Pomona: Academic Interest Statement

150 words

What draws you to the subject(s) you selected as potential major(s)? If undecided, share more about one of your academic passions or interests.

What it’s really asking

In one tight paragraph, Pomona wants to see how your mind moves inside a field you might study. It is not asking for your achievements in the subject or why Pomona is good at it. It is asking what genuinely pulls you toward it, ideally shown through a specific question, problem, or moment rather than stated as passion. If you marked Undecided, you write about one real academic interest instead, and that is completely fine.

Why they ask it

At a college where you may not declare until well into your time there, Pomona is testing whether you are curious about ideas, not just credentialed in a subject. They want students who light up at a question, who can think on the page in very little space, and who will treat the open curriculum as an invitation rather than a checklist.

Three ways in

Start from an open question

Begin with the question you still cannot fully answer, the one that nags at you in the shower, and trace where it leads.

Use a moment of surprise

Describe a single moment the subject surprised you or refused to behave as you expected, then reflect on what that taught you about how you think.

Follow your unforced curiosity

If undecided, pick the interest you pursue even when no class or grade requires it, and show that self-driven curiosity in action.

✕ Weak opening

“Ever since I was a little kid, I have been passionate about biology and the wonders of the natural world around me.”

✓ Strong opening

“I still cannot explain why my sourdough starter died the week I switched flours, and that not-knowing is exactly why I keep reading about microbiomes.”

✦ Annotated example · Geology: reading time in rock. Written by EssayLens to teach, not a real applicant’s essay. Tap a highlighted line →

I want to major in geology because I cannot stop reading roadcuts. ¹On the drive to my grandmother's, there is a stretch of highway where the hillside was sliced open, and you can see the layers fold like the edge of a flipped book. ²I learned that those bends record a collision that happened sixty million years before anyone could name it. ³What pulls me in is that a single outcrop is an argument, and you have to test it against the next one. ⁴I have started carrying a hand lens, embarrassing my friends, narrating gravel. ⁵At Pomona I want to take Sedimentology and spend a summer doing fieldwork in the San Gabriels, learning to defend a reading of a landscape that has been quietly arguing with itself for ages.⁶

1Opens with a concrete, slightly funny image instead of "I have always loved science." The roadcut signals genuine intellectual play, exactly what Pomona rewards.
2Vivid specificity (the folded layers, the flipped book) shows real observation, not a borrowed passion.
3Reveals what actually hooks her: deep time and reading evidence, a substantive intellectual draw rather than a vague "I like rocks."
4Frames the field as inquiry and debate, signaling she wants to do the discipline, not just admire it.
5A small, self-deprecating detail proves the interest is a real habit, not a resume line, and keeps the voice human.
6Names a specific course and local fieldwork, tying her interest to Pomona's actual offerings and place.

Stuck? Start here

What is the smallest, most specific thing about your favorite subject that you could talk about for an hour without notes?
What question inside your field have you not answered yet, the one that still nags at you?
What do you read, build, or tinker with in this subject when no class and no grade require it?

Before you submit

Did you open inside the subject itself rather than with a childhood origin story?
Does the paragraph show how you think, not just when you got interested?
Is it well under 150 words with at least one concrete detail or question?

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