bard high school essay prompts

Bard College 2023-24 Supplemental Essay Prompt Guide  

Regular Decision Deadline: Jan 1

You Have: 

Bard College 2023-24 Application Essay Question Explanation

The Requirements: 1 essays of 250 words

Supplemental Essay Type(s): Why

Why Bard? (250 words)

We love a succinct prompt, don’t you? In this classic “why” essay, the admissions department wants to know why you hope to attend Bard College next fall, and even though 250 words may not seem like a lot, you have enough room to get in plenty of details. Start by browsing the Bard website, reminding yourself of why this school is on your list to begin with! Does Bard offer a major or program that’s difficult to find at other institutions? Is there a professor you’d really like to work with? Maybe you’d love to earn your degree at a school known for its outdoor recreation. Perhaps you hope to follow in the footsteps of alumni Peter Sarsgaard, Christopher Guest, or Ashim Ahluwalia. Whatever the case may be, you should consider starting your research sooner rather than later; that way, you can let the information percolate as you begin your response.

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• Assessments for Screened Schools

For Fall 2024 Admissions

The schools in the table below are using assessments as part of Fall 2024 admissions. To apply to any program listed below, students need to both list it on their  high school application  and complete the school's assessment by December 1.

Please note, five of the  Consortium High Schools (Beacon, East Side Community, Institute for Collaborative Education, School of the Future, and University Heights Secondary) are sharing a common written assessment.

• The Selection Criteria column indicates which factors a school considers when determining offers.
• The Assessment Information column has each school's requirements. Applicants can follow links to school websites to learn what the assessment is and how to submit it.

Programs Using Assessments for 2024 Admissions

Submitting assessments.

Most schools are managing their own assessment process, and are collecting completed tasks on their own website. Some schools may be doing assessments in-person; these schools will also provide a virtual option if requested. The following schools are not collecting them on their own, and are collecting assessments directly in MySchools:

• East Side Community School (01M450)*
• Bard High School Early College (01M696)
• Institute for Collaborative Education (02M407)*
• School of the Future (02M413)*
• Beacon High School (03M479) *
• University Heights Secondary School (07X495)*
• Bard High School Early College Bronx (12X641)
• Bard High School Early College Queens (24Q299)
• Townsend Harris High School (25Q525)
• Baccalaureate School for Global Education (30Q580)  

* These five Consortium Schools are all using the same assessment, so it needs to be completed once regardless of how many of them you apply to.

Log in to your MySchools account and click “Additional Materials” on your dashboard to get started. Watch this video tutorial to learn how to upload and submit materials.

Assessment for Consortium Schools

• 01M450: East Side Community School
• 02M407: Institute for Collaborative Education
• 02M413: School of the Future High School
• 03M479: Beacon High School
• 07X495: University Heights Secondary School

Consortium Schools believe that students thrive when they are given the opportunity to study topics in-depth and apply their learning outside of the classroom. Instead of taking tests, our students demonstrate their skills in practical terms: they design experiments, make presentations, write reports, and defend their work to outside experts.

Instructions

To apply to any or all of the programs above, answer one of the two prompts below in 500 words or fewer:

• How do you think a school with this approach to learning will help you grow academically, personally, and creatively? What do you think you have to offer a school community like this?
• We admire students who are flexible in their approach to learning and willing to take intellectual risks that move them out of their comfort zone. Reflect on a time when you were intellectually challenged, inspired, or took an intellectual risk––inside or outside the classroom. How has that experience shaped you?

Assessment for Baccalaureate School for Global Education

Instructions: Please create and upload a 3-minute video when you cover two topics:

• Fill a bag with three objects that help explain, describe, or show aspects of who you are. As you take them out, share the significance and meaning of each one. Be creative!
• Teach us something! Show us how to build, create, or do something that you know and/or like to do.

You decide how you want to allot the three minutes.

The video submissions will be used to determine which students are invited to participate in the next step of admissions, which consists of a writing prompt and interview.

Assessment for Bard High School Early College

• 01M696: Bard High School Early College
• 12X641: Bard High School Early College Bronx
• 24Q299: Bard High School Early College Queens
• 19k965: Bard High School Early College Brooklyn

STEM Prompt

Write a single response that is 250-500 words and addresses the following prompt:

• We would like to learn how you would use science, technology, engineering and/or math (STEM) in the following scenario: You have been elected to head one of the New York City government departments listed below. You have been granted $10 billion dollars to use to improve your community. Please tell us which agency you would be the head of and how you would use the money to change your community to make it better. What would you make them do? Remember, to describe your community and explain how you would use STEM.
• The Department of Environmental Protection 
• The Department of Buildings
• The Department of Sanitation 
• The Department of Transportation 
• The Department of Health and Mental Hygiene
• The Department of Parks and Recreation 
• NYC Emergency Management
• Department of City Planning 
• Mayor’s Office of Urban Agriculture

Humanities Prompt

Please read the following passage and write a single essay that is 250-500 words and addresses the following prompt:

• Explain what Walker is saying about her mother. Select a quotation that you think reveals what Alice Walker is saying about what makes her mother special. Then write about what sets you apart that other people sometimes overlook.

In Search of Our Mother's Gardens by Alice Walker

In the late 1920s my mother ran away from home to marry my father. Marriage, if not running away, was expected of seventeen-year-old girls. By the -- time she was twenty, she had two children and was pregnant with a third. Five children later, I was born. And this is how I came to know my mother: she seemed a large, soft, loving-eyed woman who was rarely impatient in our home. Her quick, violent temper was on view only a few times a year, when she battled with the white landlord who had the misfortune to suggest to her that her children did not need to go to school. She made all the clothes we wore, even my brothers' overalls. She made all the towels and sheets we used. She spent the summers canning vegetables and fruits. She spent the winter evenings making quilts enough to cover all our beds.

During the "working" day, she labored beside-not behind-my father in the fields. Her day began before sunup, and did not end until late at night. There was never a moment for her to sit down, undisturbed, to unravel her own private thoughts; never a time free from interruption-by work or the noisy inquiries of her many children. And yet, it is to my mother-and all our mothers who were not famous-that I went in search of the secret of what has fed that muzzled and often mutilated, but vibrant, creative spirit that the black woman has inherited, and that pops out in wild and unlikely places to this day.

But when, you will ask, did my overworked mother have time to know or care about feeding the creative spirit?

The answer is so simple that many of us have spent years discovering it. We have constantly looked high, when we should have looked high-and low.

For example: in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., there hangs a quilt unlike any other in the world. In fanciful, inspired, and yet simple and identifiable figures, it portrays the story of the Crucifixion. It is considered rare, beyond price. Though it follows no known pattern of quilt-making, and though it is made of bits and pieces of worthless rags, it is obviously the work of a person of powerful imagination and deep spiritual feeling. Below this quilt I saw a note that says it was made by "an anonymous Black woman in Alabama, a hundred years ago."

If we could locate this "anonymous" black woman from Alabama, she would turn out to be one of our grandmothers-an artist who left her mark in the only materials she could afford, and in the only medium her position in society allowed her to use.

……….

And so our mothers and grandmothers have, more often than not anonymously, handed on the creative spark, the seed of the flower they themselves never hoped to see: or like a sealed letter they could not plainly read.

And so it is, certainly, with my own mother. Unlike "Ma" Rainey's songs, which retained their creator's name even while blasting forth from Bessie Smith's mouth, no song or poem will bear my mother's name. Yet so many of the stories that I write, that we all write, are my mother's stories. Only recently did I fully realize this: that through years of listening to my mother's stories of her life, I have absorbed not only the stories themselves, but something of the manner in which she spoke, something of the urgency that involves the knowledge that her stories-like her life-must be recorded. It is probably for this reason that so much of what I have written is about characters whose counterparts in real life are so much older than I am.

But the telling of these stories, which came from my mother's lips as naturally as breathing, was not the only way my mother showed herself as an artist. For stories, too, were subject to being distracted, to dying without conclusion. Dinners must be started, and cotton must be gathered before the big rains. The artist that was and is my mother showed itself to me only after many years. This is what I finally noticed:

Like Mem, a character in The Third Life of Grange Copeland, my mother adorned with flowers whatever shabby house we were forced to live in. And not just your typical straggly country stand of zinnias, either. She planted ambitious gardens-and still does-with over fifty different varieties of plants that bloom profusely from early March until late November. Before she left home for the fields, she watered her flowers, chopped up the grass, and laid out new beds. When she returned from the fields she might divide clumps of bulbs, dig a cold pit, uproot and replant roses, or prune branches from her taller bushes or trees-until night came and it was too dark to see.

Whatever she planted grew as if by magic, and her fame as a grower of flowers spread over three counties. Because of her creativity with her flowers, even my memories of poverty are seen through a screen of blooms - sunflowers, petunias, roses, dahlias, forsythia, spirea, delphiniums, verbena… and on and on.

Video Interview

The video interview gives you an opportunity to tell us more about yourself, in your voice, beyond what you have written. Sharing a one to two-minute personal video is a helpful way to show us who you are and why you are interested in attending Bard High School Early College. Please submit a 1 to 2 minute (maximum time) video that includes the following:

• An introduction to who you are
• Our school mission is premised on the belief that many students, from all cultures and backgrounds, are ready and eager to begin taking college-level courses in high school. What makes you want to attend an early college?
• What about being a Bard student most excites you?

Assessment for Townsend Harris High School

2023-2024 Admissions Assessment Questions for Townsend Harris High School Please complete all parts of this assessment: Humanities Writing and Video. You can access a document with all the prompts and resources in one place at https://tinyurl.com/thhsprompt23 .

Preface: All students at Townsend Harris High School swear “The Ephebic Oath.” The below assessment asks you to explore and analyze different aspects of it. You can view the full oath here (or at https://tinyurl.com/ephebicoath ).

Part 1: Video

Please submit a 2 minute (maximum time) video that includes ALL of the following:

• An introduction to you
• An answer to the questions below:

We believe that every student has a special and unique artistic, intellectual and personal talent, interest, ability and/or gift that can enrich our school community. Our Ephebic Oath states that we promise to “leave our city greater than we found it.” Identify two talents, interests, abilities or gifts you possess that would enrich our school community and how you would “leave it greater than you found it.”

Part 2: Humanities Writing

Please respond to the below prompt. Your response should be between 250-500 words (approximately 1200-2500 characters).

The Prompt:

The most famous line from the Ephebic Oath is “I shall not leave my city any less but rather greater than I found it.” However, the Ephebic Oath also states, “I…shall resist anyone who destroys the laws or disobeys them.”

In his “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote the following: “An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.”

Considering Dr. King’s statement, should Townsend Harris students swear to “resist anyone who…disobeys [the law]”?

Develop and support a perspective on the above question. Use the two resources below to help you develop your response.

The Resources:

Resource 1: “ The Rebellion has begun ” by Greta Thunberg (you can also access at https://tinyurl.com/thhsresource1 )

Resource 2: “ Rule of Law ” a video produced by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts (you can also access at https://tinyurl.com/thhsresource2 )

For schools with additional criteria, how are course grades and the assessment used together for admission?

Course grades and the school’s assessment scores will be combined using a weighted average. High schools choose how the two components are weighted; this is shown on each school’s MySchools profile, and in the table above.

Each student’s course grades will be mapped to a 100 point scale based on their admissions group. (Please see the chart below to see how each group’s grades will be mapped.) Schools will then submit their scores for their assessment on a 100 point scale. Each student’s grade mapping is then averaged with the assessment score, weighing the components according to how the school chooses to weigh the two components. Students are then admitted in descending order of the combined, weighted score.

For example, If a school weighted course grades at 20% and an essay at 80%, and an applicant who fell into admissions group 1 had an essay score of 85:

• The student’s grade mapping would be 100 since they fall in group 1. 
• The essay score is 85.
• This student’s final score would be 88.
•  Students are admitted in descending final score order.

To learn more, visit our  Screened Admissions page .

What happens if a student has no eligible grades?

If a student has no eligible grades, the assessment will count for 100% of the selection criteria.

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Bard College at Simon's Rock

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Want to see your chances of admission at Bard College at Simon's Rock?

We take every aspect of your personal profile into consideration when calculating your admissions chances.

Bard College at Simon's Rock’s 2023-24 Essay Prompts

Why this college essay.

Why Here, Why Now?

Leaving high school to begin college early is an unusual choice. What goals, ambitions, and motivations have led you to apply for admission to Bard College at Simon’s Rock? Are there particular experiences, either academic or personal, that have contributed to your desire to begin college early? How does the particular kind of education and community that Simon’s Rock offers fit your own desires for intellectual and personal growth? How will your presence affect the academic and social environments at Simon’s Rock?

Extracurricular Short Response

Please briefly elaborate on one of your extracurricular activities or work experiences.

Select-A-Prompt Essay

W.E.B. Du Bois [1868–1963] was an American sociologist, historian, civil rights activist, and author. Born in Great Barrington, where Simon‘s Rock is located, Du Bois was the first African American to earn a doctorate from Harvard. Du Bois published The Souls of Black Folk in 1903, was one of the co-founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909, and edited its monthly magazine, The Crisis.

For the Critical Analysis essay, choose one of the following options:

1. Write a 500-1000 word essay interpreting the following excerpt and discussing its implications for education, inclusion, and democratic society.

“[T]he hushing of the criticism of honest opponents is a dangerous thing. It leads some of the best of the critics to unfortunate silence and paralysis of effort, and others to burst into speech so passionately and intemperately as to lose listeners. Honest and earnest criticism from those whose interests are most nearly touched,— criticism of writers by readers, of government by those governed, of leaders by those led,—this is the soul of democracy and the safeguard of modern society.”

2. In this excerpt, Du Bois describes the experience of African Americans pursuing an education in post-Emancipation America. Write a 500-1000 word essay interpreting the excerpt and discussing how it might speak to the present day pursuit of knowledge, self-awareness, and authenticity.

“It was weary work...If, however, the vistas disclosed as yet no goal, no resting-place, little but flattery and criticism, the journey at least gave leisure for reflection and self-examination; it changed the child of Emancipation to the youth with dawning self-consciousness, self-realization, self-respect. In those sombre forests of his striving his own soul rose before him, and he saw himself, – darkly as through a veil; and yet he saw in himself some faint revelation of his power, of his mission. He began to have a dim feeling that, to attain his place in the world, he must be himself, and not another.”

Common App Personal Essay

The essay demonstrates your ability to write clearly and concisely on a selected topic and helps you distinguish yourself in your own voice. What do you want the readers of your application to know about you apart from courses, grades, and test scores? Choose the option that best helps you answer that question and write an essay of no more than 650 words, using the prompt to inspire and structure your response. Remember: 650 words is your limit, not your goal. Use the full range if you need it, but don‘t feel obligated to do so.

Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.

The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?

Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome?

Reflect on something that someone has done for you that has made you happy or thankful in a surprising way. How has this gratitude affected or motivated you?

Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.

Describe a topic, idea, or concept you find so engaging that it makes you lose all track of time. Why does it captivate you? What or who do you turn to when you want to learn more?

Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you‘ve already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your own design.

What will first-time readers think of your college essay?