Amherst Application

• It gives the impression of being irregular and quite challenging.
  • However, it seems to be quite optional.
• If you want to apply casually, you can include the TOK Essay and explain your extracurricular activities, and then press the submit button.
  • This is the minimum requirement, and it’s about how much you can expand on it.

• Prompt 1 (optional): At Amherst, we know that identity is more than checkboxes. If you would like to share more about your identity, background, family, culture or community, please tell us more here. (175 words)

  • It seems like it would be bearable to just cut down 25 words from Influence Received from Essay Community.

• Prompt 2, Optional: If you have engaged in significant research in the natural sciences, mathematics, computer science, social sciences or humanities that was undertaken independently of your high school curriculum, please provide a brief description of the research project. (50-75 words)

  • Should I briefly explain the MIT Application’s Portfolio on “未踏”?
  • It seems like a substitute for the research supplement.

• Prompt 3: Please briefly elaborate on an extracurricular activity or work experience of particular significance to you (175 words)

  • If I talk about “未踏” in the previous prompt, should I talk about CCC/GKADC here?
  • Are there any other activities?
  • Well, it depends on the recommendation letter.
  • Can Harvard reuse this? (blu3mo)

• Prompt 4: Choose one of the following options:

  • Option A: Please respond to one of the following quotations in an essay of not more than 300 words. It is not necessary to research, read, or refer to the texts from which these quotations are taken; we are looking for original, personal responses to these short excerpts. Remember that your essay should be personal in nature and not simply an argumentative essay.

    • Interesting format, like TOK Essay, but with the added element of incorporating your own personality.

    • Option A1: “Rigorous reasoning is crucial in mathematics, and insight plays an important secondary role these days. In the natural sciences, I would say that the order of these two virtues is reversed. Rigor is, of course, very important. But the most important value is insight—insight into the workings of the world. It may be because there is another guarantor of correctness in the sciences, namely, the empirical evidence from observation and experiments.” – Kannan Jagannathan, Professor of Physics, Amherst College

      • Related: What Is the Beauty of Mathematics

    • Option A2: “Translation is the art of bridging cultures. It’s about interpreting the essence of a text, transporting its rhythms and becoming intimate with its meaning… Translation, however, doesn’t only occur across languages: mentally putting any idea into words is an act of translation; so is composing a symphony, doing business in the global market, understanding the roots of terrorism. No citizen, especially today, can exist in isolation—that is, untranslated.” – Ilan Stavans, Professor of Latin American and Latino Culture, Amherst College, Robert Croll ’16 and Cedric Duquene ’15, from “Interpreting Terras Irradient,” Amherst Magazine, Spring 2015.

      • 翻訳、culture-related.

    • Option A3: “Creating an environment that allows students to build lasting friendships, including those that cut across seemingly entrenched societal and political boundaries… requires candor about the inevitable tensions, as well as about the wonderful opportunities, that diversity and inclusiveness create.” – Carolyn “Biddy” Martin, President of Amherst College, Letter to Amherst College Alumni and Families, December 28, 2015.

      • Diversity and communication-related.

    • Option A4: “Difficulty need not foreshadow despair or defeat. Rather achievement can be all the more satisfying because of obstacles surmounted.” – Attributed to William Hastie, Amherst Class of 1925, the first African-American to serve as a judge for the United States Court of Appeals

      • Ethics and philosophy-related?
        • Is that the case for all of them?

  • Option B: Please submit a graded paper from your junior or senior year that best represents your writing skills and analytical abilities. We are particularly interested in your ability to construct a tightly reasoned, persuasive argument that calls upon literary, sociological or historical evidence. You should NOT submit a laboratory report, journal entry, creative writing sample or in-class essay. If you have submitted an analytical essay in response to the “essay topic of your choice” prompt in the Common Application writing section, you should NOT select Option B. Instead, you should respond to one of the four quotation prompts in Option A.

    • It’s like the TOK Essay, but it depends on the quality of the paper.
    • Well, it’s an easier option to take.