How should I approach NYU's "bridge builder" supplemental essay for 2025-2026?

NYU is looking for students who want to be bridge builders, students who can connect people, groups, and ideas to span divides, foster understanding, and promote collaboration. You're asked to write a single 250-word response that answers one or more of these questions in a manner that demonstrates you are a bridge builder.

Important: Focus on just one question. Since 250 words is not extensive, it's best to avoid covering too much ground in too little space, which could result in a watered-down essay.

Option 1a: Encountering a Different Perspective

Open this essay with a powerful and vivid experience that resulted in you developing a certain perspective you strongly believed in and that was deeply personal. After explaining this experience, show how it led you to develop this particular viewpoint. From there, describe vividly what it was like to hear a perspective that directly countered your own.
Next, demonstrate how you critically engaged with that opposing perspective, such as examining the commonalities and underlying assumptions that both your perspective and theirs share. As part of the bridge builder theme, show how you have the mental ability to recognize that opposing perspectives are often two sides of the same coin. If you can portray yourself having a productive conversation with this person to further establish yourself as a bridge builder, that would be ideal.
Show how both parties benefited from this exchange, or at least demonstrate how you remained open-minded and willing to refine your perspective in light of what this person shared. To conclude the essay, don't simply tell the reader what you learned, show them how you put these insights into practice.

Option 1b: Working with Different Backgrounds or Perspectives

Choose this question if you resolved a disagreement between two or more people, rather than having a personal conflict yourself. This essay perfectly demonstrates that you are a bridge builder.

Begin with a vivid, compelling account of a formative experience that shaped you into someone who naturally resolves disputes between others. From there, explore how this experience cultivated your disposition as a bridge builder. Next, vividly illustrate the specific disagreement that occurred within your group and detail exactly what actions you took to resolve it.
To conclude, don't simply tell the reader what you learned, show them how you've applied these lessons in practice.

Option 1c: Someone Who Helps Others Work Together

Don't choose this prompt. You, the applicant, the one who is asking to be a guest on NYU's campus for four years instead of some other qualified candidate, should always be the main character in your essays. Writing an essay about someone else gives the reader much less reason to admit you than writing it about yourself. At best, strive to be the person your essay describes that the admissions committee is looking for in response to this prompt.