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Last updated March 21, 2024

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Blog > Essay Advice , Supplementals > How to Write a Community Supplemental Essay (with Examples)

How to Write a Community Supplemental Essay (with Examples)

Admissions officer reviewed by Ben Bousquet, M.Ed Former Vanderbilt University

Written by Kylie Kistner, MA Former Willamette University Admissions

Key Takeaway

If you're applying to college, there's a good chance you'll be writing a Community Essay for one (or lots) of your supplementals. In this post, we show you how to write one that stands out.

This post is one in a series of posts about the supplemental essays . You can read our core “how-to” supplemental post here .

When schools admit you, they aren’t just admitting you to be a student. They’re also admitting you to be a community member.

Community supplemental essays help universities understand how you would fit into their school community. At their core, Community prompts allow you to explicitly show an admissions officer why you would be the perfect addition to the school’s community.

Let’s get into what a Community supplemental essay is, what strategies you can use to stand out, and which steps you can take to write the best one possible.

What is a Community supplemental essay?

Community supplemental essay prompts come in a number of forms. Some ask you to talk about a community you already belong to, while others ask you to expand on how you would contribute to the school you’re applying to.

Let’s look at a couple of examples.

1: Rice University

Rice is lauded for creating a collaborative atmosphere that enhances the quality of life for all members of our campus community. The Residential College System and undergraduate life is heavily influenced by the unique life experiences and cultural tradition each student brings. What life perspectives would you contribute to the Rice community? 500 word limit.

2: Swarthmore College

Swarthmore students’ worldviews are often forged by their prior experiences and exposure to ideas and values. Our students are often mentored, supported, and developed by their immediate context—in their neighborhoods, communities of faith, families, and classrooms. Reflect on what elements of your home, school, or community have shaped you or positively impacted you. How have you grown or changed because of the influence of your community?

Community Essay Strategy

Your Community essay strategy will likely depend on the kind of Community essay you’re asked to write. As with all supplemental essays, the goal of any community essay should be to write about the strengths that make you a good fit for the school in question.

How to write about a community to which you belong

Most Community essay prompts give you a lot of flexibility in how you define “community.” That means that the community you write about probably isn’t limited to the more formal communities you’re part of like family or school. Your communities can also include friend groups, athletic teams, clubs and organizations, online communities, and more.

There are two things you should consider before you even begin writing your essay.

What school values is the prompt looking for?

Whether they’re listed implicitly or explicitly, Community essay prompts often include values that you can align your essay response with.

To explain, let’s look at this short supplemental prompt from the University of Notre Dame:

If you were given unlimited resources to help solve one problem in your community, what would it be and how would you accomplish it?

Now, this prompt doesn’t outright say anything about values. But the question itself, even being so short, implies a few values:

a) That you should be active in your community

b) That you should be aware of your community’s problems

c) That you know how to problem-solve

d) That you’re able to collaborate with your community

After dissecting the prompt for these values, you can write a Community essay that showcases how you align with them.

What else are admissions officers learning about you through the community you choose?

In addition to showing what a good community member you are, your Community supplemental essays can also let you talk about other parts of your experience. Doing so can help you find the perfect narrative balance among all your essays.

Let’s use a quick example.

If I’m a student applying to computer science programs, then I might choose to write about the community I’ve found in my robotics team. More specifically, I might write about my role as cheerleader and principle problem-solver of my robotics team. Writing about my robotics team allows me to do two things:

Show that I’m a really supportive person in my community, and

Show that I’m on a robotics team that means a lot to me.

Now, it’s important not to co-opt your Community essay and turn it into a secret Extracurricular essay , but it’s important to be thinking about all the information an admissions officer will learn about you based on the community you choose to focus on.

How to write about what you’ll contribute to your new community

The other segment of Community essays are those that ask you to reflect on how your specific experiences will contribute to your new community.

It’s important that you read each prompt carefully so you know what to focus your essay on.

These kinds of Community prompts let you explicitly drive home why you belong at the school you’re applying to.

Here are two suggestions to get you started.

Draw out the values.

This kind of Community prompt also typically contains some kind of reference to values. The Rice prompt is a perfect example of this:

Rice is lauded for creating a collaborative atmosphere that enhances the quality of life for all members of our campus community . The Residential College System and undergraduate life is heavily influenced by the unique life experiences and cultural tradition each student brings. What life perspectives would you contribute to the Rice community? 500 word limit.

There are several values here:

a) Collaboration

b) Enhancing quality of life

c) For all members of the community

d) Residential system (AKA not just in the classroom)

e) Sharing unique life experiences and cultural traditions with other students

Note that the actual question of the prompt is “What life perspectives would you contribute to the Rice community?” If you skimmed the beginning of the prompt to get to the question, you’d miss all these juicy details about what a Rice student looks like.

But with them in mind, you can choose to write about a life perspective that you hold that aligns with these five values.

Find detailed connections to the school.

Since these kinds of Community prompts ask you what you would contribute to the school community, this is your chance to find the most logical and specific connections you can. Browse the school website and social media to find groups, clubs, activities, communities, or support systems that are related to your personal background and experiences. When appropriate based on the prompt, these kinds of connections can help you show how good a fit you are for the school and community.

How to do Community Essay school research

Looking at school values means doing research on the school’s motto, mission statement, and strategic plans. This information is all carefully curated by a university to reflect the core values, initiatives, and goals of an institution. They can guide your Community essay by giving you more values options to include.

We’ll use the Rice mission statement as an example. It says,

As a leading research university with a distinctive commitment to undergraduate education, Rice University aspires to pathbreaking research , unsurpassed teaching , and contribution to the betterment of our world . It seeks to fulfill this mission by cultivating a diverse community of learning and discovery that produces leaders across the spectrum of human endeavor.

I’ve bolded just a few of the most important values we can draw out.

As we’ll see in the next section, I can use these values to brainstorm my Community essay.

How to write a Community Supplemental Essay

Step 1: Read the prompt closely & identify any relevant values.

When writing any supplemental essay, your first step should always be to closely read the prompt. You can even annotate it. It’s important to do this so you know exactly what is being asked of you.

With Community essays specifically, you can also highlight any values you think the prompt is asking you to elaborate on.

Keeping track of the prompt will make sure that you’re not missing anything an admissions officer will be on the lookout for.

Step 2: Brainstorm communities you’re involved in.

If you’re writing a Community essay that asks you to discuss a community you belong to, then your next step will be brainstorming all of your options.

As you brainstorm, keep a running list. Your list can include all kinds of communities you’re involved in.

Communities:

• Model United Nations
• Youth group
• Instagram book club
• My Discord group

Step 3: Think about the role(s) you play in your selected community.

Narrow down your community list to a couple of options. For each remaining option, identify the roles you played, actions you took, and significance you’ve drawn from being part of that group.

Community: Orchestra

These three columns help you get at the most important details you need to include in your community essay.

Step 4: Identify any relevant connections to the school.

Depending on the question the prompt asks of you, your last step may be to do some school research.

Let’s return to the Rice example.

After researching the Rice mission statement, we know that Rice values community members who want to contribute to the “betterment of our world.”

Ah ha! Now we have something solid to work from.

With this value in mind, I can choose to write about a perspective that shows my investment in creating a better world. Maybe that perspective is a specific kind of fundraising tenacity. Maybe it’s always looking for those small improvements that have a big impact. Maybe it’s some combination of both. Whatever it is, I can write a supplemental essay that reflects the values of the university.

Community Essay Mistakes

While writing Community essays may seem fairly straightforward, there are actually a number of ways they can go awry. Specifically, there are three common mistakes students make that you should be on the lookout for.

They don’t address the specific requests of the prompt.

As with all supplemental essays, your Community essay needs to address what the prompt is asking you to do. In Community essays especially, you’ll need to assess whether you’re being asked to talk about a community you’re already part of or the community you hope to join.

Neglecting to read the prompt also means neglecting any help the prompt gives you in terms of values. Remember that you can get clues as to what the school is looking for by analyzing the prompt’s underlying values.

They’re too vague.

Community essays can also go awry when they’re too vague. Your Community essay should reflect on specific, concrete details about your experience. This is especially the case when a Community prompt asks you to talk about a specific moment, challenge, or sequence of events.

Don’t shy away from details. Instead, use them to tell a compelling story.

They don’t make any connections to the school.

Finally, Community essays that don’t make any connections to the school in question miss out on a valuable opportunity to show school fit. Recall from our supplemental essay guide that you should always write supplemental essays with an eye toward showing how well you fit into a particular community.

Community essays are the perfect chance to do that, so try to find relevant and logical school connections to include.

Community Supplemental Essay Example

Example essay: robotics community.

University of Michigan: Everyone belongs to many different communities and/or groups defined by (among other things) shared geography, religion, ethnicity, income, cuisine, interest, race, ideology, or intellectual heritage. Choose one of the communities to which you belong, and describe that community and your place within it. (Required for all applicants; minimum 100 words/maximum 300 words)

From Blendtec’s “Will it Blend?” videos to ZirconTV’s “How to Use a Stud Finder,” I’m a YouTube how-to fiend. This propensity for fix-it knowledge has not only served me well, but it’s also been a lifesaver for my favorite community: my robotics team(( The writer explicitly states the community they’ll be focusing on.)) . While some students spend their after-school hours playing sports or video games, I spend mine tinkering in my garage with three friends, one of whom is made of metal.

Last year, I Googled more fixes than I can count. Faulty wires, misaligned soldering, and failed code were no match for me. My friends watched in awe as I used Boolean Operators to find exactly the information I sought.(( The writer clearly articulates their place in the community.)) But as I agonized over chassis reviews, other unsearchable problems arose.

First((This entire paragraph fulfills the “describe that community” direction in the prompt.)) , there was the matter of registering for our first robotics competition. None of us familiar with bureaucracy, David stepped up and made some calls. His maturity and social skills helped us immediately land a spot. The next issue was branding. Our robot needed a name and a logo, and Connor took it upon himself to learn graphic design. We all voted on Archie’s name and logo design to find the perfect match. And finally, someone needed to enter the ring. Archie took it from there, winning us first place.

The best part about being in this robotics community is the collaboration and exchange of knowledge.((The writer emphasizes a clear strength: collaboration within their community. It’s clear that the writer values all contributions to the team.))  Although I can figure out how to fix anything, it’s impossible to google social skills, creativity, or courage. For that information, only friends will do. I can only imagine the fixes I’ll bring to the University of Michigan and the skills I’ll learn in return at part of the Manufacturing Robotics community((The writer ends with a forward-looking connection to the school in question.)) .

Want to see even more supplemental essay examples? Check out our college essay examples post . 

Liked that? Try this next.

How to Write Supplemental Essays that Will Impress Admissions Officers

How to Write a College Essay (Exercises + Examples)

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How to Write the “Community” Essay

A step-by-step guide to this popular supplemental prompt.

When college admissions officers admit a new group of freshmen, they aren’t just filling up classrooms — they’re also crafting (you guessed it) a campus community. College students don’t just sit quietly in class, retreat to their rooms to crank out homework, go to sleep, rinse, and repeat. They socialize! They join clubs! They organize student protests! They hold cultural events! They become RAs and audition for a cappella groups and get on-campus jobs! Colleges want to cultivate a thriving, vibrant, uplifting campus community that enriches students’ learning — and for that reason, they’re understandably curious about what kind of community member they’ll be getting when they invite you to campus as part of their incoming class.

Enter the “community” essay — an increasingly popular supplemental essay prompt that asks students to talk about a community to which they belong and how they have contributed to or benefited from that community. Community essays often sound something like this:

University of Michigan: Everyone belongs to many different communities and/or groups defined by (among other things) shared geography, religion, ethnicity, income, cuisine, interest, race, ideology, or intellectual heritage. Choose one of the communities to which you belong, and describe that community and your place within it. (250 words)

Pomona College: Reflecting on a community that you are part of, what values or perspectives from that community would you bring to Pomona?  (250 words)

University of Rochester: Spiders are essential to the ecosystem. How are you essential to your community or will you be essential in your university community? (350-650 words)

Swarthmore: Swarthmore students’ worldviews are often forged by their prior experiences and exposure to ideas and values. Our students are often mentored, supported, and developed by their immediate context—in their neighborhoods, communities of faith, families, and classrooms. Reflect on what elements of your home, school, or community have shaped you or positively impacted you. How have you grown or changed because of the influence of your community? (250 words)

Yale: Reflect on a time when you have worked to enhance a community to which you feel connected. Why have these efforts been meaningful to you? You may define community however you like. (400 words)

Step 1: Pick a community to write about

Breathe. You belong to LOTS of communities. And if none immediately come to mind, it’s only because you need to bust open your idea of what constitutes a “community”!

Among other things, communities can be joined by…

• West Coasters
• NYC’s Koreatown
• Everyone in my cabin at summer camp
• ACLU volunteers
• Cast of a school musical
• Puzzle-lovers
• Powerlifters
• Army brats who live together on a military base
• Iranian-American
• Queer-identifying
• Children of pastors

Take 15 minutes to write down a list of ALL the communities you belong to that you can think of. While you’re writing, don’t worry about judging which ones will be useful for an essay. Just write down every community that comes to mind — even if some of them feel like a stretch.

When you’re done, survey your list of communities. Do one, two, or three communities jump out as options that could enable you to write about yourself and your community engagement? Carry your top choices of community into Step 2.

Step 2: Generate content.

For each of your top communities, answer any of the following questions that apply:

• Is there a memorable story I can tell about my engagement with this community?
• What concrete impacts have I had on this community?
• What problems have I solved (or attempted to solve) in this community?
• What have I learned from this community?
• How has this community supported me or enriched my life up to this point?
• How have I applied the lessons or values I gleaned from this community more broadly?

Different questions will be relevant for different community prompts. For example, if you’re working on answering Yale’s prompt, you’ll want to focus on a community on which you’ve had a concrete impact. But if you’re trying to crack Swarthmore’s community essay, you can prioritize communities that have impacted YOU. Keep in mind though — even for a prompt like Yale’s, which focuses on tangible impact, it’s important that your community essay doesn’t read like a rattled-off list of achievements in your community. Your goal here is to show that you are a generous, thoughtful, grateful, and active community member who uplifts the people around you — not to detail a list of the competitions that Math club has won under your leadership.

BONUS: Connect your past community life to your future on-campus community life.

Some community essay prompts ask you — or give you the option — to talk about how you plan on engaging with community on a particular college campus. If you’re tackling one of those prompts (like Pomona’s), then you guessed it: it’s research time!

Often, for these kinds of community prompts, it will serve you to first write about a community that you’ve engaged with in the past and then write about how you plan to continue engaging with that same kind of community at college. For example, if you wrote about throwing a Lunar New Year party with international students at your high school, you might write about how excited you are to join the International Students Alliance at your new college or contribute to the cross-cultural student magazine. Or, if you wrote about playing in your high school band, you might write about how you can’t wait to audition for your new college’s chamber orchestra or accompany the improv team for their improvised musicals. The point is to give your admissions officer an idea of what on-campus communities you might be interested in joining if you were to attend their particular school.

Check out our full College Essay Hub for tons of resources and guidance on writing your college essays. Need more personalized guidance on brainstorming or crafting your supplemental essays? Contact our college admissions team.

Caroline Hertz

Choose Your Test

Sat / act prep online guides and tips, how to write a great community service essay.

College Admissions , Extracurriculars

Are you applying to a college or a scholarship that requires a community service essay? Do you know how to write an essay that will impress readers and clearly show the impact your work had on yourself and others?

Read on to learn step-by-step instructions for writing a great community service essay that will help you stand out and be memorable.

What Is a Community Service Essay? Why Do You Need One?

A community service essay is an essay that describes the volunteer work you did and the impact it had on you and your community. Community service essays can vary widely depending on specific requirements listed in the application, but, in general, they describe the work you did, why you found the work important, and how it benefited people around you.

Community service essays are typically needed for two reasons:

#1: To Apply to College

• Some colleges require students to write community service essays as part of their application or to be eligible for certain scholarships.
• You may also choose to highlight your community service work in your personal statement.

#2: To Apply for Scholarships

• Some scholarships are specifically awarded to students with exceptional community service experiences, and many use community service essays to help choose scholarship recipients.
• Green Mountain College offers one of the most famous of these scholarships. Their "Make a Difference Scholarship" offers full tuition, room, and board to students who have demonstrated a significant, positive impact through their community service

Getting Started With Your Essay

In the following sections, I'll go over each step of how to plan and write your essay. I'll also include sample excerpts for you to look through so you can get a better idea of what readers are looking for when they review your essay.

Step 1: Know the Essay Requirements

Before your start writing a single word, you should be familiar with the essay prompt. Each college or scholarship will have different requirements for their essay, so make sure you read these carefully and understand them.

Specific things to pay attention to include:

• Length requirement
• Application deadline
• The main purpose or focus of the essay
• If the essay should follow a specific structure

Below are three real community service essay prompts. Read through them and notice how much they vary in terms of length, detail, and what information the writer should include.

From the Equitable Excellence Scholarship:

"Describe your outstanding achievement in depth and provide the specific planning, training, goals, and steps taken to make the accomplishment successful. Include details about your role and highlight leadership you provided. Your essay must be a minimum of 350 words but not more than 600 words."

From the Laura W. Bush Traveling Scholarship:

"Essay (up to 500 words, double spaced) explaining your interest in being considered for the award and how your proposed project reflects or is related to both UNESCO's mandate and U.S. interests in promoting peace by sharing advances in education, science, culture, and communications."

From the LULAC National Scholarship Fund:

"Please type or print an essay of 300 words (maximum) on how your academic studies will contribute to your personal & professional goals. In addition, please discuss any community service or extracurricular activities you have been involved in that relate to your goals."

Step 2: Brainstorm Ideas

Even after you understand what the essay should be about, it can still be difficult to begin writing. Answer the following questions to help brainstorm essay ideas. You may be able to incorporate your answers into your essay.

• What community service activity that you've participated in has meant the most to you?
• What is your favorite memory from performing community service?
• Why did you decide to begin community service?
• What made you decide to volunteer where you did?
• How has your community service changed you?
• How has your community service helped others?
• How has your community service affected your plans for the future?

You don't need to answer all the questions, but if you find you have a lot of ideas for one of two of them, those may be things you want to include in your essay.

Writing Your Essay

How you structure your essay will depend on the requirements of the scholarship or school you are applying to. You may give an overview of all the work you did as a volunteer, or highlight a particularly memorable experience. You may focus on your personal growth or how your community benefited.

Regardless of the specific structure requested, follow the guidelines below to make sure your community service essay is memorable and clearly shows the impact of your work.

Samples of mediocre and excellent essays are included below to give you a better idea of how you should draft your own essay.

Step 1: Hook Your Reader In

You want the person reading your essay to be interested, so your first sentence should hook them in and entice them to read more. A good way to do this is to start in the middle of the action. Your first sentence could describe you helping build a house, releasing a rescued animal back to the wild, watching a student you tutored read a book on their own, or something else that quickly gets the reader interested. This will help set your essay apart and make it more memorable.

Compare these two opening sentences:

"I have volunteered at the Wishbone Pet Shelter for three years."

"The moment I saw the starving, mud-splattered puppy brought into the shelter with its tail between its legs, I knew I'd do whatever I could to save it."

The first sentence is a very general, bland statement. The majority of community service essays probably begin a lot like it, but it gives the reader little information and does nothing to draw them in. On the other hand, the second sentence begins immediately with action and helps persuade the reader to keep reading so they can learn what happened to the dog.

Step 2: Discuss the Work You Did

Once you've hooked your reader in with your first sentence, tell them about your community service experiences. State where you work, when you began working, how much time you've spent there, and what your main duties include. This will help the reader quickly put the rest of the essay in context and understand the basics of your community service work.

Not including basic details about your community service could leave your reader confused.

Step 3: Include Specific Details

It's the details of your community service that make your experience unique and memorable, so go into the specifics of what you did.

For example, don't just say you volunteered at a nursing home; talk about reading Mrs. Johnson her favorite book, watching Mr. Scott win at bingo, and seeing the residents play games with their grandchildren at the family day you organized. Try to include specific activities, moments, and people in your essay. Having details like these let the readers really understand what work you did and how it differs from other volunteer experiences.

Compare these two passages:

"For my volunteer work, I tutored children at a local elementary school. I helped them improve their math skills and become more confident students."

"As a volunteer at York Elementary School, I worked one-on-one with second and third graders who struggled with their math skills, particularly addition, subtraction, and fractions. As part of my work, I would create practice problems and quizzes and try to connect math to the students' interests. One of my favorite memories was when Sara, a student I had been working with for several weeks, told me that she enjoyed the math problems I had created about a girl buying and selling horses so much that she asked to help me create math problems for other students."

The first passage only gives basic information about the work done by the volunteer; there is very little detail included, and no evidence is given to support her claims. How did she help students improve their math skills? How did she know they were becoming more confident?

The second passage is much more detailed. It recounts a specific story and explains more fully what kind of work the volunteer did, as well as a specific instance of a student becoming more confident with her math skills. Providing more detail in your essay helps support your claims as well as make your essay more memorable and unique.

Step 4: Show Your Personality

It would be very hard to get a scholarship or place at a school if none of your readers felt like they knew much about you after finishing your essay, so make sure that your essay shows your personality. The way to do this is to state your personal strengths, then provide examples to support your claims. Take some time to think about which parts of your personality you would like your essay to highlight, then write about specific examples to show this.

• If you want to show that you're a motivated leader, describe a time when you organized an event or supervised other volunteers.
• If you want to show your teamwork skills, write about a time you helped a group of people work together better.
• If you want to show that you're a compassionate animal lover, write about taking care of neglected shelter animals and helping each of them find homes.

Step 5: State What You Accomplished

After you have described your community service and given specific examples of your work, you want to begin to wrap your essay up by stating your accomplishments. What was the impact of your community service? Did you build a house for a family to move into? Help students improve their reading skills? Clean up a local park? Make sure the impact of your work is clear; don't be worried about bragging here.

If you can include specific numbers, that will also strengthen your essay. Saying "I delivered meals to 24 home-bound senior citizens" is a stronger example than just saying "I delivered meals to lots of senior citizens."

Also be sure to explain why your work matters. Why is what you did important? Did it provide more parks for kids to play in? Help students get better grades? Give people medical care who would otherwise not have gotten it? This is an important part of your essay, so make sure to go into enough detail that your readers will know exactly what you accomplished and how it helped your community.

"My biggest accomplishment during my community service was helping to organize a family event at the retirement home. The children and grandchildren of many residents attended, and they all enjoyed playing games and watching movies together."

"The community service accomplishment that I'm most proud of is the work I did to help organize the First Annual Family Fun Day at the retirement home. My job was to design and organize fun activities that senior citizens and their younger relatives could enjoy. The event lasted eight hours and included ten different games, two performances, and a movie screening with popcorn. Almost 200 residents and family members attended throughout the day. This event was important because it provided an opportunity for senior citizens to connect with their family members in a way they aren't often able to. It also made the retirement home seem more fun and enjoyable to children, and we have seen an increase in the number of kids coming to visit their grandparents since the event."

The second passage is stronger for a variety of reasons. First, it goes into much more detail about the work the volunteer did. The first passage only states that she helped "organize a family event." That really doesn't tell readers much about her work or what her responsibilities were. The second passage is much clearer; her job was to "design and organize fun activities."

The second passage also explains the event in more depth. A family day can be many things; remember that your readers are likely not familiar with what you're talking about, so details help them get a clearer picture.

Lastly, the second passage makes the importance of the event clear: it helped residents connect with younger family members, and it helped retirement homes seem less intimidating to children, so now some residents see their grand kids more often.

Step 6: Discuss What You Learned

One of the final things to include in your essay should be the impact that your community service had on you. You can discuss skills you learned, such as carpentry, public speaking, animal care, or another skill.

You can also talk about how you changed personally. Are you more patient now? More understanding of others? Do you have a better idea of the type of career you want? Go into depth about this, but be honest. Don't say your community service changed your life if it didn't because trite statements won't impress readers.

In order to support your statements, provide more examples. If you say you're more patient now, how do you know this? Do you get less frustrated while playing with your younger siblings? Are you more willing to help group partners who are struggling with their part of the work? You've probably noticed by now that including specific examples and details is one of the best ways to create a strong and believable essay .

"As a result of my community service, I learned a lot about building houses and became a more mature person."

"As a result of my community service, I gained hands-on experience in construction. I learned how to read blueprints, use a hammer and nails, and begin constructing the foundation of a two-bedroom house. Working on the house could be challenging at times, but it taught me to appreciate the value of hard work and be more willing to pitch in when I see someone needs help. My dad has just started building a shed in our backyard, and I offered to help him with it because I know from my community service how much work it is. I also appreciate my own house more, and I know how lucky I am to have a roof over my head."

The second passage is more impressive and memorable because it describes the skills the writer learned in more detail and recounts a specific story that supports her claim that her community service changed her and made her more helpful.

Step 7: Finish Strong

Just as you started your essay in a way that would grab readers' attention, you want to finish your essay on a strong note as well. A good way to end your essay is to state again the impact your work had on you, your community, or both. Reiterate how you changed as a result of your community service, why you found the work important, or how it helped others.

Compare these two concluding statements:

"In conclusion, I learned a lot from my community service at my local museum, and I hope to keep volunteering and learning more about history."

"To conclude, volunteering at my city's American History Museum has been a great experience. By leading tours and participating in special events, I became better at public speaking and am now more comfortable starting conversations with people. In return, I was able to get more community members interested in history and our local museum. My interest in history has deepened, and I look forward to studying the subject in college and hopefully continuing my volunteer work at my university's own museum."

The second passage takes each point made in the first passage and expands upon it. In a few sentences, the second passage is able to clearly convey what work the volunteer did, how she changed, and how her volunteer work benefited her community.

The author of the second passage also ends her essay discussing her future and how she'd like to continue her community service, which is a good way to wrap things up because it shows your readers that you are committed to community service for the long-term.

What's Next?

Are you applying to a community service scholarship or thinking about it? We have a complete list of all the community service scholarships available to help get your search started!

Do you need a community service letter as well? We have a step-by-step guide that will tell you how to get a great reference letter from your community service supervisor.

Thinking about doing community service abroad? Before you sign up, read our guide on some of the hazards of international volunteer trips and how to know if it's the right choice for you.

Christine graduated from Michigan State University with degrees in Environmental Biology and Geography and received her Master's from Duke University. In high school she scored in the 99th percentile on the SAT and was named a National Merit Finalist. She has taught English and biology in several countries.

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The Community Essay

“Duke University seeks a talented, engaged student body that embodies the wide range of human experience; we believe that the diversity of our students makes our community stronger. If you’d like to share a perspective you bring or experiences you’ve had to help us understand you better—perhaps related to a community you belong to, your sexual orientation or gender identity, or your family or cultural background—we encourage you to do so. Real people are reading your application, and we want to do our best to understand and appreciate the real people applying to Duke.” 

As with every essay you ship off to admissions – think about something you want admissions to know that hasn’t been represented. What can you expand upon to show your versatility, passion and ability to connect with the world around you?

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• Section 2. Understanding and Describing the Community

Chapter 3 Sections

• Section 1. Developing a Plan for Assessing Local Needs and Resources
• Section 3. Conducting Public Forums and Listening Sessions
• Section 4. Collecting Information About the Problem
• Section 5. Analyzing Community Problems
• Section 6. Conducting Focus Groups
• Section 7. Conducting Needs Assessment Surveys
• Section 8. Identifying Community Assets and Resources
• Section 9. Developing Baseline Measures
• Section 10. Conducting Concerns Surveys
• Section 11. Determining Service Utilization
• Section 12. Conducting Interviews
• Section 13. Conducting Surveys
• Section 14. SWOT Analysis: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats
• Section 15. Qualitative Methods to Assess Community Issues
• Section 16. Geographic Information Systems: Tools for Community Mapping
• Section 17. Leading a Community Dialogue on Building a Healthy Community
• Section 18. Creating and Using Community Report Cards
• Section 19. Using Public Records and Archival Data
• Section 20. Implementing Photovoice in Your Community
• Section 21. Windshield and Walking Surveys
• Section 22. Using Small Area Analysis to Uncover Disparities
• Section 23. Developing and Using Criteria and Processes to Set Priorities
• Section 24. Arranging Assessments That Span Jurisdictions
• Main Section

What is a community?

What do we mean by understanding and describing the community, why make the effort to understand and describe your community, whom should you contact to gather information, how do you go about understanding and describing the community.

For those of us who work in community health and development, it's important to understand community -- what a community is, and the specific nature of the communities in which we work. Anything we do in a community requires us to be familiar with its people, its issues, and its history. Carrying out an intervention or building a coalition are far more likely to be successful if they are informed by the culture of the community and an understanding of the relationships among individuals and groups within it.

Taking the time and effort to understand your community well before embarking on a community effort will pay off in the long term. A good way to accomplish that is to create a community description -- a record of your exploration and findings. It's a good way to gain a comprehensive overview of the community -- what it is now, what it's been in the past, and what it could be in the future. In this section, we'll discuss how you might approach examining the community in some detail and setting down your findings in a community description.

While we traditionally think of a community as the people in a given geographical location, the word can really refer to any group sharing something in common -- place (such as a city, neighborhood, or school district), experience (such as shared experience of racism), or interest (e.g., a community's concern about poverty or violence prevention).

These various communities often overlap. A Black art teacher, for example, might see herself (or be seen by others) as a member of the Black, arts, and/or education communities, as well as of a particular faith community. Whichever community defines your work, you will want to get to know it well.

Understanding the community entails understanding it in a number of ways. Whether or not the community is defined geographically, it still has a geographic context -- a setting that it exists in. Getting a clear sense of this setting may be key to a full understanding of it. At the same time, it's important to understand the specific community you're concerned with. You have to get to know its people -- their culture, their concerns, and relationships -- and to develop your own relationships with them as well.

Physical aspects . Every community has a physical presence of some sort, even if only one building. Most have a geographic area or areas they are either defined by or attached to. It's important to know the community's size and the look and feel of its buildings, its topography (the lay of the land -- the hills, valleys, rivers, roads, and other features you'd find on a map), and each of its neighborhoods. Also important are how various areas of the community differ from one another, and whether your impression is one of clean, well-maintained houses and streets, or one of shabbiness, dirt, and neglect.

If the community is one defined by its population, then its physical properties are also defined by the population: where they live, where they gather, the places that are important to them. The characteristics of those places can tell you a great deal about the people who make up the community. Their self-image, many of their attitudes, and their aspirations are often reflected in the places where they choose -- or are forced by circumstance or discrimination -- to live, work, gather, and play.

• Infrastructure . Roads, bridges, transportation (local public transportation, airports, train lines), electricity, land line and mobile telephone service, broadband service, and similar "basics" make up the infrastructure of the community, without which it couldn't function.
• Patterns of settlement, commerce, and industry . Where are those physical spaces we've been discussing? Communities reveal their character by where and how they create living and working spaces. Where there are true slums --  substandard housing in areas with few or no services that are the only options for low-income people -- the value the larger community places on those residents seems clear. Are heavy industries located next to residential neighborhoods? If so, who lives in those neighborhoods? Are some parts of the community dangerous, either because of high crime and violence or because of unsafe conditions in the built or natural environment?
• Demographics .  It's vital to understand who makes up the community.  Age, gender, race and ethnicity, marital status, education, number of people in household, first language -- these and other statistics make up the demographic profile of the population. When you put them together (e.g.,  the education level of black women ages 18-24), it gives you a clear picture of who community residents are.
• History . The long-term history of the community can tell you about community traditions, what the community is, or has been, proud of, and what residents would prefer not to talk about. Recent history can afford valuable information about conflicts and factions within the community, important issues, past and current relationships among key people and groups -- many of the factors that can trip up any effort before it starts if you don't know about and address them.
• Community leaders, formal and informal . Some community leaders are elected or appointed -- mayors, city councilors, directors of public works. Others are considered leaders because of their activities or their positions in the community -- community activists, corporate CEO's, college presidents, doctors, clergy.  Still others are recognized as leaders because, they are trusted for their proven integrity, courage, and/or care for others and the good of the community.
• Community culture, formal and informal . This covers the spoken and unspoken rules and traditions by which the community lives. It can include everything from community events and slogans -- the blessing of the fishing fleet, the "Artichoke Capital of the World" -- to norms of behavior -- turning a blind eye to alcohol abuse or domestic violence -- to patterns of discrimination and exercise of power. Understanding the culture and how it developed can be crucial, especially if that's what you're attempting to change.
• Existing groups .  Most communities have an array of groups and organizations of different kinds -- service clubs (Lions, Rotary, etc.), faith groups, youth organizations, sports teams and clubs, groups formed around shared interests, the boards of community-wide organizations (the YMCA, the symphony, United Way), as well as groups devoted to self-help, advocacy, and activism.  Knowing of the existence and importance of each of these groups can pave the way for alliances or for understanding opposition.
• Existing institutions . Every community has institutions that are important to it, and that have more or less credibility with residents. Colleges and universities, libraries, religious institutions, hospitals -- all of these and many others can occupy important places in the community. It's important to know what they are, who represents them, and what influence they wield.
• Economics .  Who are the major employers in the community?  What, if any, business or industry is the community's base? Who, if anyone, exercises economic power? How is wealth distributed? Would you characterize the community as poor, working, class, middle class, or affluent?  What are the economic prospects of the population in general and/or the population you're concerned with?
• Government/Politics . Understanding the structure of community government is obviously important. Some communities may have strong mayors and weak city councils, others the opposite. Still other communities may have no mayor at all, but only a town manager, or may have a different form of government entirely.  Whatever the government structure, where does political power lie? Understanding where the real power is can be the difference between a successful effort and a vain one.
• Social structure . Many aspects of social structure are integrated into other areas -- relationships, politics, economics -- but there are also the questions of how people in the community relate to one another on a daily basis, how problems are (or aren't) resolved, who socializes or does business with whom, etc. This area also includes perceptions and symbols of status and respect, and whether status carries entitlement or responsibility (or both).
• Attitudes and values . Again, much of this area may be covered by investigation into others, particularly culture. What does the community care about, and what does it ignore? What are residents' assumptions about the proper way to behave, to dress, to do business, to treat others? Is there widely accepted discrimination against one or more groups by the majority or by those in power? What are the norms for interaction among those who with different opinions or different backgrounds?

We'll discuss all of these aspects of community in greater detail later in the section.

There are obviously many more aspects of community that can be explored, such as health or education.  The assumption here is that as part of an assessment, you'll aim for a general understanding of the community, as described in this section, and also assess, with a narrower focus, the specific aspects you're interested in.

Once you've explored the relevant areas of the community, you'll have the information to create a community description. Depending on your needs and information, this description might be anything from a two-or three-page outline to an in-depth portrait of the community that extends to tens of pages and includes charts, graphs, photographs, and other elements. The point of doing it is to have a picture of the community at a particular point in time that you can use to provide a context for your community assessment and to see the results of whatever actions you take to bring about change.

A community description can be as creative as you're capable of making it.  It can be written as a story, can incorporate photos and commentary from community residents (see Photovoice), can be done online and include audio and video, etc. The more interesting the description is, the more people are likely to actually read it.

You may at this point be thinking, "Can't I work effectively within this community without gathering all this information?" Perhaps, if it's a community you're already familiar with, and really know it well. If you're new to the community, or an outsider, however, it's a different story. Not having the proper background information on your community may not seem like a big deal until you unintentionally find yourself on one side of a bitter divide, or get involved in an issue without knowing about its long and tangled history.

Some advantages to taking the time to understand the community and create a community description include:

• Gaining a general idea, even before an assessment, of the community's strengths and the challenges it faces.
• Capturing unspoken, influential rules and norms. For example, if people are divided and angry about a particular issue, your information might show you an event in the community's history that explains their strong emotions on that subject.
• Getting a feel for the attitudes and opinions of the community when you're starting work on an initiative.
• Ensuring the security of your organization's staff and participants.  There may be neighborhoods where staff members or participants should be accompanied by others in order to be safe, at least at night. Knowing the character of various areas and the invisible borders that exist among various groups and neighborhoods can be extremely important for the physical safety of those working and living in the community.
• Having enough familiarity with the community to allow you to converse intelligently with residents about community issues, personalities and geography. Knowing that you've taken the time and effort to get to know them and their environment can help you to establish trust with community members.  That can make both a community assessment and any actions and activities that result from it easier to conduct.
• Being able to talk convincingly with the media about the community.
• Being able to share information with other organizations or coalitions that work in the community so that you can collaborate or so that everyone's work can benefit.
• Providing background and justification for grant proposals.
• Knowing the context of the community so that you can tailor interventions and programs to its norms and culture, and increase chances of success.

When should you make an effort to understand and describe the community?

• When you're about to launch a community assessment. The first step is to get a clear sense of the community, before more specifically assessing the area(s) you're interested in.
• When you're new to a community and want to be well informed before beginning your work. If you've just started working in a community -- even if it's work you've been doing for years -- you will probably find that taking the time to write a community description enriches your work.
• When you've been working in a community for any length of time and want to take stock. Communities are complex, constantly-changing entities. By periodically stopping to write a detailed description of your community, you can assess what approaches have worked and what haven't; new needs that have developed over time and old concerns that no longer require your effort and energy; and other information to help you better do your work.
• When you're feeling like you're stuck in a rut and need a fresh perspective. Organizations have to remain dynamic in order to keep moving forward. Reexamining the community -- or perhaps examining it carefully for the first time -- can infuse an organization with new ideas and new purpose.
• When you're considering introducing a new initiative or program and want to assess its possible success.Aside from when you first come to a community, this is probably the most vital time to do a community description.
• When a funder asks you to, often as part of a funding proposal.

While researching and writing a community description can take time, your work can almost always benefit from the information you gather.

Much of your best and most interesting information may come from community members with no particular credentials except that they're part of the community . It's especially important to get the perspective of those who often don't have a voice in community decisions and politics -- low-income people, immigrants, and others who are often kept out of the community discussion. In addition, however, there are some specific people that it might be important to talk to. They're the individuals in key positions, or those who are trusted by a large part of the community or by a particular population. In a typical community, they might include:

• Elected officials
• Community planners and development officers
• Chiefs of police
• School superintendents, principals, and teachers
• Directors or staff of health and human service organizations
• Health professionals
• Community activists
• Housing advocates
• Presidents or chairs of civic or service clubs -- Chamber of Commerce, veterans' organizations, Lions, Rotary, etc.
• People without titles, but identified by others as "community leaders"
• Business owners

General Guidelines

To begin, let's look at some basic principles to keep in mind.

• Be prepared to learn from the community . Assume that you have a lot to learn, and approach the process with an open mind. Listen to what people have to say. Observe carefully. Take notes -- you can use them later to generate new questions or to help answer old ones.
• Be aware that people's speech, thoughts, and actions are not always rational . Their attitudes and behavior  are often best understood in the context of their history, social relations, and culture. Race relations in the U.S., for example, can't be understood without knowing some of the historical context -- the history of slavery, Jim Crow laws, and the work of Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement.
• Don't assume that the information people give you is necessarily accurate . There are a number of reasons why informants may tell you things that are inaccurate. People's perceptions don't always reflect reality, but are colored instead by what they think or what they think they know.  In addition, some may intentionally exaggerate or downplay particular conditions or issues for their own purposes or for what they see as the greater good. (The Chamber of Commerce or local government officials might try to make economic conditions look better than they are in the hopes of attracting new business to the community, for instance.)  Others may simply be mistaken about what they tell you  -- the geographical boundaries of a particular neighborhood, for example, or the year of an important event. Get information, particularly on issues, conditions, and relationships from many sources if you can. As time goes on, you'll learn who the always-reliable sources are.
• Beware of activities that may change people's behavior . It's well known that people (and animals as well) can change their normal behavior as a result of knowing they're being studied.  Neighborhood residents may clean up their yards if they're aware that someone is taking the measure of the neighborhood. Community members may try to appear as they wish to be seen, rather than as they really are, if they know you're watching. To the extent that you can, try not to do anything that will change the way people go about their daily business or express themselves. That usually means being as unobtrusive as possible -- not being obvious about taking pictures or making notes, for instance. In some circumstances, it could mean trying to gain trust and insight through participant observation.

Participant observation is a technique that anthropologists use.  It entails becoming part of another culture, both to keep people in it from being influenced by your presence and to understand it from the inside.  Some researchers believe it addresses the problem of changing the culture by studying it , and others believe that it makes the problem worse.

• Take advantage of the information and facilities that help shape the world of those who have lived in the community for a long time . Read the local newspaper (and the alternative paper, too, if there is one), listen to local radio, watch local TV, listen to conversation in cafes and bars, in barbershops and beauty shops.  You can learn a great deal about a community by immersing yourself in its internal communication. The Chamber of Commerce will usually have a list of area businesses and organizations, along with their contact people, which should give you both points of contact and a sense of who the people are that you might want to get in touch with. Go to the library -- local librarians are often treasure troves of information, and their professional goal is to spread it around. Check out bulletin boards at supermarkets and laundromats.  Even graffiti can be a valuable source of information about community issues.
• Network, network, network .  Every contact you make in the community has the potential to lead you to more contacts. Whether you're talking to official or unofficial community leaders or to people you just met on the street, always ask who else they would recommend that you talk to and whether you can use their names when you contact those people. Establishing relationships with a variety of community members is probably the most important thing you can do to ensure that you'll be able to get the information you need, and that you'll have support for working in the community when you finish your assessment and begin your effort.

Gathering information

To find out about various aspects of the community, you'll need a number of different methods of gathering information . We've already discussed some of them, and many of the remaining sections of this chapter deal with them, because they're the same methods you'll use in doing a full community assessment. Here, we'll simply list them, with short explanations and links to sections where you can get more information about each.

• Public records and archives . These include local, state, and federal government statistics and records, newspaper archives, and the records of other organizations that they're willing to share. Many of the public documents are available at public and/or university libraries and on line at government websites. Most communities have their own websites, which often contain valuable information as well.
• Individual and group interviews . Interviews can range from casual conversations in a cafe to structured formal interviews in which the interviewer asks the same specific questions of a number of carefully chosen key informants. They can be conducted with individuals or groups, in all kinds of different places and circumstances. They're often the best sources of information, but they're also time-consuming and involve finding the right people and convincing them to consent to be interviewed, as well as finding (and sometimes training) good interviewers.

Interviews may include enlisting as sources of information others who've spent time learning about the community.  University researchers, staff and administrators of health and human service organizations, and activists may all have done considerable work to understand the character and inner workings of the community.  Take advantage of their findings if you can.  It may save you many hours of effort.

• Surveys . There are various types of surveys. They can be written or oral, conducted with a selected small group -- usually a randomized sample that represents a larger population -- or with as many community members as possible . They can be sent through the mail, administered over the phone or in person, or given to specific groups (school classes, faith congregations, the Rotary Club). They're often fairly short, and ask for answers that are either yes-no, or that rate the survey-taker's opinion of a number of possibilities (typically on a scale that represents "agree strongly" to "disagree strongly" or "very favorable" to "very unfavorable.")  Surveys can, however, be much more comprehensive, with many questions, and can ask for more complex answers.
• Direct or participant observation .  Often the best way to find out about the community is simply to observe . You can observe physical features, conditions in various areas, the interactions of people in different neighborhoods and circumstances, the amount of traffic, commercial activity, how people use various facilities and spaces, or the evidence of previous events or decisions. Participant observation means becoming part of the group or scene you're observing, so that you can see it from the inside.

Observation can take many forms.  In addition to simply going to a place and taking notes on what you see, you might use other techniques -- Photovoice, video, audio, simple photographs, drawings, etc.  Don't limit the ways in which you can record your observations and impressions.

Understanding the Community

Now let's consider what you might examine to understand and describe the community. You won't necessarily look for this information in the order given here, although it's a good idea to start with the first two.

The community's physical characteristics.

Get a map of the community and drive and/or walk around. (If the community isn't defined by geography, note and observe the areas where its members live, work, and gather.) Observe both the built and the natural environment. In the built environment, some things to pay attention to are:

• The age, architecture, and condition of housing and other buildings . Some shabby or poorly-maintained housing may occupy good buildings that could be fixed up, for example -- that's important to know. Is there substandard housing in the community? Look for new construction, and new developments, and take note of where they are, and whether they're replacing existing housing or businesses or adding to it. (You might want to find out more about these. Are they controversial? Was there opposition to them, and how was it resolved? Does the community offer incentives to developers, and, if so, for what?)  Is housing separated by income or other factors, so that all low-income residents, for instance, or all North African immigrants seem to live in one area away from others? Are buildings generally in good condition, or are they dirty and run-down? Are there buildings that look like they might have historic significance, and are they kept up? Are most buildings accessible to people with disabilities?
• Commercial areas .  Are there stores and other businesses in walking distance of residential areas or of public transportation for most members of the community? Do commercial buildings present windows and displays or blank walls to pedestrians? Is there foot traffic and activity in commercial areas, or do they seem deserted? Is there a good mix of local businesses, or nothing but chain stores? Are there theaters, places to hear music, a variety of restaurants, and other types of entertainment? Do many buildings include public spaces -- indoor or outdoor plazas where people can sit, for example? In general, are commercial areas and buildings attractive and well-maintained?
• The types and location of industrial facilities . What kind of industry exists in the community? Does it seem to have a lot of environmental impact -- noise, air or water pollution, smells, heavy traffic? Is it located close to residential areas, and, if so, who lives there? Is there some effort to make industrial facilities attractive -- landscaping, murals or imaginative color schemes on the outside, etc?
• Infrastructure .  What condition are streets in?  Do most streets, at least in residential and commercial areas, have sidewalks? Bike lanes? Are pedestrians shielded from traffic by trees, grass strips, and/or plantings? Are roads adequate for the traffic they bear? Are there foot bridges across busy highways and railroad tracks, or do they separate areas of the community and pose dangers for pedestrians? Is there adequate public transportation, with facilities for people with physical disabilities? Does it reach all areas of the community? Can most people gain access to the Internet if they have the equipment (i.e., computers or properly equipped cell phones)?

This is a topic that is ripe for examination. In many rural areas, particularly in developing countries, but often in the developed world as well, there is very little infrastructure.  Roads and bridges may be impassable at certain (or most) times of year, phone service and TV reception nonexistent, Internet access a distant dream. Public transportation in many places, if it exists at all, may take the form of a pickup truck or 20-year-old van that takes as many passengers as can squeeze into or onto the bed, passenger compartment, and roof. Is any of this on the government's or anyone else's radar as a situation that needs to be addressed? What is the general policy about services to rural and/or poor populations?  Answers to these and similar questions may both explain the situation (and the attitudes of the local population) and highlight a number of possible courses of action.

I n the category of natural features, we can include both areas that have been largely left to nature, and "natural" spaces created by human intervention.

• Topography . An area's topography is the shape of its landscape. Is the community largely hilly, largely flat, or does it incorporate areas of both? Is water -- rivers, creeks, lakes and ponds, canals, seashore -- a noticeable or important part of the physical character of the community? Who lives in what areas of the community?
• Open space and greenery. Is there open space scattered throughout the community, or is it limited to one or a few areas? How much open space is there? Is it mostly man-made (parks, commons, campuses, sports fields), or is there wilderness or semi-wilderness? Does the community give the impression  of being green and leafy, with lots of trees and grass, or is it mostly concrete or dirt?
• Air and water . Is the air reasonably clear and clean, or is there a blanket of smog? Does the air generally smell fresh, or are there industrial or other unpleasant odors? Do rivers, lakes, or other bodies of water appear clean? Do they seem to be used for recreation (boating, swimming, fishing)?

There is an overlap between the community's physical and social characteristics. Does the lay of the land make it difficult to get from one part of the community to another? (Biking, or in some cases even walking, is difficult in San Francisco, for example, because of the length and steepness of the hills.)  Are there clear social divisions that mirror the landscape -- all the fancy houses in the hills, all the low-income housing in the flats, for instance?

Studying the physical layout of the community will serve you not only as information, but as a guide for finding your way around, knowing what people are talking about when they refer to various areas and neighborhoods, and gaining a sense of the living conditions of any populations you're concerned with.

Community demographics.

Demographics are the facts about the population that you can find from census data and other similar statistical information. Some things you might like to know, besides the number of people in the community:

• Racial and ethnic background
• Age.  Numbers and percentages of the population in various age groups
• Marital status
• Family size
• Employment - Both the numbers of people employed full and part-time, and the numbers of people in various types of work
• Location - Knowing which groups live in which neighborhoods or areas can help to recruit participants in a potential effort or to decide where to target activities

In the U.S., most of this and other demographic information is available from the U.S. Census , from state and local government websites, or from other government agencies.  Depending on what issues and countries you're concerned with, some sources of information might be the U.S. Centers for Disease Control , the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services , similar websites in other countries, and the various agencies of the United Nations .

On many of these websites, notably the U.S. Census, various categories can be combined, so that you can, for example, find out the income levels in your community for African American women aged 25-34 with a high school education. If the website won't do it for you, it's fairly easy to trace the patterns yourself, thus giving you a much clearer picture of who community residents are and what their lives might be like .

Another extremely useful resource is County Health Rankings & Roadmaps , which provides rankings for nearly every county in the nation. The County Health Rankings model includes four types of health factors: health behaviors, clinical care, social and economic, and the physical environment. The County Health Rankings illustrate what we know when it comes to what’s making people sick or healthy, and the new County Health Roadmaps show what we can do to create healthier places to live, learn, work and play. These reports can help community leaders see that our environment influences how healthy we are and how long we live, and even what parts of our environment are most influential.

Community history.

This can be a complex topic. The "standard" history -- when the community was founded and by whom, how long it has existed, how people lived there in the past, its major sources of work, etc. -- can often be found in the local library or newspaper archives, or even in books or articles written for a larger audience. The less comfortable parts of that history, especially recent history -- discrimination, conflict, economic and/or political domination by a small group -- are may not be included, and are more likely to be found by talking to activists, journalists, and others who are concerned with those issues. You might also gain information by reading between the lines of old newspaper articles and tracking down people who were part of past conflicts or events.

If this all sounds a lot like investigative reporting, that's because it is.  You may not have the time or skills to do much of it, but talking to activists and journalists about recent history can be crucial.  Stepping into a community with an intervention or initiative without understanding the dynamics of community history can be a recipe for failure.

Community government and politics.

T here are a number of ways to learn about the structure and operation of local government:

• Go to open meetings of the city council, town boards, board of selectmen, or other bodies, as well as to public forums on proposed actions, laws, and regulations.  Such meetings will be announced in the local paper.

In most of the U.S., these meetings are public by state law, and must be announced in specific ways at least two days ahead.

• Community bylaws and regulations are often available at the public library.
• Make an appointment to talk to one or more local government officials.  Many hold regular office hours, and might actually take pleasure in explaining the workings of the local government.
• Talk to community activists for a view of how the government actually operates, as opposed to how it's supposed to operate.
• Read the local newspaper every day.

Reading the newspaper every day is a good idea in general if you're trying to learn about the community.  It will not only have stories about how the community operates, but will give you a sense of what's important to its readers, what kinds of activities the community engages in and views as significant, what the police do -- a picture of a large part of community life. Real estate ads will tell you about property values and the demand for housing, ads for services can help you identify the major businesses in town, and the ages and education levels of the people in the marriage and birth announcements can speak volumes about community values.  Newspaper archives can also reveal the stories that help you understand the emotions still surrounding events and issues that don't seem current.  The newspaper is an enormous reservoir of both direct and between-the-lines information.

As we all know, government isn't only about the rules and structures that hold it together. It's about people and their interactions...politics, in other words. The political climate, culture, and assumptions in a particular community often depend more on who elected and appointed officials are than on the limits or duties of their offices.

The politics of many communities embody the ideal of government working for the public good. In other communities, politics takes a back seat to economics, and politicians listen largely to those with economic power -- the CEO's, owners, and directors of large businesses and institutions.  In still others, the emphasis is on power itself, so that political decisions are made specifically to keep a particular party, group, or individual in control.

Obviously, only in the first case is the public well served. In the other situations, fairness and equity tend to go out the window and decisions favor the powerful. Understanding the politics of the community -- who has power, who the power brokers are, who actually influences the setting of policy, how decisions are made and by whom, how much difference public opinion makes -- is fundamental to an understanding of the community as a whole.

There's no formal way to get this information. Government officials may have very different interpretations of the political scene than activists or other community members. You'll have to talk to a variety of people, take a good look at recent political controversies and decisions (here's where newspaper archives can come in handy), and juggle some contradicting stories to get at the reality.

Institutions.

Community institutions, unless they are dysfunctional, can generally be viewed as assets. Finding them should be easy: as mentioned above, the Chamber of Commerce will probably have a list of them, the library will probably have one as well, the local newspaper will often list them, and they'll be in the phone book. 

They cover the spectrum of community life, including:

• Offices of local, state, and federal government agencies (Welfare, Dept. of Agriculture, Office of Immigration, etc.)
• Public libraries.
• Religious institutions. Churches, synagogues, mosques.
• Cultural institutions.  Museums, theaters, concert halls, etc. and the companies they support.  These may also encompass community theater and music companies run and staffed by community volunteer boards and performers.
• Community centers.  Community centers may provide athletic, cultural, social, and other (yoga, support groups) activities for a variety of ages.
• YMCA's and similar institutions.
• Senior centers.
• Hospitals and public health services.
• Colleges and universities.
• Public and private schools.
• Public sports facilities. These might be both facilities for the direct use of the public -- community pools and athletic fields, for example -- or stadiums and arena where school, college, or professional teams play as entertainment.

Groups and organizations.

The groups and organizations that exist in the community, and their relative prestige and importance in community life, can convey valuable clues to the community's assumptions and attitudes. To some extent, you can find them in the same ways that you can find institutions, but the less formal ones you may be more likely to learn about through interviews and conversations. 

These groups can fall into a number of categories:

• Health and human service organizations .  Known on the world stage as NGO's (Non-Governmental Organizations), these are the organizations that work largely with low-income people and populations at risk. They encompass free or sliding-scale health clinics, family planning programs, mental health centers, food pantries, homeless shelters, teen parent programs, youth outreach organizations, violence prevention programs, etc.
• Advocacy organizations . These may also provide services, but generally in the form of legal help or advocacy with agencies to protect the rights of specific groups or to push for the provision of specific services. By and large, they advocate for recognition and services for populations with particular characteristics, or for more attention to be paid to particular issues.
• Service clubs . Lions, Rotary, Kiwanis, Elks, Masons, etc.
• Veterans' organizations . In the U.S., the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars are the major veterans' organizations, but many communities may have others as well.
• Chamber of Commerce and other business organizations . Some of these may be oriented toward specific types of businesses, while others, like the Chamber, are more general.
• Groups connected to institutions . Church youth or Bible study groups, school clubs, university student groups (e.g., Foreign Students' Association, community service groups).
• Trade unions . These may be local, or branches of national or international unions.
• Sports clubs or leagues . Enthusiasts of many sports organize local leagues that hold regular competitions, and that may compete as well with teams from other communities. In many rural areas, Fish and Game clubs may function as informal community centers.
• Informal groups . Book clubs, garden clubs, parents' groups, etc.

Economics/employment.

Some of the information about economic issues can be found in public records, but some will come from interviews or conversations with business people, government officials, and activists, and some from observation. It's fairly easy to notice if one huge industrial plant dominates a community, for example, or if every third building appears to be a construction company. There are a number of questions you might ask yourself and others to help you understand the community's economic base and situation: What is the anchor of the community's tax base? Who are the major employers? Does the community have a particular business or business/industry category that underlies most of the jobs? Are there lots of locally-owned businesses and industries, or are most parts of larger corporations headquartered elsewhere?  Are there corporate headquarters in the community? Is there a good deal of office space, and is it empty or occupied?  Is there new development, and is the community attracting new business? What is the unemployment rate?

Social structure.

This may be the most difficult aspect of the community to understand, since it incorporates most of the others we've discussed, and is usually unspoken. People's answers to questions about it may ignore important points, either because they seem obvious to those who've lived with them for all or most of their lives, or because those things "just aren't talked about." Distrust or actual discrimination aimed at particular groups -- based on race, class, economics, or all three -- may be glossed over or never mentioned. The question of who wields the real power in the community is another that may rarely be answered, or at least not answered in the same way by a majority of community members. It's likely that it will take a number of conversations, some careful observation and some intuition as well to gain a real sense of the community's social structure.

Describing the Community

Once you've gathered the information you need, the next step is describing the community. This is not really separate from understanding the community: in the process of organizing and writing down your information, you'll be able to see better how it fits together, and can gain greater understanding.

There are many ways you can create a description of the community. The most obvious is simply to organize, record, and comment on your information by category:  physical description, government, institutions, etc. You can comment about what has changed in the community over time, what has stayed the same, and where you think the community might be going. You might also include an analysis of how the various categories interact, and how that all comes together to form the community that exists. That will give you and anyone else interested a reasonably clear and objective description of the community, as well as a sense of how you see it.

For a fuller picture, you could add photographs of some of the locations, people, conditions, or interactions you describe (perhaps as a Photovoice project), as well as charts or graphs of demographic or statistical information. For even more detail, you might compose a portrait in words of the community, using quotes from interviews and stories of community history to bring the description to life.

Given the availability of technology, you don't have to limit yourself to any specific format. Computers allow you to easily combine various media -- photos, graphics, animation, text, and audio, for example. The description could  add in or take the form of a video that includes a tour of the community, statements from and/or interviews with various community members (with their permission, of course), an audio voice-over, maps, etc.  A video or a more text-based description -- or both -- could then be posted to a website where it would be available to anyone interested.

Once you have a description put together, you might want to show it to some of the community members you talked to in the course of exploring the community. They can suggest other things you might include, correct errors of fact, and react to what they consider the accuracy or inaccuracy of your portrait and analysis of their community. With this feedback, you can then create a final version to use and to show to anyone interested. The point is to get as informative and accurate a picture of the community as possible that will serve as a basis for community assessment and any effort that grows out of it.

The last word here is that this shouldn't be the last community description you'll ever do. Communities reinvent themselves constantly, as new buildings and developments are put up and old ones torn down, as businesses move in and out, as populations shift -- both within the community and as people and groups move in and out -- and as economic, social, and political conditions change. You have to keep up with those changes, and that means updating your community description regularly.  As with most of the rest of the community building work described in the Community Tool Box, the work of understanding and describing the community is ongoing, for as long as you remain committed to the community itself.

Understanding a community is crucial to being able to work in it. Failing to understand it will deny you credibility and make it difficult for you both to connect with community members and to negotiate the twists and turns of starting and implementing a community initiative or intervention. An extremely important part of any community assessment, therefore, is to start by finding out as much about the community as you can -- its physical and geographical characteristics, its culture, its government, and its assumptions. By combing through existing data, observing, and learning from community members, you can gain an overview of the community that will serve you well. Recording your findings and your analysis of them in a community description that you can refer to and update as needed will keep your understanding fresh and help others in your organization or with whom you collaborate.

Online Resources

A  community description of Nashua, New Hampshire .

County Health Rankings & Roadmaps . Ranking the health of nearly every county in the nation, the County Health Rankings help us see how where we live, learn, work, and play influences how healthy we are and how long we live. The Rankings & Roadmaps show us what is making residents sick, where we need to improve, and what steps communities are taking to solve their problems. The health of a community depends on many different factors – ranging from individual health behaviors, education and jobs, to quality of health care, to the environment, therefore we all have a stake in creating a healthier community. Using the County Health Rankings & Roadmaps, leaders and advocates from public health and health care, business, education, government, and the community can work together to create programs and policies to improve people's health, reduce health care costs, and increase productivity.

Describing the Community , from a WHO (World Health Organization) manual: Emergency Preparedness: A Manual for Managers and Policy Makers.  WHO, 1999.

The Distressed Communities Index  (DCI) is a customized dataset created by EIG examining economic distress throughout the country and made up of interactive maps, infographics, and a report. It captures data from more than 25,000 zip codes (those with populations over 500 people). In all, it covers 99 percent — 312 million — of Americans.

Ericae.net  is a clearinghouse for information on evaluation, assessment, and research information.

This  Human Development Index Map  is a valuable tool from  Measure of America: A Project of the Social Science Research Council . It combines indicators in three fundamental areas - health, knowledge, and standard of living - into a single number that falls on a scale from 0 to 10, and is presented on an easy-to-navigate interactive map of the United States.

The   Institute of Medicine  advances scientific knowledge to improve health and provides information and advice concerning health policy.

The  National Institute for Literacy  provides information about research and initiatives to expand the community of literacy practitioners, students, and policymakers.

Sustainable Measures  provides a searchable database of indicators by broad topics (health, housing) and keywords (AIDS, access to care, birth weight, etc.) for communities, organizations and government agencies at all levels.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services , the principal agency for protecting the health of U.S. citizens, is comprised of 12 agencies that provide information on their specific domains, such as the  Administration on Aging . Others cross health boundaries, such as the  Centers for Disease Control , which maintains national health statistics. The " WONDER " system is an access point to a wide variety of CDC reports, guidelines, and public health data to assist in research, decision-making, priority setting, and resource allocation.

The  U.S. National Institute of Mental Health  provides statistics and educational information for the public as well as information for researchers.

Print Resources

Jones, B. (1979). Defining your neighborhood. In Neighborhood Planning: A Guide for Citizens and Planners . Chicago, IL: Planners Press, pp. 8-11.

Scheie, D. (1991). August-September). Tools for taking stock. The Neighborhood Works . Chicago, IL: Center for Neighborhood Technology, pp. 16-17.

Spradley, J. P. (1980). Locating a social situation. In Participant Observation . Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, pp. 45-52.

Warren, R.B., Warren, D.I. (1977). The Neighborhood Organizer's Handbook . Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, pp.167-196.

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The Community Essay for the Common App Supplements

Mark montgomery.

• July 24, 2023

How do you write the community essay for the Common App? Many college applications require supplemental essays. A common supplementary question asks you to consider and write about a community to which you belong. 

The definition of community is open to interpretation and can be difficult to pin down. We each belong to a wide variety of communities ranging from our family and friend groups to being members of the global community.  

My Communities 

For example, I belong to a bunch of different communities. I sing in a choir, so I’m part of the community of the Colorado Chorale community (and within that community, I’m a member of the tenor section). I go to see plays a lot, so I’m a member of the “theater-going” community. Birdwatching can be fun, I find, so I belong to the “community of birdwatchers.” I belong to a club or two, so I’m a member or those communities. I belong to a political party, which is a community in a sense. I went to Dartmouth , so I belong to a community of alumni, both locally and globally. Same with my grad school: my friends and I still talk about belonging to the “ Fletcher Community .” 

When I lived in Hong Kong, I was a member of the American community, which was part of the large expatriate community. I speak French and live in Denver. Therefore, I’m part of the community of Denverites who speak French as a second language. I live in a specific neighborhood in the city of Denver in the State of Colorado in the United States. All of those communities define me in one way or another. Finally, at a more intimate level, I also belong to a family community that is very important to me.

Really, when you stop to think about it, we all belong to a large number of overlapping communities. Think of a Venn diagram with lots of overlapping circles—and we are at that tiny dot in the center where each of those circles overlaps. 

Why write the community essay for the Common App?

Why do colleges ask you to write this community essay? In writing about community as it relates to you, you reveal important details at the core of who you are. Colleges are hoping to bring students to their campuses who will contribute in a positive way to campus culture, whether intellectually, socially, or through their extracurricular activities. 

They want students who will be successful in their new community and enrich the college through their varied backgrounds, experiences, accomplishments, activities and behavior. Thus, the way you answer this prompt will help them imagine if you would be a good addition to their campus community.

Here are some examples of the community essay prompt:

• Please complete the following, and have a little fun doing so: “I appreciate my community because …” (up to 300  characters)
• At MIT , we bring people together to better the lives of others. MIT students work to improve their communities in different ways, from tackling the world’s biggest challenges to being good friends. Describe one way in which you have contributed to your community, whether in your family, the classroom, your neighborhood, etc. (200-250 words)
• What have you done to make your school or your community a better place?  (up to 350 words)
• Everyone belongs to many different communities and/or groups defined by (among other things) shared geography, religion, ethnicity, income, cuisine, interest, race, ideology, or intellectual heritage. Choose one of the communities to which you belong, and describe that community and your place within it.  (up to 300 words)
• Macalester is a community that includes people from many different backgrounds, some who have lived around the world and others who have lived in one place their entire lives. Please write an essay about how your background, experiences, or outlook might add to the Mac community, academically and personally. (up to 500 words)*

* Note: this last prompt doesn’t ask about a community to which you currently belong, but rather asks you to reflect on what you will bring to the community. This essay is a mix of activities and community essays. However, this essay should emphasize what the applicant would add to the campus community.

The community essay vs. the community service essay

Notice that this essay is not narrowly focused on any service you might provide to your community. Of course, it is entirely possible that your involvement in a community may include some sort of involvement that helps to promote the community and the interests of its members in some way.  

However, the community essay prompts do not specifically ask you to talk about this service. The prompts want you to think about what it means to “belong,” and how you conceive of yourself in the larger world. A sense of community may, indeed, lead you to act in certain ways to advance a cause, donate your time, or exert your energies to meet the needs of your community. Your actions certainly may become part of this community essay as a way to demonstrate the ways in which you identify with—and contribute to—this community. But the focus of this essay is on that sense of belonging. 

Service to your community—or to someone else’s?

To put a finer point to it, it is possible to provide “community service” to communities to which we do not belong. We might donate time to the homeless community—but that does not make us homeless. We might spend time working with refugees, even if we, ourselves, are not refugees. Or while we might enjoy good health, we still might donate time to make meals for the critically ill.

So make sure that when you write the community essay you zero in on a community that defines you, and not on the service you devote to a community that is not your own.  

When preparing for the community essay for the Common App, DO THESE THINGS:

Think carefully about your choice of community.

The community you choose says a lot about you. Think carefully about what message even just the choice of community might convey to your reader. In fact, you may even want to start by asking yourself “What aspects of who I am do I want the reader to know?” and then pick the community that will do that in the best possible way. Think, too, how your choice can help you differentiate yourself and share important insight into who you are. 

Factors for you to consider as you brainstorm the community essay for the Common App:

• Which communities are most important to you and why?
• What do these communities say about you that you haven’t shared with your reader elsewhere in your application?
• What roles have you played in these communities?
• How would you measure the impact of your participation in these communities?
• What does your participation in these communities say about your character, qualities, and how you interact with the world around you?
• What does the overall message say about you as a future college student?

Use this as an opportunity to reveal more about yourself

This prompt isn’t just to elaborate on your community; this is another opportunity to reveal important qualities about yourself. Explain why this community is so important to you. Write about what you learned about yourself and how it has shaped who you are. Reveal how you have made contributions to this community.  

Show, don’t tell

Like every essay, the details show your reader what you want them to know about you. Be specific, but selective, with the details you include. Every word should contribute to the message you want to share with your reader. If you have space, share an anecdote to help the reader visualize the qualities that you are trying to share.

Ensure you answer the prompt fully and directly

Some of these prompts are simple and short, but other schools have long prompts. Don’t get lost in answering the first part of the prompt and forget about the remainder. Re-read the prompt after you have drafted your ideas to make sure you’ve addressed everything. 

In addition, sometimes, if you have multiple applications that ask a “community” question, you may be tempted to simply repurpose the same exact essay from one application to the other. Beware! Each prompt will have different nuances to it, and you will need to ensure that you are actually answering the prompt that is being asked. You can certainly re-use the content from one application to the next, but you should tailor how you express those ideas so that they match the prompt.

When drafting the community essay for the Common App, DON’T DO these things

Don’t be afraid to “think outside of the box”.

Some communities to which we belong are obvious because we participate in them on a daily basis. These would include our families and our friend groups. Others are obvious because they are clearly defined: the football team or student government. But what about those informal communities, occasional communities, or hard-to-define communities to which you might belong? Are you a crafty person who blogs about your creations with an online community?

Do you belong to a book group in your neighborhood? Are you a classic car connoisseur? Even writing about things that might not seem like natural “communities” can work quite well as long as they reveal important aspects of who you are. For example, we’ve read a successful “community” essay about a student who belonged to a community of anonymous subway riders. We read another about a community of students who wear crazy socks to school. 

Don’t share obvious details

The detail about the community is not the most important part of your response, even if the prompt does say to “describe a community to which you belong.” Consider only sharing those details about the community that ties into what you are trying to share about yourself. For example, most drama groups put on performances for the public.

But not all drama groups are community-based and have participants ranging in age from 9 to 99. If part of your story is about this multi-generational community, then this detail plays a part in your story. Include those details that play a role in why the community is important or impactful for you.

Remember these things about the community essay for the Common App

No matter which community you choose to write about, you want to be sure that you reflect deeply about why this community is important to you. If you have a longer word count, you can consider using an anecdote to share with the reader, but for the shorter prompts, keep your writing personal, but just more to the point.

And don’t lose sight of the reason that you are writing this essay. You are applying to be a part of a new community. You want to show that you have a deep appreciation for the sense of satisfaction, dedication, and attachment that comes with being a member of a community. The purpose is to demonstrate that you know how to nurture the community and how you nourish others’ sense of belonging in that circle.  

Colleges want to know that you will keep the flame of that college community alive, even as you graduate and move on with your life. The admissions office wants to know that you will cherish and contribute to the community that they already call their own. Convince them that you deserve to belong.

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How to write a college supplement about community

You do not exist in a vacuum and colleges know this! The very common “community essay” is an opportunity for you to tell a story about one community that matters to you and what you have gained from its membership. This is your chance to talk about people you care about (and why!) in a much tighter and more focused way than you can in your Common App Personal Essay.   This is an important supplement because it shows you as you exist in connection to other people. Remember, college is an exercise in community – and schools want to admit students who understand our greater social responsibility toward the welfare of others.

Note: This essay will range in length but is often “mid-sized” and about 250 words.

Example Community Questions:

• The University of Michigan: Everyone belongs to many different communities and/or groups defined by (among other things) shared geography, religion, ethnicity, income, cuisine, interest, race, ideology, or intellectual heritage. Choose one of the communities to which you belong, and describe that community and your place within it.
• Duke: We seek a talented, engaged student body that embodies the wide range of human experience; we believe that the diversity of our students makes our community stronger. If you'd like to share a perspective you bring or experiences you've had to help us understand you better—perhaps related to a community you belong to, your sexual orientation or gender identity, or your family or cultural background—we encourage you to do so. Real people are reading your application, and we want to do our best to understand and appreciate the real people applying.  
• MIT: Describe the world you come from; for example, your family, clubs, school, community, city, or town. How has that world shaped your dreams and aspirations?
• Tufts: How have the environments or experiences of your upbringing – your family, home, neighborhood, or community – shaped the person you are today?
• Yale: Reflect on a community to which you feel connected. Why is it meaningful to you?   You may define community however you like.
• Columbia: Columbia students take an active role in improving their community, whether in their residence hall, classes, or throughout New York City. Their actions, small or large, work to positively impact the lives of others. Share one contribution that you have made to your family, school, friend group, or another community that surrounds you.

LET'S BREAK DOWN THE ESSENTIAL POINTS YOU NEED TO HIT WHEN RESPONDING TO THIS SUPPLEMENT:

Be honest and authentic. Select and discuss a community that matters to you without being swayed by something you believe makes you “look good” in the eyes of an admissions officer. If you want to write about your soccer team, do that.

If the question asks you to reflect on how that community has “shaped” you, be sure to consider these lessons carefully and articulate them well here. Don’t bypass these essential parts of the question to focus only on defining your community.

Don’t think of yourself as a passive recipient of the benefits of community but rather consider communities where you are an active participant. If you are struggling to think about what community to discuss, consider communities where you have BOTH had an impact on others and been impacted by them.

It is sometimes better to dive into the unexpected! There are millions of essays about the sports team that came together after winning (or more often, losing) the big game. It’s fine to write about your team, but take it to another place! Find your own angle.

THINGS TO AVOID:

This is not a moment to traffic in stereotypes or judgments, either your own or those you might presume belong to others (including the admissions officer who reads your essay). When in doubt, ask a friend to read this essay and give you honest feedback on this metric!

More than many essays, it can be easy for a community essay to delve quickly into cliche and platitudes. Work hard to keep these phrases and concepts out of your essay. Keep it authentically in your voice.

It might be tempting to put yourself in a community whose boundaries you don’t know (example: “I belong to the community of makers/problem solvers/doers/etc…”), it is better to consider communities whose boundaries and members are clear and tangible. 

ADDITIONAL TIPS AND TRICKS:

As long as you are mindful of the word count, this is actually an essay that you can pretty easily reuse for multiple applications without any hesitation.

Do you have an activity on your Activities List that you felt you couldn’t adequately describe with the limited activity character count but that is really meaningful for you? Take this opportunity to tell the admissions committee more about this activity and use it as the highlight for your community.

Do you go to a unique high school? This is a wonderful opportunity to tell an admissions committee more about your school and what makes it such a special place. Don’t be afraid to brag a bit about your school and what you love about it.

When in doubt, consider writing about the communities that further the narrative your application is building and write about these. Are you telling a story about yourself as an aspiring cancer-researcher? Then use a community in your science lab to further illustrate this point. Don’t just pull something fully random out of a hat here!

Elise holds a BA in Political Philosophy from Williams College and an MEd in Administration & Social Policy from Harvard. She has spent the past twenty years working in top-tier independent schools.

Related Content

Cultural Diversity Essay & Community Essay Examples

If you’ve started to research college application requirements for the schools on your list, you might have come across the “cultural diversity essay.” In this guide, we’ll explore the cultural diversity essay in depth. We will compare the cultural diversity essay to the community essay and discuss how to approach these kinds of supplements. We’ll also provide examples of diversity essays and community essay examples. But first, let’s discuss exactly what a cultural diversity essay is. 

The purpose of the cultural diversity essay in college applications is to show the admissions committee what makes you unique. The cultural diversity essay also lets you describe what type of “ diversity ” you would bring to campus.

We’ll also highlight a diversity essay sample for three college applications. These include the Georgetown application essay , Rice application essay , and Williams application essay . We’ll provide examples of diversity essays for each college. Then, for each of these college essays that worked, we will analyze their strengths to help you craft your own essays. 

Finally, we’ll give you some tips on how to write a cultural diversity essay that will make your applications shine. 

But first, let’s explore the types of college essays you might encounter on your college applications. 

Types of College Essays

College application requirements will differ among schools. However, you’ll submit one piece of writing to nearly every school on your list—the personal statement . A strong personal statement can help you stand out in the admissions process. 

So, how do you know what to write about? That depends on the type of college essay included in your college application requirements. 

There are a few main types of college essays that you might encounter in the college admissions process. Theese include the “Why School ” essay, the “Why Major ” essay, and the extracurricular activity essay. This also includes the type of essay we will focus on in this guide—the cultural diversity essay. 

“Why School” essay

The “Why School ” essay is exactly what it sounds like. For this type of college essay, you’ll need to underscore why you want to go to this particular school. 

However, don’t make the mistake of just listing off what you like about the school. Additionally, don’t just reiterate information you can find on their admissions website. Instead, you’ll want to make connections between what the school offers and how you are a great fit for that college community. 

“Why Major” essay

The idea behind the “Why Major ” essay is similar to that of the “Why School ” essay above. However, instead of writing about the school at large, this essay should highlight why you plan to study your chosen major.

There are plenty of directions you could take with this type of essay. For instance, you might describe how you chose this major, what career you plan to pursue upon graduation, or other details.

Extracurricular Activity essay

The extracurricular activity essay asks you to elaborate on one of the activities that you participated in outside of the classroom. 

For this type of college essay, you’ll need to select an extracurricular activity that you pursued while you were in high school. Bonus points if you can tie your extracurricular activity into your future major, career goals, or other extracurricular activities for college. Overall, your extracurricular activity essay should go beyond your activities list. In doing so, it should highlight why your chosen activity matters to you.

Cultural Diversity essay

The cultural diversity essay is your chance to expound upon diversity in all its forms. Before you write your cultural diversity essay, you should ask yourself some key questions. These questions can include: How will you bring diversity to your future college campus? What unique perspective do you bring to the table? 

Another sub-category of the cultural diversity essay is the gender diversity essay. As its name suggests, this essay would center around the author’s gender. This essay would highlight how gender shapes the way the writer understands the world around them. 

Later, we’ll look at examples of diversity essays and other college essays that worked. But before we do, let’s figure out how to identify a cultural diversity essay in the first place. 

How to identify a ‘cultural diversity’ essay

So, you’re wondering how you’ll be able to identify a cultural diversity essay as you review your college application requirements. 

Aside from the major giveaway of having the word “diversity” in the prompt, a cultural diversity essay will ask you to describe what makes you different from other applicants. In other words, what aspects of your unique culture(s) have influenced your perspective and shaped you into who you are today?

Diversity can refer to race, ethnicity, first-generation status, gender, or anything in between. You can write about a myriad of things in a cultural diversity essay. For instance, you might discuss your personal background, identity, values, experiences, or how you’ve overcome challenges in your life. 

However, don’t feel limited in what you can address in a cultural diversity essay. The words “culture” and “diversity” mean different things to different people. Above all, you’ll want your diversity essays for college to be personal and sincere. 

How is a ‘community’ essay different? 

A community essay can also be considered a cultural diversity essay. In fact, you can think of the community essay as a subcategory of the cultural diversity essay. However, there is a key difference between a community essay and a cultural diversity essay, which we will illustrate below. 

You might have already seen some community essay examples while you were researching college application requirements. But how exactly is a community essay different from a cultural diversity essay?

One way to tell the difference between community essay examples and cultural diversity essay examples is by the prompt. A community essay will highlight, well, community . This means it will focus on how your identity will shape your interactions on campus—not just how it informs your own experiences.

Two common forms to look out for

Community essay examples can take two forms. First, you’ll find community essay examples about your past experiences. These let you show the admissions team how you have positively influenced your own community. 

Other community essay examples, however, will focus on the future. These community essay examples will ask you to detail how you will contribute to your future college community. We refer to these as college community essay examples.

In college community essay examples, you’ll see applicants detail how they might interact with their fellow students. These essays may also discuss how students plan to positively contribute to the campus community. 

As we mentioned above, the community essay, along with community essay examples and college community essay examples, fit into the larger category of the cultural diversity essay. Although we do not have specific community essay examples or college community essay examples in this guide, we will continue to highlight the subtle differences between the two. 

Before we continue the discussion of community essay examples and college community essay examples, let’s start with some examples of cultural diversity essay prompts. For each of the cultural diversity essay prompts, we’ll name the institutions that include these diversity essays for college as part of their college application requirements. 

What are some examples of ‘cultural diversity’ essays? 

Now, you have a better understanding of the similarities and differences between the cultural diversity essay and the community essay. So, next, let’s look at some examples of cultural diversity essay prompts.

The prompts below are from the Georgetown application, Rice application, and Williams application, respectively. As we discuss the similarities and differences between prompts, remember the framework we provided above for what constitutes a cultural diversity essay and a community essay. 

Later in this guide, we’ll provide real examples of diversity essays, including Georgetown essay examples, Rice University essay examples, and Williams supplemental essays examples. These are all considered college essays that worked—meaning that the author was accepted into that particular institution. 

Georgetown Supplementals Essays

Later, we’ll look at Georgetown supplemental essay examples. Diversity essays for Georgetown are a product of this prompt: 

As Georgetown is a diverse community, the Admissions Committee would like to know more about you in your own words. Please submit a brief essay, either personal or creative, which you feel best describes you. 

You might have noticed two keywords in this prompt right away: “diverse” and “community.” These buzzwords indicate that this prompt is a cultural diversity essay. You could even argue that responses to this prompt would result in college community essay examples. After all, the prompt refers to the Georgetown community. 

For this prompt, you’ll want to produce a diversity essay sample that highlights who you are. In order to do that successfully, you’ll need to self-reflect before putting pen to paper. What aspects of your background, personality, or values best describe who you are? How might your presence at Georgetown influence or contribute to their diverse community? 

Additionally, this cultural diversity essay can be personal or creative. So, you have more flexibility with the Georgetown supplemental essays than with other similar diversity essay prompts. Depending on the direction you go, your response to this prompt could be considered a cultural diversity essay, gender diversity essay, or a college community essay. 

Rice University Essays

The current Rice acceptance rate is just 9% , making it a highly selective school. Because the Rice acceptance rate is so low, your personal statement and supplemental essays can make a huge difference. 

The Rice University essay examples we’ll provide below are based on this prompt: 

The quality of Rice’s academic life and the Residential College System are heavily influenced by the unique life experiences and cultural traditions each student brings. What personal perspective would you contribute to life at Rice? 

Breaking down the prompt.

Like the prompt above, this cultural diversity essay asks about your “life experiences,” “cultural traditions,” and personal “perspectives.” These phrases indicate a cultural diversity essay. Keep in mind this may not be the exact prompt you’ll have to answer in your own Rice application. However, future Rice prompts will likely follow a similar framework as this diversity essay sample.

Although this prompt is not as flexible as the Georgetown prompt, it does let you discuss aspects of Rice’s academic life and Residential College System that appeal to you. You can also highlight how your experiences have influenced your personal perspective. 

The prompt also asks about how you would contribute to life at Rice. So, your response could also fall in line with college community essay examples. Remember, college community essay examples are another sub-category of community essay examples. Successful college community essay examples will illustrate the ways in which students would contribute to their future campus community. 

Williams Supplemental Essays

Like the Rice acceptance rate, the Williams acceptance rate is also 9% . Because the Williams acceptance rate is so low, you’ll want to pay close attention to the Williams supplemental essays examples as you begin the writing process. 

The Williams supplemental essays examples below are based on this prompt: 

Every first-year student at Williams lives in an Entry – a thoughtfully constructed microcosm of the student community that’s a defining part of the Williams experience. From the moment they arrive, students find themselves in what’s likely the most diverse collection of backgrounds, perspectives, and interests they’ve ever encountered. What might differentiate you from the 19 other first-year students in an Entry? What perspective would you add to the conversation with your peer(s)?

Reflecting on the prompt.

Immediately, words like “diverse,” “backgrounds,” “perspectives,” “interests,” and “differentiate” should stand out to you. These keywords highlight the fact that this is a cultural diversity essay. Similar to the Rice essay, this may not be the exact prompt you’ll face on your Williams application. However, we can still learn from it.

Like the Georgetown essay, this prompt requires you to put in some self-reflection before you start writing. What aspects of your background differentiate you from other people? How would these differences impact your interactions with peers? 

This prompt also touches on the “student community” and how you would “add to the conversation with your peer(s).” By extension, any strong responses to this prompt could also be considered as college community essay examples. 

Community Essays

All of the prompts above mention campus community. So, you could argue that they are also examples of community essays. 

Like we mentioned above, you can think of community essays as a subcategory of the cultural diversity essay. If the prompt alludes to the campus community, or if your response is centered on how you would interact within that community, your essay likely falls into the world of college community essay examples. 

Regardless of what you would classify the essay as, all successful essays will be thoughtful, personal, and rich with details. We’ll show you examples of this in our “college essays that worked” section below. 

Which schools require a cultural diversity or community essay? 

Besides Georgetown, Rice, and Williams, many other college applications require a cultural diversity essay or community essay. In fact, from the Ivy League to HBCUs and state schools, the cultural diversity essay is a staple across college applications. 

Although we will not provide a diversity essay sample for each of the colleges below, it is helpful to read the prompts. This will build your familiarity with other college applications that require a cultural diversity essay or community essay. Some schools that require a cultural diversity essay or community essay include New York University , Duke University , Harvard University , Johns Hopkins University , and University of Michigan . 

New York University

NYU listed a cultural diversity essay as part of its 2022-2023 college application requirements. Here is the prompt:

NYU was founded on the belief that a student’s identity should not dictate the ability for them to access higher education. That sense of opportunity for all students, of all backgrounds, remains a part of who we are today and a critical part of what makes us a world class university. Our community embraces diversity, in all its forms, as a cornerstone of the NYU experience. We would like to better understand how your experiences would help us to shape and grow our diverse community.

Duke university.

Duke is well-known for its community essay: 

What is your sense of Duke as a university and a community, and why do you consider it a good match for you? If there’s something in particular about our offerings that attracts you, feel free to share that as well.

A top-ranked Ivy League institution, Harvard University also has a cultural diversity essay as part of its college application requirements: 

Harvard has long recognized the importance of student body diversity of all kinds. We welcome you to write about distinctive aspects of your background, personal development, or the intellectual interests you might bring to your Harvard classmates.

Johns hopkins university.

The Johns Hopkins supplement is another example of a cultural diversity essay: 

Founded in the spirit of exploration and discovery, Johns Hopkins University encourages students to share their perspectives, develop their interests, and pursue new experiences. Use this space to share something you’d like the admissions committee to know about you (your interests, your background, your identity, or your community), and how it has shaped what you want to get out of your college experience at Hopkins. 

University of michigan.

The University of Michigan requires a community essay for its application: 

Everyone belongs to many different communities and/or groups defined by (among other things) shared geography, religion, ethnicity, income, cuisine, interest, race, ideology, or intellectual heritage. Choose one of the communities to which you belong and describe that community and your place within it. 

Community essay examples.

The Duke and Michigan prompts are perfect illustrations of community essay examples. However, they have some critical differences. So, if you apply to both of these schools, you’ll have to change the way you approach either of these community essays. 

The Duke prompt asks you to highlight why you are a good match for the Duke community. You’ll also see this prompt in other community essay examples. To write a successful response to this prompt, you’ll need to reference offerings specific to Duke (or whichever college requires this essay). In order to know what to reference, you’ll need to do your research before you start writing. 

Consider the following questions as you write your diversity essay sample if the prompt is similar to Duke University’s

• What values does this college community have? 
• How do these tie in with what you value? 
• Is there something that this college offers that matches your interests, personality, or background?  

On the other hand, the Michigan essay prompt asks you to describe a community that you belong to as well as your place within that community. This is another variation of the prompt for community essay examples. 

To write a successful response to this prompt, you’ll need to identify a community that you belong to. Then, you’ll need to think critically about how you interact with that community. 

Below are some questions to consider as you write your diversity essay sample for colleges like Michigan: 

• Out of all the communities you belong to, which can you highlight in your response? 
• How have you impacted this community? 
• How has this community impacted you?

Now, in the next few sections, we’ll dive into the Georgetown supplemental essay examples, the Rice university essay examples, and the Williams supplemental essays examples. After each diversity essay sample, we’ll include a breakdown of why these are considered college essays that worked. 

Georgetown Essay Examples

As a reminder, the Georgetown essay examples respond to this prompt: 

As Georgetown is a diverse community, the Admissions Committee would like to know more about you in your own words. Please submit a brief essay, either personal or creative, which you feel best describes you.

Here is the excerpt of the diversity essay sample from our Georgetown essay examples: 

Georgetown University Essay Example

The best thing I ever did was skip eight days of school in a row. Despite the protests of teachers over missed class time, I told them that the world is my classroom. The lessons I remember most are those that took place during my annual family vacation to coastal Maine. That rural world is the most authentic and incredible classroom where learning simply happens and becomes exponential. 

Years ago, as I hunted through the rocks and seaweed for seaglass and mussels, I befriended a Maine local hauling her battered kayak on the shore. Though I didn’t realize it at the time, I had found a kindred spirit in Jeanne. Jeanne is a year-round resident who is more than the hard working, rugged Mainer that meets the eye; reserved and humble in nature, she is a wealth of knowledge and is self-taught through necessity. With thoughtful attention to detail, I engineered a primitive ramp made of driftwood and a pulley system to haul her kayak up the cliff. We diligently figured out complex problems and developed solutions through trial and error.

After running out of conventional materials, I recycled and reimagined items that had washed ashore. We expected to succeed, but were not afraid to fail. Working with Jeanne has been the best classroom in the world; without textbooks or technology, she has made a difference in my life. Whether building a basic irrigation system for her organic garden or installing solar panels to harness the sun’s energy, every project has shown me the value of taking action and making an impact. Each year brings a different project with new excitement and unique challenges. My resourcefulness, problem solving ability, and innovative thinking have advanced under her tutelage. 

While exploring the rocky coast of Maine, I embrace every experience as an unparalleled educational opportunity that transcends any classroom environment. I discovered that firsthand experience and real-world application of science are my best teachers. In school, applications of complex calculations and abstract theories are sometimes obscured by grades and structure. In Maine, I expand my love of science and renourish my curious spirit. I am a highly independent, frugal, resilient Mainer living as a southern girl in NC. 

Why this essay worked

This is one of the Georgetown supplemental essay examples that works, and here’s why. The author starts the essay with an interesting hook, which makes the reader want to learn more about this person and their perspective. 

Throughout the essay, the author illustrates their intellectual curiosity. From befriending Jeanne and creating a pulley system to engineering other projects on the rocky coast of Maine, the author demonstrates how they welcome challenges and work to solve problems. 

Further, the author mentions values that matter to them—taking action and making an impact. Both facets are also part of Georgetown’s core values . By making these connections in their essay, the author shows the admissions committee exactly how they would be a great fit for the Georgetown community. 

Finally, the author uses their experience in Maine to showcase their love of science, which is likely the field they will study at Georgetown. Like this writer, you should try to include most important parts of your identity into your essay. This includes things like life experiences, passions, majors, extracurricular activities for college, and more. 

Rice University Essay Examples

The Rice University essay examples are from this prompt: 

The quality of Rice’s academic life and the Residential College System are heavily influenced by the unique life experiences and cultural traditions each student brings. What personal perspective would you contribute to life at Rice? (500-word limit)

Rice university essay example.

Like every applicant, I also have a story to share. A story that makes me who I am and consists of chapters about my life experiences and adventures. Having been born in a different country, my journey to America was one of the most difficult things I had ever experienced. Everything felt different. The atmosphere, the places, the food, and especially the people. Everywhere I looked, I saw something new. Although it was a bit overwhelming, one thing had not changed.

The caring nature of the people was still prevalent in everyday interactions. I was overwhelmed by how supportive and understanding people were of one another. Whether it is race, religion, or culture, everyone was accepted and appreciated. I knew that I could be whoever I wanted to be and that the only limitation was my imagination. Through hard work and persistence I put my all in everything that I did. I get this work ethic from my father since he is living proof that anything can be accomplished with continued determination. Listening to the childhood stories he told me, my dad would reminisce about how he was born in an impoverished area in a third world country during a turbulent and unpredictable time.

Even with a passion for learning, he had to work a laborious job in an attempt to help his parents make ends meet. He talked about how he would study under the street lights when the power went out at home. His parents wanted something better for him, as did he. Not living in America changed nothing about their work ethic. His parents continued to work hard daily, in an attempt to provide for their son. My dad worked and studied countless hours, paying his way through school with jobs and scholarships. His efforts paid off when he finally moved to America and opened his own business. None of it would have been possible without tremendous effort and dedication needed for a better life, values that are instilled within me as well, and this is the perspective that I wish to bring to Rice. 

This diversity essay sample references the author’s unique life experiences and personal perspective, which makes it one example of college essays that worked. The author begins the essay by alluding to their unique story—they were born in a different country and then came to America. Instead of facing this change as a challenge, the author shows how this new experience helped them to feel comfortable with all kinds of people. They also highlight how their diversity was accepted and appreciated. 

Additionally, the author incorporates information about their father’s story, which helps to frame their own values and where those values came from. The values that they chose to highlight also fall in line with the values of the Rice community. 

Williams Supplemental Essay Examples

Let’s read the prompt that inspired so many strong Williams supplemental essays examples again: 

Every first-year student at Williams lives in an Entry—a thoughtfully constructed microcosm of the student community that’s a defining part of the Williams experience. From the moment they arrive, students find themselves in what’s likely the most diverse collection of backgrounds, perspectives and interests they’ve ever encountered. What might differentiate you from the 19 other first-year students in an entry? What perspective(s) would you add to the conversation with your peers?

Williams college essay example.

Through the flow in my head

See you clad in red

But not just the clothes

It’s your whole being

Covering in this sickening blanket

Of heat and pain

Are you in agony, I wonder?

Is this the hell they told me about?

Have we been condemned?

Reduced to nothing but pain

At least we have each other

In our envelopes of crimson

I try in vain

“Take my hands” I shriek

“Let’s protect each other, 

You and me, through this hell”

My body contorts

And deforms into nothingness

You remain the same

Clad in red

With faraway eyes

You, like a statue

Your eyes fixed somewhere else

You never see me

Just the red briefcase in your heart

We aren’t together

It’s always been me alone

While you stand there, aloof, with the briefcase in your heart.

I wrote this poem the day my prayer request for the Uighur Muslims got denied at school. At the time, I was stunned. I was taught to have empathy for those around me. Yet, that empathy disappears when told to extend it to someone different. I can’t comprehend this contradiction and I refuse to. 

At Williams, I hope to become a Community Engagement Fellow at the Davis Center. I hope to use Williams’ support for social justice and advocacy to educate my fellow classmates on social issues around the world. Williams students are not just scholars but also leaders and changemakers. Together, we can strive to better the world through advocacy.

Human’s capability for love is endless. We just need to open our hearts to everyone. 

It’s time to let the briefcase go and look at those around us with our real human eyes.

We see you now. Please forgive us.

As we mentioned above, the Williams acceptance rate is incredibly low. This makes the supplemental essay that much more important. 

This diversity essay sample works because it is personal and memorable. The author chooses to start the essay off with a poem. Which, if done right, will immediately grab the reader’s attention. 

Further, the author contextualizes the poem by explaining the circumstances surrounding it—they wrote it in response to a prayer request that was denied at school. In doing so, they also highlight their own values of empathy and embracing diversity. 

Finally, the author ends their cultural diversity essay by describing what excites them about Williams. They also discuss how they see themselves interacting within the Williams community. This is a key piece of the essay, as it helps the reader understand how the author would be a good fit for Williams. 

The examples provided within this essay also touch on issues that are important to the author, which provides a glimpse into the type of student the author would be on campus. Additionally, this response shows what potential extracurricular activities for college the author might be interested in pursuing while at Williams. 

How to Write a Cultural Diversity Essay

You want your diversity essay to stand out from any other diversity essay sample. But how do you write a successful cultural diversity essay? 

First, consider what pieces of your identity you want to highlight in your essay. Of course, race and ethnicity are important facets of diversity. However, there are plenty of other factors to consider. 

As you brainstorm, think outside the box to figure out what aspects of your identity help make up who you are. Because identity and diversity fall on a spectrum, there is no right or wrong answer here. 

Fit your ideas to the specific school

Once you’ve decided on what you want to represent in your cultural diversity essay, think about how that fits into the college of your choice. Use your cultural diversity essay to make connections to the school. If your college has specific values or programs that align with your identity, then include them in your cultural diversity essay! 

Above all, you should write about something that is important to you. Your cultural diversity essay, gender diversity essay, or community essay will succeed if you are passionate about your topic and willing to get personal. 

Additional Tips for Community & Cultural Diversity Essays

1. start early.

In order to create the strongest diversity essay possible, you’ll want to start early. Filling out college applications is already a time-consuming process. So, you can cut back on additional stress and anxiety by writing your cultural diversity essay as early as possible. 

2. Brainstorm

Writing a cultural diversity essay or community essay is a personal process. To set yourself up for success, take time to brainstorm and reflect on your topic. Overall, you want your cultural diversity essay to be a good indication of who you are and what makes you a unique applicant. 

3. Proofread

We can’t stress this final tip enough. Be sure to proofread your cultural diversity essay before you hit the submit button. Additionally, you can read your essay aloud to hear how it flows. You can also can ask someone you trust, like your college advisor or a teacher, to help proofread your essay as well.

Other CollegeAdvisor Essay Resources to Explore

Looking for additional resources on supplemental essays for the colleges we mentioned above? Do you need help with incorporating extracurricular activities for college into your essays or crafting a strong diversity essay sample? We’ve got you covered. 

Our how to get into Georgetown guide covers additional tips on how to approach the supplemental diversity essay. If you’re wondering how to write about community in your essay, check out our campus community article for an insider’s perspective on Williams College.

Want to learn strategies for writing compelling cultural diversity essays? Check out this Q&A webinar, featuring a former Georgetown admissions officer. And, if you’re still unsure of what to highlight in your community essay, try getting inspiration from a virtual college tour . 

Cultural Diversity Essay & Community Essay Examples – Final Thoughts

Your supplemental essays are an important piece of the college application puzzle. With colleges becoming more competitive than ever, you’ll want to do everything you can to create a strong candidate profile. This includes writing well-crafted responses for a cultural diversity essay, gender diversity essay, or community essay. 

We hope our cultural diversity essay guide helped you learn more about this common type of supplemental essay. As you are writing your own cultural diversity essay or community essay, use the essay examples from Georgetown, Rice, and Williams above as your guide. 

Getting into top schools takes a lot more than a strong resume. Writing specific, thoughtful, and personal responses for a cultural diversity essay, gender diversity essay, or community essay will put you one step closer to maximizing your chances of admission. Good luck!

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Patterns of settlement, commerce, and industry . Where are those physical spaces we've been discussing? Communities reveal their character by where and how they create living and working spaces. Where there are true slums --  substandard housing in areas with few or no services that are the only options for low-income people -- the value the larger community places on those residents seems clear. Are heavy industries located next to residential neighborhoods? If so, who lives in those neighborhoods? Are some parts of the community dangerous, either because of high crime and violence or because of unsafe conditions in the built or natural environment?

Demographics .  It's vital to understand who makes up the community.  Age, gender, race and ethnicity, marital status, education, number of people in household, first language -- these and other statistics make up the demographic profile of the population. When you put them together (e.g.,  the education level of black women ages 18-24), it gives you a clear picture of who community residents are.

History . The long-term history of the community can tell you about community traditions, what the community is, or has been, proud of, and what residents would prefer not to talk about. Recent history can afford valuable information about conflicts and factions within the community, important issues, past and current relationships among key people and groups -- many of the factors that can trip up any effort before it starts if you don't know about and address them.

Community leaders, formal and informal . Some community leaders are elected or appointed -- mayors, city councilors, directors of public works. Others are considered leaders because of their activities or their positions in the community -- community activists, corporate CEO's, college presidents, doctors, clergy.  Still others are recognized as leaders because, they are trusted for their proven integrity, courage, and/or care for others and the good of the community.

Community culture, formal and informal . This covers the spoken and unspoken rules and traditions by which the community lives. It can include everything from community events and slogans -- the blessing of the fishing fleet, the "Artichoke Capital of the World" -- to norms of behavior -- turning a blind eye to alcohol abuse or domestic violence -- to patterns of discrimination and exercise of power. Understanding the culture and how it developed can be crucial, especially if that's what you're attempting to change.

Existing groups .  Most communities have an array of groups and organizations of different kinds -- service clubs (Lions, Rotary, etc.), faith groups, youth organizations, sports teams and clubs, groups formed around shared interests, the boards of community-wide organizations (the YMCA, the symphony, United Way), as well as groups devoted to self-help, advocacy, and activism.  Knowing of the existence and importance of each of these groups can pave the way for alliances or for understanding opposition.

Existing institutions . Every community has institutions that are important to it, and that have more or less credibility with residents. Colleges and universities, libraries, religious institutions, hospitals -- all of these and many others can occupy important places in the community. It's important to know what they are, who represents them, and what influence they wield.

Economics .  Who are the major employers in the community?  What, if any, business or industry is the community's base? Who, if anyone, exercises economic power? How is wealth distributed? Would you characterize the community as poor, working, class, middle class, or affluent?  What are the economic prospects of the population in general and/or the population you're concerned with?

Government/Politics . Understanding the structure of community government is obviously important. Some communities may have strong mayors and weak city councils, others the opposite. Still other communities may have no mayor at all, but only a town manager, or may have a different form of government entirely.  Whatever the government structure, where does political power lie? Understanding where the real power is can be the difference between a successful effort and a vain one.

Social structure . Many aspects of social structure are integrated into other areas -- relationships, politics, economics -- but there are also the questions of how people in the community relate to one another on a daily basis, how problems are (or aren't) resolved, who socializes or does business with whom, etc. This area also includes perceptions and symbols of status and respect, and whether status carries entitlement or responsibility (or both).

Attitudes and values . Again, much of this area may be covered by investigation into others, particularly culture. What does the community care about, and what does it ignore? What are residents' assumptions about the proper way to behave, to dress, to do business, to treat others? Is there widely accepted discrimination against one or more groups by the majority or by those in power? What are the norms for interaction among those who with different opinions or different backgrounds?

We'll discuss all of these aspects of community in greater detail later in the section.

There are obviously many more aspects of community that can be explored, such as health or education.  The assumption here is that as part of an assessment, you'll aim for a general understanding of the community, as described in this section, and also assess, with a narrower focus, the specific aspects you're interested in.

Once you've explored the relevant areas of the community, you'll have the information to create a community description. Depending on your needs and information, this description might be anything from a two-or three-page outline to an in-depth portrait of the community that extends to tens of pages and includes charts, graphs, photographs, and other elements. The point of doing it is to have a picture of the community at a particular point in time that you can use to provide a context for your community assessment and to see the results of whatever actions you take to bring about change.

A community description can be as creative as you're capable of making it.  It can be written as a story, can incorporate photos and commentary from community residents (see Photovoice), can be done online and include audio and video, etc. The more interesting the description is, the more people are likely to actually read it.

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Your chance of acceptance, your chancing factors, extracurriculars, community service essay sample.

Hey folks! I want to write a college essay about my community service experience. I'm not really sure where to start, though. Have any of you written similar essays or come across any good examples that might inspire me? Thanks!

Hello! Writing a college essay about community service can be a meaningful way to highlight your impact on others and your personal growth. To help you craft a compelling essay, here are a few tips and an example to get you started.

1. Narrate a specific experience: Instead of recounting all your community service experiences, focus on a single event or project that genuinely impacted you. Describe the project, the people you worked with, and your role within the group.

2. Demonstrate personal growth: Use your chosen experience to illustrate personal growth and development. Describe any challenges you faced, how you navigated them, and what you learned from the experience.

3. Show, don't tell: Use vivid details and anecdotes to bring your story to life. Rather than saying you developed leadership skills, describe a moment in your community service when you had to step up and lead or support your peers through a challenge.

4. Make connections: Reflect on how this community service experience has shaped your values or goals. Connecting your experience to your aspirations helps show how it has influenced your college or career ambitions.

Here's an example to help inspire your own essay:

"During my junior year, I joined a volunteer group to help revitalize a local park. Our group consisted of diverse members, ranging from middle school students to retired professionals. Initially, I was hesitant to engage with the others, fearing the generational gaps. However, as I worked alongside them, I realized that everyone shared the common goal of restoring the park, and together, we overcame the limitations that our age differences posed.

One Saturday, rain unexpectedly poured down, jeopardizing the progress we had made in painting a mural. As the rain soaked the artwork, I witnessed my team's morale plummet. Recognizing the need for action, I took the initiative to gather the group. Together, we brainstormed creative solutions to protect our art from the weather, such as using tarps and rain-reflective paint. I also made sure to allocate tasks to people based on their strengths and preferences.

In the end, the mural not only survived the storm but became a symbol of hope and resilience for our community. This experience taught me how valuable collaboration and resourcefulness are when facing challenges, and it strengthened my confidence in my ability to lead.

From revitalizing the park, I learned that my ability to communicate and connect with people from different backgrounds plays a vital role in fostering a supportive and collaborative environment. This shift in my perspective has transformed my approach to problem-solving and has inspired me to pursue a career in community development. I am eager to continue my journey of growth and leadership in my future studies."

Remember to personalize your essay and be genuine in your storytelling. Good luck with your writing!

About CollegeVine’s Expert FAQ

CollegeVine’s Q&A seeks to offer informed perspectives on commonly asked admissions questions. Every answer is refined and validated by our team of admissions experts to ensure it resonates with trusted knowledge in the field.

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Paul Simon Essay Contest winner speaks on mental health

Editor's note: This story mentions a suicide attempt. If you or someone you know may be considering suicide, contact the  988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline  by dialing 9-8-8, or the  Crisis Text Line  by texting HOME to 741741.

  A Princeton student recently won the Paul Simon Essay Contest. This essay highlights Illinois community colleges. The student shares how her college embraced her after she returned following a not-so-great start.

Lauren Frost is a student at Illinois Valley Community College in Oglesby, Illinois. The contest is sponsored by the Illinois Community College Trustees Association and offers a five-hundred-dollar scholarship. The student must describe, “How My Community College Has Changed My Life.” Frost said she loves writing, but essay writing wasn't a part of her repertoire.

“I'm somebody who likes to use a lot of words, and there was the 500-word limit, and I was like, oh my goodness, I don't know how to like put this all into just 500 words.”

She said she is used to creative writing and has done this since she was a child. The other thing Frost loved to do was play the Trumpet. She said she wasn’t a great player and the other kids often made fun of her.

“And so, I decided, well, I'll go into elementary education just because it was something that, you know, I knew people did. I knew it was a job option,” she said. “And so, I was like, well, I'll go into that. Um, and that didn't work out very well. I didn’t really like the classes that I had, and I didn't have a very big passion for it either. So, um, and along with that, my mental health was definitely declining. I was very depressed.”

She ended that semester with a 0.429 GPA. That was in 2021. She decided to take a break. Frost said things came to a head in May of 2022. At the age of 18, she said she tried to take her life and ended up in the hospital. Frost said after that, she went to therapy to get help.

“I ended up finding out that I had, ADHD, depression, and then, schizotypal personality disorder,” she continued, “dependent personality disorder, and borderline personality disorder, which was quite the diagnosis.”

Frost said she originally noticed something wasn’t right with her mental health when she was in seventh grade. Back then she talked to her friends and parents about her concerns.

“And they'd kind of just chalk it up to being, you know, just like going through puberty,” she said.

Frost said in the fall of 2022 she decided to enroll in IVCC again. This time she took her passion for music and mixed it with something she felt helped her maneuver through life – taking care of her mental health. Her intent was to major in social work. But one of her first classes was music appreciation. She said it set the tone for her and helped her with her anxiety. This led her to pursue an education in music therapy.

“There's always the connection that you make with people when you play music with them, of course. I mentioned that before, but even then, listening to music is like an underrated tool to help,” she explained.

Frost said her mom was the one who told her to submit an essay for the contest. Those paragraphs detailed her journey to wellness and how the college helped with that.

“And to this day, nobody ever comments on, you know, how badly my first semester there went,” she said. “And it’s always just kind of been talking about the future and what happens next.”

Frost said mental health is not talked about the way it should be. She encourages open discussions about mental health and says it is important to speak with a therapist.

Frost is scheduled to read her winning essay at the college’s commencement ceremony on May 18 th .

Student’s wounding inside Dunbar H.S. detailed in D.C. documents

In a court hearing Saturday, a lawyer said a vehicle being driven erratically near the school had spurred fears of a drive-by shooting.

The noise drew a teacher at Dunbar High School to leave her desk mid-conversation Friday morning and peer out the window. Gunshots.

When she turned back around, the student she’d been talking to was on the floor, blood pouring from her head, according to a sworn statement filed in D.C. Superior Court.

A basketball coach rushed into the classroom, according to the statement, and used the student’s jacket to apply pressure to her injury.

The wound to the right side of the student’s forehead was deep enough to expose her skull, according to the report police filed in court to give information for charges, but a doctor determined surgery was not necessary.

Authorities arrested two suspects in the case. Azhari Graves, 18, was charged with two counts of assault with intent to kill and one count of assault with a dangerous weapon. On Monday, the U.S. attorney’s office for D.C. charged Saki Frost, 17, as an adult with several counts of assault with intent to kill, assault with a dangerous weapon and possession of a firearm in a crime of violence.

Following a brief hearing in D. C. Superior Court, Magistrate Judge Renee Raymond ordered Frost held in custody until his next hearing, May 28, with his co-defendant Graves, who was ordered detained on Saturday.

The documents provide a deeper accounting of an incident that appeared to rattle District residents. While violent crime overall is down in 2024, the symbolism of a bullet striking a student while in class struck a public nerve, fueling questions about how leaders will prevent persistent flurries of sudden gunfire in community spaces.

Later Friday, a 3-year-old was fatally shot in an unrelated incident, presumably by a stray bullet fired in a possible exchange of shots on a residential street in Southeast.

At a court hearing Saturday in the Dunbar shooting, a lawyer for Graves said her client did not fire the shot that wounded the girl, that any gun he might have been carrying was for self-defense and that no available surveillance footage showed Graves pointing or shooting a gun at anyone.

In the sworn statement, police quoted witnesses who said both Graves and Frost were current Dunbar students.

Nothing said in the statement from police or by prosecutors in court on Saturday signaled any intent to attack the school or injure anyone in it. In addition to striking the student in the classroom, the gunfire also shattered a window near someone in another room, apparently also a student, according to police reports.

Arguments in court between prosecution and defense centered on a car that, according to the statement, had been struck by gunfire. It appeared from comments made in court that the targeted vehicle was between the school and those shooting.

The vehicle, according to Graves’s lawyer, was being operated in a way that aroused suspicion that a drive-by shooting was intended.

Judge Neal E. Kravitz said that even if Graves did not shoot the gun, there was enough evidence to otherwise connect him to a crime.

Keith L. Alexander and Peter Hermann contributed to this report.

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Opinion | Gannett fired an editor for talking to me

Sarah Leach spoke to Poynter in an attempt to staff up her team. She may have been successful, even if she won't be at Gannett to see it through.

Sarah Leach, an experienced editor overseeing 26 Gannett community papers in four states, was fired via video conference first thing the morning of Monday, April 29. She was accused, she said, of “sharing proprietary information with (a reporter for) a competing media company.”

The reporter in question was me.

Her boss, Silas Lyons, next asked, “How do you respond?” Leach recalled. Then he added, “We have documentary evidence you have been communicating with Poynter.” No performance issues were raised. Since the dismissal was for cause, after 13 years of service, Leach was offered no severance.

Lyons’ bill of indictment was half right. Leach and I met five years ago at a Poynter seminar and have stayed in touch since. She did email me March 29, saying, “Things are a lot worse than people realize, and I’m hoping people are telling you about it. … I can’t speak on the record, but I’ll tell you what I know.” The rest of our interchanges were by phone or through her private email.

Lyons did not say how the company identified her as a source. As best Leach and I can figure, they must have tapped into her office email. “That’s the only way I can think of that they could have known,” she said.

The firing took place while I was still reporting the story, two days before Poynter published it. Leach published her own statement Thursday afternoon.

Back to the facts in a moment. But as both a participant and chronicler, I do have an opinion of what happened.

Outrageous! Gannett is a news company, not a widget factory, though it often does seem to be run like a widget factory. Gannett employs several thousand journalists who go to work every day in pursuit of stories, some of them based on insider tips and information. To pillory a successful and basically loyal editor because she raised an issue mildly embarrassing to the company…? Gannett’s top management extols itself for its commitment to excellent journalism while deploying espionage on its own employees? What a bunch of phonies.

Leach’s take: “They seem to be more interested in controlling their outward image than listening to their own people.”

Lyons declined to comment, as did spokesperson Lark-Marie Antón, who said the company does not discuss personnel matters.

Leach’s tip and my story concerned a ballyhooed initiative to revitalize Gannett’s small community papers like the one Leach had edited for years in Holland, Michigan.

The centerpiece, known internally as I-30, was to hire at least 30 new reporters for outlets that had only one or none who were locally based. However, just as it was getting rolling, the initiative was suspended in November. Then Lyons told 17 editors at the end of March that the “pause” (his wording) would extend through the second quarter.

Meanwhile, chief content officer Kristin Roberts continued to brag about I-30’s success as recently as February, three months into the pause, in an earnings call with analysts and a webcast.

Leach has been promoted several times during the five years I’ve known her. Still based in Holland, she oversaw The Holland Sentinel there and 25 more papers in Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota and South Dakota. The pause was a bitter pill to her and the editors who reported to her, as they had been scrambling for years to cover multiple outlets with ever-shrinking staff. When the promise of fresh resources was postponed indefinitely, she said, that extended a management nightmare. She hoped that a story on it would goad her superiors into action.

I spoke with Leach minutes after her firing. Though shell-shocked, she already had a firm fix on the situation. “I took a chance, and I got caught,” she told me. “It seemed important to reveal what was going on.”

Leach is a single mom of three. Because of her family situation, she said, she cannot leave Holland for a job elsewhere. The sudden loss of income was alarming.

She turned quickly to patching together work and found immediate encouragement. Two newspapers (including The Detroit News) and a TV station have expressed interest in employing her to cover Western Michigan. “I’m going to be able to pay my mortgage,” she told me this week.

This had been an especially good year for Leach professionally. She chose herself to cover a big local story as a new right-wing group of county commissioners took control and began dismantling the government — starting with the local health department.

The stories were forceful enough that her predecessor as Holland Sentinel editor and another citizen nominated her for a Pulitzer Prize in local reporting. Also, The Washington Post jumped in with long stories , seeing a Middle America case in point of MAGA stalwarts in action at the local level.

With her Post connection, Leach was hired to cover the Michigan leg of a three-city series of Trump rallies May 2. She shared a quadruple byline three days after being fired.

There is one other oddity in the sequence of events. Leach had a conference call, scheduled before I began work on the story, with Michael Anastasi, who oversees all of Gannett’s 200-plus regional papers (USA Today has a separate structure). “I had never had that kind of one-on-one conversation with him,” she said.

As it happened, the call took place the Friday before she was let go. It was a pleasant how-are-you-doing chat, she said, that allowed her to make her pitch for more staffing.

She gleaned from talking to Anastasi and then to former colleagues after she left that while the promised I-30 hires remain on hold, permission to fill several other positions had just been approved.

That was a relief. “It’s not The New York Times.” she said, “but I’ve dedicated most of my career to community journalism — they need to be served too.” Her choice to raise a fuss seems to have achieved at least part of her objective. But Leach won’t be around at Gannett for the next chapters.

Opinion | Gannett fires editor for talking to Poynter, and other media news

Firing a single mother of three who was speaking up for more newsroom resources is a horrible look that deserves scrutiny and criticism.

Donald Trump repeated inaccurate claims on the economy in a local news interview in Pennsylvania

Trump repeated a bevy of inaccurate claims about the economy during an interview with WGAL-TV, a Lancaster, Pennsylvania, station

Opinion | Kristi Noem’s media headaches now extend to conservative outlets

The South Dakota governor’s past few days have been so bad that she’s canceling on conservative media. Conservative media might soon cancel on her.

Q&A: HBO Max’s new ‘Girls on the Bus’ set out to show a cool, fun side of journalism

Former New York Times reporter and show co-creator Amy Chozick on how fact inspired fiction, pitfalls she avoided and today’s media environment

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How to Write the “Make Community a Better Place” UC Essay

This article was written based on the information and opinions presented by Vinay Bhaskara in a CollegeVine livestream. You can watch the full livestream for more info. 

What’s Covered:

Defining “community”, demonstrating your values.

The University of California system requires you to answer four out of eight essay prompts . The seventh University of California prompt asks, “What have you done to make your school or your community a better place?” For a lot of people, a key to unlocking this essay is to think about defining “community” effectively.

Communities Come in All Sizes

Many people reading this prompt might think they should talk about something they did to make a positive impact in their town or their school. But your community does not need to be defined as something as large as your whole school or whole neighborhood. It can be as small as a club or a class, or even a friend group, all of which are communities to some extent.

Consider Virtual Communities

Don’t be afraid to even talk about a virtual community in answering this essay prompt. For so many of us these days, the communities we find and belong to are virtual, whether it’s a Reddit forum or Twitch chat, the comments section of a YouTuber you really like, a Discord server, or something along those lines. Not enough students write about virtual communities relative to how much time we all spend in them, so if you’ve done something to make a virtual environment a better place, that is absolutely valuable material for this essay prompt. 

Be sure to highlight your personal connection to the community you write about and your motivations for the actions you took to improve it.

Another important consideration in writing this essay is demonstrating your values and how you upheld them through your actions. You’ll also want to mention the positive impact your actions had, but be careful not to spend too much time in this area. Describing the positive impact you had is important, but you don’t want to take up too much of the word count with this. 

As an example, say you’re writing about social justice, perhaps a change you drove in your school to promote inclusivity. An essay that focuses too strongly on the impact of your actions isn’t going to be as powerful as an essay that mentions the impacts, but focuses more on your personal motivations. Instead of emphasizing how your actions improved your community, emphasize why you felt motivated to make those improvements. 

This is important because, with this essay, you’re not just answering the prompt. You’re also answering the underlying questions of how you define your community, how you relate to it, and how capable you are of having an impact on those around you. 

Colleges want to figure out whether an applicant will be a positive contributor to their community. This essay prompt is much more about your personal character than it is about the outcomes of your efforts. In answering this prompt, you’ll be demonstrating how you’ll fit in with and improve the community at your school of choice.

For more information on how to write responses for the other UC essays, consider reading  this article  on CollegeVine!

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Computer Science > Computation and Language

Title: deepseek-v2: a strong, economical, and efficient mixture-of-experts language model.

Abstract: We present DeepSeek-V2, a strong Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) language model characterized by economical training and efficient inference. It comprises 236B total parameters, of which 21B are activated for each token, and supports a context length of 128K tokens. DeepSeek-V2 adopts innovative architectures including Multi-head Latent Attention (MLA) and DeepSeekMoE. MLA guarantees efficient inference through significantly compressing the Key-Value (KV) cache into a latent vector, while DeepSeekMoE enables training strong models at an economical cost through sparse computation. Compared with DeepSeek 67B, DeepSeek-V2 achieves significantly stronger performance, and meanwhile saves 42.5% of training costs, reduces the KV cache by 93.3%, and boosts the maximum generation throughput to 5.76 times. We pretrain DeepSeek-V2 on a high-quality and multi-source corpus consisting of 8.1T tokens, and further perform Supervised Fine-Tuning (SFT) and Reinforcement Learning (RL) to fully unlock its potential. Evaluation results show that, even with only 21B activated parameters, DeepSeek-V2 and its chat versions still achieve top-tier performance among open-source models.

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