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How to Write the University of Oklahoma Essays 2021-2022

The University of Oklahoma (OU) is a large public research university in Norman, Oklahoma. OU has an active student body and is known for its competitive football team and strong campus community. 

Any student hoping to be a Sooner is required to respond to one of the Common Application Essay Prompts . Additionally, on your OU application you will see the optional scholarship section. Answering these scholarship questions—which address the topics of leadership, community service, and career interests—will put you in the running for a variety of scholarships that can help out with the cost of attendance.

Want to know your chances at OU before getting started? Calculate your chances for free right now.

University of Oklahoma Scholarship Prompts

Prompt 1: The University of Oklahoma believes strongly in educating leaders of communities in Oklahoma, as well as across the country and the world. Please share your leadership experiences and why they are important to you. (650 words)

Prompt 2: The University of Oklahoma is the home of a vibrant, diverse and compassionate University community that is often referred to as “the OU family.” Please describe your cultural and community service activities and why you chose to participate in them. (650 words)

Prompt 3: What is your career area of interest, and why do you have a desire to work in this particular field? (650 words)

The University of Oklahoma believes strongly in educating leaders of communities in Oklahoma, as well as across the country and the world. Please share your leadership experiences and why they are important to you. (650 words)

These essays have high word counts, which means they have potential for greatness, but also means that you need to stay focused and organized. 

Start by brainstorming your leadership experiences. Common responses include holding a leadership position in a school organization or being captain of a school team, but keep in mind that the word “leadership” can encompass many other experiences. The admissions committee will be drawn to students who are leaders inside and outside of the classroom, so try including examples of both!

A leadership experience can include any time you “took the initiative” or served as a positive role model for your community (at your church, at your after-school job, at a place you volunteer, or in your apartment complex or neighborhood). Some examples:

• You noticed that the students at your school weren’t properly identifying recyclable materials and printed posters explaining the difference between trash, recycling and compost
• You heard some girls talking about how their homes are loud and they have nowhere to study and organized a Tuesday night study group at the coffee shop down the street from your school
• You have been a VBS counselor for eight years and one of your students made you a card with all the reasons they want to be like you when they grow up
• Your apartment complex wasn’t accessible to your neighbor’s mother who uses a wheelchair so you wrote your landlord a letter and got automatically-opening doors installed 

After figuring out what experiences you want to talk about, you need to find a way to organize your essay. This might take a few tries and some creativity!

One way to organize your essay is to center it around one or two defining values. Ask yourself: why do I value leadership? Some examples of centering your essay around values could include writing about:

• How you feel it is important to give back to your community. You could discuss your experiences as a charity organizer and as the director of your school’s peer mentoring program.
• How leaders are important for creating positive work environments. You could describe the open forums you led for your school’s advisory board.
• How leaders are important for making sure things run efficiently. You could share the ways you delegated tasks when leading your school’s robotics team to nationals, as well as the system you organized at work that allows coworkers to easily trade shifts.

Another option is to organize your essay through a central anecdote. This is valuable if one of your examples is stronger than the others because you can focus on one experience and use the others as supporting evidence. This could look like:

• Sharing your experience as a camp counselor and how, when you noticed your campers uninterested in the camp’s activities, you integrated activities you learned at the daycare you worked at to keep them interested
• Writing about your experience as the captain of the school’s swim team and how, when interpersonal drama started affecting the team, you used the skills you learned working on a restaurant staff to help your team learn to separate personal life from work life

If you are really stuck, you might want to spend some time thinking about the qualities of a good leader, then thinking about how you can show admissions officers that you embody those qualities. Some qualities of a good leader include:

• Having strong communication skills
• Knowing how to utilize the strengths of your team
• Creating a positive working environment for others
• Showing compassion
• Looking for opportunities to grow
• Being committed to inclusive and ethical practices

If the university selects you for a leadership scholarship, they are saying that you represent the university’s value of leadership. Make sure to present your leadership experiences as fundamental to your identity and leave them thinking “now that’s someone who really sees the value of being a good leader!”

The University of Oklahoma is the home of a vibrant, diverse and compassionate University community that is often referred to as “the OU family.” Please describe your cultural and community service activities and why you chose to participate in them. (650 words)

Responding to this prompt will put you in the running for community service-based scholarships, so you should try to show admissions officers that you have been extensively involved in community service and are passionate about it. While this essay invites students to explore cultural activities, it is important to make sure you ultimately bring your essay back to ideas of service .

In the same way that “leadership” can be broadly-defined, “community” can be broadly defined. Your community can be your neighborhood, your school, a sports team, a cultural community, a church body, or any other group. You have freedom to stretch this prompt and talk about unconventional ways that you have served unconventional communities—maybe you help the elderly people in your apartment bring their groceries upstairs or you take candy to the altar boys at church on Sundays. 

That being said, it will also be valuable to ground your essay with some examples of typical community service. These include:

• Being involved with an in-school community service organization
• Volunteering outside of school at a local community service organization
• Participating in events that involve giving back to your community
• Identifying the needs of your community and taking the initiative to satisfy those needs

As you identify the ways you give back to your community, you may start to see a central theme emerge. Students often get involved with things they care about, so lean into those themes and show your passion around them.

For example, a student who is part of a cultural assembly at their school might also be involved with activism regarding racial equity. A different student might be involved with the feminist club at their school and volunteer at Planned Parenthood on the weekends. Identifying a theme like racial justice, women’s rights, animal activism, sustainability, or decreasing the suffering of poverty can lead to a structured and compelling essay. (Though, keep in mind that OU is a more moderate school, and plan your essay accordingly).

If you don’t notice themes that connect your community service experiences, try focusing on your values or organizing your essay around an anecdote about a formative experience serving your community or the origin story of how you became involved with community service.

The goal of this essay is to position yourself as dedicated to community service and passionate about the community that you serve, so write with intensity and make sure your essay shows how much you really care.

What is your career area of interest, and why do you have a desire to work in this particular field? (650 words)

Only students whose majors offer major-specific scholarships will have the opportunity to answer this prompt. The prompt may or may not appear in your scholarship section depending on the academic preferences you list in your application. 

If you do have this prompt, your first step should be identifying your career area of interest and making sure that it connects to your future major and the academic preferences you indicated. With a deeply personal prompt like this one, it is important to identify your initial responses to the question: why do you have a desire to work in your particular field? 

Some other questions that might help guide you include:

• When did you first become interested in your chosen field?
• What part of your future career gets you excited?
• What do you value that aligns with the values of your future field?
• Why do you think your career will make you happy?
• What is your dream job?
• What do you picture when you picture your future career?

One of OU’s essay writing tips is to “Be Open, Be Honest.” This advice is particularly important for this prompt. While you should be honest about your passions and motivations, there are some answers you should avoid when responding to this prompt. Do not write about financial stability. Do not write about job security. Write about your passions, your interests, your curiosities. If you write about aspects of your future career that excite you and the stories behind them, your passion will shine through. Just be sure to tie in your personal experiences, as it can be easy to write a general essay about the benefits of this career, which doesn’t tell admissions officers more about you . 

An easy format for this essay would be to start with an anecdote, include some reflection, and look towards the future. For example, a student who wants to be a teacher might share an experience where they were really struggling in school because of their family’s financial instability, but their English teacher went out of her way to check in, provide resources to help meet basic needs, and advocate for the student when administration wanted to fail them. The student could share how they later went on to get an A and become an English tutor. From there, they could discuss how they feel it’s important for teachers to understand barriers to education and nurture students where they are. That’s why this student wants to become a teacher in a high-need area and eventually create educational policy to support low-income students.

Another potential format is to envision yourself in your future career. What will your day look like? What will you be doing, what will you be feeling, and how will you be making a difference? How did you get here, and why did you work towards this goal?

Of course, you can use any format that suits you as long as your career interest and reasons for pursuing that career are clear. For this prompt, you have complete freedom to show your passion! 

Where to Get Your OU Essays Edited for Free

If you’ve already written your OU scholarship essays, it is time to get them edited. Having peers read your essays will help you to identify areas for improvement and, ultimately, will help you maximize your chances of getting a scholarship at OU. By creating a free CollegeVine account , you will have access to CollegeVine resources like our free peer-review service. We also recently added a paid expert option with College Essay Guy’s team.

We’re here to help you put your best foot forward and feel prepared throughout this application season—because we know how overwhelming it can get.

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Common Application

We are excited to announce our acceptance to the Common Application ! Please read the FAQs below to learn more about what this could mean for you as you consider applying to OU as an undergraduate incoming freshman.

For more information on the Common App, you can also visit commonapp.org .

• All incoming freshmen applying for undergraduate admission to OU
• Note: Students are considered incoming freshmen if they graduated from an accredited high school or have received a GED or are home-schooled, if their high school class will have graduated by the time they plan to enter OU, and if they have completed fewer than seven semester hours of college-level work after graduating from high school. Students who have taken courses for college credit during high school are still considered incoming freshmen.

The application will be available on August 1. Students should not create a Common Application account or apply before this date.

The admission application is available at apply.ou.edu or by visiting commonapp.org .

• The Common App simplifies the process for students applying to more than one university by allowing the submission of a standardized admission application to any of the more than 500 Common App member colleges and universities (spanning 47 states, the District of Columbia and seven countries outside of the United States). This eliminates the need to complete separate forms and essays for each college.
• Our holistic admission process also encourages students to present a wide array of objective and subjective accomplishments and capabilities to be considered for admission to OU. This more comprehensive process provides students with a greater opportunity to describe ways in which their academic goals are aligned with those of the university.
• Begin gathering the information that you will need to complete the Common App starting on August 1. We’ve created a worksheet to help you keep track of this – find it here (PDF) .
• Identify who you will ask to write your letter of recommendation (this can be a counselor, teacher or other high school representative).
• Review essay prompts. Students will also be asked to submit an essay between 250 and 650 words. Five essay prompts will be listed and students will select one to complete. Read the five essay options here .
• In order to be considered for certain OU scholarships (those based on leadership, community involvement and specific to certain degree programs), students will also need to complete two to three additional short-answer questions as part of a Common App supplement for OU. Review the short-answer questions below and begin considering responses.           1. The University of Oklahoma believes strongly in educating leaders of communities in           Oklahoma and across the world. Please share your leadership experiences and why they           are important to you.           2. The University of Oklahoma is the home of a vibrant, diverse and compassionate           University community. President Boren refers to our strong community as “the OU family.”           Please describe your cultural and community service activities and why you chose to           participate in them.           3. What is your career area of interest, and why do you have a desire to work in this           particular field? (This third, academic-based question is asked by certain academic departments. Therefore, it may or may not appear in your scholarship section depending on the academic preferences you list in your application.)
• The Common App sections will ask you about (worksheet to help you keep track is available here (PDF) ):           Family/demographic information           Education (i.e. a list of which schools you have attended)           Academic credentials (classes taken, grades, test scores, honors, etc.)           Extracurricular activities and work experience
• Students will also be asked to submit an essay between 250 and 650 words. Five essay prompts will be listed and students will select one to complete. Read the five essay options here .
• Students must submit the Common App and the supplemental OU scholarship questions by December 15 in order to be considered for scholarships. The final deadline to apply for admission is February 1.
• Remember – students can always save their progress on the Common App and return to it later.
• The University of Oklahoma values the unique characteristics of each applicant. Our holistic approach to student admission ensures that applicants will be evaluated based on academic rigor and performance, extracurricular activities, talents, leadership and volunteerism, as well as a student’s writing and self-expression and a letter of recommendation.

Factors considered for admission:

• Academic Rigor: A student’s academic preparation and performance measures such as high school GPA, class rank, ACT/SAT test score and course rigor.
• Engagement: A student’s interest in OU, community involvement, leadership and extra-curricular activities, work experience and exceptional talents.
• Writing: A student’s writing and self-expression, measured through the essay portion of the admissions application. We will also review up to three letters of recommendation.
• Letter of Recommendation:  A letter of recommendation from a high school official.
• Students must submit the Common App and the supplemental OU scholarship application by Feb. 1 in order to be considered for scholarships.
• Students will be asked to complete one essay as part of the Common Application. In addition, students who want to be considered for leadership, community involvement and degree program specific scholarships also need to complete two to three short answer questions on the OU supplement.
• Students will be considered for admission and academic-based scholarships based on test scores, class rank and a grade point average without submitting the supplemental scholarship short answer questions. However, students will not be considered for leadership, community involvement and academic degree specific scholarships until they have submitted the supplemental application.
• The Common Application essay has a minimum of 250 words and maximum of 650 words.
• Students should list their academic achievements, organizational leadership, extracurricular activities and honors in order of importance to them.
• If you have not done so, we recommend that you begin keeping track of your leadership roles, volunteer activities and hours, extracurricular activities and honors. Having a comprehensive list of these accomplishments will help when completing the application and when writing admission and scholarship essays.
• Be clear and concise. It might also help to read the essay out loud to make sure it flows.
• Be accurate. Use spell check and review punctuation.
• Tell a story. There should be a beginning, middle and end to the essay. This is an opportunity for OU to learn more about the real lives of our future students.
• Carefully review your responses and also have someone who can provide critical, honest feedback evaluate your writing.

Visit commonapp.org and click “Create An Account.”

Yes. If an application has been inactive for 60 minutes, it will “time out.” Please save often.

The Common Application website has helpful information for students and counselors that can answer most questions. As always, OU Recruitment Services staff members are also available to answer your questions by phone (405-325-2151) or by email ( [email protected] ).

Contact Application Support at the Common App. Click here and then click the "Ask a Question" tab to submit a ticket.

Find the University of Oklahoma within the college search tab, tick the checkbox, then click the add button to add OU to your “My Colleges” list.

The maximum number of schools to which a student can apply through the Common Application is 20.

Students will need to submit test scores directly from either College Board ( OU code is 6879 ) or ACT ( OU code is 3442 ).

Applicants will be asked to list a counselor/registrar within the Common App. An email from Common App to this school official will prompt him/her to upload the transcript via the Common App Recommendation system. Transcripts must be uploaded by your school through the Common Application.

• Any high school official, including a counselor, teacher, principal, etc. Preferably someone who knows the student well.
• Students will need to know the name and email address of their preferred recommender so he/she can be contacted about composing the letter of recommendation.

One letter of recommendation is required and two additional letters may be submitted.

The counselor is stating that the workload he/she holds is too time-intensive to allow him/her to complete a school form/letter of recommendation on a student’s behalf. As a counselor, you will need to communicate with the student that he/she needs to have another school representative submit a letter of recommendation as one letter of recommendation is required.  Other FAQs for counselors can be found here (PDF) .

After the admission application has been submitted, students must contact the OU Admissions Office to make any changes to information. The OU Admissions office can be reached at (405) 325-2252.

The OU Admission application fee is $40 for domestic applicants and $90 for international applicants.

If a student qualifies for a waiver through NACAC, ACT, or College Board, the student must upload the waiver in his/her application.

Students will be able to see a print preview of their application before submission. This print preview will be identical to the version that will be received by any schools to which they apply. Do not mail this print preview as your application.

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University of Oklahoma’s 2024-25 Essay Prompts

Leadership scholarship essay.

The University of Oklahoma believes strongly in educating leaders of communities in Oklahoma, as well as across the country and the world. Please share your leadership experiences and why they are important to you.

Community Scholarship Essay

The University of Oklahoma is home to a vibrant, diverse and compassionate University community that is often referred to as “the OU family.” Please describe your cultural and community service activities and why you chose to participate in them.

International Experience Short Response

Please briefly explain your meaningful international experience.

Why This Major Essay

What is your career area of interest, and why do you have a desire to work in this particular field?

What will first-time readers think of your college essay?