2013-2014 Amherst Writing Supplement

In addition to the essay you are writing as part of the Common Application, Amherst requires a supplementary writing sample from all applicants. To satisfy Amherst’s supplementary writing requirement, you may choose either Option A or Option B.

Option A: You will upload your choice.
Please respond to one of the following quotations in an essay of not more than 300 words. It is not necessary to research, read, or refer to the texts from which these quotations are taken; we are looking for original, personal responses to these short excerpts. Remember that your essay should be personal in nature and not simply an argumentative essay.

• Prompt 1: “Rigorous reasoning is crucial in mathematics, and insight plays an important secondary role these days. In the natural sciences, I would say that the order of these two virtues is reversed. Rigor is, of course, very important. But the most important value is insight—insight into the workings of the world. It may be because there is another guarantor of correctness in the sciences, namely, the empirical evidence from observation and experiments.”
Kannan Jagannathan, Professor of Physics, Amherst College

• Prompt 2: “Literature is the best way to overcome death. My father, as I said, is an actor. He’s the happiest man on earth when he’s performing, but when the show is over, he’s sad and troubled. I wish he could live in the eternal present, because in the theater everything remains in memories and photographs. Literature, on the other hand, allows you to live in the present and to remain in the pantheon of the future. Literature is a way to say, I was here, this is what I thought, this is what I perceived. This is my signature, this is my name.”
Ilán Stavans, Professor of Spanish, Amherst College. From “The Writer in Exile: an interview with Ilán Stavans” by Saideh Pakravan for the Fall 1993 issue of The Literary Review.

• Prompt 3: “It seems to me incumbent upon this and other schools’ graduates to recognize their responsibility to the public interest…unless the graduates of this college…are willing to put back into our society those talents, the broad sympathy, the understanding, the compassion… then obviously the presuppositions upon which our democracy are based are bound to be fallible.”
John F. Kennedy, at the ground breaking for the Amherst College Frost Library, October 26, 1963

• Prompt 4: “Stereotyped beliefs have the power to become self-fulfilling prophesies for behavior.”
Elizabeth Aries, Professor of Psychology, Amherst College. From her book Men and Women in Interaction, Reconsidering the Difference.

• Prompt 5: “Difficulty need not foreshadow despair or defeat. Rather achievement can be all the more satisfying because of obstacles surmounted.”
Attributed to William Hastie, Amherst Class of 1925, the first African-American to serve as a judge for the United States Court of Appeals

Option B: Please submit a graded paper from your junior or senior year that best represents your writing skills and analytical abilities. We are particularly interested in your ability to construct a tightly reasoned, persuasive argument that calls upon literary, sociological or historical evidence. You should NOT submit a laboratory report, journal entry, creative writing sample or in-class essay.

Upload A Scanned Copy of Your Paper Below Or Mail It In
Option B1 – I am uploading a scanned copy of my paper below.
Option B2 – I am mailing a copy of my paper. We prefer that you upload a scanned copy of your paper for electronic submission. If that is not possible, you may mail a copy of your paper to Amherst College, Office of Admission, P.O. Box 5000, Amherst, MA 01002-5000. Please be sure that your paper includes your identifying information (full name, date of birth, high school name, high school city, state and country), so that we can accurately match your paper to your application.

Optional Research Questions

If you have engaged in significant research in the natural sciences, mathematics, computer science, social sciences or humanities that was undertaken independently of your high school curriculum, please provide a brief description of the research project: (50-75 words. Paste in.)

Where, when and under whose mentorship did you conduct this research? (Provide mentor’s name, title and institutional affiliation.)

If your research has been submitted to any national competition (e.g., Siemens, Intel) and/or accepted for professional publication, please provide additional details