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Haverford  /  Essays  /  Prompt 1

Haverford: Intellectual curiosity + Why Haverford

150-200 words

Tell us about a topic or issue that sparks your curiosity and gets you intellectually excited. How do you hope to engage with this topic or issue at Haverford?
What it’s really asking

Name a specific topic, idea, or question that genuinely excites you, show what you have already done to explore it, and connect it to a concrete way you would keep chasing it at Haverford (a course, professor, research program, Plan thesis, or the bi-college consortium with Bryn Mawr).

Why they ask it

Haverford is a small, discussion-driven college where faculty work closely with undergraduates. They want students whose curiosity is real and self-propelled, not performed. This prompt tests whether you can think out loud about an idea and whether your interest survives contact with a specific Haverford resource.

Three ways in
Start from a question, not a subject

Begin with something you have already been chasing on your own time, in a notebook, a side project, or a rabbit hole of late-night reading, not an assigned topic.

Go narrow and true

Pick something specific and a little weird and genuinely yours over something impressive but generic. A precise fascination beats a broad field every time.

Do real Haverford homework

Spend twenty minutes finding one course, professor, or program (or the Plan senior thesis) that actually fits your topic, and name it so the connection feels earned.

✕  Weak opening

“Ever since I was young, I have been passionate about science and the way it explains the world around us.”

✓  Strong opening

“I keep a running list of words that exist in one language and not in English, and I cannot stop wondering what that absence does to the people who speak it.”

✦ Annotated example · Lichen and the slow questions. Written by EssayLens to teach, not a real applicant’s essay. Tap a highlighted line →
I got curious about lichen because of a dead tree behind my grandmother's house. 1It was crusted gray-green, and when I asked what the stuff was, nobody could tell me. So I read, and learned that lichen is not one organism but two living as one: a fungus housing an alga that feeds it. 2That undid something for me. I had been taught to sort the living world into tidy single names, and here was a thing that refused the category. 3Now I notice partnerships everywhere: gut bacteria, mutual debts between friends, the way a town depends on people it never thanks. 4At Haverford I want to keep pulling that thread in the biology department's field courses, but also in a philosophy seminar where I can argue about what individuality even means. 5I am drawn to a place small enough that a professor would let me bring a chunk of bark to office hours and take the question seriously.6
  1. 1Opens with a concrete, humble object instead of a grand abstraction. Specificity over polish is exactly what Haverford rewards.
  2. 2Shows curiosity in motion, the act of not knowing and chasing the answer, which signals genuine intellectual hunger rather than a finished opinion.
  3. 3Turns a fact into a reframing of how the student thinks, demonstrating the topic actually changed her, not just interested her.
  4. 4Extends the idea outward to show range, hinting at an interdisciplinary mind without overclaiming.
  5. 5Names specific, plausible Haverford resources and crosses disciplines, answering the 'how will you engage here' half concretely.
  6. 6Ends on an image of intimate, student-faculty inquiry that reflects genuine fit with a small college's culture.
Stuck? Start here
  • What is a question you have looked up or argued about for fun, with no grade attached?
  • What is the most specific, slightly odd version of your interest, the one that is truly yours rather than a whole field?
  • Which single Haverford course, professor, program, or the Plan thesis would let you take that question further?
Before you submit
  • Did you spend most of your words on the idea itself before turning to Haverford?
  • Did you name at least one specific, real Haverford resource that fits your topic?
  • Did you cut every sentence that restates the prompt or praises Haverford generically?

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