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How To Apply
Application Deadlines For Fall 2013 Incoming Freshmen:
December 1, 2012 - Priority Application Deadline
February 14, 2013 - 2nd Round Application Deadline
March 23, 2013 - 3rd Round Application Deadline*
* Applications are accepted on a rolling basis after March 23
Application Information:
In general, we want to know about your educational achievements, your extra-curricular involvement, including any leadership, and your service or volunteer experience. Be sure to list your service and not just lump it into something like "numerous offices held." Since you have a limited number of characters, you'll have to be selective in what you include. We don't need any middle school information, unless you won a state or national award.
We also require a 500-word essay. The essay prompts are:
1. You return to your room in the residence hall next fall, and on the floor just outside the door, you find a hard hat, a copy of The Complete Works of Shakespeare, and one additional object. In addition to revealing the identity of the third object, explain how the hard hat, the book, and third object got there and their significance.
2. What is the big question you like to think about or the most important issue you would like to engage while you are at USU? Why do you think this issue is important, and why should you study it? What kinds of knowledge and skills do you think you will need to further and deepen your study of this big question? This is not so much about an academic field or discipline, nor is it about your long-range plans; rather, we want to know about what intrigues you most deeply.
3. Wouldn't it be interesting if...
Some tips about the essay:
If you choose to answer the first essay, focus it on college, not high school. We want you to look forward to your time as a student at USU. The application review committee is largely professors who will be reviewing your application based on creativity, demonstrated interest in academics, whether or not you answered the essay question, and of course, mechanics. We strongly suggest that the three objects not be connected with a romantic theme, such as being asked out on a date.
We want the essay to teach us something about you. Are you creative? Do you love theatre, or sports? Can you incorporate these loves into your essay? An essay in which you destroy the book or express that you do not like learning or Shakespeare will not work in your favor.
If you choose the second question, try to focus your answer on something you can actually study at college and at Utah State University. Answers that combine more than one field or major shows that you have looked at what majors we offer. We want to see here that you're interested in the big ideas behind academics; if you're a physics major, maybe you're interested in how the universe works. If you're a history major, maybe you want to know why we continue to make the same errors over and over again.
Check your essay for spelling and grammar errors.
Read your essay out loud, to see how it sounds, and feel free to have someone else read it (always a good idea!), but we expect that the work is your own.