Emory: Get to Know You (choose one)

150 words

Emory University has a strong commitment to building community. Tell us about a community you have been part of where your participation helped to change or shape the community for the better.

What it’s really asking

This is one of four get-to-know-you prompts; you choose ONE and write 150 words. The other three options for 2025-2026 are: 'Reflect on a personal experience where you intentionally expanded your cultural awareness'; 'Emory University's core mission calls for service to humanity. Share how you might personally contribute to this mission'; and 'In a scholarly community, differing ideas often collide before they converge. How do you personally navigate disagreement in a way that promotes progress and deepens meaningful dialogue?' The example below answers the community option. Whichever you pick, tell a true, specific story and show what changed.

Why they ask it

Emory uses this prompt to see how you show up for other people and whether you leave a place better than you found it. It rewards concrete impact and self-awareness over grand claims, and it reveals your values in a small amount of space.

Three ways in

Pick a small, real community

Choose a team, a lunch table, a niche club, or a family kitchen rather than something huge and abstract like 'my generation.'

Show the before and after

Focus on one specific change you helped create and make the shift visible, even if the change is modest.

Be honest about your role

You do not need to be the hero or the founder. You just need to be someone who shifted something for the better, told truthfully.

✕ Weak opening

“Community has always been important to me, and I have always tried to make a difference wherever I go.”

✓ Strong opening

“Our robotics team had eleven members and zero girls until I started leaving the sign-up sheet on the chemistry teacher's desk.”

✦ Annotated example · The 6 a.m. rowing novices. Written by EssayLens to teach, not a real applicant’s essay. Tap a highlighted line →

When our rowing club's varsity boats filled up, the dozen of us left over were quietly written off as the 'novice leftovers.' ¹Practices were scheduled for 6 a.m., and half of us kept oversleeping. ²So I started texting a wake-up roll call the night before, then waiting at the dock with a thermos to hand out coffee. ³Attendance climbed. More than that, the leftovers became a group people wanted to join. ⁴We invented our own warmups, kept a shared playlist, and started cheering loudest at regattas even when we placed last. By spring, two varsity rowers asked to switch into our boat. ⁵I learned that shaping a community rarely means leading from the front. Sometimes it just means showing up first, with coffee, and making it worth everyone else's while to show up too.⁶

1Picks a small, specific community rather than a huge abstract one, which suits the 150-word limit and grounds the story immediately.
2Sets up a concrete problem in the community that the student will personally respond to.
3Shows a humble, concrete action the student took, which is the core of this prompt: how participation shaped the community.
4Names a tangible change in the community, not just a feeling, demonstrating real impact.
5Uses a vivid, surprising detail (varsity rowers wanting in) as proof the culture genuinely changed for the better.
6Ends on self-aware reflection rather than a brag, matching Emory's reward for humility and contribution over achievement.

Stuck? Start here

Which small community did you actually change, even slightly, and what did it look like before and after you got involved?
What specific thing did you do, and who else was affected by it?
What did the experience teach you about how communities actually shift, that you did not understand before?

Before you submit

Did you choose the prompt where you have the most genuine, specific story, not the one that sounds most impressive?
Does your essay show a concrete before-and-after change rather than just stating that you care?
Did you avoid restating the prompt and instead open inside a real moment, staying under 150 words?

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