Boston University Essays 2026-27, With Examples: The Complete Guide

What Changed This Cycle

Boston University used to ask applicants to choose between two supplemental prompts. That choice is gone. For 2026-27, there is one required essay, and it replaces both of the old options.

What about being a student at BU most excites you? (300 words or less)

The old prompts split into two lanes: one asked what you would contribute to BU, the other asked what excited you about being there. The new single prompt folds both of those questions into one. It's phrased around what excites you, but a strong answer still shows what you would bring to campus, since your excitement is more convincing when it's tied to something specific you'd actually do there. Read narrowly, "what excites you" sounds like it only wants your reaction to BU. Read well, it's still asking you to show up as someone who would contribute, not just someone who would enjoy watching from the sidelines.

How BU Reads Your Essay

What to do

• Name something specific at BU, a professor, a research group, a program structure, a class, and explain why it matters to you rather than just that it exists.

• Connect the specific thing you name to what you'd actually do with it. Excitement that leads somewhere reads as genuine interest, not a title dropped in for credibility.

• Let your own experience or interests show through the way you describe BU. The same class or professor will excite two different students for two different reasons, and that difference is what makes the essay sound like you.

What to avoid

• Don't write an essay that could be about any research university with the word "Boston" swapped in. If your reasoning would work for five other schools, it isn't reasoning about BU yet.

• Don't list multiple BU features with no connective thread. One well-developed reason beats four name-dropped ones.

• Don't spend the whole essay on your past experience and leave BU as an afterthought in the last sentence. The prompt is about BU specifically, and it should read that way from the first line.

Example: I've spent the last two summers volunteering at a small aquarium a few towns over, mostly restocking touch tanks and answering the same questions about why lobsters turn red when they're cooked. But the part of the job I actually looked forward to was helping the staff biologist log water chemistry readings before we opened, because it was the only hour of the day when the building was quiet enough to think. I want more of that at BU, specifically in Professor Phillip Lobel's lab in the Biology department, where research on reef fish bioacoustics treats sound as data the same way I've started to treat a pH reading as data: not just a number to record, but a clue about something happening underwater that I can't see directly. I'm drawn to the idea of using something as ordinary as sound to answer a question that usually requires diving equipment and luck. What excites me about BU isn't just that this research exists here. It's that BU treats marine science as something you learn by handling instruments and data early, not something you wait until junior year to touch, and I want to be in a lab logging readings again, except this time asking the question myself instead of just recording the answer for someone else.

Working With Momentum

If you want a second set of eyes on your BU essay, our team of advisors, all recent graduates of schools like Harvard, Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, Georgetown, and UChicago, can help you find the specific, honest angle that makes a 300 word essay actually stand out. Reach out to get started.