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Clark  /  Essays  /  Prompt 2

Clark: Impact

250 words

At Clark, we are a force for change. We work together to improve the lives of others and the future of our planet. Share a story of how you've worked with others to make a positive impact.
What it’s really asking

Tell one story of collaborating with other people to make something better. The key word is 'with others'. Clark wants to see you in a team, listening and contributing, not a lone hero. Scale does not matter; one real, modest impact beats a vague global one. This is the second of the two options; choose it only if your best material is about doing something with people.

Why they ask it

Clark brands itself as a force for change and reads for students who improve things alongside others. This prompt screens for collaboration and humility as much as for accomplishment. Admissions wants future classmates and teammates, so the 'we' in your story matters more than the 'I'.

Three ways in
Find the problem you couldn't solve alone

Recall a problem you could not have solved by yourself, and write the moment you and someone else figured it out together.

Go small on purpose

Think of impact so modest it feels unimpressive: one person helped, one habit changed, one thing fixed. Specificity beats scale every time.

Show yourself listening

Identify a time you had to adjust your plan because a teammate saw something you missed, and let that moment carry the essay.

✕  Weak opening

“I have always been passionate about making a difference in my community and helping those less fortunate than me.”

✓  Strong opening

“The food pantry's sign-up sheet was in English only, and the line out front was mostly not, so Mr. Okafor and I spent a Thursday rewriting it in four languages we mostly could not speak.”

✦ Annotated example · The garden that fed us back. Written by EssayLens to teach, not a real applicant’s essay. Tap a highlighted line →
The empty lot behind our school had been a dumping ground for so long that nobody saw it anymore. In sophomore year, four of us decided to see it. We wanted a vegetable garden, mostly because our environmental science teacher kept saying food deserts were a problem two miles away and also right under our feet.1Working together turned out to be harder than digging. Marisol wanted raised beds; Devon wanted to know who legally owned the lot.2I learned to stop pushing my plan and start asking the custodian, the city councilor's aide, and the elderly residents who remembered when the lot was a garden in the 1970s.3It took eleven months, three rejected proposals, and one very patient woman named Ms. Alvarez who co-signed our permit. By spring we had twelve beds. By summer, the garden was donating sixty pounds of produce a week to the food pantry.4What moved me most was not the harvest. It was watching residents who had only complained about the lot start showing up with their own seedlings. The impact we made together was not really the vegetables; it was that the lot became visible again, and so did the people around it.5Clark's commitment to challenge convention and change our world is why I want to keep doing this work, ideally through Clark's community engagement programs in Main South. I have learned that real change starts when you ask people what they already remember loving.6
  1. 1Specific origin (an ignored lot, a teacher's offhand line) grounds a big idea about impact in a real place, matching Clark's 'specific over sweeping' value.
  2. 2Names real collaborators and real disagreement, signaling honest teamwork rather than a frictionless lone-hero story.
  3. 3Centers other people and shows the applicant listening, which is the 'genuine engagement with others' Clark looks for.
  4. 4Concrete numbers (eleven months, twelve beds, sixty pounds) make the impact measurable and believable rather than a vague claim of 'making a difference.'
  5. 5Reflection that goes past the obvious result to a deeper, specific insight about visibility and shared ownership.
  6. 6Ties the lesson directly to Clark (its mission and a specific neighborhood program) so the reflection connects to Clark rather than ending generically.
Stuck? Start here
  • What is a problem you helped fix that you genuinely could not have fixed by yourself? Who did you need?
  • What is the least impressive-sounding good thing you did that actually worked? Can you make the reader see it?
  • When did a teammate change your mind or your plan, and what happened after you listened?
Before you submit
  • Is the impact one specific, concrete thing rather than a vague 'difference'?
  • Are other people clearly in the story doing real work beside you, not just as background?
  • Have you avoided turning yourself into a solo hero, and shown genuine collaboration instead?

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