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Dartmouth  /  Essays  /  Prompt 3

Dartmouth: Essay 3: Choose One (Range)

250 words

Choose ONE (250 words): (A) What excites you? (B) Dolores Huerta on a life of purpose: "We must use our lives to make the world a better place to live..." In what ways do you hope to make, or are you already making, an impact? Why? How? (C) "A good novel is the best invention humans have ever created for imagining other lives," wrote Matt Haig. How have you experienced such insight from reading? (D) Jane Goodall: "Change happens by listening and then starting a dialogue..." Tell us about a difficult conversation or an encounter with a different perspective. (E) Celebrate your nerdy side. (F) "It's not easy being green..." How has difference been a part of your life, and how have you embraced it as part of your identity? (G) Share a story of failure, trial runs, revamping, reworking, or journeying from bad to good.
What it’s really asking

This is your range essay: the place to show a side the other two did not. The options run from pure enthusiasm (A, E) to impact (B) to empathy and difference (C, D, F) to growth through failure (G). Pick the one that gives you a story only you could tell, and that does not repeat your other essays.

Why they ask it

Dartmouth wants curious, generous, resilient people, and this menu lets you choose the angle where you are most yourself. They are reading for genuine excitement, real reflection, and a mind that engages with ideas and people, not just achievements.

Three ways in
Go narrow and unembarrassed

For E or A, pick one oddly specific obsession and explain it with real joy. A single niche passion beats a broad "I love learning" every time.

Show what you did, not just that you care

For D or F, choose a concrete moment of friction or difference and show the action you took or the thing you understood, not just that you are open-minded.

Spend the reflection on the change

For G, tell the failure honestly and use your last lines on what you changed about yourself, not on how it all worked out in the end.

✕  Weak opening

“Ever since I was young, I have been passionate about learning new things and challenging myself in everything I do.”

✓  Strong opening

“I can tell you the optimal order to load a dishwasher and I will, unprompted, at your house, against your wishes.”

✦ Annotated example · What excites me: things that almost don't work. Written by EssayLens to teach, not a real applicant’s essay. Tap a highlighted line →
I am excited by things that barely work. 1Not failures, exactly, and not polished successes either, but the trembling in-between: the bridge that sways within tolerance, the recipe that holds together only if you move fast, the joke that lands because it almost didn't. 2Last spring I rebuilt a 1980s metronome I found gutted at a yard sale. 3The escapement was bent, so every tick arrived a hair late, and the whole mechanism lived one degree of friction away from stopping. I spent two weeks filing a pawl by hand, testing, filing again. When it finally held a steady sixty beats, I did not feel triumphant so much as relieved, the way you feel when something fragile decides to survive. 4That is the zone I want to live in. 5It is why I am drawn to genetics, where a single edited base can rescue a function or quietly break three others, and to translating poems, where a line survives only if you risk losing it. Both are tuning problems. Both reward patience and a tolerance for almost. 6I do not need things to be guaranteed before I love them. I would rather take the wobbling thing, hands steady, and see if I can get it to hold one more beat.
  1. 1A crisp, slightly contrarian thesis that promises a real point of view. It answers "what excites you?" with a specific lens instead of a list of interests.
  2. 2Three concrete examples across totally different domains. This shows range, which the prompt is built to surface, without the essay feeling like a scattered brag.
  3. 3Grounds the abstract thesis in one real, hands-on project. A weird, low-stakes object is more memorable and more honest than a flashy achievement.
  4. 4Process over outcome, with sensory mechanical detail. The emotional read ("relieved," not "triumphant") is precise and unusually self-aware for a teenager, which reads as a livable personality.
  5. 5A short hinge that pulls the anecdote back up to the thesis and widens the scope.
  6. 6Connects the metronome to two genuine intellectual interests (genetics, literary translation), proving range while keeping a single unifying idea. This is exactly the synthesis Dartmouth rewards over a prestige checklist.
Stuck? Start here
  • What is something you geek out about that you would normally hide on an application but secretly love?
  • When did you change your mind, or fail at something, in a way that actually mattered to you?
  • What experience of being different or out of place taught you something you still use?
Before you submit
  • Does this essay show a side of you the other two essays did not cover?
  • Is there a real, specific scene rather than a general statement of belief or passion?
  • Did you spend your last lines on reflection (what it meant) rather than just wrapping up the plot?

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