ASU: Barrett Core Values (Option A)
300-500 words
Barrett's core values are Community and Belonging, Leadership and Agency, and Courage and Curiosity. All three pairs are important to who we are, but which of these couplings resonates most with you and why? In answering the why, be specific by reflecting on both your lived experiences and the ways Barrett will be foundational to your time at ASU and beyond.
What it’s really asking
Pick ONE of the three value pairs and prove it through a real experience, then show how Barrett will build on it. This is for Barrett Honors applicants only; general ASU admission requires no essay. Note that you choose just one of three prompts (A, B, or C).
Why they ask it
Barrett wants to see whether its stated values actually describe you, and whether you have thought concretely about what the honors community will do for you. It is testing fit and self-awareness at once.
Three ways in
Choose what you can prove
Pick the value pairing you can back with a specific story, not the one that sounds noblest on paper.
Anchor in one moment
Start with a single lived scene that shows the value in action, then widen out to what it means.
Land on a Barrett feature
End by naming a concrete Barrett resource (the thesis, a seminar, the residential college) you would use to grow that value further.
✕ Weak opening
“Community and belonging have always been the values that matter most to me in everything I do.”
✓ Strong opening
“The robotics closet had no lock, so I became the kid who stayed until the custodian left, and somehow that made me the one freshmen asked for help.”
Of the three pairings, Courage and Curiosity resonates most, because in my experience the two are inseparable: curiosity is only worth anything once you are brave enough to act on it in public, where you might be wrong.1I learned this in the ceramics studio at my high school, which I helped reopen. The kiln had been broken for two years, and the official explanation was that fixing it was "not in the budget." I was curious about that phrase, so I asked the maintenance office for the actual repair quote. It turned out the kiln did not need replacing; a single heating element and a thermocouple had failed, parts that together cost forty-one dollars.2Curiosity got me the quote. Courage was the harder half. I had to stand in front of the school board during public comment, a sixteen-year-old following a man complaining about parking, and argue that the art department was being told a more expensive story than the truth. My voice shook. I had rehearsed for the wrong fear; I thought I would be afraid of the numbers, but I was actually afraid of being the only person in the room who cared.3The board approved the repair. More importantly, I learned that asking a follow-up question is a small act, but defending the answer out loud is a different muscle entirely. Twenty students now use that studio.4This is why Barrett, and not just ASU, is where I want to spend four years. The honors thesis is the part of the experience I keep returning to: a multi-year project where I am expected to pursue a question past the point where most people would stop being polite about it. I want to write mine on how public institutions account for deferred maintenance, a topic that sounds dry until you realize it decides which kids ever touch a kiln. Barrett's Human Event seminar, where you are graded partly on the courage to defend a reading you might lose, is the structured version of standing at that podium.5I am not looking for a place that will make me more curious; I already ask too many questions. I am looking for a place that will keep demanding the courage to act on them, in seminar rooms and committee meetings, long after the easy part is done. Barrett is built to keep asking me to be brave, and that is the version of myself I want four years to insist upon.6
- 1Opens by directly naming the chosen value pairing and immediately reframing it with an original claim. This answers the literal question in the first sentence and signals an argument is coming, not just a feeling.
- 2Grounds the abstract value in one concrete, specific scene with a real number. The forty-one-dollar detail is the kind of specificity ASU rewards over generic ambition.
- 3Distinguishes the two values cleanly, showing the student understands the pairing as two distinct moves. The honest admission of fear ('the only person who cared') reads as real rather than performed.
- 4Resolves the anecdote with a modest, earned outcome and a one-line lesson that maps back to the value pairing. Restraint here is deliberate; it avoids overclaiming.
- 5This is the load-bearing 'fit' move the prompt demands. It names specific Barrett features (the honors thesis, The Human Event seminar) and ties each one back to the chosen value pairing rather than praising the school generically.
- 6Closes by returning to the opening thesis (curiosity needs courage) and projecting forward 'and beyond,' satisfying the prompt's explicit request to address both lived experience and the future.
Stuck? Start here
- Which of the three value pairs would my closest friend say describes me, and what story would they point to?
- When have I built belonging, taken agency, or acted on curiosity in a way that left a trace others could see?
- What specific thing about Barrett (a course, the thesis, the residential college) would let me do more of that?
Before you submit
- I picked exactly one value pair and proved it with one concrete story.
- The final third names a specific Barrett feature, not college in general.
- There is real reflection, not just a list of what I did.
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