You’re staring at a blank Google Doc. The cursor blinks. It’s mocking you, honestly. You’ve got the GPA, the test scores are solid, and your extracurricular list looks like a small novel. But now you’ve hit the Johns Hopkins essay prompts, and suddenly, describing your life feels like trying to explain the color blue to someone who’s never seen it.
Hopkins is weirdly specific.
They don't want a manifesto on why Baltimore is great (though the inner harbor has its charms). They don't want a rehashing of your resume. They want to know if you’re actually a nice person to work with in a lab at 2:00 AM.
The "Collaboration" Prompt is the Only One That Matters
For the 2024-2025 and 2025-2026 cycles, JHU has leaned hard into a single supplemental prompt. It’s about collaboration. It’s about community.
Basically, the prompt asks you to share a time when you worked with others to solve a problem or reach a goal. They want to see how you interact with people who aren't you. It sounds simple. It’s actually a trap.
Most students write about being the "leader." They talk about how they took charge of a failing group project and carried everyone on their back like a weary Sherpa. Don't do that. Hopkins isn't looking for a lone wolf who bosses people around. They are looking for a teammate. If your essay is all about "I did this" and "I fixed that," you've missed the point of the word collaboration.
Think about the messy stuff. Think about the time you had a massive disagreement with your robotics co-captain and had to find a middle ground that didn't involve throwing a wrench. That’s the "how" JHU cares about. They want to see your interpersonal gears grinding.
Stop Trying to Sound Like a Textbook
Admission officers at JHU read thousands of these. Thousands.
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If you use words like "multifaceted," "passionate," or "pinnacle," you’re going to put them to sleep. Seriously. Write like a human being. Use short sentences. Use long ones when you need to explain a complex feeling. Just keep it moving.
I once saw an essay about a student who organized a community garden. Sounds boring, right? But she didn't write about the "impact of sustainable agriculture." She wrote about the literal dirt under her fingernails and the argument she had with a neighbor about where the tomatoes should go. She described the smell of the fertilizer. She made it real.
You need to find your "tomatoes."
What is the specific, grainy detail of your collaboration? If you’re a coder, don't talk about "writing an app." Talk about the specific bug that took three days to find and how your friend finally spotted it while you were both eating cold pizza. That’s a story. The other version is just a report.
The Specificity Gap
There is a massive difference between saying "I enjoy helping my community" and "I spent four hours every Saturday teaching an 8-year-old named Leo how to multiply fractions using LEGO bricks."
See the difference?
One is a hollow platitude. The other is a mental image. Johns Hopkins loves data, but in your essay, the "data" is your sensory memory.
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The Baltimore Connection (Or Lack Thereof)
A lot of people think they need to talk about Baltimore in the Johns Hopkins essay prompts.
Unless you are actually from Baltimore or have a very specific reason to be there—like a specific research partnership at the Bloomberg School of Public Health—you can probably skip the love letter to the city. JHU knows it’s in Baltimore. They want to know why you belong in their specific academic culture, which is famously intense and collaborative.
They call it "The Hopkins Way." It’s this weird mix of cutthroat academic rigor and an almost obsessive need to work together. You see it in the Brody Learning Commons. Groups of students huddled over whiteboards, literally vibrating with caffeine and physics equations.
If you can't see yourself in that huddle, your essay will ring hollow.
How to Handle the "Values" Angle
Sometimes the prompt shifts slightly to focus on "culture" or "background."
If you're tackling a version of the prompt that asks about your community, remember that "community" doesn't have to mean your ethnicity or your religion. It can. But it can also mean the community of people who play competitive Chess, or the community of people who fix vintage motorcycles.
It’s about the values of that group.
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What did that group teach you about how to exist in the world? If you’re a "maker," maybe your community taught you that failure is just a prototype. If you’re a debater, maybe they taught you that you can disagree with someone's idea without hating the person.
Avoid the "Savior Complex"
This is the biggest mistake in college essays.
You went on a service trip. You saw poverty. You realized how lucky you are. You decided to change the world.
Stop. Admissions officers call these "voluntourism" essays. They are almost universally rejected because they focus on the writer’s ego rather than the actual work. If you write about service, focus on what you learned from the people you were helping, not how much you "saved" them. Show humility. Show that you realized you didn't have all the answers.
JHU wants students who are teachable. If you already know everything at 17, why do you need to go to college?
Actionable Steps for Your JHU Supplement
- Audit your "I" count. Read your draft. If almost every sentence starts with "I," go back and rewrite. Shift the focus to the group dynamic. Use "we" more often, but be specific about your unique contribution to that "we."
- Identify the Friction. Every good story needs a conflict. What was the hardest part of the collaboration? If it was easy, it’s not a good topic for this essay. Identify the moment where things almost fell apart.
- Show, Don't Tell. Instead of saying "I am a good communicator," describe the exact words you used to de-escalate a fight during a club meeting.
- The "So What?" Test. Read your final paragraph. If it ends with a generic statement like "and that is why I want to bring my skills to Johns Hopkins," delete it. Replace it with a reflection on how that specific experience changed the way you view teamwork today.
- Read it Aloud. This is the best way to catch "AI voice." If you stumble over a sentence or it sounds like something a robot would say at a corporate retreat, cut it. Your voice should sound like you talking to a mentor you actually like.
- Check the Word Count. JHU usually has a 300-400 word limit for the supplement. Every word has to earn its spot. If a sentence doesn't add new information or reveal a personality trait, it’s dead weight.
Start by listing three times you felt frustrated while working with a group. Pick the one that makes you look the most "human" and the least "perfect." That’s your essay.