Cornell University's wording, checked October 26, 2026“Describe your interest in urban and regional studies. Discuss experiences, ideas, or issues that have shaped your interest in cities, communities, and regional systems, and explain how URS at Cornell aligns with your academic and career goals.”
How to approach it
- 1Start from one place you know well and a question about it.
- 2The prompt lists cities, communities and regional systems. Show that you can think at more than one of those scales.
- 3Goals can be provisional. A clear direction is enough.
A structure that works
One way to shape this answer. It describes moves, not sentences: the words have to be yours.
- 1A place you know well and something about it that puzzles or bothers you.
- 2The experiences, reading or work that turned the observation into an interest.
- 3The issue or question you most want to study, stated precisely.
- 4How URS at Cornell fits: courses, approaches or opportunities you have looked up.
- 5Your academic and career goals, as far as you can honestly see them.
Where the 650 words go
| Part | Words |
|---|---|
| Where the interest comes from | about 230 |
| How you think about the subject | about 200 |
| Your path at this college | about 230 |
Mistakes to avoid
- Cities in general.
- A why-Cornell paragraph that could be about any department.
The checklist our grader uses for this question
When you check your Cornell answers, this answer is read against these 5 areas. Each comes back Met, Partly or Missing with a quote from your draft as evidence, and together with the 650 words limit they set its readiness verdict.
| Area | What a reader looks for |
|---|---|
| Answers the question | The opening sentences answer what was asked, plainly, before background or a hook; every part of a multi-part question is answered. |
| Where the interest comes from | A specific, preferably recent experience (a class, project, job, reading, problem) shows the interest is real, not a stated passion. |
| How you think about it | The reader sees the applicant's own thinking: a question they pursue, a connection they made, a view of the field. |
| Your path at this college | It names how this school's curriculum, structure or opportunities fit the plan, specifically enough that it would not fit another school unchanged. |
| Cornell's ask | It ties the academic interest to what Cornell offers, not to the field in general. |
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Questions
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