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Scripps  /  Essays  /  Prompt 2

Scripps: Creative choice essay

150-300 words

Choose one: (1) If you could trade lives with someone (fictional or real) for a day, who would it be and why? (2) You've invented a time machine! When and where is your first destination, and why? (3) You have just been invited to host your own podcast. What will you talk about, and why did you select that topic?
What it’s really asking

Scripps wants to see your personality, curiosity, and voice when the stakes feel low. The prompt is an invitation to be specific and a little weird. Whichever option you choose, the real subject is how your mind works, so let the answer reveal a value or a way of seeing, not an accomplishment.

Why they ask it

Short-answer creative prompts are where admissions readers actually meet you. After the data and the recommendations, this is the essay that makes a tired reader smile or remember you. Scripps uses it to find applicants who are interesting company, not just strong applicants.

Three ways in
Go narrow, not grand

Pick the option that lets you be most specific about a small, true thing you love, then resist the urge to make it epic.

Reveal a value without naming it

Choose a person, era, or topic that shows curiosity, empathy, or stubbornness through the details rather than by stating the trait.

Lead with voice

A surprising first line and a concrete image beat an impressive but generic answer every time.

✕  Weak opening

“If I could host a podcast, I would talk about leadership, because I have learned so much about it through my many activities.”

✓  Strong opening

“My podcast is called "Wrong on Purpose," and the first episode is about why the disproven medical theories of the 1800s are better company than most TED talks.”

✦ Annotated example · The podcast about wrong directions. Written by EssayLens to teach, not a real applicant’s essay. Tap a highlighted line →
My podcast is called Wrong Way, and every episode I get lost on purpose. 1Here is the format: a listener sends me a place they have always meant to visit and never have, the dry cleaner three blocks over, an aunt's hometown, the back room of a hardware store. I go. I take the wrong bus at least once. And I report back on what is actually there. 2I picked this topic because I have a terrible sense of direction, and somewhere along the way I stopped apologizing for it. 3Getting lost is the only reliable way I have found to meet a place. When I followed a wrong turn behind my school last spring, I found a community garden run by three retired bus drivers who now grow competition-sized pumpkins and argue about fertilizer like it is a blood sport. 4None of that is on a map. The garden does not have a website. The bus drivers will probably never be famous, and that is exactly the point. 5I want to make a show that argues, gently and without ever saying so out loud, that the interesting parts of the world are mostly the parts nobody put a pin in. 6Plus, if I am going to keep getting lost anyway, I might as well do it with a microphone. So: send me somewhere. I promise to take the wrong way there.7
  1. 1Chooses the podcast option and opens with a hook that is playful and specific. The premise itself signals voice, which is what the creative prompt rewards.
  2. 2Gives the show real structure and rules, which makes an imagined project feel concrete and believable rather than vague.
  3. 3Pivots from concept to the personal why, which the prompt explicitly asks for. The self-deprecating honesty is disarming and reads as a genuine teenage voice.
  4. 4Drops in an absurd, specific, vivid invented detail. The competition pumpkins and the fertilizer feud show inventive playfulness, the creative spark the school is looking for.
  5. 5Uses short, rhythmic sentences for momentum, and gestures at a small thesis: ordinary, unmapped places are worth attention.
  6. 6Articulates the deeper reason behind the topic, elevating the silliness into a genuine point of view about curiosity.
  7. 7Ends with a callback to the title and a direct, charming invitation to the listener, leaving the reader with the applicant's voice ringing in their ear.
Stuck? Start here
  • What is a small, specific thing I find genuinely fascinating that has nothing to do with my resume?
  • Which of the three prompts could I answer in a way no other applicant would?
  • What value or quirk would I want a stranger to notice about me, and how could I show it without naming it?
Before you submit
  • My answer reveals a value or way of thinking, not an achievement already in my application.
  • The first sentence is specific and a little surprising, not a restatement of the prompt.
  • It sounds like me talking, and it is comfortably under 300 words.

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