Mount Holyoke College supplemental essays
Yes, but every one is optional. Mount Holyoke College prints three supplemental essays in 2026-27 and requires none of them. Common App. Personal statement required (250-650 words).
That is one supplement plus the Common App personal statement: two pieces of writing in all. Early Decision closes November 15, 2026, Early Decision II closes January 5, 2027 and Regular Decision closes January 15, 2027. The prompts carry this limit: 250-400 words. Every Mount Holyoke College prompt is printed on this page in full, with its word limit and who has to answer it.
Deadlines
| Round | Date |
|---|---|
| Early Decision | November 15, 2026 |
| Early Decision II | January 5, 2027 |
| Regular Decision | January 15, 2027 |
Checked against www.mtholyoke.edu/admission/apply-undergraduate-first-year/application-process. Confirm on the college’s own page before you submit.
The essays, 2026-27
These are last year’s questions.
Mount Holyoke does not print its questions on its own site, and only one essay guide carries them, from last year. Two other guides have no Mount Holyoke page at all, so nothing independent confirms this. Read your own application before you write.
Optional (choose 1 of 3) · 250-400 words
What unique characteristic about Mount Holyoke makes you interested in attending?
Instruction line above the three options, verbatim: "Please select one of the three prompts below. Your essay should be between 250-400 words." Labelled Option A by CollegeVine.
Get a free read on this essayPaste your draft, see the verdict before you pay.No draft yet? Pick a topic for this promptOptional (choose 1 of 3) · 250-400 words
Every day, our students cultivate the competence, confidence and courage to make an impact — whether on a personal, community or global level. Tell us about the context in which you have grown up, what forms your aspirations and how your community has shaped your outlook.
Contains an em dash (U+2014) in the source text, reproduced verbatim. Labelled Option B by CollegeVine.
Get a free read on this essayPaste your draft, see the verdict before you pay.No draft yet? Pick a topic for this promptOptional (choose 1 of 3) · 250-400 words
What do you find fascinating? Choose a person, place, concept, idea, or theory and tell us why!
Labelled Option C by CollegeVine.
Get a free read on this essayPaste your draft, see the verdict before you pay.No draft yet? Pick a topic for this prompt
Your Mount Holyoke College checklist
One supplement, optional. The first deadline, Early Decision, is November 15, 2026.
- Common App personal statementRequired250-650 words
- Supplements 1 to 3Optional250-400 words each
It saves these rows to your essay manager, where each one carries a status you set yourself and the prompt stays attached to it. Add your other schools and they land on the same page, in deadline order. Nothing written yet? The topic quiz is free as well.
Free: this page, the checklist, the essay manager and the topic quiz. Paid: a written review of a finished draft, $49 an essay.
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Have it in a document? or drop one here (Word, PDF, or Text).
Not sure what a review is? What an AI college essay review can and cannot do, and what a college essay grader leaves out. What the read checks against Mount Holyoke College’s own prompts is on the Mount Holyoke College essay review page.
Getting into Mount Holyoke College
Mount Holyoke College admits 36.0% of applicants. The middle 50% of enrolled students scored 1380-1530 on the SAT and 32-35 on the ACT.
About 1 in 3 applicants are admitted, at a college of 2,169 undergraduates.
| Enrolled students | 25th | Median | 75th |
|---|---|---|---|
| SAT total | 1380 | 1460 | 1530 |
| SAT reading and writing | 710 | 740 | 760 |
| SAT math | 670 | 720 | 770 |
| ACT composite | 32 | 33 | 35 |
What SAT score do you need for Mount Holyoke College?
A 1530 puts you in the top quarter of the students who enrolled, a 1460 at their midpoint, and a 1380 at the bottom quarter, meaning one in four enrolled students scored below it. The same three points on the ACT are 32, 33 and 35. A quarter of an enrolled class scoring under the 25th percentile is not a rounding error, so a score below the range is a reason to strengthen the rest of the application rather than a reason not to apply.
US Department of Education, College Scorecard (2026-09-17). Percentiles describe students who enrolled, not everyone admitted. SAT totals are the reading and math bands added together, which is how every source in this market reports them and is an approximation of about 10 to 20 points, because the two sections are correlated.
- What SAT score do you need for Mount Holyoke College?
- Mount Holyoke College sets no minimum. Among students who enrolled, the middle 50% scored 1380-1530 on the SAT: a 1380 sits at the 25th percentile, 1460 at the median and 1530 at the 75th. A score at or above 1530 is a clear strength in the application; below 1380 it is the part of the file the rest has to make up for. These are the figures Mount Holyoke College reports to the US Department of Education, released in the College Scorecard of 2026-09-17.
- What ACT score do you need for Mount Holyoke College?
- The middle 50% of enrolled students scored 32-35 on the ACT, with a composite of 33 at the median. There is no cutoff: a quarter of the enrolled class scored below 32. Reported by Mount Holyoke College to the US Department of Education, College Scorecard release of 2026-09-17.
- What GPA do you need for Mount Holyoke College?
- The honest answer is that the federal data behind this page does not contain one. Colleges report their admit rate and their enrolled students' test scores to the Department of Education; they do not report a GPA distribution, so any site quoting an exact average GPA for Mount Holyoke College is either reading that college's own Common Data Set or estimating. What the reported data does say is that Mount Holyoke College admits 36.0% of applicants, and the more selective a college is, the closer to the top of the class its admitted students sit and the more the strength of your course load counts alongside the number itself.
- How hard is it to get into Mount Holyoke College?
- Mount Holyoke College admits 36.0% of the people who apply, which is about 1 in 3 applicants. Numbers inside the reported range put you in a real position here, and the application itself decides the rest.
What Mount Holyoke College costs after grant aid, by family income, from the same federal data.
Sort your whole college list into reaches, targets and likelies, or find colleges that fit your GPA and test scores. Both are free and neither needs an account.
Mount Holyoke College essay questions, answered
- Does Mount Holyoke College have supplemental essays?
- Yes, but every one is optional. Mount Holyoke College prints three supplemental essays in 2026-27 and requires none of them. Every prompt is printed in full on this page. Word limits: 250-400 words.
- How many essays do you write for Mount Holyoke College in 2026-27?
- One supplement, plus the Common App personal statement.
Schools with similar admit rates
Mount Holyoke College admits 36.0% of applicants. The colleges either side of it in our set by admit rate, most selective first, each with its own prompts and deadlines: Lafayette College (31.4%), William & Mary (34.1%), Oberlin College (34.2%), San Diego State University (SDSU) (36.2%), Case Western Reserve University (36.5%), University of Georgia (37.7%).