As both early decision and early action deadlines approach for the future Class of 2030, applicants will no longer have the opportunity to submit a supplemental essay prompt which asked about a piece of an applicants’ individual background that would serve as a strength for them at the University. The only supplemental writing prompt that remains is for applicants applying to the School of Nursing — which asks students to detail a health care-related experience or interaction that has informed their interest in the School of Nursing.
During the 2022-2023 application cycle, a variety of writing samples accompanied the main Common App essay, a personal statement typically around 600 words. Additional prompts required applicants to respond to a range of shorter writing samples in the form of school-specific supplemental essays which varied over the years, and all applicants additionally had to respond to two, 50-word, creative prompts.
The 2023-2024 application cycle saw the removal of both these creative prompts and school-specific essays — for all schools besides the School of Nursing. During this cycle, the University added a prompt asking students about their identity in addition to the main Common App essay. Now, for the current 2025-2026 application cycle, the identity prompt has been removed for applicants, leaving only one supplemental essay for students applying into the School of Nursing.
Other comparable public higher education institutions that rank similarly to the University — such as the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Florida — have not removed supplemental essay prompts from their 2025-26 Common App sites for the Class of 2030.
According to University spokesperson Bethanie Glover, the University removed the supplemental essay prompt from this year’s Common App to alleviate the workload that applicants take on to apply to the University.
“High school seniors are applying to more colleges and universities than ever, which requires completing a large number of short answer essay responses during their already busy fall semester,” Glover said. “Our hope is that this will lighten the load and reduce stress and anxiety around the college application process.”
Despite this rationale, the general sentiment felt by some undergraduate students — all of whom completed some form of supplemental essays as a part of their application to the University — has been one of confusion, according to an intern for the Office of Admissions who asked to remain anonymous to speak freely about the changes.
“The same sentiment I had when I first heard about it … it's just kind of general confusion for the most part,” the intern said. “When we applied, there was a lot of value placed in those supplementals [and] showing your voice.”
Changes made to the University’s supplemental essay prompts during this time came in the midst of the Supreme Court’s 2023 reversal of race-based affirmative action in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard and Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina. The majority decision in these cases argued that essays discussing background or experience were still allowed under civil rights law — although the Trump administration has publicly opposed the use of essays and other proxies to determine applicants’ race or identity.
This reversal in 2023 meant that University Admissions officers were no longer able to have access to any self-disclosed checkbox information about an applicant’s race. Within the same year of this ruling, the University changed the supplemental essay question for all Class of 2028 applicants to a prompt that allowed students to write about an aspect of their “individual background, perspective or experience” that could serve as a source of strength for themselves or their peers at the University.
When this prompt changed, former University President Jim Ryan and Ian Baucom, former University executive vice president and provost issued a joint statement reflecting on the change and detailing their commitment to both following the law and sustaining a diverse student body.
“We will follow the law,” Ryan and Baucom wrote. “We will also do everything within our legal authority to recruit and admit a class of students who are diverse across every possible dimension and to make every student feel welcome and included at U.Va.”
Results from the makeup of the Class of 2028 — the first class to be admitted after the Supreme Court’s reversal of race-based affirmative action and the first to complete this revised supplemental prompt — revealed minimal demographic changes from previous classes such as the Class of 2027. Results from the racial and ethnic makeup of the Class of 2029 are not publicly available.
Aiming to ensure that the University was complying with the 2023 Supreme Court decision, the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division sent the University several letters between April and June of this year. These letters requested information about the University’s admissions policies, as well as admission data broken down by race and ethnicity for admitted classes over the past five years.
The Cavalier Daily asked several members of senior leadership whether the removal of supplemental essays was connected to recent Justice Department investigations. Jeannine Lalonde, senior associate dean of admission, referred The Cavalier Daily to Vice Provost for Enrollment Stephen Farmer and Greg Robers, associate vice provost for Enrollment, both of whom did not respond. Glover did not confirm or deny a connection.
According to the anonymous intern for the Office of Admission, they felt that the University was transparent in the past when there were significant changes to the application. They said this year’s removal of the supplemental prompt did not come with much explanation from the University.
“I think U.Va. is normally very open about what its reasonings [are] for some stuff and I think this one's just kind of the one where people don't really know at the moment,” the intern said. “I hope there's some more clarity in the future.”
According to Glover, other changes to this year’s undergraduate application include the simplification of the Virginia residency question — a question that determines whether a student qualifies for in-state tuition by verifying their place of residence — to ensure this question is both easy to understand and complete.
The University has also added a question that asks prospective students if they are interested in learning more about the College at Wise — the University’s second campus located in Wise, Virginia, as well as an addendum which asks applicants to sign an honor statement certifying that they have not used artificial intelligence on their application.
While prospective students no longer have the opportunity to complete supplemental essay prompts as a part of their application to the University, the intern said that they have been advising these prospective students to channel their creativity into their main Common App personal statement.
“I've just been giving more advice [about] putting all that effort you'd normally put into a supplemental … three times more into your Common App essay,” the intern said. “That's really the time to show your voice the most. Without the supplementals, that takes away a little bit of the storytelling you could normally do.”
Prospective students will submit their applications for this year’s early decision and early action deadlines Nov. 1.
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