Fordham: Citizen for positive change (growth)

300 words (you choose 1 of 4 prompts; supplement is optional)

At Fordham, we expect students to care for and engage with their communities and be active citizens for positive change. Please share an experience you had that caused you to develop a new perspective, change your point of view, and/or empower you to take an action or be courageous. Your response should include examples of your personal growth.

What it’s really asking

Tell one story where engaging with a community changed how you see something, and show the growth. This is Fordham's most mission-forward prompt and the closest thing to a 'why our values' question. Note that all four prompts share the same 300-word limit and you submit only one.

Why they ask it

Fordham's Jesuit identity is built on care for others and being a person for and with others. This prompt screens for students who treat service as reflection and change, not a checkbox. They want to see that contact with real people moved you.

Three ways in

A correction

A moment you were wrong about a person or group, and a specific interaction changed your mind.

A small local action

Something concrete you did (organizing, translating, mentoring) and what it taught you about your community.

A brave choice

A time you spoke up or stayed when it was easier to stay quiet or walk away.

✕ Weak opening

“I have always been passionate about helping my community and making the world a better place.”

✓ Strong opening

“The first time I ran the food pantry's intake desk alone, a man my dad's age asked me, in a near-whisper, how to spell his own street.”

✦ Annotated example · The library card table. Written by EssayLens to teach, not a real applicant’s essay. Tap a highlighted line →

For two years I told myself that volunteering at the public library was charity. I shelved returns, sorted donations, and felt useful. Then Mr. Okafor started coming on Thursdays.¹He was studying for the citizenship test, and he asked me to quiz him. I read the questions in my flat, fast way, and he kept asking me to slow down, to repeat the names of branches of government I had learned in seventh grade and never thought about again.That was the moment something turned. I had assumed I was the one giving. But Mr. Okafor knew exactly why each amendment mattered, because he had lived in a place where those protections did not exist. He was not receiving my help so much as teaching me what my own country was for.²I started preparing before each session, reading past the answer key so I could explain the why, not just the what. When he failed the first attempt, I sat with him while he was quiet, and I did not fill the silence with reassurance he had not asked for. I just stayed.³He passed in March. He brought a tin of jollof rice to the library and we ate it at the sorting table while the donation cart waited.I had thought citizenship was something you were born into and then forgot about. Now I understand it as something you practice, out loud, with someone across a table. I shelve returns more slowly now. I look up more. I have learned that the people I assume I am serving are usually the ones doing the teaching, and that being an active citizen begins with being quiet enough to notice it.⁴

1Opens with a quiet admission rather than a triumph. Fordham rewards reflection over resume, so framing the self as initially wrong sets up real growth.
2This is the pivot: the new perspective is concrete and specific, not a vague 'I learned a lot.' The contrast between his lived stakes and her abstract knowledge does the work.
3Shows growth as changed behavior over time, and a small act of restraint (not over-talking) that signals maturity and genuine care.
4Closes by naming the lasting change in habit and worldview, tying directly back to 'active citizens for positive change' without restating the prompt mechanically.

Stuck? Start here

When did an actual person, not an idea, change how I saw something?
What is a small action I took that mattered more than its size?
Where did I feel uncomfortable first and grow second?

Before you submit

Does my last third name how I changed, not just what happened?
Is there a specific person or moment, not a general cause?
Would this story collapse into a cliche if I cut the concrete details?

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