The UVU Honors Program seeks students who are creative, reflective, and capable of thinking beyond traditional boundaries. We want to know who you are, what motivates you, and how you think. To help us see beyond your grades and accomplishments, we ask you to engage in composing an innovative response to one of our prompts.

Your response will be evaluated on the focus, originality, and creativity of the content, spelling, grammar, and punctuation matter, too.

We are seeking students who display evidence of curiosity, innovative thinking, and potential for intellectual and personal growth.

DO:

• Draw on your best qualities as a writer and thinker
• Strive to be an effective storyteller
• Take some risks and have fun
• Have someone with experience proofread your writing
• Carefully remove typos, clichéd phrasing, and unclear ideas

DON’T:

• Let anyone erase your unique voice
• Share your darkest thoughts, experiences, fears, or desires
• Preach or lecture
• Plagiarize or use generative AI like ChatGPT to prepare your responses

Essay responses are limited to 300-400 words.

Prompts:

Choose ONE

A. Imagine the scenario: You’ve struck a deal with the UVU Honors Director that guarantees your admission to the program.

• Understand the task: You must use a blank, 8.5” x 11” piece of paper or document to create something using any medium you choose—drawing, writing, sketching, collaging, shading, stenciling, or painting. You are limited to one side of the paper or a single page of a digital document.
• Consider the catch: For the rest of your life, your creation will be the first thing anyone sees when they meet you. Whether it’s a job interview, a first date, or your first graduate class, people will see this page before you even speak and form their first impression based on it.
• Create your submission: Make your piece on the paper or document, keeping in mind that it will be the defining first impression of you.
• Submit your page as a PDF: After completing your creation, attach it as a PDF to your application.
• Explain your creation: Along with your submission, provide an explanation of what’s on the page and why you chose to create it. If your piece is largely or exclusively visual, you may include a separate creator’s statement of no more than 200 words explaining its meaning.

B. Physicist Albert Einstein said: “It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.”

• Understand the task: Drawing from your formal and informal educational experiences (school, travel, job, faith community, volunteer service, leadership roles, athletics or arts participation, etc.), assess the truth of Einstein’s statement for your experience.

• Consider the Catch: All submissions must be accompanied by an image related to your written response. You must share a visual image of what results your curiosity has yielded. This could be a photograph related to your chosen educational experience, an image of a piece of art you have created or a competition you participated in, a certificate or award you have earned as a result of following your curiosity, etc. Include this image on your PDF.

• Create your submission: Compose and revise your 300-word response, being certain to discuss how you have fostered curiosity in your life.
• Submit your response as a PDF: After completing the response and choosing the image, attach them as a PDF to your application.

C.  Imagine the scenario: You are a professional photographer like Chris Jordan exploring New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Near two thousand people died and tens of thousands displaced by flooding. You snap this image of the piles of ruined books in a neighborhood.

Photo credit: Chris Jordan, In Katrina’s Wake. Princeton Architectural Press, 2006.

• Understand the task: What did you want to say with this image of books outside a flooded home in New Orleans in 2005? You may take any approach or perspective you like in explaining the photograph. That is, you could tell an imagined story based on the photo, look at it as a piece of visual art, or you may explore it as a commentary on the economic, political, cultural, racial, social, or environmental meanings it might convey.

• Consider the Catch: You must stay in the persona of a photographer as you explore the potential meaning(s) of the image. Artists convey complex observations about the world, so exercise your analytical capabilities.
• Create your submission: Compose and revise your 300-word response.
• Submit your response as a PDF: After completing the response, attach it as a PDF to your application.

A. Imagine the scenario: You’ve struck a deal with the UVU Honors Director that guarantees your admission to the program.

• Understand the task: You must use a blank, 8.5” x 11” piece of paper or document to create something using any medium you choose—drawing, writing, sketching, collaging, shading, stenciling, or painting. You are limited to one side of the paper or a single page of a digital document.
• Consider the catch: For the rest of your life, your creation will be the first thing anyone sees when they meet you. Whether it’s a job interview, a first date, or your first graduate class, people will see this page before you even speak and form their first impression based on it.
• Create your submission: Make your piece on the paper or document, keeping in mind that it will be the defining first impression of you.
• Submit your page as a PDF: After completing your creation, attach it as a PDF to your application.
• Explain your creation: Along with your submission, provide an explanation of what’s on the page and why you chose to create it. If your piece is largely or exclusively visual, you may include a separate creator’s statement of no more than 200 words explaining its meaning.

B. Physicist Albert Einstein said: “It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.”

• Understand the task: Drawing from your formal and informal educational experiences (school, travel, job, faith community, volunteer service, leadership roles, athletics or arts participation, etc.), assess the truth of Einstein’s statement for your experience.

• Consider the Catch: All submissions must be accompanied by an image related to your written response. You must share a visual image of what results your curiosity has yielded. This could be a photograph related to your chosen educational experience, an image of a piece of art you have created or a competition you participated in, a certificate or award you have earned as a result of following your curiosity, etc. Include this image on your PDF.

• Create your submission: Compose and revise your 300-word response, being certain to discuss how you have fostered curiosity in your life.
• Submit your response as a PDF: After completing the response and choosing the image, attach them as a PDF to your application.

C.  Imagine the scenario: You are a professional photographer like Chris Jordan exploring New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Near two thousand people died and tens of thousands displaced by flooding. You snap this image of the piles of ruined books in a neighborhood.

Photo credit: Chris Jordan, In Katrina’s Wake. Princeton Architectural Press, 2006.

• Understand the task: What did you want to say with this image of books outside a flooded home in New Orleans in 2005? You may take any approach or perspective you like in explaining the photograph. That is, you could tell an imagined story based on the photo, look at it as a piece of visual art, or you may explore it as a commentary on the economic, political, cultural, racial, social, or environmental meanings it might convey.

• Consider the Catch: You must stay in the persona of a photographer as you explore the potential meaning(s) of the image. Artists convey complex observations about the world, so exercise your analytical capabilities.
• Create your submission: Compose and revise your 300-word response.
• Submit your response as a PDF: After completing the response, attach it as a PDF to your application.