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Brown’s Department in Literary Arts provides a home for innovative writers of fiction, poetry, playwriting, screenwriting, literary translation, digital/cross-disciplonary and mixed media.  The concentration allows student writers to develop their skills in one or more genres while deepening their understanding of the craft of writing. Many courses in this concentration require a writing sample; students should consult a concentration advisor or the concentration website for strategies on getting into the appropriate course(s).

Candidates for the Bachelor of Arts degree with concentration in Literary Arts will be expected to complete the following course work:

1. At least four writing workshops from among the following series: LITR 0100A , LITR 0100B , LITR 0110A , LITR 0110B , LITR 0110D , LITR 0110E , LITR 011oH the various courses under LITR 0210, LITR 0310/0311, LITR 0610, LITR 1010, LITR 1110, LITR 1150/1151/1152 and LITR 1410 . At least two genres must be covered within the four workshops taken. An independent study in literary arts ( LITR 1310  and LITR 1510) may count toward the workshop requirement. Other writing-intensive courses may also count, at the discretion of the advisor.

2. Six elective reading and research in literary arts courses, which must include:

• a course in literary theory or the history of literary criticism
• a course that primarily covers readings and research in literary arts created before 1800
• a course that primarily covers readings and research in literary arts created before 1900
• a course that primarily covers readings and research in literary arts created after 1900

These courses, selected in consultation with a concentration advisor, may come from (but are not limited to) the following departments: Africana Studies, American Civilization, Classics, Comparative Literature, East Asian Studies, Egyptology, French Studies, German Studies, Hispanic Studies, Italian Studies, Judaic Studies, Linguistics, Literatures and Cultures in English, Middle East Studies, Modern Culture and Media, Music, Portuguese and Brazilian Studies, Slavic Studies, South Asian Studies, Theatre, Speech and Dance, Visual Arts. With approval from the concentration advisor, courses covering pre-20th century time periods may be distributed in a variant manner, so long as they cover two distinct literary time periods that precede the 20th century

3. Among the ten required courses, at least four must be at the 1000-level or above. At least six classes (workshops and reading/research courses) that shall count toward the concentration must be taken at Brown through the Literary Arts Department; up to one of the six LITR courses may be a course taken in another department but cross-listed by Literary Arts. No more than two of the ten required courses for the concentration may also count toward fulfilling a second concentration.

4.  During the senior year, all students must take at least one course within the Literary Arts course offerings (courses with LITR designation by the Registrar, or courses approved by the concentration advisor).

Honors in Creative Writing: Course requirements are the same as those for the regular concentration (four workshops, six elective literature-reading courses), with the following changes and additions: honors candidates must include two 1000-level workshops or independent studies among their courses; and complete a thesis. Students in their seventh semester who are enrolled in or have completed at least one 1000-level workshop (or independent study) may submit honors applications to the Literary Arts Department from the first day of the fall semester to 25 September; and from 1 through 25 February in the spring. Interested students should obtain information from the office of the Literary Arts Department.

Honors in Literary Arts Production: Course requirements are the same as those for the regular concentration (four workshop, six literature-reading courses), with the following changes and additions: honors candidates must include two 1000-level workshops, production courses or related independent studies among their courses; and complete a production capstone project. Students in their seventh semester who are enrolled in or have completed at least one 1000-level workshop, production course or independent study, may submit honors applications to the Literary Arts Department from the first day of the fall semester to 25 September; and from 1 through 25 February in the spring. Interested students should obtain information form the Literary Arts Department.

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Researchers@Brown

Literary Arts

For over 40 years, Literary Arts at Brown University has been a creative and intellectual center for the U.S. literary avant-garde.  Along with a handful of other writing programs nationwide, Brown provides a home for innovative writers of fiction, poetry, electronic writing (hypertext) and mixed media.

Established in the mid-1960s by poet, translator and critic Edwin Honig, Literary Arts at Brown continues its tradition of hiring and retaining a faculty comprised of nationally and internationally known authors.  Each year, the program offers 60 – 70 classes, awards the M.F.A. degree to approximately 12 graduate student writers, and confers Honors on about 35 talented seniors who will have completed the undergraduate concentration in Literary Arts.

The online MFA application deadline is 15 December.  Applicants can expect admission decisions by 15 March.

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Affiliations

Faculty administrative positions.

Shenoda, Matthew Chair of Literary Arts

Faculty Positions

Akinsiku, Lanre Assistant Professor of the Practice of Literary Arts

Cayley, John H Professor of Literary Arts

Channer, Colin C D Associate Professor of Literary Arts

Colella, Laura E Assistant Professor of the Practice of Literary Arts

Coover, Robert T.B. Stowell University Professor Emeritus of Literary Arts

Ebeid, Carolina Bonderman Assistant Professor of the Practice of Literary Arts

Field, Thalia L Adele Kellenberg Seaver Professor of Creative Writing

Gander, Forrest Adele Kellenberg Seaver '49 Professor Emeritus of Creative Writing, Professor Emeritus of Literary Arts, and Professor Emeritus of Comparitive Literature

Hunt, Laird B Professor of Literary Arts

Ives, Lucy B Bonderman Professor of of the Practice of Literary Arts

Mahajan, Karan Associate Professor of Literary Arts

Mari, Francesca Assistant Professor of the Practice of Literary Arts

Maso, Carole Professor Emerita of Literary Arts

Nakayasu, Sawako Associate Professor of Literary Arts

Nelson, Peter Gale Senior Lecturer in Literary Arts

Shenoda, Matthew Professor of Literary Arts

Sikelianos, Eleni A Professor of Literary Arts

Steinbach, Meredith Professor Emerita of Literary Arts

Swensen, Cole Professor Emerita of Literary Arts

Townsend, Jacinda Assistant Professor of Literary Arts

Wideman, John Edgar Asa Messer Professor Emeritus of Africana Studies and Literary Arts

The College

Writing requirement.

• Design Your Education
• Complete Your Degree
• Degree Requirements

Information for Faculty

Brown expects you to approach your undergraduate studies as an intellectual process that unfolds over time. Growth in writing is essential to this process.

Minimum Expectation

Learning to write well is a developmental process that occurs over time. For this reason, all Brown undergraduates must work on their writing with intention and focus at least twice during their undergraduate studies.

The Writing Requirement at Brown requires students to take at least one writing-designated (WRIT in Courses@Brown) course or any English, Literary Arts, or Comparative Literature course in semesters 1-4 as well as at least one additional qualifying writing course in semesters 5-7.

A student's  Internal Academic Record  will list the Writing Requirement as completed 24-48 hours after a passing grade has been entered.

Only Transfer and Resumed Undergraduate Education students may satisfy Part I of the Writing Requirement with a transfer credit from a non-Brown course taken at a previous institution. To satisfy Part I, the transfer credit must be an unassigned English, Literary Arts, or Comparative Literature course credit. Transfer and RUE students with no such prior course must take an approved course at Brown, unless they matriculated as juniors, but they have an additional two terms to do so.  Transfer students who matriculated at Brown as juniors are exempted from Part I of the Writing Requirement but must satisfy Part II of the Writing Requirement at Brown, like all other undergraduates. 

Students (non-transfer and non-RUE) who do not satisfy Part I of the Writing Requirement will be blocked from participating in pre-registration for their fifth semester. In order to get the registration hold lifted, the student would have to  meet with an academic advising dean  to devise a plan to finish Part I as soon as possible. 

A student who is not listed in one of the approved  concentrations below must complete a writing-designated course or any course in English, Literary Arts, or Comparative Literature. They may not use independent studies courses to satisfy the Writing Requirement unless the department offers an independent study course that is writing-designated.

To make such arrangements, a department must submit a course proposal for a new independent study course in which every section, regardless of the instructor, would meet the criteria for a writing-designated course.  

Approved Alternatives to a Second Writing-Designated Course Allowed Only in Select Concentrations

Biology  (including the AB/SCB, Applied Math-Biology, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Biomedical Engineering, Biophysics, Computational Biology, and Health and Human Biology),  German Studies  concentrators, and  Math  concentrators may submit writing completed in the concentration to satisfy the requirement in lieu of a second writing-designated course. Writing must be approved by the end of the 7th (or penultimate) semester and will be reviewed and approved by the concentration advisor or a faculty member that they may designate in ASK. Speak with your concentration advisor for additional information. 

Instructions for students and faculty in participating departments are available in the IT knowledgebase .

Students who do not satisfy Parts I and II of the Writing Requirement will not be eligible to graduate. Students who anticipate difficulty meeting these requirements in a timely way should consult with an academic advising dean for guidance by  scheduling an appointment  as soon as possible.

Assessment Criteria

You are required to demonstrate that you have worked on your writing across your four years at Brown. The following criteria will help you assess competence and guide you in developing your writing skills.

• Create coherent and well-developed responses to assignments
• Demonstrate a high level of critical and abstract thinking
• Demonstrate a sophisticated appreciation for readers’ needs
• Support their arguments with relevant, detailed and convincing evidence
• Logically sequence their paragraphs with content-based transitions
• Use appropriate diction and tone and constructively vary sentence structures
• Use correct grammar, punctuation, spelling and syntax
• Exhibit moderate ability to think critically and abstractly in response to assignments
• Clearly attempt to address intended readers’ needs
• Sufficiently organize and develop their ideas so as not to impair the readers’ understanding
• Use loosely or unclearly related examples
• Sometimes use weak transitions between paragraphs
• Depend upon basic sentence structures, phrasing and usage
• Occasionally use incorrect grammar, punctuation, spelling and syntax, but not to the point where errors impair the reader’s understanding of the text
• Exhibit little or no ability to think critically or abstractly
• Fail to recognize the needs of the reader
• Fail to answer the questions asked in assignments
• Depend upon weak generalizations and undeveloped examples
• Fail to write coherent prose
• Use imprecise or inappropriate vocabulary
• Fail to demonstrate sufficient understanding of grammar, punctuation and syntax.

Available Courses

As a student at Brown, you are expected to work on your writing in your general studies and in your concentration. To that end, Brown offers a number of courses that will help you develop your writing abilities. You are encouraged to take at least one of these courses in your first year of study and at least one additional writing course in your area of concentration.

Writing-designated courses  provide you with feedback about your writing and opportunities to apply that feedback on the same assignment or when completing writing assignments later in the course. 

The  Nonfiction Writing Program  in Brown's English Department offers a number of intensive writing courses that will help you develop your abilities to write academic essays, journalism and creative nonfiction.

In  Writing Fellows courses , you will improve your written communication skills through intensive work with another Brown student, called a Writing Fellow, who has been trained in composition and pedagogy.

Frequently Asked Questions

Any courses in English (ENGL), Comparative Literature (COLT), or Literary Arts (LITR), as well as any courses in other disciplines that are specifically writing-designated (WRIT).

Go to Courses@Brown . In the left hand column, scroll down to the “Curricular Programs” section. You will see a check box indicating “Writing - Designated Courses.” Selecting this checkbox will display a list of all ENGL, COLT, and LITR courses as well as courses in other departments that are writing-designated.

Yes, you can take any class S/NC at Brown, and some courses in ENGL and LITR are mandatory S/NC.

The Writing Center, embedded within the Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning, is a great place to start. You can make an appointment on the Writing Center’s website even if you have not written anything for your assignment yet. They can help at every stage of the writing process, and you can schedule multiple appointments during a semester to get help over time. English language support is also available to all international/multilingual students.

We also recommend reaching out to your professor to talk through specific assignments or scheduling a meeting with an academic dean who may be able to advise around different learning strategies.

If you are trying to register for classes during the pre-registration period or when registration opens at the beginning of the semester and you are seeing an error message referring to a WRIT HOLD, you will need to take the following steps. 

1). Decide what writing-designated course you plan to take in the upcoming semester.

2). Email [email protected] with the course that you plan to take and the HOLD can be removed. 

3). A degree completion dean will lift the hold, and then you will be able to register.

4). Please note that if the hold is lifted and you do not register for a writing-designated class, the registration hold will be reinstated (during the pre-registration period). Your graduation will be delayed until you complete the writing requirement if this is your last semester.

Courses@Brown will have the latest information on which courses are writing-designated and which ones are not. If the course is not considered a writing-designated course in the semester in which you took it (even if the same course is considered a writing-designated course in a different semester), then it does not satisfy the requirement. Courses are reviewed rigorously by the College Curriculum Council, and we cannot make exceptions.

Completion of the writing requirement is one of the four degree requirements at Brown , and the Center for Career Exploration advises that writing skills are key for employment in almost every field. A conversation with an advisor can help you find a course that is of interest. Please either reach out to your concentration advisor for discipline-specific recommendations or an academic dean for general or multi-disciplinary brainstorming. 

There is no way to retroactively add a writing-designation to a course. Your professor can submit the syllabus for a future semester to the College Curriculum Council to have it considered for this Curricular Program, but it cannot happen retroactively. You will have to find another way to satisfy the requirement.

Because the writing requirement is an undergraduate requirement, no course with a graduate level course code can count towards the writing requirement, even if the content of the course is the same as the undergraduate version. You will have to find another way to satisfy the requirement.

Biology concentrators (including the AB/SCB, Applied Math-Biology, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Biomedical Engineering, Biophysics, Computational Biology, and Health and Human Biology), German Studies concentrators, and Mathematics concentrators may submit writing completed in the concentration to satisfy the requirement in lieu of a second writing-designated course. Writing must be approved by the end of the 7th (or penultimate) semester and will be approved by the concentration advisor or a faculty member that they may designate in ASK. If you plan to utilize this method, please discuss this with your concentration advisors in advance of the 7th semester so that there are no surprises, and you avoid a WRIT HOLD that will prevent you from registering for courses during pre-registration or registration.

Please email [email protected] to follow up.

If you are a concentrator in one of the concentrations that allows for a WRIT upload (Biology, German Studies, or Mathematics), you may be able to use a writing assignment from an independent study to fulfill the writing requirement.  After speaking with your concentration advisor, you can upload your writing to ASK for approval.

If you are not a Biology, German Studies, or Mathematics concentrator, having an independent study registered as a writing-designated course is very rare, so it is unlikely that you will be able to fulfill the writing requirement this way. If you are not sure, you can ask the registrar at [email protected] . In all likelihood, you will still have to take and pass a writing-designated course.

You may seek advanced permission from the Associate Dean for Junior/Senior Studies to complete the second writing-designated course in the 8th semester in specific circumstances. You will still incur a WRIT HOLD during pre-registration and/or registration. If you do not pass your writing-designated course in your last semester, you will not be able to graduate until you do pass a writing-designated course. 

If you are an F-1 student and planning to use post-completion OPT, there are additional hurdles to passing your academic check in your last semester, as it cannot be approved until you earn a grade for the course, which may delay the post-completion application  timeline. If this is the case for you, please email [email protected] .

No. You must complete the writing requirement with a Brown course (or a WRIT upload as described above).

However, if you are an incoming transfer student, Resume Undergraduate Student (RUE), or student veteran who completed a course in an English, Comparative Literature, or Literary Arts department at your previous institution, we will designate that you have met the first part of the writing requirement upon enrollment at Brown. The course should carry at least 3 semester credit hours. If you completed a writing intensive or equivalent of writing-designated course at your previous school in other departments (e.g. BIOL, PHIL, HIST), unfortunately, these cannot satisfy Brown’s writing requirement. 

Post-matriculation transfer credits for students who are already enrolled at Brown and take a course at another university cannot satisfy the writing requirement, without exception.

No. You must complete the first requirement in semesters 1-4 and the second requirement in semesters 5-7 to ensure that you are developing your writing over time as you reach different developmental stages of your educational journey.

An incomplete is an agreement between you and your instructor. If they agree to grade the work, no matter how much time has passed, you are able to turn in the work and earn a grade for the course, subject to approval from the Committee on Academic Standing if it has been longer than a year since the course ended. If you complete the course successfully, it would still count towards the writing requirement. If the professor is no longer able to accept INC work and the course will not earn a passing grade, then the course cannot be used for a writing requirement. 

If you are a senior, please check the Academic Calendar to see when the deadline for turning in work from past semester courses is, typically in the first week of May.

One. Please contact [email protected] if you have any questions about the BRDD Program and degree requirements . 

BRDD students will see a blank space in either the first writing requirement or second writing requirement on their internal academic record. For BRDD students, this is normal. No action is required.

You will not graduate until you complete the writing requirement. Please contact the degree completion deans at [email protected] to develop a degree completion plan to meet the writing requirement.

The Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning has put together several resources for instructors planning to teach writing-designated courses. You can also find more information from the College Curriculum Council on submitting a syllabus for consideration of Curricular Programs such as writing-designated courses.

Undergraduate Admission

Supplementary materials.

Applicants are neither required nor expected to provide additional materials as part of the admission process, but the opportunity to do so is available to any candidate.

• First-Year Applicants

Music or Visual Art Submissions

If you are accomplished in music or visual art, you may include additional supplements with your application in the Common Application through SlideRoom . You do not need to wait for access to your Brown Applicant Portal to upload music or visual art materials to SlideRoom.

When submitting through SlideRoom, you must create your SlideRoom account and submit your material on or before November 4 for QuestBridge Match applicants, November 4 for Early Decision and January 6 for Regular Decision. All QuestBridge-affiliated applicants submitting a music and/or visual arts portfolio(s) should use the QuestBridge program(s) in SlideRoom; this includes QuestBridge College Match finalists who did not match with a college in the fall but are using the QuestBridge Application to apply through Brown's Regular Decision process. 

We cannot assist students with issues submitting their supplements unless they have created an account in SlideRoom and started their portfolio by November 4 (QuestBridge Match applicants), November 4 (for Early Decision) or January 6 (for Regular Decision applicants). Creating a SlideRoom account and starting your portfolio well before submitting your material is strongly recommended to ensure that you are able to meet the submission requirements. 

Music Submission Details Visual Art Submission Details

Academic Paper/Research Abstract

If you have completed an advanced academic paper or significant research project that you want to include as part of your application, you may upload that document or an abstract to your Brown Applicant Portal under the category of Academic Paper/Research. Please include a brief note to provide us with context for your submission, for example: approximate date(s) you were involved, whether you worked on this independently or as part of a team, what external recognition you may have received and anything else you want us to know. 

Dance, Theatre Arts and Performance Studies

While many Brown students are accomplished in the performing arts and pursue dance and theater in and out of the classroom, auditions and portfolios are neither required nor reviewed for students interested in Dance and Theatre Arts and Performance Studies.

All Other Supplementary Materials

We prefer that you upload all other supplementary materials to your file after you receive access to your Brown Applicant Portal.

We recommend that you do not send a collection of award certificates or similar materials.

If you have a YouTube video you'd like to share, or maintain an online presence that showcases your background, talents or creativity, please include that link in the Brown University Questions (Activities) section of the Common Application.

One optional letter of recommendation may be requested and submitted through the Common Application. Any additional supplementary recommendations should be sent directly by your recommender, either as a PDF emailed to [email protected]  or by fax to 401-863-9300. Be sure to ask your recommender to include your full name, date of birth and high school in their letter so that we can match the letter to your application.

Department of English

Concentration.

• Undergraduate Studies

In addition to the English concentration, we offer a concentration track in the practice of Nonfiction Writing.

The concentration in English and the English/Nonfiction Writing track follow the same core requirements, and students in the English concentration may choose Nonfiction Writing courses as electives. Applications are welcome from eligible juniors to the honors programs in both English and Nonfiction. 

Concentration Requirements

Concentration advisors, concentration faqs.

Creative Writing at Brown University

Creative writing degrees available at brown, brown creative writing rankings.

Popularity of Creative Writing at Brown

Brown creative writing students, brown creative writing bachelor’s program.

Of the 34 creative writing students who graduated with a bachelor's degree in 2020-2021 from Brown, about 29% were men and 71% were women.

The following table and chart show the ethnic background for students who recently graduated from Brown University with a bachelor's in creative writing.

Brown Creative Writing Master’s Program

All of the 1 students who graduated with a Master’s in creative writing from Brown in 2021 were men.

The following table and chart show the ethnic background for students who recently graduated from Brown University with a master's in creative writing.

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Brown University

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• Literary arts and creative writing
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<p>Literary arts and creative writing</p>

The Department of Literary Arts was established in the late 1960s as the Graduate Program in Creative Writing by poet Edwin Honig. The first Master of Arts in creative writing was granted in 1970. The Department of Literary Arts awards the Master of Fine Arts in fiction, poetry, digital language arts, and cross-disciplinary writing to 12 graduate students per year and the Bachelor of Arts in literary arts to approximately 50 undergraduate students.

Notable Programs

• International Writers Project   
• Since the early 1990s, the Department of Literary Arts been a leader in the field of electronic writing and digital language arts. Digital writers take courses offering the additional possibility of working in mixed hypermedia, including computer graphics, animation, electronic music, video, and virtual 3-D environments. An experimental workshop — CAVE writing — has been established in Brown’s immersive visual reality environment in the Center for Advanced Scientific Computation and Visualization (the “CAVE”).

Alumni of the program

More than 50 percent of alumni of the Graduate Program of Literary Arts go on to have a book published within five years of graduating. Notable alumni include:

• Nilo Cruz, M.F.A. 1994 (playwriting), Pulitzer Prize recipient
• Edwidge Danticat, M.F.A. 1993 (fiction), Noted novelist, National Book Award finalist
• Percival Everett, M..A. 1982 (fiction)
• Peter Gizzi, M.F.A. 1991 (poetry), Guggenheim recipient
• Jaimy Gordon, DA ’75, National Book Award winner for her novel, Lord of Misrule
• Ben Lerner, M.F.A. 2003 (Poetry), National Book Award Finalist
• Sarah Ruhl, M.F.A. 2001 (Playwriting), MacArthur Fellowship recipient
• Joanna Scott, M.A. 1985, MacArthur Fellowship recipient
• Meg Wolitzer A.B. 1981, novelist
• Jeffrey Eugenides A.B. 1982, novelist

The Brown Reader

In celebration of Brown’s 250th anniversary, this collection of newly commissioned essays, comics, and poems features 50 best-selling, prize-winning writers, poets, and artists reflecting on their time on College Hill. Contributors include Edwidge Danticat, Jeffrey Eugenides, Lois Lowry, Marilynne Robinson, and Meg Wolitzer. Scheduled for publication in spring 2014.

Faculty Awards

• Keith Waldrop, professor emeritus: National Book Award , 2009
• Forest Gander: Pulitzer Prize finalist for poetry, 2012
• C.D. Wright: MacArthur Fellowship, and a National Book Award finalist in 2010
• Cole Swensen: Guggenheim Fellowship and a PEN USA Award for Literary Translation
• John Edgar Wideman: MacArthur Fellowship
• Media contact: Courtney Coelho 401-863-7287
• Department: Peter Gale Nelson , academic program director, 401-863-3265

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• Undergraduate Education

The Open Curriculum

Brown’s flexible yet rigorous approach to education pushes undergraduates to be deeply creative thinkers, intellectual risk-takers and entrepreneurial problem-solvers.

What is the Open Curriculum?

At most universities, students must complete a set of core courses. At Brown, our students develop a personalized course of study — they have greater freedom to study what they choose and the flexibility to discover what they love.

The Architect of Your Own Education

Brown’s distinctive approach asks much of students — as the architect of their own education, Brown students are responsible for their own intellectual and creative development. Most undergraduates sample courses in a range of subjects before diving into one of 80-plus academic concentrations for in-depth, focused study.

While undergraduates often find the rigor of building a self-directed course of study demanding, the result is a vibrant intellectual environment in which students are fully engaged as they explore courses in any and every discipline, priming them to think creatively and to develop innovative solutions to critical issues.

Graduates leave Brown prepared to thrive as independent, innovative leaders no matter what path they choose.

Straight from the Source

Hear from current students how the Open Curriculum opens minds.

Our goal is a high one — that each and every one of our students is engaged, empowered and transformed by their education. What’s unique about Brown is that we elevate the role of students in achieving that goal as active participants in framing their own education.

What are your chances of acceptance?

Calculate for all schools, your chance of acceptance.

Your chancing factors

Extracurriculars.

How to Write the Brown University and PLME Essays 2024-2025

Brown has one of the more extensive supplemental essay packages out there, with three 250-word supplements and four shorter responses required for all applicants. In addition to these seven prompts, applicants to the dual degree program with Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) will need to explain their interest in the program through a 650-word personal statement, and applicants to the Program in Liberal Medical Education (PLME) will need to do the same through two 250-word essays.

Even if you aren’t applying to either of these specialized programs, you still have seven prompts to respond to, so make sure you leave yourself enough time to give your Brown application the attention it deserves. In this post, we’ll break down how you want to approach each prompt, so you can be confident that your essays will help set you apart even within one of the most competitive applicant pools in the country.

Read these Brown essay examples written by real students to inspire your writing!

Brown University Supplemental Essay Prompts

All applicants.

Prompt 1: Brown’s Open Curriculum allows students to explore broadly while also diving deeply into their academic pursuits. Tell us about any academic interests that excite you, and how you might pursue them at Brown. (200-250 words)

Prompt 2: Students entering Brown often find that making their home on College Hill naturally invites reflection on where they came from. Share how an aspect of your growing up has inspired or challenged you, and what unique contributions this might allow you to make to the Brown community. (200-250 words)

Prompt 3: Brown students care deeply about their work and the world around them. Students find contentment, satisfaction, and meaning in daily interactions and major discoveries. Whether big or small, mundane or spectacular, tell us about something that brings you joy. (200-250 words)

Prompt 4: What three words best describe you? (3 words)

Prompt 5: What is your most meaningful extracurricular commitment, and what would you like us to know about it? (100 words)

Prompt 6: If you could teach a class on any one thing, whether academic or otherwise, what would it be? (100 words)

Prompt 7: In one sentence, Why Brown? (50 words)

RISD Dual Degree Applicants

Prompt: The Brown|RISD Dual Degree Program draws on the complementary strengths of Brown University and Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) to provide students with the opportunity to explore and engage with diverse spheres of academic and creative inquiry. The culmination of students’ five-year program is a capstone project that relates and integrates content, approaches, and methods from two distinct learning experiences.

Considering your understanding of the academic programs at Brown and RISD, describe how and why the specific blend of RISD’s experimental, immersive combined studio and liberal arts program and Brown’s wide-ranging courses and curricula could constitute an optimal undergraduate education for you. Additionally, how might your academic, artistic and personal experiences contribute to the Dual Degree community and its commitment to interdisciplinary work?  (650 words)

PLME Applicants

Prompt 1: Committing to a future career as a physician while in high school requires careful consideration and self-reflection. Explain your personal motivation to pursue a career in medicine, and why the Program in Liberal Medical Education (PLME) will best meet your professional and personal goals. (500 words)

Prompt 2: Healthcare is constantly changing as it is affected by racial and social inequities, economics, politics, technology, and more. Please respond to one of the following prompts (250 words):

• Option A: How will you, as a future physician, make a positive impact?
• Option B: How has your personal background uniquely shaped your perspective on the field of medicine?

All Applicants, Prompt 1

Brown’s open curriculum allows students to explore broadly while also diving deeply into their academic pursuits. tell us about any academic interests that excite you, and how you might pursue them at brown. (200-250 words) . .

This is essentially a “ Why This Major ” essay, designed to understand your academic interests and how you might take advantage of the Open Curriculum.

The first step is to take the time to ponder what it is about your selected subject that you really gravitate towards, and try to establish exactly why you want to study that subject (or subjects). The prompt urges you to think about why you are excited by your academic interests, so push yourself to think beyond “I’m really good at it” or “I have an excellent teacher.” 

The short essay is only 250 words, so aim to focus your interests on a maximum of two areas. Once you have established your key interests and taken the time to ponder why you’re drawn to them, examine your reasoning and try to find an underlying connection between the two fields. Alternatively, consider presenting an interdisciplinary field that connects the two subjects, and emphasize the opportunities presented at Brown through its particular courses/programs/majors that would allow you to pursue your interdisciplinary interests. If there isn’t a connection between the two subjects, that’s totally okay, too!

While this prompt might appear to only ask about your academic interests, it is also asking what you would like to study while at Brown (it is a Brown supplemental essay, after all). Admissions officers also want to know how you’ll use Brown’s resources (and the Open Curriculum) to achieve your academic goals.

But what about those who are undecided? There’s no need to worry if you’re not sure what you’ll study. You can simply mention your top 1-2 interests and why Brown is a good fit for you to develop those interests. It might be helpful to know that Brown is one of the few universities that allows you to construct your own major; if applicable, you can mention your desire to turn your multiple interests into a unique interdisciplinary major.

Below are several examples to illustrate meshing two seemingly contrasting interests into a potential future academic pursuit at Brown:

Example 1: Perhaps you’re interested in biology and geology. You could weave your interests together by emphasizing your insatiable curiosity for understanding both living and physical systems, and reference an example of something your desire to understand systems-thinking has led you to do in the past, or reflect on how this experience challenged your assumptions, etc. Your narrative could incorporate experiences that illustrate your interest in each subject – you can talk about a science fair project you worked on, a class you struggled in but overcame, a lab experiment you participated in, or a younger student you tutored, etc. Focus on the common reasons you are attracted to both subjects. You can mention the opportunity to pursue the joint Geo-Bio degree offered through the Department of Earth, Environment, and Planetary Sciences at Brown, without abandoning your interests in poetry and anthropology through the opportunities presented by the Open Curriculum. 

Example 2: Let’s imagine that you are interested in politics, activism, or community work, but you also are passionate about music and have been playing piano for many years. You could discuss your experiences on a political internship or your role in your school’s model UN, and discuss the opportunities available at Brown, through the Brown in Washington program or the Swearer Center for Public Service. However, you could also discuss the piano concert you organized and performed in to fundraise for your community’s homeless shelter. Whenever possible, selecting an example that bridges your seemingly contrasting interests can create a very compelling essay. You could conclude by explaining that you are aiming to use the Open Curriculum to explore the impact of music on the influence of political campaigns and a candidate’s perception, or on exploring the connection between music, Alzheimer’s, and memory, etc. 

All Applicants, Prompt 2

Students entering brown often find that making their home on college hill naturally invites reflection on where they came from. share how an aspect of your growing up has inspired or challenged you, and what unique contributions this might allow you to make to the brown community. (200-250 words).

Brainstorming Your Topic

While the phrasing is a little different, this is essentially a Diversity Essay . You want to share something about who you are that sets you apart from other applicants to Brown, and explain how it would make you a valuable addition to Brown’s campus community.

Before you start brainstorming which part of your identity you want to write about, do remember that the way colleges evaluate race specifically will be different this year, and moving forward, after the Supreme Court overturned affirmative action in June. Schools are not allowed to factor race into their broader admissions strategies, but they can consider it on an individual level through the essay. So, if your racial identity is an important part of who you are, this is a good opportunity to share it with admissions officers.

Of course, you are also welcome to write about a different part of your identity. The things that make us diverse aren’t just race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and the other features that normally first come to people’s minds when they hear the word “diversity.” Even the prompt itself casts a wide net, with the phrase “an aspect of your growing up.” In addition to the features just listed, that could also refer to hobbies, interests, your family culture, and pretty much any lived experience. Less traditional topics in this vein could include:

• Teaching yourself Elvish, the fictional language from Lord of the Rings
• Biking to school every day while your friends drove or took the bus
• Baking all the birthday cakes in your family from the time you were seven
• Raising chickens in the backyard of your suburban house

The only real rule here is that you choose a part of your identity that will help Brown admissions officers better understand who you are, and what you’ll look like as a college student. So long as that’s the case, anything is fair game.

Tips for Writing Your Essay

Once you’ve selected a topic, the thing you want to make clear in your actual essay is how this “aspect of your growing up has inspired or challenged you .” Like “aspect of your growing up,” “inspired or challenged” gives you a lot of flexibility, but what Brown admissions officers are saying is that they want to understand not just what sets you apart from other applicants, but why that thing is crucial to understanding who you are as a whole.

In other words, you don’t just want to say “I live with my grandparents, who spent most of their lives in Germany, and don’t speak very good English.” You want to go deeper, explaining how this dynamic made you feel, and how it shaped your personality and overall perspective on the world.

There’s no one right way to do that—only you know how this piece of your identity has impacted you. The most important thing is to just be honest, rather than trying to structure your response around what you think Brown wants to see. If you try to force a connection to a particular value, that disconnect will show. To illustrate our point here, compare the following two excerpts from hypothetical essays:

Excerpt 1: “I sometimes felt awkward when I had friends over, as my grandparents could do little more than wave and stumble over a heavily accented ‘How are you?’ But I always got over my embarrassment quickly, because cultural heritage is something to celebrate, since the only way we can learn is from engaging with those who are different from us.”

Excerpt 2: “When I was little, I didn’t see any issue with my grandparents not speaking English: they were my family, and that was all that mattered. But when I got older and started having friends over, their perplexed reactions to my grandpa’s heavily accented ‘How are you?’ caused me to feel a twang of shame—and then, a pinch of anger with myself, for being ashamed of my own family.”

While celebration of cultural differences is of course a wonderful thing, in the first excerpt the writer seems to be skipping ahead to their appreciation of this value, and glossing over a more complicated emotional journey in the process. 

In the second example, on the other hand, they are unafraid to be vulnerable, and share their true feelings about this experience. As a result, we have a much clearer sense of both who they are and how they became that person, which are exactly the questions admissions officers want you to answer in your essays. Plus, if they talk later on about the appreciation for cultural difference they eventually took away from this experience, we will have seen exactly how they developed this appreciation, which will make their connection to this value feel much more genuine.

One last tip here: try to rely on specific anecdotes as much as possible to illustrate your points. Both excerpts above draw on a tangible example of a moment (having friends over and their grandparents being unable to greet them) that made them wrestle with their identity. That specificity gives us a much clearer sense of how this student grew through this experience, whereas a general line like “Sometimes, I was proud of my heritage, but other times I was embarrassed” would leave us with a lot of questions about what caused the student to feel this back-and-forth.

Mistakes to Avoid

The biggest potential pitfall in a diversity essay is only sharing part of your identity, and not taking the next step outlined above of explaining how it’s relevant to understanding what kind of  college student you’ll be. If you don’t get to this deeper level of reflection, admissions officers may find themselves saying “Okay, we know [x] about you, but how does that help us figure out whether or not you’re a good match for Brown?”

All Applicants, Prompt 3

Brown students care deeply about their work and the world around them. students find contentment, satisfaction, and meaning in daily interactions and major discoveries. whether big or small, mundane or spectacular, tell us about something that brings you joy. (200-250 words) .

This essay prompt is very similar to the extracurricular essay archetype. However, there is a subtle difference in that this prompt allows you to discuss out-of-school activities and academic subjects. This would be a good place to demonstrate your love for a specific topic or activity that you included in other parts of your application. Or, if there is a very important part of your personality that hasn’t been captured by the rest of your application, you can write about that here. 

Pick a topic that genuinely interests you. Don’t write an essay about how you love titrating acids and bases to sound “impressive” or “intellectual” if you groan every time you walk into the chemistry lab. Admissions officers have read enough essays to tell when a student’s tone and details depict a genuine interest in a topic. You are given so much freedom, so you really should write about whatever brings you joy.

Maybe you love trying styling hair and nothing brings you as much joy as when you are backstage at your school show and you are styling, braiding, and pinning all of the actors’ hair. A topic like this is unique to the student, and since they are genuinely passionate about hairstyling, it will shine through in their writing.

A strong extracurricular essay will either show your emotions and state of mind when you participate in your activity, or how that activity has helped you develop new skills and personality traits. A great essay will do both. Like the other prompts, there is a limited word count to convey not only why you enjoy this activity so much, but how you have improved as a result of this activity. Here’s an example that accomplishes both of these:

“It was a hot day in New Orleans and the crowd stuffed together certainly didn’t make things better. Necks were craning to see the spectacle in the middle of the circle. I tugged on my dad’s shirt, and he placed me on top of his shoulders for the best seat in the house. My heart raced every time the daring performer threw a sword up – I really thought he’d eventually slice his hand open. But it was perfect every time.

By the end of our trip, I had tried my hand at juggling everything from toothbrushes to balls of socks. My mom was not as enthusiastic when I collected everybody’s knives at dinner to mimic the juggler’s final trick. When I finally got a juggling kit for my next birthday, I devoted every second of my free time to practicing moves I saw on YouTube. With more and more practice, I could tell how long it would take for an object to reach its zenith just by the weight in my hand.

At times, the level of control and focus I put into juggling is exhausting, but if I lose focus for one second, I run the risk of serious injury. Some tricks have taken years to perfect, but the gratification when I’ve mastered a new skill makes all my patience worth it. Nothing will be as thrilling as the day my audience’s hearts race with me as I catch a sword in my hand.”

In this example, the student’s passion for juggling is tangible. The reader sees what sparked this student’s interest, how it has developed, and how juggling has affected the student. By tying the conclusion back to the anecdote at the beginning, the essay has a satisfying conclusion that makes the reader feel this student is highly motivated by their passion and dreams, which is exactly what Brown is looking for.

If you’d like to see some examples of good responses to this prompt, check out our blog post breaking down “joy” essays written by real past applicants to Brown!

All Applicants, Prompt 4

What three words best describe you (3 words).

This prompt is as clear, straightforward, and short as you could ask for, but with supplemental essays, that unfortunately doesn’t automatically mean writing your response will be easy. Obviously, you have no space to elaborate on why you chose the three words you did, so you need to give yourself time to think deeply about your words.

The best advice we can give is to, as you brainstorm, remember two of the main purposes of the college essay. First, to set yourself apart from other applicants with strong academic and extracurricular resumes. Second, to give admissions officers information that can’t be found elsewhere in your application.

Keeping these two ideas in mind will hopefully help you use your three words as effectively as possible. For example, you don’t want to use flattering but vague adjectives like “smart,” “talented,” “funny,” or “creative” because those are words that most other applicants to Brown would also use to describe themselves. You also want to avoid highlighting a feature of yourself that already comes across in another part of your application—if your activities list says that you’ve earned 10 varsity letters, admissions officers already know you’re athletic, so don’t waste one of your precious three words on repeating that here.

Instead, try to pick descriptive, precise words that pick out some feature of your personality that, for whatever reason, doesn’t yet come across in your application. Only you know how to apply that advice to yourself, but here is a list of words that communicate a clear, tangible personality trait, and thus would teach admissions officers something substantive about who you are:

• Sentimental
• Adventurous

Hopefully, this list gives you a clearer sense of what kind of words you should be considering. You only have three, so use them wisely!

All Applicants, Prompt 5

What is your most meaningful extracurricular commitment, and what would you like us to know about it (100 words).

This is a textbook example of the “Extracurricular” essay , which is one you may well have already written for another school. If you do already have a version of this essay on hand, you are welcome to write about the same topic. However, you will still need to dedicate time to this prompt, as this essay’s word count is likely much lower than that of your other essay (usually, this kind of prompt has a word count in the 200-250 range), and you don’t want your essay to feel like an abridged version of another one. We’ll get into how to avoid that in the next section.

If you haven’t yet written this kind of essay, or if you have but want to write about something new, note that “most meaningful” can be read in a variety of ways. Perhaps you are inspired to write about classic extracurricular activities, like a sport, a club, volunteer work, or a part-time job. Those are all fantastic options, but you can also write about more unconventional activities if none of those things feel quite right, as “extracurricular activity” can refer to just about anything you do outside of the classroom.

For example, you could write about how you make trinkets out of the feathers that get left at your bird feeder. You could also write about your neighborhood’s caroling group, and how going door to door each year is your favorite part of the holiday season. Or you could describe teaching baseball to your much younger neighbor after watching you practice made him want to learn the sport.

While you probably don’t do any of these things, hopefully these examples of more unusual activities help you brainstorm things you do in your own life that could work for this prompt. Remember, like any college essay, the point of this prompt is to help admissions officers better understand who you are, so as long as your activity will help you do that, it’s fair game here.

If you’re writing about the same topic as another essay, you can certainly use that other one for inspiration, and potentially even use some of the same lines. There are only so many hours in the day, and recycling previous work can be a good time-saver.

However, you want to make sure this essay feels like a cohesive, independent unit, not like a Frankenstein’s monster pieced together from parts of another essay. So, don’t just pluck enough sentences to get you to 100 words and call it good. Rather, think about the ideas you express in that essay, and try to capture those same sentiments in a smaller package. 

As noted above, that may involve using a sentence or two from the other essay, but you will almost certainly need to generate new sentences, or rephrase existing ones, and of course pay attention to the structure to make sure the flow, progression from one idea to the next, and so on all make sense.

If you’re starting from scratch, the most important thing to do is make sure you answer the second half of this prompt: what do you want admissions officers to know about this activity? In other words, don’t just tell them “I do [x] in my free time.” Rather, explain how this activity has helped you grow, so that Brown admissions officers can see why your involvement in it is relevant to the kind of college student you’ll be.

Obviously, you don’t have a ton of room to do this, but you still want to rely on the old adage for college essays, “show, don’t tell,” as much as possible. Usually, that means describing specific anecdotes or life experiences in enough detail that you don’t have to tell your reader directly how the activity shaped you, because they can see it for themselves. Here, you don’t have the space to provide a ton of detail, but you still want to at least reference tangible examples to illustrate your points, as otherwise your essay may end up feeling cheesy or impersonal.

To see the difference between the two approaches, compare these two example responses:

Example 1: “ When I started volunteering at the Everett animal shelter, I wasn’t that excited about a lot of the tasks I had to do. I mainly just wanted something to do on the weekends. But as time went on, I started to find joy and fulfillment in duties that had previously just bored me. Now, I have a much more positive outlook when I try new things, because this experience taught me that learning and growth can happen in a lot of different ways–often ways you never even expected up front.”

Example 2: “My first day volunteering at the Everett animal shelter, I couldn’t help but wrinkle my nose and try to hold in my vomit as I scrubbed the cages of kittens and puppies that weren’t yet potty-trained. But gradually, I stopped noticing the smell as much, and instead started paying attention to how joyful the animals were afterward to be able to play freely, without avoiding soiled areas. Today, I try to approach everything in my life with the mindset that even tedious or gross tasks can be fulfilling if you consciously focus on the greater purpose of what you’re doing.”

The ideas conveyed in these two examples are the same. But the second one includes a specific example of a task they found unpleasant (cleaning cages), and describes what exactly made them start to change their mindset (seeing the animals happy in their clean cages). As a result, we get a more engaging story, which teaches us not just what the student learned from this experience, but also how they learned it.

The main thing you want to be on the lookout for here is using your space inefficiently, since you already have so little of it. Specifically, remember that this essay is not the only thing in your application, so you want to give your reader new information about yourself, rather than repeating details that can already be found elsewhere.

For example, if you already wrote your Common App essay about your experiences volunteering at the animal shelter, you’ll want to pick a different topic for this essay. Even if you feel you can shine a different light on the experience, you’ve already spent 650 words on it. Use these 100 to introduce Brown admissions officers to something entirely new about yourself.

Additionally, remember that, if you’re writing about something that appears in your activities list, admissions officers already know how long you’ve been involved in it, and how often you do it. So, an introductory line like “During my sophomore year, I started volunteering at the animal shelter every week,” is a waste of 13% of your space, as admissions officers already know that. 

Even if you choose an extracurricular that doesn’t appear in your activities list, you don’t really need to provide these kinds of factual details unless they’re essential to understanding the point you’re trying to make. For example, maybe you were feeling overwhelmed your freshman year of high school, and teaching your neighbor baseball helped remind you that you do have things you’re good at. Otherwise, those words could be used more efficiently.

All Applicants, Prompt 6

If you could teach a class on any one thing, whether academic or otherwise, what would it be (100 words).

You’re not even a high school graduate yet, and here Brown is dropping you into a professor’s shoes—what an amazing opportunity! As you think about which course you’re going to offer, note that Brown is casting an incredibly wide net with this prompt: you can teach about any subject, even a non-academic one. Admissions officers want to see your creativity, because once you get to college, you will be able to take a much, much wider variety of classes, and admissions officers want to see that you’re ready to take advantage of that freedom.

Plus, like with any college essay, your goal here is to share a side of yourself that isn’t reflected in any other part of your application, and the looser nature of this prompt makes this a great opportunity to share something that wouldn’t appear in a transcript or activities list. So, don’t be afraid to think outside the box and have some fun! Do you have any interests that are a huge part of your life, but unrelated to your academic or extracurricular passions? Tell us about them here! Is there something you’ve always been inexplicably fascinated by, to the point that it’s shaped how you’ve grown up? This is the place to describe it!

To give you a sense of just how creative you can get, here is a list of example topics you could write about:

• Using statistics to account for potential injuries when drafting your fantasy football team
• Theories and conspiracies about how the pyramids were built
• The incredible variation in Italian food from one region to another
• The chemistry behind making the perfect, sticky-but-not-too-sticky, sushi rice
• Extreme climates, like a desert in Chile that hasn’t gotten rain in hundreds of years

While the prompt only explicitly asks what you would teach about, the thing to bring out in your response is the implied “and why” at the end. You don’t want your response to be just about the history of making sushi rice. While that might be informative, it won’t help Brown admissions officers visualize you as part of their campus community.

Instead, use your topic as a lens to shine light on some feature of your personality. In other words, ask yourself what your interest in this subject says about you overall. For example, maybe dealing with the randomness of injuries to highly drafted players in your fantasy league has helped you accept that some things are ultimately outside of your control, no matter how hard you try to account for them. Alternatively, perhaps learning about the most extreme climates on earth makes you feel awe for the variety present in nature, which in turn inspires you to think about the variety of things you could do with your life.

The most important thing is that your interest in this topic is clearly connected to your growth and development. If that connection is vague or doesn’t seem particularly logical, your response may feel disjointed or impersonal. But so long as your explanation is honest and thoughtful, admissions officers should come away from your essay with a more comprehensive, nuanced understanding of what makes you tick, both intellectually and personally.

Really, the only thing you want to avoid in your response is not taking advantage of this opportunity to be creative. Even if you want to write about a conventional academic subject, like math or English, approach it from an unusual angle, like the example listed in the “Brainstorming” section about using statistics to help you in your fantasy football draft. That will prove to admissions officers that you aren’t just smart, but also curious and imaginative, and also show them a new side of you—the side that plays fantasy football—that probably doesn’t show up anywhere else in your application.

All Applicants, Prompt 7

In one sentence, why brown (50 words).

While writing the supplements for the other schools on your list, you have likely come across this “Why This College?” prompt. However, because Brown is giving you only 50 words, the usual approach to this kind of essay—citing several school-specific resources and explaining how they’ll help you achieve your goals—doesn’t work, as you just don’t have room to do that.

That being said, you still want to be precise in your response. The classic rule for this kind of essay, that you shouldn’t be able to swap in another school’s name and still have your response make sense, still applies. And 50 words is more than you think. While you don’t have space to incorporate academic, extracurricular, and social opportunities at Brown the way you normally would, you can still highlight one particular resource at Brown that interests you and give admissions officers a sense of why you’re drawn to it. 

Here’s an example of a response that accomplishes everything laid out in the previous paragraph:

“Brown’s spirit is making interdisciplinary connections, which I would do through the Brown in Bologna program by further exploring the Italian culture my grandparents preserved even after immigrating to Boston, and simultaneously informing myself about another country’s educational system so that I am better prepared to solve global educational inequalities.”

This response is exactly 50 words, and uses them efficiently to show admissions officers this student is a good fit for their school by explaining how they would take advantage of the opportunities available at Brown. To do the same in your own response, just make sure that you choose a resource that directly and concretely connects to your goals for college, rather than something you’re only sort of interested in. If you don’t already have a clear sense of what you want to say, 50 words isn’t enough to explain why you might be interested in something—you need to already know you are, and why.

One last note: “the Open Curriculum” doesn’t work as the kind of school-specific resource we’re talking about. While this is one of the school’s most famous distinguishing features, remember that the point of any college essay is to help set yourself apart from other applicants, and anyone who applies to Brown is at least somewhat drawn to the Open Curriculum. 

To give admissions officers a clear sense of how you personally would fit into Brown’s campus community, you’ll need to get more specific, by instead referencing a research opportunity, particular academic offering, or study abroad program (as in the example above). Then, explain how that resource reflects the broader culture of Brown, and how it connects to your own priorities and hopes for your time in college. Fitting all of this in isn’t easy, but again, it can be done. We believe in you!

The Brown|RISD Dual Degree Program draws on the complementary strengths of Brown University and Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) to provide students with the opportunity to explore and engage with diverse spheres of academic and creative inquiry. The culmination of students’ five-year program is a capstone project that relates and integrates content, approaches, and methods from two distinct learning experiences.

Considering your understanding of the academic programs at brown and risd, describe how and why the specific blend of risd’s experimental, immersive combined studio and liberal arts program and brown’s wide-ranging courses and curricula could constitute an optimal undergraduate education for you. additionally, how might your academic, artistic and personal experiences contribute to the dual degree community and its commitment to interdisciplinary work (650 words).

The Brown-RISD Dual Degree program is an intense, highly selective (2-3% acceptance) program in which students must get accepted to both Brown and RISD based on their respective criterion, and then be approved by a joint committee. Students in the program exhibit an intense degree of intellectual rigor, as well as a broad ranging curiosity for both an arts and liberal arts education. The key here is to convince the readers that you are a good fit in this specific program, rather than as a Brown student who takes a few RISD classes or a RISD student who takes a few Brown classes.

In this essay, you must be specific about why you would be a better fit spending five years getting degrees from both Brown and RISD rather than getting one degree from either of the schools. You must show that it is necessary for you to get both degrees, and how you would like to use the knowledge you gain from both schools in your future. It’s incredibly important to highlight the interdisciplinary nature of your goals, as this is specifically called out in the prompt.  

With 650 available words, this essay should feature the same depth as your Common App essay, and should complement it. Although the two should not overlap in content, you can definitely expand on topics you briefly touched on in one essay in the other. Here are a few possible avenues you could explore in this essay:

(1) Students in the program stretch the gamut of possible Brown + RISD major combinations: furniture and applied mathematics, computer science and industrial design, and comparative literature and painting. The program prides itself on this diversity, so explain how your passions and interests are disparate, but also connected to your overall identity. Talk about how being surrounded with other Brown-RISD students will foster your wide-ranging intellectual and artistic curiosities even further.

(2) If you ultimately want to become an artist, you could talk about how important the liberal arts have been and will be for you. Maybe you find literature critical for escaping into the worlds you want to create visually, and you want to dive deeper during your undergraduate years.

(3) Maybe you want to study both biology and industrial design, because you want to base your design work on biomimicry. You could talk about how you would draw equally from both fields, and how you want to design better transportation devices that take from the best methods of nature.

(4) Say you’ve always been interested in your Korean heritage and finding ways to express that through art. As a result, you want to study East Asian history at Brown, where you will understand the context that your parents immigrated out of, and textiles at RISD, where you can craft bojagi (Korean wrapping cloth) with a sensitivity to its historical context.

(5) Maybe you’ve always been passionate about both art and liberal arts, but have no concrete connection between the two, and that’s also perfectly fine. You could talk about how you want to further explore and hone in these passions, so that by your second year of undergrad, you’ll have a stronger idea of what specifically you want to study.

Your art portfolio, Common App essay, and other supplemental essays will also speak volumes about who you are, so make sure to use this essay to highlight parts of yourself previously unmentioned. You’ve also probably spent the previous essays explaining “why Brown,” so use this essay to delve deep into why you would thrive in an arts and design centered environment in conjunction with Brown’s liberal arts curriculum.

PLME Applicants Only

Brown’s Program in Liberal Medical Education (PLME) is a prestigious 8 year BS/MD program which gives students the opportunity to be admitted to Brown’s undergraduate program and Brown’s Warren Alpert Medical School simultaneously.

This is one of the most selective programs of any kind in the country, with an acceptance rate below 2% in recent years , so essays that show your true affinity and aptitude for medicine are absolutely essential.

PLME Applicants, Prompt 1

Committing to a future career as a physician while in high school requires careful consideration and self-reflection. explain your personal motivation to pursue a career in medicine, and why the program in liberal medical education (plme) will best meet your professional and personal goals. (500 words).

This prompt falls under the Why This Major essay archetype, as it asks you to provide two layers of reflection on why you’re applying to the Program in Liberal Medical Education (PLME). 

First, explain why you want to become a physician – dig into your experiences, interests, and values to demonstrate a clear and compelling motivation for committing to such a demanding career at a young age. Then, explain why Brown’s PLME is the right program for you, as opposed to some other BS/MD program . You’ll need to demonstrate your understanding of PLME’s unique structure and illustrate how it aligns with your academic, professional, and personal aspirations.

PLME is a huge commitment for 17 and 18 year olds, who are essentially saying that they know what they want to do for the rest of their lives before even beginning their undergraduate studies. Brown admissions officers understandably want to accept candidates who have tangible reasons for wanting to become doctors, such as clinical or lab experience, or a specific ailment you hope to help cure, rather than just a vague interest in science or in helping people.

Consider the following questions as you brainstorm for each part of the prompt.

Personal Motivation :

• When did you first become interested in medicine, and what sparked that interest?
• Have you had any significant experiences (volunteering, shadowing, personal/family health issues) that solidified your desire to pursue medicine?
• What qualities do you possess that make you suited for a career in medicine?
• How do your values align with the responsibilities and ethics of being a physician?
• How does the interdisciplinary nature of PLME align with your interests outside of medicine?
• What specific aspects of PLME’s curriculum (e.g., the freedom to explore diverse academic interests) appeal to you?
• Are there particular faculty members , research opportunities , experiential learning programs , or other resources at Brown that resonate with your professional goals?
• How do you envision your future career as a physician, and how will PLME help you realize that vision?

Reflecting on your past experiences related to medicine is especially critical. Whether that is shadowing a pediatrician at your local hospital for a summer, volunteering with an organization like the Red Cross, or doing lab research on pancreatic cancer, let the admissions team know that you know what engaging in clinical or laboratory work is like, and that those experiences strengthened your desire to enter the medical profession.

You can also bring in personal experiences with healthcare, such as seeing a loved one hospitalized, if they contributed to your desire to enter the field. However, you want to avoid clichés like witnessing an older relative, usually a grandparent, pass away due to illness, and afterwards deciding to pursue medicine as a career. 

In cases such as these, make sure to make the experience as unique to you as possible, and to connect it to other health-related activities you’ve done as well. Focusing on just your sadness won’t do much to set you apart from the other talented students applying to one of the most selective programs in the country. 

Instead, you could talk about, for example, how your grandfather made efforts to extend his life by cutting sugar and caffeine out of his diet in his 60s, and how you became curious about the interplay between genes, diet, and longevity, which inspired you to participate in a summer program focused on nutrition research. 

Regardless of which anecdotes you highlight, you should also brainstorm your key values, and make sure that you integrate them into your story of how you decided to pursue medicine. If you aren’t sure of your values, think back to how you have spent your time, and look for trends.

For example, if you volunteer sorting clothes at goodwill, or care for your younger siblings, or tutor your peers, chances are you value looking beyond yourself and caring for those in need, both of which are critical traits of good doctors.

Or, maybe you write for your school paper and enjoy reading autobiographies. Those endeavors show that you have a love for interacting with other people and learning about them, which also speaks well of your potential as a doctor, so make sure to illustrate this point in how you describe your experiences.

Regardless of what your personal values are, using concrete things you’ve done in the past to illustrate them is much more powerful than just stating “my values are helping those in need.”

Finally, a strong response will describe both your background and future in the field of medicine from the viewpoint of PLME. Demonstrate how your personal values and aspirations align with what PLME specifically has to offer, to paint a clear picture of not just your future as a physician, but also how PLME will help you meet the incredibly high intellectual and ethical expectations of this career.

PLME Applicants, Prompt 2 Option A

How will you, as a future physician, make a positive impact (250 words).

Your essay should look to the future and answer how you will address a specific issue you see in health care today. Maybe you are concerned with high maternal mortality rates among mothers from lower socioeconomic statuses, and you want to work as an OBGYN in underprivileged areas to provide mothers with more attentive care. Possibly you are interested in developing a pill that will instantly stop bug bites from itching, because after years of your family’s annual camping trip you know how pesky bug bites can be.

Once you identify this specific aspect of health care which you are interested in and why you are interested, you should go into detail about how you hope to improve this issue. A student who already has experience with their issue might write about how in high school she tried to deter students from vaping by forming a Students Against Nicotine club at her school. However, once she has a medical background, she plans to specialize in respiratory illnesses so she can give talks at schools about the science behind what vaping does to a person’s lungs.

Another student might not have prior experience with racial disparities in health care, but they know that they want to address the toxic stress minority communities face which contributes to major health complications. This student could discuss their plan to popularize a method for identifying and prescribing toxic stress as a medical condition.

It’s important that your response to this prompt includes what you are interested in doing as a physician, where you learned about this issue or what sparked your interest in this specific topic, and how you plan to make a difference one day. You can further strengthen your response by describing how specific resources and opportunities (classes, researching with professors, clubs and organizations, etc) at Brown will allow you to reach your goals and address the issue.

Given the limited amount of space, it’s okay if you aren’t able to include resources at Brown, because your main focus should be on your aspirations and how you plan to solve a problem. Plus, you already have Prompt 1 to talk all about the specific things you hope to take advantage of through PLME.

One common mistake that students will make when it comes to this prompt is creating a potential impact in medicine that is not strongly reflected in the rest of their application. You don’t necessarily need to have worked in a hospital or a lab to connect the issue you are interested in to the rest of your application. You could have attended lectures and seminars on the topic, taken a class at a university about it, or read scientific journals and papers that discussed it, and make your connection there.

However, don’t claim you want to investigate the impact of biased artificial intelligence radiology tools in providing care for people of color without being able to explain where your interest and knowledge of this issue came from. 

PLME Applicants, Prompt 2 Option B

How has your personal background uniquely shaped your perspective on the field of medicine (250 words).

This prompt asks you to reflect on how your personal background—be it cultural, familial, socioeconomic, or another aspect—has influenced your view of medicine. It’s an example of the diversity archetype , which seeks to know more about your personal background and its impact on your worldview. 

With this kind of prompt, the most important thing to keep in mind is that identity can encompass a broad range of characteristics, including cultural background, values, beliefs, and even personal passions and hobbies. So long as the personal trait shapes your worldview, influences your actions, and defines you as an individual, it can be a strong topic.

One thing that makes this particular prompt a little different is the admissions committee is looking for insight into how your unique experiences will shape your approach to being a physician. You can still write about just about anything, but you want to make sure there’s a clear connection between the aspect of your identity you select and your future in healthcare.

As you brainstorm, think about your cultural, ethnic, racial, and religious background; socioeconomic status; hometown; any illnesses or disabilities; and interests and hobbies. The questions below could be a useful guide: 

• Is there a specific value or belief that drives your decisions and actions?
• Are there any personal passions that are central to your identity?
• Which aspects of your identity most impact your relationships with others?
• Has some part of your identity helped you overcome challenges or achieve goals?

Identity encompasses all the aforementioned attributes, so you have a lot of flexibility here. The most important thing is to choose something that will allow you to showcase individuality in your response. This prompt, like all the others, is an opportunity to set yourself apart from other academically qualified applicants, by sharing your unique perspective on life.

Don’t just list accomplishments or vague, box-checky markers of your identity. Instead, really dive into how this aspect of who you are influences your daily life and why it’s so meaningful in the context of your professional ambitions.

Next, to address the intersection between the classic Diversity archetype and the specific context of your medical education within PLME and eventual medical career, ask yourself: How has this part of your background provided you with a unique perspective of the field of medicine? 

This perspective could be related to healthcare disparities, patient care, medical ethics, or another relevant area. Go into detail about how your background will influence your approach as a student and physician. How will it help you become a better physician? What insights or skills will it give you that others might not have?

In other words, this essay isn’t just about explaining your background–it’s about making a direct connection between who you are and how you will approach medicine differently because of concrete features of your identity. The most compelling responses will make this link unquestionably clear and convincing. 

Avoid vague or cliché references, and don’t overemphasize obstacles you’ve faced or achievements you’re proud of without connecting these experiences back to how they shape your understanding of medicine and your future as a physician. The most important thing with this essay is that the relevance of your background to your interest in medicine in particular should always be clear.

Where to Get Your Brown Essay Edited For Free

Do you want feedback on your Brown essays? After rereading your essays countless times, it can be difficult to evaluate your writing objectively. That’s why we created our free Peer Essay Review tool , where you can get a free review of your essay from another student. You can also improve your own writing skills by reviewing other students’ essays. 

Need feedback faster? Get a  free, nearly-instantaneous essay review  from Sage, our AI tutor and advisor. Sage will rate your essay, give you suggestions for improvement, and summarize what admissions officers would take away from your writing. Use these tools to improve your chances of acceptance to your dream school!

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Literary Arts

Graduate students in Brown's Literary Arts MFA program may choose to focus in one of three tracks – Fiction, Poetry, or Digital/Cross Disciplinary Writing. The Graduate School has notified candidates regarding admission decisions for Fall 2024 in all three tracks: Cross-Disciplinary, Fiction and Poetry.

The two-year program is structured to allow graduate student writers maximum possible time for creative and intellectual exploration. Students attend two courses each semester: the writing workshop and an elective in the first three semesters (with an additional half-course in pedagogy in semesters two and three); and in the final semester an independent study for completing the thesis as well as an elective.

Elective courses may be selected from among the full offerings of the Brown University curriculum. In years past, students have taken courses in literature, history, philosophy, theater and performance studies, modern culture and media, religious studies, and foreign languages. Studio fine arts courses and translation workshops are often appropriate choices – as are workshops offered on special topics or in other genres. 

The thesis may be a substantial work of fiction or poetry, or a substantial digital or cross-disciplinary project. It is intended to represent the student’s achievement during the two years in residency at Brown.

Application deadline

Applications  may be submitted from 30 September to 11:59 pm ET on 15 December 2023. If seeking a fee waiver , the deadline is 1 December.

Learn More About the Program

Graduate program handbook, learn about applying, financial information.