring fewer face health struggles based on injustice.