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6 Awesome Yale University Essay Examples

What’s covered:.

• Essay 1: Immigration Reform  
• Essay 2: Artificial Intelligence
• Essay 3: Shaping Education Systems
• Essay 4: Biomechanics
• Essay 5: Why This Major
• Essay 6: Why Yale
• Where to Get Your Yale Essays Edited  

Yale is one of the top universities in the country, and a member of the prestigious Ivy League. Earning a spot at this highly coveted university is no easy feat, but having strong essays is one step in the right direction.

In this post, we will share six essays real students have submitted to Yale. We will also be covering what each essay did well and where there is room for improvement. Hopefully, you will have a better idea of how to write your Yale essays after reading through these!

Please note: Looking at examples of real essays students have submitted to colleges can be very beneficial to get inspiration for your essays. You should never copy or plagiarize from these examples when writing your own essays. Colleges can tell when an essay isn’t genuine and will not view students favorably if they plagiarized. 

Read our Yale essay breakdown to get a comprehensive overview of this year’s supplemental prompts.

Essay #1: Immigration Reform

Prompt: Yale students, faculty, and alumni engage issues of local, national, and international importance. Discuss an issue that is significant to you and how your college experience could help you address it. (250 words)

A chaotic sense of sickness and filth unfolds in an overcrowded border station in McAllen, Texas. Through soundproof windows, migrants motion that they have not showered in weeks and children wear clothes caked in mucus and tears. The humanitarian crisis at the southern border exists not only in photographs published by mainstream media, but miles from my home in South Texas.

As a daughter of immigrants, I have heard countless stories of migrants being turned away by a country they desperately seek to love. After seeing the abhorrent conditions migrants face upon arriving in the U.S., I began volunteering with Loaves and Fishes, an organization that shelters and provides necessities to undocumented immigrants. This year, my experiences collecting donations and working at pop-up soup kitchens have made me realize that the communities in South Texas promote true American values of freedom and opportunity. The U.S. government, however, must do better.

During my university career, I aspire to learn how our immigration system can be positively reformed by considering the politics and economics that shape policy-making. Particularly, classes such as Institutional Design and Institutional Change will prepare me to effect change in existing institutions by analyzing various methods to bolster the economy. 

Additionally, I hope to join the Yale Refugee Project that volunteers at the southern border and prepares asylum cases for court. With the numerous opportunities offered by YRP, I will be part of a generation of activists and lawmakers that builds a more empathetic immigration system.

What the Essay Did Well

This essay draws its strength from its roots in the applicant’s personal experience and its connections to Yale-specific opportunities. Here, we learn a bit about the applicant’s story, values, and fit for Yale, all well-encapsulated within the 250-count word limit. 

The essay starts off with a fantastic imagery-rich anecdote, a strong way to draw your reader in. The student quickly establishes not only the problem’s dire extent but also a personal connection; this issue resides in her own backyard. Here, she establishes that immigrant mistreatment is more than a faraway crisis to her, offering crucial background behind her passion for it.

Her attitude towards getting things done is evident through her concise writing. She succinctly describes the steps she has taken like “ volunteering with Loaves and Fishes ” and “ collecting donations and working at pop-up soup kitchens. ” She then goes on to plainly explain the classes and organization at Yale that closely align with her goals, making it quite easy to imagine the role she would play on campus. Being concise and intentional with your ideas maintains the reader’s interest as they grow to trust that each sentence will carry interesting content that differs from that within the sentence before it.

This essay is wise in that it honed in on very specific opportunities at Yale that align perfectly with the student’s passions. Notice how YRP’s mission mirrors that of Loaves and Fishes in their shared goal to better southern immigrant communities. YRM’s opportunities for helping immigrants through the world of law offer an almost “grown-up” version of the work this student has already completed; here, she shows a willingness to build upon her experience and to push herself even further.

What Could Be Improved

If there is one area of this essay that could be strengthened, it is the conclusion. As the word count is tight, this student doesn’t have space for an entire paragraph, so at the moment she used this sentence: “ With the numerous opportunities offered by YRP, I will be part of a generation of activists and lawmakers that builds a more empathetic immigration system. ” 

This sentence is more a conclusion for her discussion about the Yale Refugee Project, although alluding to a “generation of activists and lawmakers” and building a “more empathetic immigration system” suggests a forward-looking conclusion statement. That being said, it could be made stronger by separating the conclusion from the Yale Refugee Project and possibly tying back to previous ideas like the situation at the border or her call for the government to improve. 

Essay #2: Artificial Intelligence

Prompt: Think about an idea or topic that has been intellectually exciting for you. Why are you drawn to it? (250 words) 

Her name is Sophia. Described by many as compassionate, sexy, and a witty twitter icon, Sophia embodies success and holds a level of intelligence humans can only dream of. Sophia is not your average girl. In fact, she’s not a girl at all. Created in an artificial intelligence lab in Hong Kong, Sophia is the most famous android in the world. 

When I first read about Sophia the Robot and its apparent ability to feel emotions, I was intrigued yet perplexed. For years, A.I. has revolutionized technology, enabling tasks to be performed rapidly and skillfully. But the single characteristic I long believed separated humans and A.I. was humans’ ability to express emotions. Today, with emotional A.I. undergoing expeditious development, I find myself wondering what actually makes us human. Can only humans have a mind with consciousness and thought? Will machines be able to imitate the human mind or can they perceive emotions only through algorithms? How do humans learn to feel emotions? What is the mind? 

As a philosophy enthusiast, I am fascinated by the potential for A.I. to recreate the human mind. From Descartes postulating that the mind is identified by a self-awareness to early monists arguing that the mind is a purely physical construct, philosophical theories seek to understand the mysterious minds of humans that science cannot fully explain. In college, I hope to study the Philosophy of Mind and Artificial Intelligence in order to better understand our minds and the technology that is increasingly resembling them. 

This is an amazing essay because not only do we see this student’s fascination with AI, but we see the effect it has had on their outlook on the world. By the end of the essay we are left wondering “what is the topic that intellectually excites this student?” Is it AI or the philosophy of the mind? Seamlessly intertwining these two topics is quite impressive.  

So how did this student convince us of their fascination for two ideas? They showed us. Although they tell us “ I was intrigue d” about AI, we see their interest in their discussion of Sophia. Describing Sophia as “ compassionate, sexy, and a witty twitter icon ” makes the AI appear on a pedestal. Using cliche phrases like “ Sophia is not your average girl ” emulates a discussion you would have about a real person you are in love with, which becomes all the more humorous when we are told right after Sophia isn’t human. 

While this student employs descriptive writing, humorous cliches, and subverted expectations to demonstrate their fascination with AI, we see their interest in philosophy through the use of rhetorical questions. Similarly with the topic of AI, the student plainly states their interest in philosophy by referring to themself as a “ philosophy enthusiast. ” But we see that enthusiasm jump off the page when they ask four consecutive philosophical questions. Bringing the reader into their head is such an effective way to convey your inner-most thoughts without losing the reader’s attention. We are a part of this inquiry and suddenly become just as curious to the answers as the student is.

Through these varied writing techniques—another way to keep your essay interesting—both of this student’s fascinations are well-represented. The last line brings everything together in a neat package, explaining how they can explore both topics as one in college.

There is honestly very little this essay needs to improve upon, but one suggestion would be to include Sophia in the latter half of the essay. Since Sophia epitomizes the fusion of AI and the human mind, this is such a perfect symbol for this student. Adding a rhetorical question about Sophia (ie “ Does anything separate me from Sophia? “) or referencing their hope to understand Sophia’s role in humanity after a Yale education in the conclusion would be easy ways to keep the idea sustained throughout the essay. 

Essay #3: Shaping Education Systems

Each time we handed homework back, our primary school students would anxiously start counting and comparing the number of corrections. The warning that “ a mistake on the Gaokao will cost you thousands of places to your dream university! ” had already been drilled into their heads. 

The combined efforts of generous government spending and unreserved sacrifices of parents have guaranteed education for most Chinese children. After two summers of teaching English in rural Chinese schools, I’ve realised that the problem isn’t funding, but a redundant system.

My friend and I founded Project Take Flight to propose learning driven by curiosity rather than pressure, earned by exploring rather than memorising. After two weeks with quirky essay prompts, vocab games, improvised debates and a lesson titled ”How to Fail”, students’ creativity flowed and the stigma of making mistakes seemed forgotten.

But there’s a limit to the impact of two high-school students; education systems around the world need nation-wide policies that do not just provide the resources but also ensure they are used effectively. Putting students in school might equip us with the skills necessary in the “world of tomorrow”, but education at its best – the type I hope to experience at Yale – enables us to have a say in what that world will look like. I want to understand the processes of curricula development and policymaking through taking courses in Educational Studies alongside my major so I can contribute to shaping an education system where every student can learn for causes greater than themselves.

The prompt asks for an issue that is significant to you, and this student certainly did that! Although education reform is a fairly general topic on its own, the focus is on the work this student has done through the club they founded and the problems they have observed because of their hands-on experience. This is a good example of making a broad idea personal and therefore successful.

The student is able to show the difference between the traditional education system and the innovative approach they implemented with concrete examples. The mantra they include about every mistake affecting your chances of college echoes the sentiments of stressed high school students, but the fact it has been adopted by kids in primary school is this student’s way of demonstrating how broken the system is. They contrast the old with the new by showing how they made learning fun and stress-free with “ q uirky essay prompts, vocab games, improvised debates and a lesson titled ‘How to Fail’ .”

Although this essay hints at how this student wants to reform the education system, we are largely provided with very little about their actual plans. We have seen their ingenuity at starting Project Take Flight in high school, but we want to know how they will expand on their passion with a Yale education.

Rather than telling us “ I want to understand the processes of curricula development and policymaking through taking courses in Educational Studies, ” this student should have 1) included more resources at Yale and 2) described their idea to improve the education system. Admissions officers know you are young and can’t accomplish much yet, but they also know you have dreams—tell us about them!

Something like this would have accomplished both point more effectively: “ I want Project Take Flight to spread its wings and touch students all over the globe. Through the course Money in American Politics I will learn the tools needed to lobby Congress to adopt a student-focused curriculum. Working under Professor Nancy Close, I will acquire an expertise in child psychology to reform my proposed curriculum to best suit the needs of children from the New York city public schools to the rural villages of China that started it all.”

Essay #4: Biomechanics

Prompt: Yale’s extensive course offerings and vibrant conversations beyond the classroom encourage students to follow their developing intellectual interests wherever they lead. Tell us about your engagement with a topic or idea that excites you. Why are you drawn to it? (250 words)

My heel strikes the pavement, calf muscles flexed to brace for the mechanical load of the impact. As my weight shifts forward, I imagine horizontal velocity vectors extending directly ahead. The angle created by my knee increases as I hit the propulsion phase of my stride, and with a final drive of force, I push off from my forefoot.

I discovered my fascination with sports biomechanics in the USC Biomechanics Research Lab. In my research project, I apply scientific principles to running to prevent stress-induced injuries in athletes. By analyzing video frames of PAC-12 athletes in motion and linking them to force plate data, I seek to understand the forces behind running. Comparing these conclusions to the data of athletes after a stress fracture, I can deduce the tangible differences that increase susceptibility to injury. To accomplish this goal, I have learned to use Python and MATLAB to sync the video and force plate data to create graphs for analysis. I have also used sports analysis programs to identify the locations of joints in individual frames and create videos overlaid by force vectors. Through this work, I hope to use my passion for sports biomechanics to improve the health of athletes.

My interest in sports biomechanics also extends outside of the lab, where I see my knowledge in motion. Neighborhood runs are scientific feats where I analyze my movements with principles of physics. With every step, I seek to improve my performance, putting sports biomechanics into action as an athlete.

This is a very detailed essay that is able to convey complex academic ideas in a manner that is easily understood by the reader. Not only that, but the high level of detail also demonstrates the passion this student has for sports biometrics.

Right off the bat, the hook at the beginning brings a high level of energy and excitement to the essay: “ My heel strikes the pavement, calf muscles flexed. ” However, the introduction isn’t just for sheer shock value; they introduce the intellectual aspect of running. Details about “ horizontal velocity vectors ,” the “ angle created by my knee ,” and the “ propulsion phase ” immediately demonstrate the depth of knowledge this student has.

Their intellect only grows in the second paragraph with the multitude of details they use to describe their research project. Breaking down their process step-by-step allows the reader to appreciate all this student has accomplished, even if we know nothing about sports biometrics. We walk away from this essay blown away with this student’s abilities and a clear understanding of their intellectual vitality. 

This essay does an excellent job explaining how this student has explored their passion for sports biometrics, but a key detail is missing: why are they passionate about it.

They tell us about how their goal of pursuing sports biometrics is to “ prevent stress-induced injuries in athletes, ” but how did this become this student’s purpose? Maybe this student sustained an injury when they were younger that prevented them from playing for two seasons and made them feel like they had lost a part of themselves. That would have made a great introductory anecdote. Or perhaps organization is a cornerstone of their personality which led them to fall in love with charts and data analysis and sports biometrics allows them to combine the thrill of sports with their detail-oriented side. Whatever the reason is, this essay needed to include details that demonstrate why this student chose sports biometrics.

Essay #5: Why This Major 

Prompt: Why do these areas appeal to you? (Biomedical Engineering; Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology; Neuroscience) (125 words)

Tearing past layers of wrapping paper, I blink twice at the box in my hands: The Squishy Human Body. Little did I know that this strange seventh birthday gift would inspire a curiosity in biology and a desire to pursue medicine. Snapping open the plastic head, I would seek to understand the brain’s inner workings. Squeezing the rubber heart would turn into countless questions about the molecular properties of its tissues. Using the tweezers to remove the small intestine, I would perform my own surgeries, each time with improved equipment that I designed to fit the patient’s needs. I hope to continue my exploration of biology at Yale, working to understand functions on a cellular level while applying my knowledge to the field of medicine.

While this essay is short and sweet, it works! Focusing on a singular moment in time, a singular object, allows this student to tell us a lot about their passion for biology and medicine in a very limited amount of space.

The reader is taken on a journey through the human body—via the toy—and at each stop along the way we learn another detail about the student. This is a clever way to convey information, especially when you are tight on words. Using symbols and giving each sentence a specific focus helps the reader quickly take away the main point so we finish the essay feeling like we’ve learned a great deal about what this student wants to learn and do with their degree.

Additionally, this essay is a breezy read because of the use of action verbs keeping the reader in the moment. The repeated structure of beginning sentences with -ing verbs (“Tearing,” “Snapping,” “Squeezing,” “Using,” etc) suggests that these actions are currently taking pace. This is a nice trick to draw your reader in without wasting any space.

This essay could be even better if it told us more about this student in detail. Using the head, heart, and intestine as symbols for what they will learn and do in the future good, but including concrete details would make it great. We could see research projects they conducted, volunteer work at a hospital they engaged in, or clubs that they joined at school to demonstrate their hands-on experience with medicine. The whole point of  The Squishy Human Body is to give kids hands-on experience, so let’s see it!

Reworking sentences to be more like these would have made the essay stronger: “ Snapping open the plastic head, I found the brain I performed countless CT scans on to locate tumors. Squeezing the rubber heart, I see my report on addressing high rates of female cardiovascular disease.”

Essay #6: Why Yale

Prompt: What is it about Yale that has led you to apply? (125 words or fewer)

Coin collector and swimmer. Hungarian and Romanian. Critical and creative thinker. I was drawn to Yale because they don’t limit one’s mind with “or” but rather embrace unison with “and.” 

Wandering through the Beinecke Library, I prepare for my multidisciplinary Energy Studies capstone about the correlation between hedonism and climate change, making it my goal to find implications in environmental sociology. Under the tutelage of Assistant Professor Arielle Baskin-Sommers, I explore the emotional deficits of depression, utilizing neuroimaging to scrutinize my favorite branch of psychology: human perception. At Walden Peer Counseling, I integrate my peer support and active listening skills to foster an empathetic environment for the Yale community. Combining my interests in psychological and environmental studies is why I’m proud to be a Bulldog. 

A strength of this essay is how it acts like this student is actively a student at Yale, subconsciously tricking the reader into thinking that they belong. While many students in a “ Why School? ” essay say things like “ I want to ” or “ I would “, being quite literal in the sense they are viewing attending Yale as a future possibility. However, this student employs present verbs and specific locations to make Yale a current reality, for example: “ Wandering through the Beinecke Library, I prepare for my multidisciplinary Energy Studies capstone. ” While this approach requires more confidence, it can help you stand out from other applicants who approach Yale as a hypothetical.

Another positive aspect is how this student explains what Yale resource they are taking advantage of and how they will benefit from/contribute to it. Incorporating both of these is what gives your “Why School?” essay meaning. Admissions officers need to see you have done your research and found opportuniites that relate to you, but they also want to see what you will do on campus and beyond. This student applies this method of description to a class, professor, and organization to thoroughly demonstrate how Yale uniquely aligns with their goals.

One issue with this essay is it tries to cover too much, ultimately leaving many things unsaid. Take the introduction for example. While the notion of embracing “and” not “or” is a good way to demonstrate all the possibilities they can pursue at Yale, this student shares details about themselves that pique the reader’s interest, but unfortunately aren’t expanded on. We want to know about their coin collection and their Hungarian and Romanian roots, but they are never referenced again.

Although the Yale opportunities are slightly more focused around the idea of the environment and psychology, the essay lacks a clear link between the two topics until the last sentence. This makes the essay feel disjointed and overwhelming for the reader because we can’t process how all of this information relates.

To overcome this issue, the student could present the idea of the environment and psychology as their end at the very beginning, cutting out the other identities they present. Not only would this make the entire essay more streamlined, it would make the second paragraph far more manageable because the reader would go into knowing this student’s two interests. Yes, some interesting facts would need to be sacrificed, but when you only have 125 words you need to prioritize the main idea of your essay.

Where to Get Your Yale  Essays Edited

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

If you want a college admissions expert to review your essay, advisors on CollegeVine have helped students refine their writing and submit successful applications to top schools. Find the right advisor for you to improve your chances of getting into your dream school!

Related CollegeVine Blog Posts

• EXPLORE Random Article

How to Choose a Topic for a Yale Law School Admissions Essay

Last Updated: July 25, 2022 References

This article was co-authored by Clinton M. Sandvick, JD, PhD . Clinton M. Sandvick worked as a civil litigator in California for over 7 years. He received his JD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1998 and his PhD in American History from the University of Oregon in 2013. There are 9 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been viewed 30,100 times.

Yale Law School (YLS) requires applicants to submit a 250-word essay on a topic of the applicant's choice. The 250-word essay, also called the 'Yale 250' or simply 'The 250', gives members of the YLS admissions committee a chance to assess the applicant's writing and analytical abilities and gives them a peek into the applicant's character and intellectual passions. [1] X Research source The YLS application also requires a personal statement, which should not be confused with the 250-word essay. Your YLS personal statement is meant to highlight those aspects of your background that you feel may be of interest to the admissions committee and, in particular, those aspects that may not be evident from the rest of your application. [2] X Research source Whereas the potential topics about which you can write your personal statement are limited to your background, the field from which to choose the topic of your 250-word essay is much wider. Applicants may, therefore, find themselves wondering what the admissions committee is looking for in The 250 and what topic to write about. [3] X Research source

Knowing What to Write

• One potential topic is to write about a policy argument. A policy argument is an argument that advocates adopting a legal rule because of the benefit that it will bestow upon society or rejecting a legal rule because of the harm that it will cause to society. [9] X Research source Writing about a particular policy argument that you care about is a great way to showcase your lawyerly writing skills.
• An example of a policy argument essay would be to take one side in the two sides of the debate as to whether a psychiatrist has a duty to warn potential victims of a mentally-disabled patient of hers. [10] X Research source Policy arguments can come into play from both sides in this case. Potential victims of such patients can argue that public safety requires that the law impose such a duty on the psychiatrist, while the psychiatrist could make the policy argument that imposing such a duty would undermine the psychiatrist-client relationship and would prevent the psychiatrist from providing proper medical care to her patient or client. [11] X Research source If you choose this topic for your 250-word essay, choose one side of this or a similar policy debate and persuasively make your case as to why you support the particular side of the debate that you do.
• You can also write about something more personal, like a hobby or passion or anecdote. The field from which you can choose your topic for The 250 is wide, and there is no reason not to write about personal anecdotes or hobbies, so long as your essay still demonstrates your ability to write persuasively and reason logically. [12] X Research source

Knowing What Not to Write

• Members of the admissions committee will not look kindly upon applicants whose essays exceed the word limit. Ignoring the word limit suggests to them that you did not read the instructions, you do not know how to use the word counter on your computer, or, worse, you are trying to “mock” the faculty who came up with this application requirement. [15] X Research source
• Know that prepositions, definite articles, and indefinite articles all count as words for the purposes of the word limit. [16] X Research source

• Ask a friend or family member to read your essay. [18] X Research source Others can often catch mistakes that you might yourself miss.
• Note that the spell-checker in your word-processor will not catch such mistakes as writing “untied” instead of “united” and writing “affect” instead of “effect.” [19] X Research source

• By writing information in your 250-word essay that really belongs in an Addendum (which you are allowed to submit), you are missing the opportunity to showcase your ability to reason, write, and edit, which are skills that the admissions committee is really looking for in The 250. [24] X Research source
• Writing in the 250-word essay about why you wish to attend YLS is also a mistake because the admissions committee members already know a great deal about YLS. Writing about why you want to attend YLS will not give them the chance to assess your writing, reading, and editing ability, all lawyerly skills that The 250 is designed to test. [25] X Research source

Writing the Essay

• E.g. if you see two back to back sentences such as, “Herons live in the northern United States. Herons live in most of Canada,” your reader will need to know what the connection is between these two sentences. [31] X Research source Steven Pinker, The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century (Viking 2014) p. 161.
• You can attempt to make a connection by using words like “and,” “similarly,” and “likewise” to indicate a connection between those two sentences. [32] X Research source Steven Pinker, The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century (Viking 2014) p. 161.
• Making connections in this way will help you meet the all important goal of presenting your Yale 250 as a piece of coherent prose.

Expert Q&A

• Be open to starting over. With only 250 words, it's easy to get stuck on a single idea. However, it's rare that your first idea will be perfect. Don't be afraid to wipe the slate clean and completely rewrite. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

You Might Also Like

• ↑ http://www.law.yale.edu/admissions/firstyearapplication.htm
• ↑ http://www.law.yale.edu/admissions/18913.htm
• ↑ https://info.legalsolutions.thomsonreuters.com/pdf/perspec/2001-winter/winter-2001-5.pdf
• ↑ http://scholarship.law.umt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2179&context=mlr
• ↑ Eugene Volokh, Academic Legal Writing (3rd ed. Foundation Press, 2007) p. 39
• ↑ http://www.law.yale.edu/admissions/19217.htm
• ↑ William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White, The Elements of Style (4th ed. Pearson, 2000) p. 23.
• ↑ Steven Pinker, The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century (Viking 2014) Chapter 5.
• ↑ Steven Pinker, The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century (Viking 2014) p. 161.

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Why Yale Essay Examples

Why yale essay examples – introduction.

Are you wondering how to get into Yale? If you’re planning on filling out a Yale application, then you are probably searching for some Why Yale essay examples to help you begin drafting your Yale essay prompts.

Any college applicant will be familiar with supplemental essays and personal statements . But what about the “Why Yale” essay? By reading some Why Yale essay examples, you can get a sense of what’s worked for past applicants.

Before we dig into our Why Yale essay examples, let’s take a quick look at the facts. Yale University is an elite institution located in New Haven, Connecticut. It consistently ranks among the top U.S. universities alongside schools like Harvard and Princeton. Correspondingly, the Yale acceptance rate sits at just 5% as of 2022.

With the Yale acceptance rate so low, you’ll want to maximize your chances of getting in. That’s where our Why Yale essay examples come in. When considering how to get into Yale, arguably the heart of the Yale application is the Yale supplemental essays. And among the Yale supplemental essays, the “Why Yale” essay is especially important. In this article, we’ll read some “Why Yale” essay examples and discuss parts of those Yale essays that worked.

Yale Supplemental Essay Requirements

There are several different Yale supplemental essays, ranging from 35 to 400 words. In fact, the Yale essay prompts may be better divided into short answers and actual essays. The Yale supplemental essays required will vary based on how you submit your Yale application: through the QuestBridge, Common, or Coalition Application. Those completing a Yale application through the Common and Coalition Applications have a few additional Yale supplemental essays.

Also, the Yale essay prompts can change from year to year. In recent application cycles , all applicants have had to write three Yale supplemental essays, including the Why Yale essay. Furthermore, Yale applications through the Common and Coalition Applications present four additional short answer questions and a 400-word essay.

Yale Supplemental Essay Prompts

Although we’re focusing on Why Yale essay examples in this guide, you should know the Yale essay prompts from the several application cycles. The following three Yale supplemental essays required of everyone are:

Yale Supplemental Essay Requirements- Short Essays

• Students at Yale have time to explore their academic interests before committing to one or more major fields of study. Many students either modify their original academic direction or change their minds entirely. As of this moment, what academic areas seem to fit your interests or goals most comfortably? Please indicate up to three from the list provided.
• Tell us about a topic or idea that excites you and is related to one or more academic areas you selected above. Why are you drawn to it? (200 words or fewer)
• What is it about Yale that has led you to apply? (125 words or fewer)

In addition, Common Application and Coalition Application users must answer the following in up to 200 characters (about 35 words):

Yale Supplemental Essay Requirements- Short Answers

• What inspires you?
• You are teaching a new Yale course. What is it called?
• Yale’s residential colleges regularly host conversations with guests representing a wide range of experiences and accomplishments. What person, past or present, would you invite to speak? What would you ask them to discuss?
• What is something about you that is not included anywhere else in your application?

Finally, Common Application and Coalition Application users must answer one of the following in fewer than 400 words :

Additional Yale essay requirements for Common App and Coalition App

• Yale carries out its mission “through the free exchange of ideas in an ethical, interdependent, and diverse community.” Reflect on a time when you exchanged ideas about an important issue with someone holding an opposing view. How did the experience lead you either to change your opinion or to sharpen your reasons for holding onto it?
• 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.

If you find yourself nervously staring at these prompts and at the Yale acceptance rate , don’t worry! We’re here to help. For a more detailed guide on some Yale supplemental essays, check out our guide from last year (2021). Keep in mind that some prompts are different, however, the key points are the same.

Furthermore, while other Yale essay prompts may come and go, there’s always a “Why Yale” essay. As you tackle this prompt, looking at some Why Yale essay examples can be helpful.

The “Why Yale” essay examples we’ll see later are from past application cycles. As a result, the Yale essay prompts may be worded a bit differently. In any case, you can still use the Why Yale essay examples we present in this guide as a model as you begin crafting your Yale supplemental essays for this year.

While the Yale essays may change from year to year, there are certain things you should come to expect from the overall application process. Take our quiz to find out just how much you know about college admissions!

Does Yale have a “Why Yale” Essay?

For those wondering how to get into Yale, you’ll obviously ask if there’s a “Why Yale” essay. The answer may or may not surprise you… yes, there is! There is a “Why Yale” essay, and it’s a crucial part of any Yale application. Ideally, you noticed it among the essay prompts above. What is it about Yale that has led you to apply? No more than 125 words. Easy, right?

If your heart is hammering in your chest, take a deep breath. A “Why School” essay is essentially saying , “I know about your school, and we’re a great fit.” The “Why Yale” essay is a chance to show the Yale admissions committee that you’re ready and willing. That you’ve done your research on Yale and know that you’re the kind of student Yale looks for. And, more importantly, that Yale is a match for you and your values.

Yale essays that worked added depth to the personal narrative , connecting the writer and their background with the school. After all, you’re more than your GPA : beyond just academics, why did this school make your list ? In the course of evaluating universities, why did Yale stand out? Think beyond the Yale acceptance rate and ranking —why do you want to enroll at Yale? You can show some part of yourself that isn’t anywhere else on your Yale application.

Now, let’s look at how to get into Yale with a knockout “Why Yale” essay. First up, we have some “Why Yale” essay examples. Following each, we’ll look at parts of these “Why Yale” essays that worked.

Why Yale Essay Examples Version #1

Let’s start with the obvious “Why Yale” essay examples. That is to say, “Why Yale” essay examples that answer the classic “Why School” essay prompts. These Yale essay prompts directly ask for something like these “Why Yale” essay examples in several ways:

• Why Yale and not any other school?
• What about Yale appeals to you?
• What is it about Yale that led you to apply?

As we’ll see, these “Why Yale” essay examples go beyond facts and figures from the Yale admissions website. Like all Yale essays that worked, they are both specific and personal in their points. Expressing personal stake in concrete details shows the Yale admissions team that you already see yourself in Yale.

Why Yale Essay Examples #1: No Need to Name-Drop

At Yale, I would be able to immerse myself in interests I harbored but never had the opportunity to explore. With incredible resources from some of the best professors in the country, I would be able to learn directly from the best and use this advantage to further myself in my future career plans and goals. The quality of my education, though attributed to the institution, would be the most highly enriched from the students. Although from diverse backgrounds, all the students share the same thirst for knowledge and drive to make a difference. Having such classmates will push me to reach my highest potential and as a result, increase my vitality in any field of work or practice.

Why This Essay Worked

The first of our “Why Yale” essay examples discusses several qualities of Yale’s academic and campus life. Not all Yale essays that worked necessarily name-drop clubs and courses! While yes, it’s usually recommended, you can see from this “Why Yale” essay that it’s not always required. Note that this “Why Yale” essay focuses on community and how Yale’s environment will support their future. Looking at the big picture is usually a good thing in Yale supplemental essays.

Effective “Why Yale” essay examples reference certain aspects of the university that interest the author. This writer clearly values education and community: not only professors, but also fellow students will enrich their learning. Despite the low Yale acceptance rate, the campus is incredibly diverse. Yale essays that worked demonstrated an understanding of Yale’s core value of diversity, not just rigorous academics.

Why Yale Essay Examples #2: Painting a Picture

No problem in this world can be solved by a single person: whole communities are what drive innovative solutions. Thus, what draws me to Yale is its research opportunities and collaborative community. Whether it’s the STARS II program, Women in Science at Yale, Yale Scientific Magazine, or peer mentoring, the prospect of extending my research experience while collaborating with my peers in Yale’s scientific community seems very fulfilling.

I find myself excited by the opportunities Yale has to join communities that can impact campus and beyond. I’m particularly intrigued by the Yale College Council, Yale Arab Students Association, Yale Refugee Project, and Women’s Leadership Initiative. I’m excited by the prospect of joining the academically-driven, collaborative, and passionate community of Bulldogs at Yale.

On the flip side, some Yale essays that worked go all in with naming particular offerings at Yale. This can also make for a great “Why School” essay; it shows you’ve dug deep in your research. With that said, you have to be strategic in reeling off clubs and courses.

Now, look more closely at this “Why Yale” essay. What can you infer about the author from the facets of Yale they chose to highlight? We know they are interested in science, identify as a woman, and want to mentor others. Furthermore, we can see they identify as Arab and are interested in working with refugees.

Although this writer doesn’t say exactly how they identify or want to study, the reader still gets it. That is to say, we understand how the author’s background influences how they’ll participate in campus life. If you’re struggling to include all these amazing things at Yale in your Why Yale essay, follow this example! By being very intentional with the interests you write about, you can still paint a full picture.

From a structural perspective, this “Why Yale” essay works well by connecting the introduction and conclusion. Yale essays that worked sometimes close the loop by addressing a similar point at the beginning and end. These “Why Yale” essay examples will be tied up in a neat package that leaves an impression on the reader. Like most things, this structure isn’t strictly required, but it can definitely strengthen “Why Yale” essay examples.

Why Yale Essay Examples #3: It’s the Little Things

Following my time volunteering for a mental health charity, the Cognition and Development Lab, amusingly nicknamed the Panda Lab, piques my interest with research like that of one Yale professor concerning mental disorders and depression among children. I am fascinated with the connection of biology and behavior. Among students, academic competition seems deemphasized; undergrads instead emphasize their connections forged, for example, through acapella groups like Proof of Pudding (I Won’t Say I’m in Love a favorite of mine from Hercules). Finally, the Residential College system is reminiscent of my high school magnet program’s Harry Potter House sorting – but Yale’s includes College Teas! 

The third of our “Why Yale” essay examples is perhaps a bit more typical. There’s a bit of the writer’s resume in the opening line about volunteering. That experience flows into the writer’s academic interests and a professor’s research area—and the lab’s nickname. From there, this “Why Yale” essay seamlessly swivels to non-academic offerings, specifically a capella. In particular, the author indicates they’ve researched the group, too, by naming an arrangement they liked. The conclusion ties the author’s school with Yale’s residential system.

Like our other Why Yale essay examples, this essay highlights particular details about Yale’s programs. It’s clear from the little details of this “Why Yale” essay that the author has really done their research. They point out the Panda Lab’s cute nickname, a particular a capella performance, and College Teas. Above all, they’re not just thrown in there; these details connect logically with the writer’s interests and pursuits.

Our Why Yale essay examples also aren’t all the same. You can paint in broad strokes with campus culture or intense spots of color with groups meaningful to you. There are as many Yale essays that worked as there are admitted students . How you approach your “Why Yale” essay is up to you and your reading of the “Why Yale” essay prompts. But did you know another one of the Yale essay prompts is a second “Why Yale” essay in disguise?

Why Yale Essay Examples Version #2

Take another look at that list of Yale essay prompts. Aside from the obvious “Why Yale” essay prompt, another is subtly asking for a kind of “Why Yale” essay. Can you find it?  If you picked the second one, you’re correct!

Tell us about a topic or idea that excites you and is related to one or more academic areas you selected [in the first prompt]. Why are you drawn to it?

What? This? A “Why School” essay? Well, not exactly.

This and similar Yale essay prompts ask about an academic interest, so they aren’t typical “Why School” essays. But they are asking, secretly, how you’ll pursue that thing at Yale. Think about it as a “Why Major” essay with an opportunity to answer “Why School” as well. For this essay prompt, you select a subject you’re interested in on your Yale application. The very next question asks not simply why you’re interested, but how you might pursue it at Yale and beyond. In other words, why do you want to explore these areas at Yale?

With that said, let’s look at some more Yale essays that worked for different Yale essay prompts. Namely, “Why Yale” essay examples that talk about academic interests. Again, these past prompts were slightly different—their word limit was 100 words, not 200.

More Why Yale Essay Examples

Why yale essay examples #4: solving big problems.

I’m fascinated by the chemical processes that drive life, which has led me to find opportunities to gain hands-on research experience. Biochemical sciences provide an explanation for disease-driven problems as well as the capacity to find creative solutions for these problems. For all four years of high school, I performed biochemical research at various labs. Ultimately, these experiences helped my find my passion for applying biochemistry and the scientific method to problems we face, whether it’s hunger or leukemia. Through biochemical sciences, I hope to continue to tackle the biggest problems facing humans today using a creative, scientific approach.

Yale essays that worked, regardless of prompt, are as particular as they can be. What do you like, and what do you want to do with it? This author details both their interest in biochemistry and their experience with it. With Yale’s reputation for research, it hardly needs saying that this student will continue their work at Yale.

But when reading Yale essays that worked, you’ll also find a lot of big-picture thinking. How can experiences at Yale help you explore your interests in impactful ways? The second of our “Why Yale” essay examples highlighted work with refugees. The third briefly mentioned mental disorders in children. And this author is clear about their intent to face big problems.

Yale supplemental essays don’t need a 12-Step Plan to End World Hunger. Don’t compare yourself to Why Yale essay examples that seem to solve everything. You can dream big and be vague about how exactly you’ll tackle these issues. What matters in Yale essays that worked was genuine passion for Yale and the doors it’ll open.

Why Yale Essay Examples #5: Personal Aspirations

With plans to attend medical school after my bachelor’s degree, I want to study something that not only interests me, but would come as a great asset in the medical field. Neuroscience and how the brain makes decisions has been a long standing interest for me growing up as a Ugandan moving from place to place. Witnessing the thought processes of people in various locations made me realize that the mind is a complex puzzle that I would like to solve. Combined with an ability to speak multiple languages, communication with patients will be much more efficient and diagnoses accurate.

Of our five “Why Yale” essay examples, this final one is perhaps most specific about future plans. This “Why Yale” essay opens with the writer’s post-grad plans for medical school, which connects with their interest in neuroscience. While not necessarily a make-or-break in “Why Yale” essay examples, post-graduation goals can show Yale admissions that you’re thinking ahead.

This writer also personalizes this “Why Yale” essay by linking their interest in the human mind with their background. Introspection reveals the root of their interest in the mind in their past. Although this kind of reflection isn’t in all Yale essays that worked, it can speak volumes when used appropriately. Remember that Yale essays that worked were personal and show some (or a lot!) of your interests or background. And the best “Why Yale” essay examples relate all of that to Yale and the world at large. 

While this writer doesn’t explicitly mention Yale, it’s clear that they’re interested in complex problems. With their lofty ambitions and dreams of medical school, it’s clear that they want the rigor of Yale. Although this essay is perhaps not a conventional “Why Yale” essay, it’s still effective. It conveys the author’s academic interests and makes clear that Yale’s rigorous academic environment is a good fit.

How do you answer “Why Yale”?

We hope those five “Why Yale” essay examples and our discussion of their strengths were helpful. As you embark on your college application journey and draft essays, it’s always good to refer to essay examples. But remember they’re just a guide—try to find your own voice and style as you respond to Yale essay prompts.

There are endless ways to write “Why Yale” essays, just like there are endless answers to how to get into Yale. Some great Yale essays that worked talk about post-grad goals, while others focus on Yale’s campus life and offerings. Other strong Yale supplemental essays may directly address the writer’s experiences or background. Then again, more implicit mentions of the author’s life might make up other Yale essays that worked.

Even so, there are a few constants in the Why Yale essay examples. Each of the essays had elements that were:

We’re all guilty of copy-pasting a few lines from one essay to another. However, a “Why School” essay is not one you’ll want to copy-paste. When looking at “Why Yale” essays that worked, you’ll usually see several Yale-specific features, courses, and organizations. Yale essays that worked showed Yale admissions that the author knows more than just the Yale acceptance rate. By being specific, you prove that your decision to apply to Yale is well-informed.

The Yale admissions committee wants more than just smart people: they want dynamic, critical thinkers. Good “Why Yale” essay examples show this side. In particular, they illustrate how they’ll contribute both to Yale and to the world. What goals do you have that Yale can help you achieve? How will those goals inform your time on campus and once you’ve graduated? While you don’t have to be super specific about post-grad plans, you should show you’re already thinking ahead.

We know, we know, everyone says this—but it’s true! Firstly, although Yale is indeed a prestigious institution, its programs or campus life may not be for everyone. If you’re only applying because the low Yale acceptance rate obviously means it’s the best school, maybe reconsider. If you’re dead set on studying economics or architecture or business , look for schools strong in that area. 

Secondly, assuming you’ve decided Yale is your dream school , be honest about what excites you. If you want to know how to get into Yale, the answer is to be true to yourself. Don’t try to write about what you think Yale admissions wants to see. They want to see you and your interests!

What other schools have Why School Essays?

Short answer: many!

Long answer: schools like Northwes t ern University , the University of Chicago , and New York University , just to name a few. The “Why School” essay is one of the most common college essay prompts, and for good reason. “Why School” essays are where you can explain why the school is on your college list . 

Especially for reputable colleges, “Why School” essays can really elevate your application. Did you see the Yale acceptance rate and think you should apply just because it’s selective? Or maybe you read somewhere that Northwestern was pretty good and are applying based on that? Ideally, you did your due diligence reading the school’s website—maybe even visiting—before applying. Trust us, when you do your research, it really shows.

Tips for other “Why School” essays are the same for how to get into Yale: be specific, thoughtful, and genuine. Why do you personally want to spend the next several years at this school? What particular opportunities on campus resonate with you, your interests, and background? At the same time, many prompts have different wording that will inform your approach to the essay.

Let’s take a look at UChicago’s essay prompts for some more inspiration.

Writing to the Prompt: Why UChicago?

For instance, UChicago asks:

“ How does the University of Chicago, as you know it now, satisfy your desire for a particular kind of learning, community, and future? Please address with some specificity your own wishes and how they relate to UChicago. ”

Here, they’re asking you to answer in regards to learning, community, and future. You’ll want to speak directly to UChicago’s curriculum and social life while also establishing future goals. When planning this “Why School” essay, look into UChicago’s student life, both in and out of the classroom. Are there any unique features of academic life at UChicago, like an emphasis on collaboration or experiential learning?

Of course, you can also rely on pointing to distinct offerings both extracurricular and curricular. But make sure you address the prompt by drawing clear links among these things and your long-term goals. Finally, pull them all together by directly stating how the institution will facilitate all of these experiences.

Writing to the Prompt: Why NYU?

Next, let’s look at NYU .

“ We would like to know more about your interest in NYU. What motivated you to apply to NYU? Why have you applied or expressed interest in a particular campus, school, college, program, and or area of study? … We want to understand – Why NYU? ”

Remember how we said that an academic interest essay can be a “Why School” essay prompt in disguise? Some “Why School” essays are framed around your area of study, like this one. In these cases, many will focus more on the academic side of things. You don’t have to eliminate any mention of non-academic activities, of course. The prompt asks about campuses and schools, so feel free to mention campus traditions or social events.

If you’re zeroing in on a major, program, or college, you can absolutely bring up faculty, courses, and research. With that said, keep in mind that “Why School” essays should still be personal. Try to ensure your excitement for that subject area shows through. For example, you could use a personal anecdote or quality that threads through your academic history. Again, there are no limits to the ways you can approach a “Why School” essay.

How Important Are Essays For Yale?

When thinking about how to get into Yale, essays are front and center. Given that there are so many Yale essay prompts (however short), you can bet they’re important for your Yale application. As stated above, Yale is a highly esteemed and world-renowned institution. It follows that it gets a ton of applicants—why do you think the Yale acceptance rate is so low?

With so many applicants, the Yale admissions team needs to be able to distinguish the most qualified ones. By reading Yale supplemental essays, they learn about you not only as a student but also as a community member. Imagine if every admitted student had a 4.0 GPA but never joined any clubs or student organizations. Yale student life would probably be pretty boring! So these Yale supplemental essays help the Yale admissions committee choose students who’ll enrich Yale even beyond their undergraduate years.

In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, Yale—as well as many other schools—is test-optional for the 2022–2023 admissions cycle. While this policy is doubtless beneficial for many, it also means there’s some information missing. Especially while Yale admissions is test-optional, essays are considered very important on every Yale application.

Even once test-optional policies expire, essays will be incredibly important for college applications. It’s getting harder every year to stand out in college admissions, so make sure you start early and edit often. So don’t skimp on any of the Yale supplemental essays if you’re serious about overcoming the Yale acceptance rate. That means the 35-word ones, too!

More Yale Essay Resources from CollegeAdvisor

In this guide, we only looked at “Why Yale” essay examples, but there are several other Yale essay prompts. Luckily for you, CollegeAdvisor.com has several other Yale supplemental essay resources. We even have more general guides on how to get into Yale!

College Panel: Yale University

We have a webinar panel with Yale students. Watch this if you’re still wondering whether to apply to Yale. If you’re set on applying but looking for material for Yale supplemental essays, this is also a good resource.

Linked above was our Yale supplemental essays guides from 2021 . We also have more advice in our 2020 guide. These guides cover each Yale essay prompt, what it’s asking, and how to approach it. If you’re more into webinars, take a look at this Yale supplemental essays workshop .

Yale Supplemental Essays Workshop

Lastly, we have our general How to Get Into Yale guide . This has advice on every part of the Yale admissions process, from Yale supplemental essays to recommendation letters . If you’re applying to Yale and want advice on the application as a whole, this guide is for you.

CollegeAdvisor.com also hosts webinars and releases new resources all the time. Keep an eye on our blog for more college essay guides and examples .

Why Yale Essay Examples – Final Thoughts 

It’s never easy to put into words exactly why you want what you want. “Why School” essays ask you to do just that. Your “Why Yale” essay needs to be finely tuned to maximize your odds against the low Yale acceptance rate. Successful “Why Yale” essay examples show the Yale admissions team why you and Yale are a good fit. They’re both specific to the school and personal for you, tying together you and the school.

Here are some reflection questions as you leave this guide and start drafting your “Why Yale” essay:

Why Yale Essay Examples Reflection Questions

• Why are you and Yale a good fit for each other?
• Are you knowledgeable about and committed to attending Yale?
• How will experiences and opportunities at Yale help you achieve your goals?

Readers of your “Why Yale” essay should be able to answer all three of these questions. You can always read more Yale essays that worked to find areas for improvement in your own work. Additionally, you should use examples that show you’ve done your research, whether they’re classes or labs.

There’s a lot of pressure in trying to craft the strongest Yale application possible. It can feel like there’s too much Yale to fit into the word count. Nevertheless, if you’re strategic with your details and concise in your wording, and use the Why Yale essay examples above to help guide you, you can do it. And if you’re still unsure after reading our resources on Why Yale essay examples and other Yale essays that worked, you can always connect with our team for personalized admissions help.

This article on Why Yale Essay Examples was written by Gina Goosby . Looking for more admissions support? Click here to schedule a free meeting with one of our Admissions Specialists. During your meeting, our team will discuss your profile and help you find targeted ways to increase your admissions odds at top schools. We’ll also answer any questions and discuss how CollegeAdvisor.com can support you in the college application process.

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Yale Daily News

Law School announces four new optional essay prompts for 2023-24 law school admissions cycle

Announced after the Supreme Court’s decision to axe affirmative action, Yale Law School applicants now have the chance to write an optional essay centered around the themes of community engagement, leadership, determination or open-mindedness.

Staff Reporter

Madelyn Kumar, Senior Photographer

Applicants to Yale Law School must provide an academic transcript, an LSAT or GRE score, letters of recommendation and a personal statement. 

New this cycle, applicants can now also submit an additional optional essay, which the Law School announced just weeks after the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down race-conscious admissions policies.

The new optional component, added in August, allows applicants to write an essay on one of four topics. The topics center around the themes of community engagement, leadership, determination and open-mindedness. According to the Law School’s website, these essays should focus on the “personal, professional and/or academic experiences” of an applicant rather than their specific reasons for wanting to attend Yale Law School. 

For Jake McDonald LAW ’25, the new prompts are “a welcome change” because they expand the definition of diversity to encompass voices from a wider variety of backgrounds, including ideological, socioeconomic and religious perspectives, allowing applicants to talk about those subjects more freely.

Yash Chauhan ’26 told the News he believes the prompts allow applicants a chance to tell the admissions committee who they are beyond their grades and test scores. 

“These optional essay prompts — while markedly different from diversity statements — allow candidates the chance to showcase their drive, passion and aspirations,” Chauhan wrote to the News.

In previous application cycles , applicants had the opportunity to include an optional diversity statement in their application. This essay allowed applicants to address any core aspect of their identity that, in their view, would have contributed to the Law School community and might not have been sufficiently addressed in their personal statement. 

According to McDonald, the diversity statement had a fundamental flaw: an ambiguous framing of diversity, which he felt left many applicants with no idea on whether to write the optional statement.

However, Sage Mason LAW ’24 told the News that the diversity statement allowed his Law School application to present a more complete picture of his identity and experiences.

“My application process to YLS was atypical because I transferred [to Yale] after my first year of law school at Washington University in St. Louis,” Mason said. “I included a diversity statement as part of my application, and it contributed greatly to providing a more complete expression of who I am and what I thought I could offer a place like YLS.”

The diversity statement is no longer listed as an application component on the Law School’s website for the 2023-2024 law school admissions cycle.

McDonald told the News that he believes the removal of the diversity statement and the addition of the new prompts may have to do with the Supreme Court’s June decision that struck down race-conscious admissions.

“[I believe] the explicit diversity statement from years past — including the year I applied — is gone because the school was worried about its legal viability in light of the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in SFFA v. Harvard,” McDonald wrote to the News.

Debra Kroszner, the spokesperson for the Law School, declined to comment on whether recent application changes were motivated by the Court’s ruling against affirmative action. 

In the Court’s majority opinion , Chief Justice John Roberts said that schools can only constitutionally consider the race of an applicant if it is “concretely tied to a quality of character or unique ability that the particular applicant can contribute to the university.” 

In other words, applicants can still discuss their race or ethnicity in admissions essays, but admissions officers can only consider any mentions of race if they are directly relevant to an applicant’s unique accomplishments. It remains unclear , however, what cases would be deemed as directly relevant, leaving specifics of what the Court’s ruling should look like in practice at the University — and at other higher education institutions — unknown.

Though the Law School has not addressed whether the updated essay prompts are related to the Supreme Court’s June decision, its website claims that it continues to uphold its commitment to a holistic review process .

“Applicants may choose to submit an essay in response to one of the four questions … each related to a value that is central to the Law School community,” the website reads. “This is an opportunity to provide readers with relevant information that may not be found elsewhere in your application.”

Kroszner declined to comment on this story overall; she referred applicants to the Law School’s website for information regarding the school’s admissions process.

Yale Law School was founded in 1824.

Correction, 10/11: A previous version of this article misquoted a source. The article has been fixed accordingly.

• College Application

Yale Supplemental Essay Examples

A most important puzzle piece to your application are the supplemental essays, and the use of Yale supplemental essay examples is one of the best ways to prepare for writing your own perfect piece.

Don’t let the term “supplemental” fool you into thinking that these are throwaway or optional – supplemental college application essays contribute to your chances of being accepted into a program at one of the top schools in the world, so treat them as absolutely required.

Learning how to write a college essay can be done with tips and instructions, but there are excellent insights to be gained from reading sample college essays as well.

This article will give you sample essays for all of Yale’s supplemental essay prompts, as well as a small overview of additional writing and essay requirements in the supplemental section of Yale’s application – short answer questions and additional requirements for the coalition application.

>> Want us to help you get accepted? Schedule a free strategy call here . <<

Article Contents 11 min read

Yale supplemental essay #1.

For: Coalition Application or Common Application

Prompt: Yale’s extensive course offerings and vibrant conversations beyond the classroom encourage students to follow their developing intellectual interests wherever they lead. Tell us about your engagement with a topic or idea that excites you. Why are you drawn to it?

Word Count: 250 words, or fewer

Sample Essay #1:

Programming is a language I longed to learn and understand, so I bought the C++ programming language when I was fourteen to program my own video games. My lofty aspirations were stymied quickly: I couldn’t program a window with a button that closed the window.

Computer science classes in high school helped me progress. As I continued to learn coding, I began to become interested in AI. Artificial intelligence has kindled human imagination since before we even had the word “robot”, the Golem, for instance, or Frankenstein’s monster.

Computers think very differently than we do. An AI will go about accomplishing tasks very differently from a human. Machines are, unsurprisingly, more linear thinkers than we are. So, it is unsurprising that speaking with them is still impossible, if you’re looking for a real conversation.

But we have Siri and Alexa. Talking to machines has become an obsession of mine. I spent four hours in one session alone speaking with chatbots online. I believe that, within our lifetimes, we will take computers further, perhaps even to the point where we can “hang out” with them, and just chat. At that point, programming language will become “language”, and then the future will be now. As for me, C++ is only the beginning. Soon, we will be able to genuinely talk with artificial intelligences.

Want to learn more about Yale?

Sample Essay #2:

Triple threat performer is a term for a theatre artist who can sing, dance, and act. With all three skills on their resume, they can easily perform in any show and be an asset to any theatrical production. Right?

That’s only if we accept theatre as a static discipline with a confined set of rules and skills needed to perform it. I don’t think that it is static, or confined, and I don’t think it has rules, either. Any skill can be used.

We live in a world of ever-expanding technology, and we are also painfully aware of how the “rules” of social interaction can change – both in the positive sense, such as through communications media, and the negative sense, such as isolation.

In these strange times, I am exploring what I call integrated performance techniques: not just triple-threat, but how to integrate any skill into a performer’s art. Integrated performance combines live art with video technology and other disciplines, including fine art, technology, cooking, and anything else.

I have been trying, and mostly failing, to experiment with theatre performances that don’t look like normal theatre performances. Every attempt is basically a weird, messy showcase of a variety of skills and approaches that don’t work together. But I’m having fun and learning a lot while failing. And I think, if I fail enough, I’ll start to succeed, and maybe open up a whole new way of looking at what performance is.

I read an article, published in Nautilus by an astrophysicist, that scares, thrills, and excites me. It posited that the universe’s very laws of nature might be extremely advanced alien intelligence.

He cited Arthur C. Clarke, talked about dark matter, and opened up the idea that the cliché of the fabric of reality might be the real truth at the center of everything, or at least the next phase in discovering that truth.

We think of physics as “how” the world works and philosophy as “why” the world works. If the very laws of nature might be life forms, as per the article, it’s possible that the how and the why are the same.

Very few people are talking about this idea, but I formed a group at my school to talk about the limits of science – if there are any – and it has grown into a large collective. The most exciting day was when a couple of teachers at my school showed up to a meeting, having heard of the heady concepts we were tackling, and wanting to participate. We have started thinking of ourselves as a think-tank.

I believe that studying natural law can give us insight into moral law, and that we don’t have to think of intellectual achievement and moral advancement as separate. I think a lot of our troubles as a species have arisen from this separation.

Questions are all I have at this point, but they are exciting questions that could change the world.

For: Coalition Application or Common Application – respond to either 2a or 2b.

Prompt: Reflect on a community to which you feel connected. Why is it meaningful to you? You may define community however you like.

Word Count: 250 words or fewer

I play a lot of Dungeons & Dragons, or D&D. Thanks to popular shows like Stranger Things, it’s a more accepted hobby than it used to be, but it’s still seen as pretty niche, and I’ve been called some pretty unflattering words as a result.

Every year, I go to as many conventions as I can. These fan conventions, or cons, are places where people who play D&D, watch anime, read Lord of the Rings, and debate the philosophical implications of video games go to, meet their sci-fi-fantasy heroes, and “geek out” as much as possible.

This community is so welcoming, and I can’t describe it any better than seeing a person dressed in a demon monster costume talking with a middle-aged man dressed as Sailor Moon like it was the most natural thing in the world.

It’s a place for the outliers to go and realize that we aren’t so strange after all. Through connections I’ve made at cons, I have built an online community that I can go to for help, for answers, for support, and for friendship. We’re all very into online connectivity, so staying in touch is a breeze, and always fun.

Through this community’s support, I have increased my self-confidence, made some contacts in industries that I’m interested in, such as gaming and comics, and learned how to be more accepting of myself and others.

The smells of cinnamon and nutmeg come along every holiday season for a lot of people. They are associated with autumn’s apple pies and Christmastime’s hot chocolate. I associate it with Three King’s Day in January, because my family are Latvian Orthodox. But I also associate it with chilis and molasses, because my family are also Jamaican and we eat jerk chicken on Three King’s Day. My family are weird, and I love them.

As my mother told me, she was on Spring break down in Jamaica, and came back raving about her new boyfriend – the man she would marry, bring to the US, and start a family with. She said the two families came from radically different places, but none of that mattered; they were brought together through my parents’ love.

.... . .-.. .-.. ---

I’m saying “Hello”.

My father owns a HAM radio set and frequently communicates with other amateur radio enthusiasts. I wanted to know what all the beeping was about, and dad started to teach me. I knew how to send messages in Morse code by the time I was a teenager.

There is a whole group of people who communicate with each other only by Morse code over HAM radio, who have never seen each other’s faces or heard each other’s voices, only a constant series of long-and-short bursts of beeps.

I’ve started talking to them and gotten to know some of the other HAM operators on my dad’s network, and it’s such a warm, friendly group of aural tones.

To me, this is such a brilliant, shining microcosm of humanity and our achievements. We are the animals with tools, who have abstract reasoning, and can find a friend in a series of beep-beep-beep-beeps. Very few people choose to communicate this way these days, and there is a specialness in sharing something so unusual with people. It’s like a secret club.

To be able to reach out with a signal and interpret that signal as a strange friendship is what is so special about our technological place. We live in the communication era. These days we’re all firing signals into the dark, whether as a series of tweets, or Morse code beeps, or texts.

--. --- --- -.. -... -.-- .

Yale Supplemental Essay #2b

Prompt: Reflect on something that has given you great satisfaction. Why has it been important to you?

I’ve never considered myself to be a very physical guy – I'm the classic tech-dweeb type – and I mostly spend my time studying mathematics and statistics. I stay indoors, I’m sedentary, and I have no sports or athletics in my hobbies.

Or, at least, I didn’t use to. My buddy Rod got sick about three years ago, and a lot of it had to do with malnutrition. I didn’t realize that you could get that sick with poor diet and exercise. I knew it was bad for you, but I never pictured it.

That’s when I read up on how to be healthier and started jogging. Of course, I continued to do calculations. “If I jog at 6 m/ph for 30 minutes, I’ll have covered 3 miles, and over the course of four weeks…” and on and on like that.

I found my love of statistics could fuel my jogging, letting me keep track of achievements and set goals.

Last summer I ran my first marathon. Well, by “ran” I mean I mostly walked it or jogged, but I completed it. I’m not going to the Olympics, but I finished a marathon. It’s important to me because it represents perseverance and attaining goals, and because I broke out of a set path to become somebody new. I don’t have to stop being a tech-dweeb to love athletics, or vice-versa, and opening up my world means a bigger horizon – one I’m jogging towards right now.

I was lying in my coffin, waiting for the beginning, and I had to keep quiet or those in attendance would hear me. The problem was that I was so excited to have made it there.

We were performing my first self-made show at an outdoor theatre festival. How did I end up here with so little experience?

In theatre class at school, a guest speaker once advised, “Book a space,” meaning that if you spend money and book a space for your show, you commit; there’s no backing down. I signed up for a theatre festival the next day.

Time seemed to warp over the next months as I tried to fit in the challenge of self-producing, writing, casting, and rehearsing the show, and building a prop coffin that I was going to be mock-buried in.

Nothing went smoothly. A cast member dropped out and had to be replaced, we couldn’t afford rehearsal space, so backyards and garages were used instead. Every challenge seemed too much, but we had to keep going. Learning to produce a show has taught me about administration, scheduling, creativity, and management, and grew my confidence and artistic ability.

Getting to hear and see the crowd reaction once I was out of the coffin made all the problems go away. I got to tell a story and learn about all aspects of theatrical production, and my love of this art form was taken further than ever before. I wouldn’t be caught dead anywhere else.

Need more tips for navigating your college apps?

Sample Essay #3:

My father is a professor of English literature. I am somebody who doesn’t consider herself to be particularly “bookish”. I read non-fiction, and I’ve always felt like there’s a chasm between my father and myself – we have had a hard time bonding.

Last year, I set a goal to read James Joyce’s Ulysses – one of my father’s favorite books, and one of the most infamously-difficult books in the English language.

At 730 pages, I figured I could read Joyce’s monolith in a little over a week – 100 pages a day, two weeks if it was hard going.

I read 100 pages quickly before realizing that just reciting the words in my head would mean nothing; I had to understand it. So, I started again, slowed way down, and tried to crack the tome.

Two months in and I wasn’t half-way through – frustrated, almost to the point of tears. I chewed onwards, studying it for almost five months. That in itself was an accomplishment, but that’s not why I’m proud of this. Punishing myself with reading isn’t the treasure.

The next week, dad was talking about a student struggling with Ulysses in his class, and I said, “Cut him some slack, it’s a hard book.”

“You’ve read it?” he asked me.

When I nodded and started talking to him about the plot points and themes – the stuff of the book that I had struggled with – we had a great conversation.

I didn’t read a book – I built a bridge across a chasm.

Supplemental essays are a great way to stand out in the application committee’s minds, so put extra effort into them; you’ll never regret doing your best.

Note that, in addition to these prompts, those submitting under the Coalition Application are required to upload an audio file (mp3), video (mov), image (jpeg), or document file (word or pdf) of their own creation. Whichever method chosen, this file should complement one of the prompt response essays. Only the indicated file types are accepted. Yale’s application says that “advanced editing is not necessary”.

Furthermore, all applicants, whether applying through the Coalition Application, Common Application, or QuestBridge Application, will respond to short answer questions – three in total. These questions are:

What is it about Yale that has led you to apply? (125 words or fewer) "}]">

These are the three ways to apply to Yale as a first-year applicant. No preference is given between the three, so the choice of which application type to undertake is left with the prospective student to decide for themselves.

The Coalition Application is an application platform, allowing prospective students to create an application that is used by 100 colleges and universities in the US. The Coalition for Access, Affordability, and Success is geared to give needs-based financial aid, and grants access to other resources: an online “locker”, a collaboration space, and a MyCoalition Counselor. Coalition applicants through Yale are required to send in an additional supplemental file (document, audio file, video, or image file) which is meant to directly relate to one of their essay prompt responses.

The Common Application, or Common App, is an application platform, used by 600 colleges and universities worldwide. This allows you to upload applications to up to 20 of those institutions. It is a central platform, but Yale still requires the Yale-specific supplemental questions and essays answered.

The QuestBridge Application is for low-income applicants and is designed to help those applicants through the process of application as well as with navigating the procurement of financial aid at Yale. It is used by 42 partner institutions (including Yale).

They are required at Yale.

Applicants have the option of choosing between writing essay 2a or 2b, but they must write one of them.

We also encourage applicants to consider no essay to be truly optional. If the form says you have a choice, the only real choice is to give yourself every point in your favor possible: write the essay.

The only exception is if essays are optional with specific conditions. For example, if a school requires an essay from international students and you are not international, you won’t write that essay.

Anything that applies to you, whether it is officially optional or not, you should do.

With such low word-counts, brevity is required, so get immediately to the point.

The first question is about what you want to study. Yale asks you to select up to three from the list provided.

The second question asks why the areas of study, those you picked in the first question, appeal to you. Focus on why you’re passionate about that subject. Connect it to you on a personal level, show why it’s imperative that you study it, and maybe site some aspirations of what you’re going to achieve by entering that particular field.

The third question is about why you want to study at Yale. What you want to do is look up faculty of note in your field(s) of choice, any interesting research being done, specific courses offered that are unique to Yale, and information on syllabi that you can site to show that Yale, above all others, is the place for you. If you have clearly researched course offerings and Yale’s research, the committee will understand that you know about the school and value its uniqueness.

You can also highlight values that the school holds – their core, foundational principles.

Don’t site its prestigious status. Don’t site its location or how beautiful the campus is.

While this is only a short answer question, reading up on why this college essay will give you some good insights into how to create your own answer.

The main subject is yourself, and what makes you unique.

You should choose to accentuate your best traits, but also how those traits will relate to Yale and the courses you would like to take.

Good qualities include perseverance, growth, skillsets, and unusual experiences that helped you grow (positive or negative).

If you can mention an area of research or a particular, singular aspect of Yale while you do so – so much the better.

It depends on how much shorter. You don’t have to hit the word limit exactly, but if you’ve only written fifty words out of two-hundred and fifty, you’re likely not going in-depth enough on your topics.

Concise writing is good, but you also need to make sure you’re accomplishing your goals of showing your abilities and standing out for the admissions committee.

If you have any doubt, it’s good to use college essay advisors to check your work. In fact, to ensure optimal results, essay advisors are a good idea anyway.

They are very important.

Every aspect of your application should be treated as though it is of utmost importance. You want only your best work to be submitted, because that’s your best chance for admission.

Essays let you show yourself off in ways that pure numbers won’t, so take extra advantage of the opportunity.

Yale’s international applicants follow the same procedures and forms as a US student, for the most part.

You do need to make sure that any transcripts or documents that are not in English are translated, and if you are a non-native English speaker, you will be required to take an English language test.

Getting college admissions counselling for international students is a great way to make sure you haven’t missed anything and you application is the best it can be.

Up to three times, yes, but three is the limit. This includes first-year applicants, transfer students, non-degree applicants, and students who are applying through the Eli Whitney students’ program.

Studying up on Yale university can prevent you from needing to reapply at all, of course.

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How ‘History and Tradition’ Rulings Are Changing American Law

A new legal standard is gaining traction among conservative judges — one that might turn back the clock on drag shows, gun restrictions and more.

Credit... Photo Illustration by Ricardo Tomás

Supported by

By Emily Bazelon

Emily Bazelon is a staff writer for the magazine and the Truman Capote fellow for creative writing and law at Yale Law School. Her recent features on the Supreme Court have focused on its rightward lurch, its struggle with affirmative action and the political clashes over its power.

• April 29, 2024

In November 2022, a group of L.G.B.T.Q. students at West Texas A&M University started planning a drag show for the following spring. They wanted to raise money for suicide prevention and stand up for queer self-expression at a time when conservatives in Texas, in the name of protecting children, were mobilizing to shut drag shows down.

Listen to this article, read by Almarie Guerra de Wilson

The student group, Spectrum WT, set a few guidelines. The show would be “PG-13,” the students told the university. Kids under the age of 18 — the students had in mind the siblings of a performer — could come only if they were accompanied by a parent or guardian.

Despite this plan, the president of West Texas A&M, Walter Wendler, announced in March 2023 that he was barring the event from campus. In a statement on his personal website, Wendler called drag shows “derisive, divisive and demoralizing misogyny.” Spectrum WT sued, arguing that Wendler’s decision to cancel the show was a “textbook” example of discriminating against speech based on viewpoint.

Legally speaking, Spectrum WT had a strong case. Since the 1970s, the Supreme Court has ruled that the First Amendment protects speech on public university campuses, “no matter how offensive” and despite “conventions of decency,” as two decisions put it. Wendler acknowledged that he was refusing to allow the drag show to take place “even when the law of the land appears to require it.”

But the lawsuit landed on the docket of Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee to the federal bench in Amarillo who is the author of several sweeping arch-conservative rulings. And in the drag-show case, Judge Kacsmaryk had a new tool, supplied by the Supreme Court. Known as the “history and tradition” test, the legal standard has been recently adopted by the court’s conservative majority to allow judges to set aside modern developments in the law to restore the precedents of the distant past.

The conservative justices applied the history-and-tradition test in three major rulings decided in the space of a week in June 2022. First, they struck down a New York restriction on gun ownership for being out of line with the nation’s “historical tradition” around regulating guns. Next, in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a conservative majority ended the constitutional right to abortion in Roe v. Wade because it was not “deeply rooted in the Nation’s history and tradition.” Finally, the court held that a public high school’s decision to let go of a football coach for praying with a crowd he gathered at midfield was out of line with “historical practices and understandings” of religious freedom.

The flurry of history-and-tradition opinions prompted an uproar among liberal court-watchers. What counted as historical or traditional? The open-ended nature of the terms seemed to invite a freewheeling survey of the 18th and 19th centuries. It’s “basically a fancy way of saying, ‘if men in power didn’t recognize this right as fundamental in ye olde times, we won’t recognize it now,’” tweeted Joseph Fishkin, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. The court was playing “memory games,” in the words of a widely cited law review article about Dobbs by Reva Siegel, a Yale law professor. Why does the conservative majority “appeal to history and tradition in exactly those cases in which it is changing the law?” she asked in another, forthcoming piece.

Some judges expressed practical concerns as well. In one of many recent suits that involved challenges to state and federal gun restrictions, Judge Carlton Reeves, an Obama nominee to the federal bench in Mississippi, pointed out that judges were not trained to sort through the competing interpretations of history. “We are not experts in what white, wealthy and male property owners thought about firearms regulation in 1791,” Reeves wrote.

Conservatives, meanwhile, had their own furious debate. For them, a central question was whether the Supreme Court’s conservative majority was deviating from originalism, the method of interpreting the Constitution championed since the 1980s by heroes of the right like former Justice Antonin Scalia. Originalism resembles the history-and-tradition test in focusing on the past. But its main selling point was to fix the meaning of the Constitution to the moment in which it was written, to prevent judges from substituting their values for the wisdom of the nation’s founders.

Though originalism in practice never lived up to this promise , because judges used it inconsistently or to reach the results they preferred, “history and tradition,” unlatched from any one moment, is even more pliable and indeterminate. It lets judges choose from a vast array of sources, which makes it easy to cherry-pick.

Skeptics of the history-and-tradition standard received some validation from an unlikely source. At a talk at Catholic University’s law school in September 2023, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a former Scalia clerk who joined Alito’s opinion in Dobbs, used an old saying to warn that a judge’s hunt for historical sources could be like “looking over a crowd and picking out your friends.”

That same day, Judge Kacsmaryk issued his opinion about the student drag show. Citing the Supreme Court’s approach to history in the 2022 gun case, Kacsmaryk said that the early history of the First Amendment is “drastically different” than the modern version. Kacsmaryk cited an 18th-century treatise describing the government’s power to censure “licentiousness” and a 19th-century ban on mailing “lascivious” materials. Older rules like these continue to set an “outer limit” on “ sexualized ‘expressive conduct,’” Kacsmaryk wrote. He ruled that the university could bar the drag show — an extraordinary and anti-modern result.

In March, the Supreme Court rejected the student group’s request to hold a second annual drag show on campus. Kacsmaryk’s decision is now pending at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Also unresolved is a larger question: How much will the scope of American liberty change as conservative judges impose the past on the present?

Justice Samuel Alito, the author of the majority opinion in Dobbs, has called himself a “practical originalist,” a phrase that fits his record of putting results above theory. In Dobbs, he used the history-and-tradition test to solve a problem that originalism posed for abortion opponents: When the Constitution was written, and long afterward, courts in the United States followed English common law, a set of rules and precedents developed by judges that widely permitted abortion in early pregnancy.

For centuries, before pregnancy tests, many people believed that fetal life began with “quickening,” when women felt the first fetal movement, usually between 15 and 18 weeks. Early American law did not even recognize an abortion as having occurred before that stage, according to a friend-of-the-court brief in Dobbs submitted by the American Historical Association and the Organization of American Historians.

In 1973, when the Supreme Court decided Roe, Justice Harry Blackmun, in his majority opinion, contrasted this early history with more recent state restrictions. “At the time of the adoption of our Constitution, and throughout the major portion of the 19th century, abortion was viewed with less disfavor,” Blackmun wrote. “A woman enjoyed a substantially broader right to terminate a pregnancy than she does in most States today.”

Blackmun, who was not an originalist, did not feel bound by the distant past. He treated history in Roe as “a resource, not a command,” as Jack Balkin, a Yale law professor, has written in his new book, “Memory and Authority,” describing how lawyers often use historical facts. This approach to the past — as relevant but not determinative — “was the major form of constitutional interpretation,” says Robert Post, author of the recent book “The Taft Court.” “History was never a simple fact to be ascertained. It was always an interpretation of the meaning of widespread practices.”

The cornerstone Blackmun laid for the constitutional right to abortion came from the 14th Amendment, which Congress ratified in 1868 during Reconstruction. As one clause of the amendment states, “nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” Interpreting those words a century later, the court said that the 14th Amendment’s concept of liberty, in the due-process clause, included a right to privacy. In Roe, Blackmun said the right to privacy was “broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.”

Since then, majorities made up of liberals and conservatives have turned to the due-process clause as the basis for adapting the Constitution to modern social conditions, recognizing new rights including parental authority and sexual liberties. Anthony Kennedy, a Reagan nominee, took the lead. “The generations that wrote and ratified the Bill of Rights and the 14th Amendment did not presume to know the extent of freedom in all of its dimensions,” Kennedy wrote in his landmark 2015 majority opinion providing for the right to same-sex marriage, in the case Obergefell v. Hodges, “and so they entrusted to future generations a charter protecting the right of all persons to enjoy liberty as we learn its meaning.”

In Dobbs, however, Alito called the court’s reliance on the due-process clause in abortion cases “controversial.” He stopped short of declaring it invalid, which would jettison too many modern rights and freedoms, like sweeping all the pieces off a chess board. (Only Justice Clarence Thomas, in a concurrence no one else joined, called for such a reconsideration.)

Alito aimed to topple the right to abortion and only that right. Using the history-and-tradition test, he purported to show that legal abortion was not “deeply rooted” in the nation’s history, claiming that “an unbroken tradition of prohibiting abortion on pain of criminal punishment persisted from the earliest days of the common law until 1973.” But Alito didn’t acknowledge that in the rare known cases in which someone was convicted of causing an abortion up to the Civil War, it was almost always after quickening. And “such abortion providers came to public notice not because of their practice per se but if the pregnant woman had suffered badly or died as a result,” says Nancy Cott, an emerita professor of history at Harvard.

Alito also made this key claim: “By 1868, the year when the 14th Amendment was ratified, three-quarters of the States, 28 out of 37, had enacted statutes making abortion a crime even if it was performed before quickening.” But according to Aaron Tang, a law professor at the University of California, Davis, that number is inflated. “Substantial evidence suggests that as many as 12 of the 28 states” continued to permit abortions before quickening, Tang wrote in a 2023 article in The Stanford Law Review.

Alito then pointed out more abortion restrictions through 1910, ignoring other moments in history, including steps some states took before and after Roe, to ensure that abortion would be legal within their borders under certain circumstances. He also relied on a 1997 case, in which the court refused to extend its concept of liberty based on the due process clause to include physician-assisted suicide, because it had “no place in our Nation’s traditions.” It was hard not to think that Alito was, as Justice Barrett put it, looking out over the crowd for his friends.

The history-and-tradition test could have even more far-reaching effects on other areas of law. Last year, for example, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit considered a challenge to Tennessee’s ban on gender-related medical treatments for minors, brought by parents who argued that they had a 14th Amendment right to make decisions about treatments on their children’s behalf. In the majority opinion of a three-judge panel, Judge Jeffrey Sutton agreed that parents have the right to make decisions “concerning the care, custody and control of their children” — but ruled against the parents, because they hadn’t shown that a right to new medical treatments was “rooted in the nation’s history and tradition.” A month later, another federal appeals court similarly upheld an Alabama ban on gender-related care for minors.

Applied literally, the history-and-tradition test turns on whether a new practice is like an old one. If not, courts can discount whatever modern goal it is supposed to serve. But some of the justices are already wrestling with whether they have painted themselves into a corner.

The dilemma was evident at the oral argument in November for United States v. Rahimi, a case about the intersecting dangers of guns and domestic violence. In 2021, Zackey Rahimi was arrested for having a gun, which put him in violation of a 1994 federal law that made it a crime for someone to possess a firearm if subject to a protective order for threatening a spouse or partner. The rationale for the law, which many states have versions of, is that women who live with abusers are far more likely to be murdered if their partners have access to a gun. A Texas judge granted Rahimi’s ex-girlfriend a protective order in 2020 after she said Rahimi threw her to the ground, dragged her to his car and slammed her head against the dashboard. Months later, Rahimi went on a shooting spree, which included firing at another driver after a car accident, prompting police to search his home and find his guns.

But using the history-and-tradition test, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed Rahimi’s conviction for illegal gun possession. The conservative appeals court struck down the 1994 law for being a historical outlier “that our ancestors would never have accepted” and thus invalid under the Second Amendment. The past governed the present, in the view of the Fifth Circuit. At the Supreme Court, the Biden administration was forced to defend the 1994 law according to the terms of the history-and-tradition test. (A decision is expected by the end of June.) The government argued that the statute fit into a general tradition, throughout American history, of disarming people who were considered dangerous.

But for much of American history, women, who could not vote, had little recourse when their family members harmed them. And the groups the government disarmed had nothing in common with domestic-violence offenders. They included enslaved people and Native Americans. The Biden administration disavowed these examples, calling them “odious” because they were based on race. That left historical examples that were also not analogous — like British loyalists and Confederate rebels.

Some conservative justices seemed to search for a way to allow the government to disarm domestic-violence offenders. “The legislature can make judgments to disarm people consistently with the Second Amendment based on dangerousness,” Justice Barrett suggested.

Now it seemed as if the history-and-tradition test were flexible — not really a command at all. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, a liberal, used the argument to reflect on the inconsistency. “If we’re still applying modern sensibilities, I don’t really understand the historical framing,” Jackson said. She was exposing the trap the Supreme Court has set for itself and the lower courts. Either the past, however archaic, retains real command over the present, or the history-and-tradition test is no test at all.

Read by Almarie Guerra de Wilson

Narration produced by Krish Seenivasan

Engineered by Lance Neal

Source photos: Harris & Ewing/Library of Congress; Erin Schaff/The New York Times.

An earlier version of a picture caption with this article misidentified the site of a March 2023 protest over the cancellation of a drag show on campus. As the article stated correctly, the protest occurred at West Texas A&M University, not Texas A&M.

How we handle corrections

Emily Bazelon is a staff writer at The New York Times Magazine. More about Emily Bazelon

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Volume 133’s Emerging Scholar of the Year: Robyn Powell

The  Yale Law Journal  is thrilled to announce Volume 133’s Emerging Scholar of the Year: Robyn Powell.

 The  Yale Law Journal ’s Emerging Scholar of the Year Award celebrates the achievements of early-career academics who have made significant contributions to legal thought and scholarship. It seeks to promote scholarship that has the potential to drive improvements in the law and to spotlight the exceptional work of its honorees. The Emerging Scholar of the Year is selected by the  Journal ’s membership following an intensive, semester-long research and deliberation process.

Volume 133’s Emerging Scholar of the Year, Professor Powell, is an Associate Professor of Law at Oklahoma University College of Law, where she teaches in the areas of family law, disability law, professional responsibility, and public-health law.

 Professor Powell’s work focuses on the intersection of family law, disability law, reproductive justice, and public-health law and how laws and policies affect disabled people’s decision-making about whether and when to have children. Her forthcoming article in the  Georgetown Law Review ,  Forced to Bear, Denied to Rear ,   examines the effects of the  Dobbs  decision on disabled people, including the impact of forced pregnancy and potential subsequent denial of parental rights. Her other forthcoming article entitled  Under the Watchful Eye of All , which will appear in the  California Law Review , provides a novel analysis of the extensive surveillance targeted at disabled parents and their children by the family policing system. In  Care Reimagined , a forthcoming book review in the  Michigan Law Review , Powell examines the complex issues surrounding care and their relevance to people with disabilities and proposes a normative vision for reimagining care. In 2023, Professor Powell published  Including Disabled People in the Battle to Protect Abortion Rights  in the  UCLA Law Review , arguing that the attack on abortion rights has acute effects on people with disabilities and proposes a blueprint to protect abortion rights in a way that fully includes people with disabilities. Professor Powell has also written a 2022 article,  Disability Reproductive Justice , in the  University of Pennsylvania Law Review , which looks at the broader scope of reproductive decision-making beyond abortion and proposes a vision to help support the coalescence of the disability-justice and reproductive-justice movements.

Professor Powell graduated with a B.S. in Social Work from Bridgewater State University, a J.D. from Suffolk University Law School, and a Master of Arts in Social Policy and a Ph.D. from Brandeis University. Before joining OU Law, Powell was a Visiting Assistant Professor at the Stetson University College of Law and an Instructor at Boston University School of Law. 

As a disabled woman, Professor Powell has dedicated her career to advancing the rights of people with disabilities. Prior to entering academia, she served as an Attorney-Advisor at the National Council on Disability, a Research Associate at the Lurie Institute for Disability Policy at Brandeis University, Disability Rights Program Manager at the Equal Rights Center, Assistant Director for Policy and Advocacy at the Disability Policy Consortium, and Staff Attorney at Greater Boston Legal Services.

  The  Journal  is delighted to celebrate the achievements of Professor Powell. Please join us in congratulating her!

Announcing the Eighth Annual Student Essay Competition

Announcing the ylj academic summer grants program.

LEAP Announces Three Student Grant Program Recipients for 2024

The Law, Ethics & Animals Program (LEAP) at Yale Law School is thrilled to continue the LEAP Student Grant Program this year. Chosen from a highly competitive applicant pool, three students from across Yale are undertaking projects that build understanding of, draw attention to, and/or develop new strategies to address the urgent threats facing non-human animals. This year’s set of awards will support multidisciplinary projects in documentary filmmaking, comparative animal law, and the history of science. The 2024 LEAP Student Grant recipients include:

Daniel Blokh

Blokh is a senior at Yale College majoring in Comparative Literature and Russian and a writer and filmmaker from Birmingham, Alabama. His LEAP project is "Looking Back with Laika," a short documentary about the famous dog who became the first living creature in space. Through interviews with citizens of the former Soviet Union, he aims to explore the wide range of feelings Soviet citizens harbored toward Laika, from pride and patriotism to sadness and ethical uncertainty. By capturing the wide range of feelings Soviet citizens harbored toward Laika, the film will convey the importance of non-human animals in forming our political identity, our fears and hopes, our ethical beliefs, and our worldviews generally. Laika is an extreme example of the mutual interdependence that characterizes our relationship with all non-human animals, reminding us how greatly our actions impact (and currently threaten) animal life, as well as how greatly animals impact our lives in return.

Ilaria Cimadori

Cimadori is a third-year Ph.D. candidate at the Yale School of the Environment. Her academic and professional interests revolve around animal protection, particularly the exploration of animal protection within national and international law. With her LEAP Student Grant, Ilaria will conduct a comparative law analysis across the U.S., the E.U., and Switzerland assessing the adequacy of laws safeguarding farm animal welfare against detrimental applications of breeding techniques and emerging biotechnologies such as gene-editing. Gene-editing, particularly CRISPR, has an unprecedented power to modify animals' genomes to pursue desired traits — from productivity to fitness — and presents novel issues, like off-target mutations. It is also, however, considered a new breeding technique in addition to the techniques already in use. Thus, a key concern is not only the technology used, but also the design of breeding programs for farm animals more broadly. In the current project, Ilaria will explore how different jurisdictions approach this problem. Because of her commitment to enhancing animal protection and the absence of global consensus on gene-editing applications, breeding practices, and animal welfare coupled with an increased societal concern for animal welfare, Ilaria hopes to provide policy recommendations that would improve the protection of animals in breeding thanks to insights from different legal systems.

Lauren Killingsworth

Killingsworth is an M.D.-Ph.D. student at Yale School of Medicine in the Department of History of Science and Medicine. She centers the non-human in her interdisciplinary scholarship on emerging infectious diseases, environmental history, and public health. Her project examines the practice and history of biological control, the use of living organisms (such as mosquito-eating fish and parasitic insects) to eradicate vector-borne diseases. The strategy gained traction in the early twentieth century as part of imperial public health campaigns. With the LEAP grant, she will study the archives of the World Health Organization, the Commonwealth Institute for Biological Control, and other international organizations involved in this global exchange of species. She hopes to examine the ethical dilemmas raised by biological control: the valuation of different species, attempts to control non-human reproduction, and the promises and consequences of environmental manipulation in the name of human health. 

Read more about the 2023 cohort , 2022 cohort , and 2021 cohort of LEAP student grantees and learn more about the LEAP Student Grant Program on LEAP’s website .

In the Press

House republicans’ next target: reports of antisemitism in k-12 schools, russian asset seizure to aid ukraine may hinge on g7 meeting, the us supreme court, less trusted than ever, votes on major cases in july, how originalism ate the law: the trick, related news.

Lowenstein Clinic Calls on UN to Prevent Censorship and Protect Speech of Environmental Defenders at Annual COP Conference

Q&A: Former LEAP Student Fellow Alisa White ’23 on Local Policy Approaches to Wild Animal Welfare

Unique Research on Calving Impacts on Nutrient Cycle Earns 2024 Bormann Prize