essay about belonging to a community

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How to Write the Community Essay – Guide with Examples (2023-24)

September 6, 2023

Students applying to college this year will inevitably confront the community essay. In fact, most students will end up responding to several community essay prompts for different schools. For this reason, you should know more than simply how to approach the community essay as a genre. Rather, you will want to learn how to decipher the nuances of each particular prompt, in order to adapt your response appropriately. In this article, we’ll show you how to do just that, through several community essay examples. These examples will also demonstrate how to avoid cliché and make the community essay authentically and convincingly your own.

Emphasis on Community

Do keep in mind that inherent in the word “community” is the idea of multiple people. The personal statement already provides you with a chance to tell the college admissions committee about yourself as an individual. The community essay, however, suggests that you depict yourself among others. You can use this opportunity to your advantage by showing off interpersonal skills, for example. Or, perhaps you wish to relate a moment that forged important relationships. This in turn will indicate what kind of connections you’ll make in the classroom with college peers and professors.

Apart from comprising numerous people, a community can appear in many shapes and sizes. It could be as small as a volleyball team, or as large as a diaspora. It could fill a town soup kitchen, or spread across five boroughs. In fact, due to the internet, certain communities today don’t even require a physical place to congregate. Communities can form around a shared identity, shared place, shared hobby, shared ideology, or shared call to action. They can even arise due to a shared yet unforeseen circumstance.

What is the Community Essay All About?             

In a nutshell, the community essay should exhibit three things:

• An aspect of yourself, 2. in the context of a community you belonged to, and 3. how this experience may shape your contribution to the community you’ll join in college.

It may look like a fairly simple equation: 1 + 2 = 3. However, each college will word their community essay prompt differently, so it’s important to look out for additional variables. One college may use the community essay as a way to glimpse your core values. Another may use the essay to understand how you would add to diversity on campus. Some may let you decide in which direction to take it—and there are many ways to go!

To get a better idea of how the prompts differ, let’s take a look at some real community essay prompts from the current admission cycle.

Sample 2023-2024 Community Essay Prompts

1) brown university.

“Students entering Brown often find that making their home on College Hill naturally invites reflection on where they came from. Share how an aspect of your growing up has inspired or challenged you, and what unique contributions this might allow you to make to the Brown community. (200-250 words)”

A close reading of this prompt shows that Brown puts particular emphasis on place. They do this by using the words “home,” “College Hill,” and “where they came from.” Thus, Brown invites writers to think about community through the prism of place. They also emphasize the idea of personal growth or change, through the words “inspired or challenged you.” Therefore, Brown wishes to see how the place you grew up in has affected you. And, they want to know how you in turn will affect their college community.

“NYU was founded on the belief that a student’s identity should not dictate the ability for them to access higher education. That sense of opportunity for all students, of all backgrounds, remains a part of who we are today and a critical part of what makes us a world-class university. Our community embraces diversity, in all its forms, as a cornerstone of the NYU experience.

We would like to better understand how your experiences would help us to shape and grow our diverse community. Please respond in 250 words or less.”

Here, NYU places an emphasis on students’ “identity,” “backgrounds,” and “diversity,” rather than any physical place. (For some students, place may be tied up in those ideas.) Furthermore, while NYU doesn’t ask specifically how identity has changed the essay writer, they do ask about your “experience.” Take this to mean that you can still recount a specific moment, or several moments, that work to portray your particular background. You should also try to link your story with NYU’s values of inclusivity and opportunity.

3) University of Washington

“Our families and communities often define us and our individual worlds. Community might refer to your cultural group, extended family, religious group, neighborhood or school, sports team or club, co-workers, etc. Describe the world you come from and how you, as a product of it, might add to the diversity of the UW. (300 words max) Tip: Keep in mind that the UW strives to create a community of students richly diverse in cultural backgrounds, experiences, values and viewpoints.”

UW ’s community essay prompt may look the most approachable, for they help define the idea of community. You’ll notice that most of their examples (“families,” “cultural group, extended family, religious group, neighborhood”…) place an emphasis on people. This may clue you in on their desire to see the relationships you’ve made. At the same time, UW uses the words “individual” and “richly diverse.” They, like NYU, wish to see how you fit in and stand out, in order to boost campus diversity.

Writing Your First Community Essay

Begin by picking which community essay you’ll write first. (For practical reasons, you’ll probably want to go with whichever one is due earliest.) Spend time doing a close reading of the prompt, as we’ve done above. Underline key words. Try to interpret exactly what the prompt is asking through these keywords.

Next, brainstorm. I recommend doing this on a blank piece of paper with a pencil. Across the top, make a row of headings. These might be the communities you’re a part of, or the components that make up your identity. Then, jot down descriptive words underneath in each column—whatever comes to you. These words may invoke people and experiences you had with them, feelings, moments of growth, lessons learned, values developed, etc. Now, narrow in on the idea that offers the richest material and that corresponds fully with the prompt.

Lastly, write! You’ll definitely want to describe real moments, in vivid detail. This will keep your essay original, and help you avoid cliché. However, you’ll need to summarize the experience and answer the prompt succinctly, so don’t stray too far into storytelling mode.

How To Adapt Your Community Essay

Once your first essay is complete, you’ll need to adapt it to the other colleges involving community essays on your list. Again, you’ll want to turn to the prompt for a close reading, and recognize what makes this prompt different from the last. For example, let’s say you’ve written your essay for UW about belonging to your swim team, and how the sports dynamics shaped you. Adapting that essay to Brown’s prompt could involve more of a focus on place. You may ask yourself, how was my swim team in Alaska different than the swim teams we competed against in other states?

Once you’ve adapted the content, you’ll also want to adapt the wording to mimic the prompt. For example, let’s say your UW essay states, “Thinking back to my years in the pool…” As you adapt this essay to Brown’s prompt, you may notice that Brown uses the word “reflection.” Therefore, you might change this sentence to “Reflecting back on my years in the pool…” While this change is minute, it cleverly signals to the reader that you’ve paid attention to the prompt, and are giving that school your full attention.

What to Avoid When Writing the Community Essay  

• Avoid cliché. Some students worry that their idea is cliché, or worse, that their background or identity is cliché. However, what makes an essay cliché is not the content, but the way the content is conveyed. This is where your voice and your descriptions become essential.
• Avoid giving too many examples. Stick to one community, and one or two anecdotes arising from that community that allow you to answer the prompt fully.
• Don’t exaggerate or twist facts. Sometimes students feel they must make themselves sound more “diverse” than they feel they are. Luckily, diversity is not a feeling. Likewise, diversity does not simply refer to one’s heritage. If the prompt is asking about your identity or background, you can show the originality of your experiences through your actions and your thinking.

Community Essay Examples and Analysis

Brown university community essay example.

I used to hate the NYC subway. I’ve taken it since I was six, going up and down Manhattan, to and from school. By high school, it was a daily nightmare. Spending so much time underground, underneath fluorescent lighting, squashed inside a rickety, rocking train car among strangers, some of whom wanted to talk about conspiracy theories, others who had bedbugs or B.O., or who manspread across two seats, or bickered—it wore me out. The challenge of going anywhere seemed absurd. I dreaded the claustrophobia and disgruntlement.

Yet the subway also inspired my understanding of community. I will never forget the morning I saw a man, several seats away, slide out of his seat and hit the floor. The thump shocked everyone to attention. What we noticed: he appeared drunk, possibly homeless. I was digesting this when a second man got up and, through a sort of awkward embrace, heaved the first man back into his seat. The rest of us had stuck to subway social codes: don’t step out of line. Yet this second man’s silent actions spoke loudly. They said, “I care.”

That day I realized I belong to a group of strangers. What holds us together is our transience, our vulnerabilities, and a willingness to assist. This community is not perfect but one in motion, a perpetual work-in-progress. Now I make it my aim to hold others up. I plan to contribute to the Brown community by helping fellow students and strangers in moments of precariousness.    

Brown University Community Essay Example Analysis

Here the student finds an original way to write about where they come from. The subway is not their home, yet it remains integral to ideas of belonging. The student shows how a community can be built between strangers, in their responsibility toward each other. The student succeeds at incorporating key words from the prompt (“challenge,” “inspired” “Brown community,” “contribute”) into their community essay.

UW Community Essay Example

I grew up in Hawaii, a world bound by water and rich in diversity. In school we learned that this sacred land was invaded, first by Captain Cook, then by missionaries, whalers, traders, plantation owners, and the U.S. government. My parents became part of this problematic takeover when they moved here in the 90s. The first community we knew was our church congregation. At the beginning of mass, we shook hands with our neighbors. We held hands again when we sang the Lord’s Prayer. I didn’t realize our church wasn’t “normal” until our diocese was informed that we had to stop dancing hula and singing Hawaiian hymns. The order came from the Pope himself.

Eventually, I lost faith in God and organized institutions. I thought the banning of hula—an ancient and pure form of expression—seemed medieval, ignorant, and unfair, given that the Hawaiian religion had already been stamped out. I felt a lack of community and a distrust for any place in which I might find one. As a postcolonial inhabitant, I could never belong to the Hawaiian culture, no matter how much I valued it. Then, I was shocked to learn that Queen Ka’ahumanu herself had eliminated the Kapu system, a strict code of conduct in which women were inferior to men. Next went the Hawaiian religion. Queen Ka’ahumanu burned all the temples before turning to Christianity, hoping this religion would offer better opportunities for her people.

Community Essay (Continued)

I’m not sure what to make of this history. Should I view Queen Ka’ahumanu as a feminist hero, or another failure in her islands’ tragedy? Nothing is black and white about her story, but she did what she thought was beneficial to her people, regardless of tradition. From her story, I’ve learned to accept complexity. I can disagree with institutionalized religion while still believing in my neighbors. I am a product of this place and their presence. At UW, I plan to add to campus diversity through my experience, knowing that diversity comes with contradictions and complications, all of which should be approached with an open and informed mind.

UW Community Essay Example Analysis

This student also manages to weave in words from the prompt (“family,” “community,” “world,” “product of it,” “add to the diversity,” etc.). Moreover, the student picks one of the examples of community mentioned in the prompt, (namely, a religious group,) and deepens their answer by addressing the complexity inherent in the community they’ve been involved in. While the student displays an inner turmoil about their identity and participation, they find a way to show how they’d contribute to an open-minded campus through their values and intellectual rigor.

What’s Next

For more on supplemental essays and essay writing guides, check out the following articles:

• How to Write the Why This Major Essay + Example
• How to Write the Overcoming Challenges Essay + Example
• How to Start a College Essay – 12 Techniques and Tips
• College Essay

Kaylen Baker

With a BA in Literary Studies from Middlebury College, an MFA in Fiction from Columbia University, and a Master’s in Translation from Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis, Kaylen has been working with students on their writing for over five years. Previously, Kaylen taught a fiction course for high school students as part of Columbia Artists/Teachers, and served as an English Language Assistant for the French National Department of Education. Kaylen is an experienced writer/translator whose work has been featured in Los Angeles Review, Hybrid, San Francisco Bay Guardian, France Today, and Honolulu Weekly, among others.

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Writing a College Essay About Community and Examples

By Eric Eng

Writing a college essay about community is a common requirement in the series of essay prompts most colleges include alongside their Common Application. If you’re applying to multiple universities, you’ll notice that many of these essay topics overlap, although the wording is always different. 

One main reason for this is that all college admissions committees want to learn the same things about you. They’re all interested in learning more about who you are, what you’re interested in, what goals you have in the future, and why you’ve chosen to apply to this university. 

One of these prompts is a college essay about community. While it varies from college to college, the prompt will roughly sound like this:

Tell us a little about a community you consider yourself part of.

Each university will add its own spin or add-on question, but they’re all asking the same thing: what about your background has had a major impact on who you are today?

Here’s an actual example from Brown University to give you some context:

“Tell us about a place or community you call home. How has it shaped your perspective?”

Another example is from the University of Michigan : 

“Everyone belongs to many different communities and/or groups defined by (among other things) shared geography, religion, ethnicity, income, cuisine, interest, race, ideology, or intellectual heritage. Choose one of the communities to which you belong, and describe that community and your place within it. ”

From Duke University:

“We seek a talented, engaged student body that embodies the wide range of human experience; we believe that the diversity of our students makes our community stronger. If you’d like to share a perspective you bring or experiences you’ve had to help us understand you better—perhaps related to a community you belong to, your sexual orientation or gender identity, or your family or cultural background—we encourage you to do so. Real people are reading your application, and we want to do our best to understand and appreciate the real people applying.”

At first glance, this college essay about community seems pretty easy. The question in itself is short and colleges typically only request a brief answer of a few hundred words. However, after you read the prompt a few more times, you might realize how open-ended it is. What are the best words to describe community ? 

How you answer this question depends on your perspective. You might choose to describe the literal community where you live, or you could interpret it more metaphorically to mean a group of people you identify with for a specific reason. 

For example, if you are a person of color, your community could be your cultural group. In some diversity essay examples , focusing on the sense of belonging in a foreign country could be an ideal angle to explore. If you are an international student , you might share how you found your community in a new country. Alternatively, you could see your weekly Dungeons & Dragons group in writing your college essay about community. Think about the groups or environments where you feel a sense of belonging and connection.

Regardless of how you interpret community, the primary thrust of the question remains the same. This is the perfect opportunity for you to talk more about who you are and how you interact with your community at large. 

Admissions officers aren’t only interested in how you can benefit from attending the university. They’re also interested to know what you’ll be able to offer students, teachers, and the larger school community. 

How to Write the Community Essay: Complete Guide (plus tips!)

While all college essays are an excellent time to show admissions officers why you’re a great fit for the school, the college essay about community is especially important. If you’re able to knock this essay out of the park, you can successfully convey to colleges how you would contribute to the school. Let’s look at 10 things to know before you write a college essay about the community to help you write the best response possible.

Decide what community you want to write about

Start by brainstorming the communities you are a part of. These can be defined by factors, such as:

The best tip that we could give you is to choose the community where you can share most about yourself. Think about the different “identities” you have and what groups of people you spend time with at school, work, or elsewhere. Don’t limit yourself to the literal definition of “community” if something truly resonates what your definition of “community” pops up.

Start outlining your essay with guide questions

As we’ve mentioned before, this college essay about community is an open-ended question. So take this as an opportunity for you to get creative! Reflect on your experiences and how they have shaped who you are today. Use these guide questions to help structure your thoughts and outline your essay:

• What specific actions did you take in that community? (Hint: use active verbs like “coordinated” and “led” to clearly describe your roles).
• What types of challenges did you address (on a personal, local, or global level)?
• What particular contributions did you make?
• What skills, qualities, or values did you acquire?
• How did you utilize the lessons learned within and beyond that community?

Don’t be afraid to get personal

All college essay prompts are designed to help admissions officers get to know you better. So a college essay about community is one of the best places to accomplish this goal. One advice we can give students is to get personal! Don’t be afraid to show off your quirky side, something unique about you, a little bit about your background, and everything that makes you…well, you !

Although the college essay about community does involve other people, the question is mainly asking what group you identify with. Similarly, in diversity essay examples, the emphasis is on how your unique background, identity, or perspective has influenced your life and how it might contribute to the diversity of the college community. 

While you’ll no doubt mention and even describe other people, don’t forget to talk about yourself and how this community changed or affected you. This should be your primary focus throughout the piece as it’s what the college is most interested in learning more about.

If you feel that the topic you chose is a little too personal for you to really open up, consider switching to another sense of the word “community” about which you’re more comfortable talking.

Toot your horn.

At the heart of it, a college essay about community is asking you to talk about your achievements… at least a little. As a member of a community, you need to be offering something to the group, not just benefitting. Showing this reciprocity means you are contributing to a larger community.

Many students talk about dreaming of changing the world, but not all of them know where to start. If you are actively doing something positive for your community, in a sense, you are changing the world… your own little world. Positive contributions and acts of service to your community may be small, but they are a start, and that still counts as something.

For example, if you’ve been part of a local food bank, you might talk about how you organized a fundraising event that raised thousands of dollars and significantly increased the food bank’s capacity to serve those in need. Or perhaps you volunteered with Habitat for Humanity and led a team of volunteers in building homes for underprivileged families. 

Since there aren’t many college essays on volunteering, this would be a great opportunity to talk about it. While you shouldn’t go overboard, don’t be afraid to earnestly talk about how you’re helping others within your community. 

Still, what makes college community service essay examples genuine is that you’ll need to share how the experience shaped who you are today. If you have read other students’ community service essay examples before, you’d notice that they talk about how the experience led them to a positive change in their lives. Discuss how leading those fundraising efforts teaches you about perseverance and the power of community. Or how did building homes with Habitat for Humanity instill in you a deep sense of empathy and responsibility? Sharing these insights will make your community service essay stand out.

For admissions counselors, this is an important part of deciding whether or not you’ll fit right in at their university. They want to know how you’re going to contribute to their community other than being an academic member.

Choose a format

The basics of writing a college essay about community is to pick how you’re going to tell it. Choosing the right format is the way to effectively convey your experiences and insights. Here are some points to consider:

The Story Structure

The Story Structure is ideal for students who have encountered a challenge within their community. If you opt for this format, consider addressing these three questions in your essay:

• What challenge did you encounter?
• How did you address it?
• What did you learn from the experience?

The Collection Structure

If this doesn’t apply to you, the Collection Structure might be more suitable. When using this format for writing your essay, check out these points:

• Theme or Central Idea: Choose a unifying theme that ties your different experiences together. This could be a value, skill, or passion that permeates your community involvement.
• Vignettes : Share several short stories or snapshots that illustrate your engagement. These can be varied and highlight different roles, projects, or impacts you’ve had.
• Connection : Each vignette connects back to your central theme and demonstrates how each experience contributes to your overall growth and perspective.
• Reflection : Reflect on what these experiences have taught you and how they have shaped you as a person.

For example, in writing your college essay about community, you might write about your involvement in multiple community projects, such as organizing local clean-up events, mentoring younger students in a science club, and participating in cultural festivals. Each of these vignettes would showcase different facets of your character and how you contribute to your community.

You can also combine the narrative and collection structures by discussing a challenge while highlighting a range of values and lessons learned at the same time. This hybrid approach showcases your diverse experiences and insights within your community.

“Describe a Community You Belong to” Essay Examples

East meets west.

I look around my room, dimly lit by an orange light. On my desk, a framed picture of an Asian family beaming their smiles, buried among US history textbooks and The Great Gatsby. A Korean ballad streams from two tiny computer speakers. Pamphlets of American colleges were scattered on the floor. A cold December wind wafts a strange infusion of ramen and leftover pizza. On the wall in the far back, a Korean flag hangs beside a Led Zeppelin poster.

Do I consider myself Korean or American?

A few years back, I would have replied: “Neither.” The frustrating moments of miscommunication, the stifling homesickness, and the impossible dilemma of deciding between the Korean or American table in the dining hall, all fueled my identity crisis.

Standing in the “Foreign Passports” section at JFK, I have always felt out of place. Sure, I held a Korean passport in my hands, and I loved kimchi and Yuna Kim and knew the Korean Anthem by heart. But I also loved macaroni and cheese and LeBron. Deep inside, I feared I’d be labeled by my airport customs category: a foreigner everywhere.

This ambiguity, however, has granted me the opportunity to absorb the best of both worlds. Look at my dorm room. This mélange of cultures in my East-meets-West room embodies the diversity that characterizes my international student life.

I’ve learned to accept my “ambiguity” as “diversity,” as a third-culture student embracing both identities.

Now, I can proudly answer: “Both.”

Let’s unpack this community essay example.

As a reader, what did you notice in the essay? How did it make you feel? Here’s our take:

• The author uses very descriptive language that does an excellent job of setting the scene, making the piece as engaging as a short story.
• Although the subject is potentially generic (i.e. a story about having two different identities due to cultural differences), the author does a wonderful job of keeping it personal, insightful, interesting, and non-cliche.
• The story comes full circle by discussing something different in the past and how the writer’s experiences have changed it for the better today.
• The author openly admits to having an “identity crisis” which captures the reader’s attention even more without being too overbearing.

Let’s look at another example:

The Pumpkin House

I was raised in “The Pumpkin House.” Every Autumn, on the lawn between the sidewalk and the road, grows our pumpkin. Every summer, we procure seeds from giant pumpkins and plant them on this strip of land. Every fall, the pumpkin grows to be a giant. This annual ritual became well-known in the community and became the defining feature of our already quirky house.

The pumpkin was not just a pumpkin, but a catalyst to creating interactions and community. Conversations often start with “Aren’t you the girl in the pumpkin house?” My English teacher knew about our pumpkin and our chickens. His curiosity and weekly updates about the pumpkin helped us connect.

One year, we found our pumpkin splattered across the street. We were devastated; the pumpkin was part of our identity. Word spread and people came to our house to share in our dismay. Clearly, that pumpkin enriched our life and the entire neighborhood’.

The next morning, our patch contained twelve new pumpkins. Anonymous neighbors left these, plus, a truly gigantic 200 lb. pumpkin on our doorstep.

Growing up, the pumpkin challenged me as I wasn’t always comfortable being the center of attention.

But in retrospect, I realize that there’s a bit of magic in growing something from a seed and tending it in public. I witnessed how this act of sharing creates an authentic community spirit. I wouldn’t be surprised if someday I started my own form of quirky pumpkin growing and reap the benefit of true community.

This time around, pause and reflect on this essay. How did the community the author described change their perspective? How did it affect them personally? What action did the author mention going forward? Here’s what we think:

• In this essay, the author expresses the importance of rituals and family which is an excellent topic for a college essay about community.
• The topic of the essay is mentioned within the first two to three sentences of the piece, making use of limited space.
• The word “community” is explicitly used which shows admissions staff you know how to follow directions while also making it easier for them to understand what you’re writing about.
• The topic is unique to the writer and not something that many – if any – other applicants would be able to write about.
• It comes across as very authentic, personal, and genuine while still being engaging and interesting.

Lastly, once the inspiration finally strikes, seize the moment by immediately putting your thoughts on paper. Start drafting your essay about community with sincerity and passion, and let your heart guide your words.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What are the words to describe community?

A community is a group of people who share something in common. In writing your college essay about community, you can define it by the shared traits of the people in it or by the strength of the connections among them. It’s about finding a group of people who are similar in some way and feel a sense of belonging or connection with one another.

2. Why do colleges ask for a community essay?

Colleges use community essays to understand how you might fit into their school community. These prompts give you the chance to show admissions officers why you’d be a great addition to their campus.

3. How do I write a college essay about community?

When writing your college essay about community, focus on three main points:

• Highlight an aspect of yourself.
• Show this in the context of a community you belong to.
• Explain how this experience might influence your contribution to the college community you’ll join.

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Blog > Essay Advice , Supplementals > How to Write a Community Supplemental Essay (with Examples)

How to Write a Community Supplemental Essay (with Examples)

Admissions officer reviewed by Ben Bousquet, M.Ed Former Vanderbilt University

Written by Kylie Kistner, MA Former Willamette University Admissions

Key Takeaway

If you're applying to college, there's a good chance you'll be writing a Community Essay for one (or lots) of your supplementals. In this post, we show you how to write one that stands out.

This post is one in a series of posts about the supplemental essays . You can read our core “how-to” supplemental post here .

When schools admit you, they aren’t just admitting you to be a student. They’re also admitting you to be a community member.

Community supplemental essays help universities understand how you would fit into their school community. At their core, Community prompts allow you to explicitly show an admissions officer why you would be the perfect addition to the school’s community.

Let’s get into what a Community supplemental essay is, what strategies you can use to stand out, and which steps you can take to write the best one possible.

What is a Community supplemental essay?

Community supplemental essay prompts come in a number of forms. Some ask you to talk about a community you already belong to, while others ask you to expand on how you would contribute to the school you’re applying to.

Let’s look at a couple of examples.

1: Rice University

Rice is lauded for creating a collaborative atmosphere that enhances the quality of life for all members of our campus community. The Residential College System and undergraduate life is heavily influenced by the unique life experiences and cultural tradition each student brings. What life perspectives would you contribute to the Rice community? 500 word limit.

2: Swarthmore College

Swarthmore students’ worldviews are often forged by their prior experiences and exposure to ideas and values. Our students are often mentored, supported, and developed by their immediate context—in their neighborhoods, communities of faith, families, and classrooms. Reflect on what elements of your home, school, or community have shaped you or positively impacted you. How have you grown or changed because of the influence of your community?

Community Essay Strategy

Your Community essay strategy will likely depend on the kind of Community essay you’re asked to write. As with all supplemental essays, the goal of any community essay should be to write about the strengths that make you a good fit for the school in question.

How to write about a community to which you belong

Most Community essay prompts give you a lot of flexibility in how you define “community.” That means that the community you write about probably isn’t limited to the more formal communities you’re part of like family or school. Your communities can also include friend groups, athletic teams, clubs and organizations, online communities, and more.

There are two things you should consider before you even begin writing your essay.

What school values is the prompt looking for?

Whether they’re listed implicitly or explicitly, Community essay prompts often include values that you can align your essay response with.

To explain, let’s look at this short supplemental prompt from the University of Notre Dame:

If you were given unlimited resources to help solve one problem in your community, what would it be and how would you accomplish it?

Now, this prompt doesn’t outright say anything about values. But the question itself, even being so short, implies a few values:

a) That you should be active in your community

b) That you should be aware of your community’s problems

c) That you know how to problem-solve

d) That you’re able to collaborate with your community

After dissecting the prompt for these values, you can write a Community essay that showcases how you align with them.

What else are admissions officers learning about you through the community you choose?

In addition to showing what a good community member you are, your Community supplemental essays can also let you talk about other parts of your experience. Doing so can help you find the perfect narrative balance among all your essays.

Let’s use a quick example.

If I’m a student applying to computer science programs, then I might choose to write about the community I’ve found in my robotics team. More specifically, I might write about my role as cheerleader and principle problem-solver of my robotics team. Writing about my robotics team allows me to do two things:

Show that I’m a really supportive person in my community, and

Show that I’m on a robotics team that means a lot to me.

Now, it’s important not to co-opt your Community essay and turn it into a secret Extracurricular essay , but it’s important to be thinking about all the information an admissions officer will learn about you based on the community you choose to focus on.

How to write about what you’ll contribute to your new community

The other segment of Community essays are those that ask you to reflect on how your specific experiences will contribute to your new community.

It’s important that you read each prompt carefully so you know what to focus your essay on.

These kinds of Community prompts let you explicitly drive home why you belong at the school you’re applying to.

Here are two suggestions to get you started.

Draw out the values.

This kind of Community prompt also typically contains some kind of reference to values. The Rice prompt is a perfect example of this:

Rice is lauded for creating a collaborative atmosphere that enhances the quality of life for all members of our campus community . The Residential College System and undergraduate life is heavily influenced by the unique life experiences and cultural tradition each student brings. What life perspectives would you contribute to the Rice community? 500 word limit.

There are several values here:

a) Collaboration

b) Enhancing quality of life

c) For all members of the community

d) Residential system (AKA not just in the classroom)

e) Sharing unique life experiences and cultural traditions with other students

Note that the actual question of the prompt is “What life perspectives would you contribute to the Rice community?” If you skimmed the beginning of the prompt to get to the question, you’d miss all these juicy details about what a Rice student looks like.

But with them in mind, you can choose to write about a life perspective that you hold that aligns with these five values.

Find detailed connections to the school.

Since these kinds of Community prompts ask you what you would contribute to the school community, this is your chance to find the most logical and specific connections you can. Browse the school website and social media to find groups, clubs, activities, communities, or support systems that are related to your personal background and experiences. When appropriate based on the prompt, these kinds of connections can help you show how good a fit you are for the school and community.

How to do Community Essay school research

Looking at school values means doing research on the school’s motto, mission statement, and strategic plans. This information is all carefully curated by a university to reflect the core values, initiatives, and goals of an institution. They can guide your Community essay by giving you more values options to include.

We’ll use the Rice mission statement as an example. It says,

As a leading research university with a distinctive commitment to undergraduate education, Rice University aspires to pathbreaking research , unsurpassed teaching , and contribution to the betterment of our world . It seeks to fulfill this mission by cultivating a diverse community of learning and discovery that produces leaders across the spectrum of human endeavor.

I’ve bolded just a few of the most important values we can draw out.

As we’ll see in the next section, I can use these values to brainstorm my Community essay.

How to write a Community Supplemental Essay

Step 1: Read the prompt closely & identify any relevant values.

When writing any supplemental essay, your first step should always be to closely read the prompt. You can even annotate it. It’s important to do this so you know exactly what is being asked of you.

With Community essays specifically, you can also highlight any values you think the prompt is asking you to elaborate on.

Keeping track of the prompt will make sure that you’re not missing anything an admissions officer will be on the lookout for.

Step 2: Brainstorm communities you’re involved in.

If you’re writing a Community essay that asks you to discuss a community you belong to, then your next step will be brainstorming all of your options.

As you brainstorm, keep a running list. Your list can include all kinds of communities you’re involved in.

Communities:

• Model United Nations
• Youth group
• Instagram book club
• My Discord group

Step 3: Think about the role(s) you play in your selected community.

Narrow down your community list to a couple of options. For each remaining option, identify the roles you played, actions you took, and significance you’ve drawn from being part of that group.

Community: Orchestra

These three columns help you get at the most important details you need to include in your community essay.

Step 4: Identify any relevant connections to the school.

Depending on the question the prompt asks of you, your last step may be to do some school research.

Let’s return to the Rice example.

After researching the Rice mission statement, we know that Rice values community members who want to contribute to the “betterment of our world.”

Ah ha! Now we have something solid to work from.

With this value in mind, I can choose to write about a perspective that shows my investment in creating a better world. Maybe that perspective is a specific kind of fundraising tenacity. Maybe it’s always looking for those small improvements that have a big impact. Maybe it’s some combination of both. Whatever it is, I can write a supplemental essay that reflects the values of the university.

Community Essay Mistakes

While writing Community essays may seem fairly straightforward, there are actually a number of ways they can go awry. Specifically, there are three common mistakes students make that you should be on the lookout for.

They don’t address the specific requests of the prompt.

As with all supplemental essays, your Community essay needs to address what the prompt is asking you to do. In Community essays especially, you’ll need to assess whether you’re being asked to talk about a community you’re already part of or the community you hope to join.

Neglecting to read the prompt also means neglecting any help the prompt gives you in terms of values. Remember that you can get clues as to what the school is looking for by analyzing the prompt’s underlying values.

They’re too vague.

Community essays can also go awry when they’re too vague. Your Community essay should reflect on specific, concrete details about your experience. This is especially the case when a Community prompt asks you to talk about a specific moment, challenge, or sequence of events.

Don’t shy away from details. Instead, use them to tell a compelling story.

They don’t make any connections to the school.

Finally, Community essays that don’t make any connections to the school in question miss out on a valuable opportunity to show school fit. Recall from our supplemental essay guide that you should always write supplemental essays with an eye toward showing how well you fit into a particular community.

Community essays are the perfect chance to do that, so try to find relevant and logical school connections to include.

Community Supplemental Essay Example

Example essay: robotics community.

University of Michigan: Everyone belongs to many different communities and/or groups defined by (among other things) shared geography, religion, ethnicity, income, cuisine, interest, race, ideology, or intellectual heritage. Choose one of the communities to which you belong, and describe that community and your place within it. (Required for all applicants; minimum 100 words/maximum 300 words)

From Blendtec’s “Will it Blend?” videos to ZirconTV’s “How to Use a Stud Finder,” I’m a YouTube how-to fiend. This propensity for fix-it knowledge has not only served me well, but it’s also been a lifesaver for my favorite community: my robotics team(( The writer explicitly states the community they’ll be focusing on.)) . While some students spend their after-school hours playing sports or video games, I spend mine tinkering in my garage with three friends, one of whom is made of metal.

Last year, I Googled more fixes than I can count. Faulty wires, misaligned soldering, and failed code were no match for me. My friends watched in awe as I used Boolean Operators to find exactly the information I sought.(( The writer clearly articulates their place in the community.)) But as I agonized over chassis reviews, other unsearchable problems arose.

First((This entire paragraph fulfills the “describe that community” direction in the prompt.)) , there was the matter of registering for our first robotics competition. None of us familiar with bureaucracy, David stepped up and made some calls. His maturity and social skills helped us immediately land a spot. The next issue was branding. Our robot needed a name and a logo, and Connor took it upon himself to learn graphic design. We all voted on Archie’s name and logo design to find the perfect match. And finally, someone needed to enter the ring. Archie took it from there, winning us first place.

The best part about being in this robotics community is the collaboration and exchange of knowledge.((The writer emphasizes a clear strength: collaboration within their community. It’s clear that the writer values all contributions to the team.))  Although I can figure out how to fix anything, it’s impossible to google social skills, creativity, or courage. For that information, only friends will do. I can only imagine the fixes I’ll bring to the University of Michigan and the skills I’ll learn in return at part of the Manufacturing Robotics community((The writer ends with a forward-looking connection to the school in question.)) .

Want to see even more supplemental essay examples? Check out our college essay examples post . 

Liked that? Try this next.

How to Write Supplemental Essays that Will Impress Admissions Officers

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The Community Essay for the Common App Supplements

Jared hobson.

• July 24, 2023

How do you write the community essay for the Common App? Many college applications require supplemental essays. A common supplementary question asks you to consider and write about a community to which you belong. 

The definition of community is open to interpretation and can be difficult to pin down. We each belong to a wide variety of communities ranging from our family and friend groups to being members of the global community.  

My Communities 

For example, I belong to a bunch of different communities. I sing in a choir, so I’m part of the community of the Colorado Chorale community (and within that community, I’m a member of the tenor section). I go to see plays a lot, so I’m a member of the “theater-going” community. Birdwatching can be fun, I find, so I belong to the “community of birdwatchers.” I belong to a club or two, so I’m a member or those communities. I belong to a political party, which is a community in a sense. I went to Dartmouth , so I belong to a community of alumni, both locally and globally. Same with my grad school: my friends and I still talk about belonging to the “ Fletcher Community .” 

When I lived in Hong Kong, I was a member of the American community, which was part of the large expatriate community. I speak French and live in Denver. Therefore, I’m part of the community of Denverites who speak French as a second language. I live in a specific neighborhood in the city of Denver in the State of Colorado in the United States. All of those communities define me in one way or another. Finally, at a more intimate level, I also belong to a family community that is very important to me.

Really, when you stop to think about it, we all belong to a large number of overlapping communities. Think of a Venn diagram with lots of overlapping circles—and we are at that tiny dot in the center where each of those circles overlaps. 

Why write the community essay for the Common App?

Why do colleges ask you to write this community essay? In writing about community as it relates to you, you reveal important details at the core of who you are. Colleges are hoping to bring students to their campuses who will contribute in a positive way to campus culture, whether intellectually, socially, or through their extracurricular activities. 

They want students who will be successful in their new community and enrich the college through their varied backgrounds, experiences, accomplishments, activities and behavior. Thus, the way you answer this prompt will help them imagine if you would be a good addition to their campus community.

Here are some examples of the community essay prompt:

• Please complete the following, and have a little fun doing so: “I appreciate my community because …” (up to 300  characters)
• At MIT , we bring people together to better the lives of others. MIT students work to improve their communities in different ways, from tackling the world’s biggest challenges to being good friends. Describe one way in which you have contributed to your community, whether in your family, the classroom, your neighborhood, etc. (200-250 words)
• What have you done to make your school or your community a better place?  (up to 350 words)
• Everyone belongs to many different communities and/or groups defined by (among other things) shared geography, religion, ethnicity, income, cuisine, interest, race, ideology, or intellectual heritage. Choose one of the communities to which you belong, and describe that community and your place within it.  (up to 300 words)
• Macalester is a community that includes people from many different backgrounds, some who have lived around the world and others who have lived in one place their entire lives. Please write an essay about how your background, experiences, or outlook might add to the Mac community, academically and personally. (up to 500 words)*

* Note: this last prompt doesn’t ask about a community to which you currently belong, but rather asks you to reflect on what you will bring to the community. This essay is a mix of activities and community essays. However, this essay should emphasize what the applicant would add to the campus community.

The community essay vs. the community service essay

Notice that this essay is not narrowly focused on any service you might provide to your community. Of course, it is entirely possible that your involvement in a community may include some sort of involvement that helps to promote the community and the interests of its members in some way.  

However, the community essay prompts do not specifically ask you to talk about this service. The prompts want you to think about what it means to “belong,” and how you conceive of yourself in the larger world. A sense of community may, indeed, lead you to act in certain ways to advance a cause, donate your time, or exert your energies to meet the needs of your community. Your actions certainly may become part of this community essay as a way to demonstrate the ways in which you identify with—and contribute to—this community. But the focus of this essay is on that sense of belonging. 

Service to your community—or to someone else’s?

To put a finer point to it, it is possible to provide “community service” to communities to which we do not belong. We might donate time to the homeless community—but that does not make us homeless. We might spend time working with refugees, even if we, ourselves, are not refugees. Or while we might enjoy good health, we still might donate time to make meals for the critically ill.

So make sure that when you write the community essay you zero in on a community that defines you, and not on the service you devote to a community that is not your own.  

When preparing for the community essay for the Common App, DO THESE THINGS:

Think carefully about your choice of community.

The community you choose says a lot about you. Think carefully about what message even just the choice of community might convey to your reader. In fact, you may even want to start by asking yourself “What aspects of who I am do I want the reader to know?” and then pick the community that will do that in the best possible way. Think, too, how your choice can help you differentiate yourself and share important insight into who you are. 

Factors for you to consider as you brainstorm the community essay for the Common App:

• Which communities are most important to you and why?
• What do these communities say about you that you haven’t shared with your reader elsewhere in your application?
• What roles have you played in these communities?
• How would you measure the impact of your participation in these communities?
• What does your participation in these communities say about your character, qualities, and how you interact with the world around you?
• What does the overall message say about you as a future college student?

Use this as an opportunity to reveal more about yourself

This prompt isn’t just to elaborate on your community; this is another opportunity to reveal important qualities about yourself. Explain why this community is so important to you. Write about what you learned about yourself and how it has shaped who you are. Reveal how you have made contributions to this community.  

Show, don’t tell

Like every essay, the details show your reader what you want them to know about you. Be specific, but selective, with the details you include. Every word should contribute to the message you want to share with your reader. If you have space, share an anecdote to help the reader visualize the qualities that you are trying to share.

Ensure you answer the prompt fully and directly

Some of these prompts are simple and short, but other schools have long prompts. Don’t get lost in answering the first part of the prompt and forget about the remainder. Re-read the prompt after you have drafted your ideas to make sure you’ve addressed everything. 

In addition, sometimes, if you have multiple applications that ask a “community” question, you may be tempted to simply repurpose the same exact essay from one application to the other. Beware! Each prompt will have different nuances to it, and you will need to ensure that you are actually answering the prompt that is being asked. You can certainly re-use the content from one application to the next, but you should tailor how you express those ideas so that they match the prompt.

When drafting the community essay for the Common App, DON’T DO these things

Don’t be afraid to “think outside of the box”.

Some communities to which we belong are obvious because we participate in them on a daily basis. These would include our families and our friend groups. Others are obvious because they are clearly defined: the football team or student government. But what about those informal communities, occasional communities, or hard-to-define communities to which you might belong? Are you a crafty person who blogs about your creations with an online community?

Do you belong to a book group in your neighborhood? Are you a classic car connoisseur? Even writing about things that might not seem like natural “communities” can work quite well as long as they reveal important aspects of who you are. For example, we’ve read a successful “community” essay about a student who belonged to a community of anonymous subway riders. We read another about a community of students who wear crazy socks to school. 

Don’t share obvious details

The detail about the community is not the most important part of your response, even if the prompt does say to “describe a community to which you belong.” Consider only sharing those details about the community that ties into what you are trying to share about yourself. For example, most drama groups put on performances for the public.

But not all drama groups are community-based and have participants ranging in age from 9 to 99. If part of your story is about this multi-generational community, then this detail plays a part in your story. Include those details that play a role in why the community is important or impactful for you.

Remember these things about the community essay for the Common App

No matter which community you choose to write about, you want to be sure that you reflect deeply about why this community is important to you. If you have a longer word count, you can consider using an anecdote to share with the reader, but for the shorter prompts, keep your writing personal, but just more to the point.

And don’t lose sight of the reason that you are writing this essay. You are applying to be a part of a new community. You want to show that you have a deep appreciation for the sense of satisfaction, dedication, and attachment that comes with being a member of a community. The purpose is to demonstrate that you know how to nurture the community and how you nourish others’ sense of belonging in that circle.  

Colleges want to know that you will keep the flame of that college community alive, even as you graduate and move on with your life. The admissions office wants to know that you will cherish and contribute to the community that they already call their own. Convince them that you deserve to belong.

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The Community Essay

“Duke University seeks a talented, engaged student body that embodies the wide range of human experience; we believe that the diversity of our students makes our community stronger. If you’d like to share a perspective you bring or experiences you’ve had to help us understand you better—perhaps related to a community you belong to, your sexual orientation or gender identity, or your family or cultural background—we encourage you to do so. Real people are reading your application, and we want to do our best to understand and appreciate the real people applying to Duke.” 

As with every essay you ship off to admissions – think about something you want admissions to know that hasn’t been represented. What can you expand upon to show your versatility, passion and ability to connect with the world around you?

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Your chance of acceptance, your chancing factors, extracurriculars, tips for writing the community essay.

Hi fellow applicants! I've been working on the 'community essay' for some of my applications and I'm having trouble figuring out what to write about. Any advice on how to approach this essay and make it stand out? Thanks!

Hello! Writing a community essay can indeed be challenging, but with the right approach, you can create a standout piece. Here are some tips to help you craft a memorable essay:

1. Reflect on your personal experiences: Think about the communities you belong to, whether they're based on a physical location, a shared interest, or a certain background. Consider how your involvement in these communities has shaped the person you are today, and how you've contributed to their growth or well-being.

2. Be specific and provide anecdotes: To make your essay stand out, it's important to focus on a particular aspect of your community involvement. Share personal stories or unique experiences, rather than simply providing general descriptions of your community engagement.

3. Show growth and self-awareness: A well-written essay should convey the growth and personal development you've experienced through your involvement in a community. Don't be afraid to share challenges you've faced and the lessons you've learned from them. Demonstrating self-awareness and personal growth can give your essay a strong emotional impact.

4. Connect to your future aspirations: Reflect on how your community involvement has shaped your future goals and aspirations, and how you'd like to continue contributing to other communities in the future. This can help create a lasting impression on the admissions committee and show that you're committed to using your education for the betterment of your communities.

5. Edit and revise: As with any essay, make sure to thoroughly proofread and revise your work. This will help ensure that your essay is clear, concise, and free of any errors. Consider seeking feedback from a teacher, mentor, or peer to gain additional insights on how to improve your content.

In summary, to craft a standout community essay, focus on specific personal experiences, illustrate growth and self-awareness, and connect your involvement to your future aspirations. Best of luck with your applications!

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How to Write the “Community” and “Issue” Yale Essays

This article was written based on the information and opinions presented by Hale Jaeger in a CollegeVine livestream. You can watch the full livestream for more info. 

What’s Covered

The “community” essay: choosing a community, structuring the “community” essay, the “issue” essay: choosing your issue, issues to avoid, structuring the “issue” essay.

In this article, we discuss strategies for writing Yale University ’s “Community” and “Issue” supplemental essays. Applicants using the Common App or Coalition Application to apply to Yale are required to choose one of these two prompts and respond to it in 400 words or fewer. The first prompt is the “Issue” essay prompt, which reads:

Yale carries out its mission “through the free exchange of ideas in an ethical, interdependent, and diverse community.” Reflect on a time when you exchanged ideas about an important issue with someone holding an opposing view. How did the experience lead you either to change your opinion or to sharpen your reasons for holding onto it? (400 words)

The second prompt is the “Community” essay prompt:

Reflect on a time when you have worked to enhance a community to which you feel connected. Why have these efforts been meaningful to you? You may define community however you like. (400 words)

In this article, we discuss choosing topics for each of these essays and strategies to structure them.

The Yale “Community” essay prompt clearly states that you can define community however you wish, which means you can choose to write about any kind of community that you feel you are a member of. When considering potential communities, start by brainstorming any groups you are part of that have defined boundaries, such as your town, school, team, or religious organization.

There are also informal communities that you could choose from, such as your friend group, family, coworkers, or neighborhood. Even though these groups have less of a formal definition, they are still communities. What matters most is that the community that you choose is important to you, that you have contributed to it, and that you have learned something from it.

When structuring this essay, think about it in three sections. The first introduces the community, the second demonstrates your contributions to the community, and the third explains what the community has given and taught you. As you write, keep in mind that this essay is a two-way street; you want to show what you have given to your community and what it has given you.

Introduce the Community

The first step in writing this essay is to introduce the community. Explain who is part of the community and what the community is like. Highlight the community’s structure by demonstrating how you are part of it and how you interact with your peers, superiors, or inferiors within the group. It is also important to depict the community’s dynamic in this part of the essay. For example, is it fun, relaxed, and loving, or is it rigorous, challenging, and thought provoking? 

Show What You’ve Contributed

The next section of this essay should discuss your engagement with this community and what you’ve contributed to it. Consider what you’ve done, what initiatives you’ve brought to the community, and what your role is within it. You can also highlight anything that you had to give up to be part of the community.

Show What You’ve Learned

The last part of this essay should discuss what you have gained and learned from this community. For this portion, consider things that the community has given and taught you, as well as ways that it has helped you grow. Think about how this community has shaped who you are and who you are becoming.

The other prompt option is the “Issue” essay. The first step for this one is to define what your issue is. It doesn’t matter what you choose, as long as it’s something that has enough nuance for you to talk about it in a complex and intelligent way.

Make sure it’s an issue of some relevance to you; otherwise, it will come across as dispassionate. As you write this essay, you should show that you are somebody who cares about an issue that they think is significant. 

Grand Issues

When selecting an issue, you can either choose a grand one or a local one. Grand issues are big, unsolved problems that are common in society, such as cancer, homelessness, or food insecurity. If you do choose a grand issue, remind yourself of its personal importance. While grand issues are full of nuance, they may lack personal meaning. Examples of personal connections to grand issues could be if you have encountered homelessness, lived with food insecurity, or have lost someone to cancer.

Local Issues

Another topic option is to write about an issue that is local. For example, maybe your high school has a teaching staff that doesn’t represent the diversity of the student body. While this is not a global issue, it’s something that strongly affects you and your community. 

Perhaps you live in a town that is directly suffering from the opioid crisis, or you have divorced parents and have started an activist group for children of divorced parents. Both of these examples of local issues also have personal importance. 

When choosing a topic to write about, avoid issues that you don’t have any connection to and that aren’t personally important. These are often problems that are too grand and can’t be made personal, such as world peace. 

Another category of issues to avoid is anything that doesn’t align with Yale’s values. Yale, like most universities in the United States, generally has a liberal lean. As such, it is likely not in your best interest to write a strong defense of socially conservative values. While there are values that you are free to hold and express—and Yale welcomes people of all backgrounds and ideologies—this essay is not necessarily the best place to express them.

You are most likely applying to Yale because it’s a place that you want to be and have something in common with. This essay is a great opportunity to emphasize the values that you share with the university rather than the things that divide you. Since a reader only has five to seven minutes to go over your entire application, you don’t want them to come away with the sense that you are somebody who won’t thrive at Yale.

Define the Issue and Highlight Past Experiences

When writing the “Issue” essay, start by identifying the issue and sharing how you came across it. Then, provide insight into why it is meaningful to you and your relationship with it.

Next, show the reader how you have already engaged with the problem by detailing your past with the issue. 

Discuss Future Plans to Approach the Issue

After this, you can look forward and discuss your future with this issue. A great strategy is to write about how your Yale education will address the problem and how your field of study relates to it. You can also highlight any Yale-specific programs or opportunities that will give you insight or context for tackling the issue. 

Alternatively, if there is something about this issue that Yale’s academic flexibility will enable you to explore, you can share that in this part of the essay. For example, maybe you are interested in health policy and plan to take classes in the sciences. You also want to take classes in the history of health, science, and medicine, as well as political science and economics courses, which you plan to utilize to write new healthcare policies.

Another option is to focus on an aspect of Yale’s community, such as peers, professors, or mentors who will help develop your ability to navigate the issue. Ultimately, you want to demonstrate in this essay that what (and how) you learn at Yale will prepare you to take action and move forward with confronting your issue in the future.

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What Does Community Mean to You: a Personal Reflection

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My personal definition of community, the unifying thread: connection, geographic community, interest-based community, cultural community, social network community.

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Cultural Diversity Essay & Community Essay Examples

If you’ve started to research college application requirements for the schools on your list, you might have come across the “cultural diversity essay.” In this guide, we’ll explore the cultural diversity essay in depth. We will compare the cultural diversity essay to the community essay and discuss how to approach these kinds of supplements. We’ll also provide examples of diversity essays and community essay examples. But first, let’s discuss exactly what a cultural diversity essay is. 

The purpose of the cultural diversity essay in college applications is to show the admissions committee what makes you unique. The cultural diversity essay also lets you describe what type of “ diversity ” you would bring to campus.

We’ll also highlight a diversity essay sample for three college applications. These include the Georgetown application essay , Rice application essay , and Williams application essay . We’ll provide examples of diversity essays for each college. Then, for each of these college essays that worked, we will analyze their strengths to help you craft your own essays. 

Finally, we’ll give you some tips on how to write a cultural diversity essay that will make your applications shine. 

But first, let’s explore the types of college essays you might encounter on your college applications. 

Types of College Essays

College application requirements will differ among schools. However, you’ll submit one piece of writing to nearly every school on your list—the personal statement . A strong personal statement can help you stand out in the admissions process. 

So, how do you know what to write about? That depends on the type of college essay included in your college application requirements. 

There are a few main types of college essays that you might encounter in the college admissions process. Theese include the “Why School ” essay, the “Why Major ” essay, and the extracurricular activity essay. This also includes the type of essay we will focus on in this guide—the cultural diversity essay. 

“Why School” essay

The “Why School ” essay is exactly what it sounds like. For this type of college essay, you’ll need to underscore why you want to go to this particular school. 

However, don’t make the mistake of just listing off what you like about the school. Additionally, don’t just reiterate information you can find on their admissions website. Instead, you’ll want to make connections between what the school offers and how you are a great fit for that college community. 

“Why Major” essay

The idea behind the “Why Major ” essay is similar to that of the “Why School ” essay above. However, instead of writing about the school at large, this essay should highlight why you plan to study your chosen major.

There are plenty of directions you could take with this type of essay. For instance, you might describe how you chose this major, what career you plan to pursue upon graduation, or other details.

Extracurricular Activity essay

The extracurricular activity essay asks you to elaborate on one of the activities that you participated in outside of the classroom. 

For this type of college essay, you’ll need to select an extracurricular activity that you pursued while you were in high school. Bonus points if you can tie your extracurricular activity into your future major, career goals, or other extracurricular activities for college. Overall, your extracurricular activity essay should go beyond your activities list. In doing so, it should highlight why your chosen activity matters to you.

Cultural Diversity essay

The cultural diversity essay is your chance to expound upon diversity in all its forms. Before you write your cultural diversity essay, you should ask yourself some key questions. These questions can include: How will you bring diversity to your future college campus? What unique perspective do you bring to the table? 

Another sub-category of the cultural diversity essay is the gender diversity essay. As its name suggests, this essay would center around the author’s gender. This essay would highlight how gender shapes the way the writer understands the world around them. 

Later, we’ll look at examples of diversity essays and other college essays that worked. But before we do, let’s figure out how to identify a cultural diversity essay in the first place. 

How to identify a ‘cultural diversity’ essay

So, you’re wondering how you’ll be able to identify a cultural diversity essay as you review your college application requirements. 

Aside from the major giveaway of having the word “diversity” in the prompt, a cultural diversity essay will ask you to describe what makes you different from other applicants. In other words, what aspects of your unique culture(s) have influenced your perspective and shaped you into who you are today?

Diversity can refer to race, ethnicity, first-generation status, gender, or anything in between. You can write about a myriad of things in a cultural diversity essay. For instance, you might discuss your personal background, identity, values, experiences, or how you’ve overcome challenges in your life. 

However, don’t feel limited in what you can address in a cultural diversity essay. The words “culture” and “diversity” mean different things to different people. Above all, you’ll want your diversity essays for college to be personal and sincere. 

How is a ‘community’ essay different? 

A community essay can also be considered a cultural diversity essay. In fact, you can think of the community essay as a subcategory of the cultural diversity essay. However, there is a key difference between a community essay and a cultural diversity essay, which we will illustrate below. 

You might have already seen some community essay examples while you were researching college application requirements. But how exactly is a community essay different from a cultural diversity essay?

One way to tell the difference between community essay examples and cultural diversity essay examples is by the prompt. A community essay will highlight, well, community . This means it will focus on how your identity will shape your interactions on campus—not just how it informs your own experiences.

Two common forms to look out for

Community essay examples can take two forms. First, you’ll find community essay examples about your past experiences. These let you show the admissions team how you have positively influenced your own community. 

Other community essay examples, however, will focus on the future. These community essay examples will ask you to detail how you will contribute to your future college community. We refer to these as college community essay examples.

In college community essay examples, you’ll see applicants detail how they might interact with their fellow students. These essays may also discuss how students plan to positively contribute to the campus community. 

As we mentioned above, the community essay, along with community essay examples and college community essay examples, fit into the larger category of the cultural diversity essay. Although we do not have specific community essay examples or college community essay examples in this guide, we will continue to highlight the subtle differences between the two. 

Before we continue the discussion of community essay examples and college community essay examples, let’s start with some examples of cultural diversity essay prompts. For each of the cultural diversity essay prompts, we’ll name the institutions that include these diversity essays for college as part of their college application requirements. 

What are some examples of ‘cultural diversity’ essays? 

Now, you have a better understanding of the similarities and differences between the cultural diversity essay and the community essay. So, next, let’s look at some examples of cultural diversity essay prompts.

The prompts below are from the Georgetown application, Rice application, and Williams application, respectively. As we discuss the similarities and differences between prompts, remember the framework we provided above for what constitutes a cultural diversity essay and a community essay. 

Later in this guide, we’ll provide real examples of diversity essays, including Georgetown essay examples, Rice University essay examples, and Williams supplemental essays examples. These are all considered college essays that worked—meaning that the author was accepted into that particular institution. 

Georgetown Supplementals Essays

Later, we’ll look at Georgetown supplemental essay examples. Diversity essays for Georgetown are a product of this prompt: 

As Georgetown is a diverse community, the Admissions Committee would like to know more about you in your own words. Please submit a brief essay, either personal or creative, which you feel best describes you. 

You might have noticed two keywords in this prompt right away: “diverse” and “community.” These buzzwords indicate that this prompt is a cultural diversity essay. You could even argue that responses to this prompt would result in college community essay examples. After all, the prompt refers to the Georgetown community. 

For this prompt, you’ll want to produce a diversity essay sample that highlights who you are. In order to do that successfully, you’ll need to self-reflect before putting pen to paper. What aspects of your background, personality, or values best describe who you are? How might your presence at Georgetown influence or contribute to their diverse community? 

Additionally, this cultural diversity essay can be personal or creative. So, you have more flexibility with the Georgetown supplemental essays than with other similar diversity essay prompts. Depending on the direction you go, your response to this prompt could be considered a cultural diversity essay, gender diversity essay, or a college community essay. 

Rice University Essays

The current Rice acceptance rate is just 9% , making it a highly selective school. Because the Rice acceptance rate is so low, your personal statement and supplemental essays can make a huge difference. 

The Rice University essay examples we’ll provide below are based on this prompt: 

The quality of Rice’s academic life and the Residential College System are heavily influenced by the unique life experiences and cultural traditions each student brings. What personal perspective would you contribute to life at Rice? 

Breaking down the prompt.

Like the prompt above, this cultural diversity essay asks about your “life experiences,” “cultural traditions,” and personal “perspectives.” These phrases indicate a cultural diversity essay. Keep in mind this may not be the exact prompt you’ll have to answer in your own Rice application. However, future Rice prompts will likely follow a similar framework as this diversity essay sample.

Although this prompt is not as flexible as the Georgetown prompt, it does let you discuss aspects of Rice’s academic life and Residential College System that appeal to you. You can also highlight how your experiences have influenced your personal perspective. 

The prompt also asks about how you would contribute to life at Rice. So, your response could also fall in line with college community essay examples. Remember, college community essay examples are another sub-category of community essay examples. Successful college community essay examples will illustrate the ways in which students would contribute to their future campus community. 

Williams Supplemental Essays

Like the Rice acceptance rate, the Williams acceptance rate is also 9% . Because the Williams acceptance rate is so low, you’ll want to pay close attention to the Williams supplemental essays examples as you begin the writing process. 

The Williams supplemental essays examples below are based on this prompt: 

Every first-year student at Williams lives in an Entry – a thoughtfully constructed microcosm of the student community that’s a defining part of the Williams experience. From the moment they arrive, students find themselves in what’s likely the most diverse collection of backgrounds, perspectives, and interests they’ve ever encountered. What might differentiate you from the 19 other first-year students in an Entry? What perspective would you add to the conversation with your peer(s)?

Reflecting on the prompt.

Immediately, words like “diverse,” “backgrounds,” “perspectives,” “interests,” and “differentiate” should stand out to you. These keywords highlight the fact that this is a cultural diversity essay. Similar to the Rice essay, this may not be the exact prompt you’ll face on your Williams application. However, we can still learn from it.

Like the Georgetown essay, this prompt requires you to put in some self-reflection before you start writing. What aspects of your background differentiate you from other people? How would these differences impact your interactions with peers? 

This prompt also touches on the “student community” and how you would “add to the conversation with your peer(s).” By extension, any strong responses to this prompt could also be considered as college community essay examples. 

Community Essays

All of the prompts above mention campus community. So, you could argue that they are also examples of community essays. 

Like we mentioned above, you can think of community essays as a subcategory of the cultural diversity essay. If the prompt alludes to the campus community, or if your response is centered on how you would interact within that community, your essay likely falls into the world of college community essay examples. 

Regardless of what you would classify the essay as, all successful essays will be thoughtful, personal, and rich with details. We’ll show you examples of this in our “college essays that worked” section below. 

Which schools require a cultural diversity or community essay? 

Besides Georgetown, Rice, and Williams, many other college applications require a cultural diversity essay or community essay. In fact, from the Ivy League to HBCUs and state schools, the cultural diversity essay is a staple across college applications. 

Although we will not provide a diversity essay sample for each of the colleges below, it is helpful to read the prompts. This will build your familiarity with other college applications that require a cultural diversity essay or community essay. Some schools that require a cultural diversity essay or community essay include New York University , Duke University , Harvard University , Johns Hopkins University , and University of Michigan . 

New York University

NYU listed a cultural diversity essay as part of its 2022-2023 college application requirements. Here is the prompt:

NYU was founded on the belief that a student’s identity should not dictate the ability for them to access higher education. That sense of opportunity for all students, of all backgrounds, remains a part of who we are today and a critical part of what makes us a world class university. Our community embraces diversity, in all its forms, as a cornerstone of the NYU experience. We would like to better understand how your experiences would help us to shape and grow our diverse community.

Duke university.

Duke is well-known for its community essay: 

What is your sense of Duke as a university and a community, and why do you consider it a good match for you? If there’s something in particular about our offerings that attracts you, feel free to share that as well.

A top-ranked Ivy League institution, Harvard University also has a cultural diversity essay as part of its college application requirements: 

Harvard has long recognized the importance of student body diversity of all kinds. We welcome you to write about distinctive aspects of your background, personal development, or the intellectual interests you might bring to your Harvard classmates.

Johns hopkins university.

The Johns Hopkins supplement is another example of a cultural diversity essay: 

Founded in the spirit of exploration and discovery, Johns Hopkins University encourages students to share their perspectives, develop their interests, and pursue new experiences. Use this space to share something you’d like the admissions committee to know about you (your interests, your background, your identity, or your community), and how it has shaped what you want to get out of your college experience at Hopkins. 

University of michigan.

The University of Michigan requires a community essay for its application: 

Everyone belongs to many different communities and/or groups defined by (among other things) shared geography, religion, ethnicity, income, cuisine, interest, race, ideology, or intellectual heritage. Choose one of the communities to which you belong and describe that community and your place within it. 

Community essay examples.

The Duke and Michigan prompts are perfect illustrations of community essay examples. However, they have some critical differences. So, if you apply to both of these schools, you’ll have to change the way you approach either of these community essays. 

The Duke prompt asks you to highlight why you are a good match for the Duke community. You’ll also see this prompt in other community essay examples. To write a successful response to this prompt, you’ll need to reference offerings specific to Duke (or whichever college requires this essay). In order to know what to reference, you’ll need to do your research before you start writing. 

Consider the following questions as you write your diversity essay sample if the prompt is similar to Duke University’s

• What values does this college community have? 
• How do these tie in with what you value? 
• Is there something that this college offers that matches your interests, personality, or background?  

On the other hand, the Michigan essay prompt asks you to describe a community that you belong to as well as your place within that community. This is another variation of the prompt for community essay examples. 

To write a successful response to this prompt, you’ll need to identify a community that you belong to. Then, you’ll need to think critically about how you interact with that community. 

Below are some questions to consider as you write your diversity essay sample for colleges like Michigan: 

• Out of all the communities you belong to, which can you highlight in your response? 
• How have you impacted this community? 
• How has this community impacted you?

Now, in the next few sections, we’ll dive into the Georgetown supplemental essay examples, the Rice university essay examples, and the Williams supplemental essays examples. After each diversity essay sample, we’ll include a breakdown of why these are considered college essays that worked. 

Georgetown Essay Examples

As a reminder, the Georgetown essay examples respond to this prompt: 

As Georgetown is a diverse community, the Admissions Committee would like to know more about you in your own words. Please submit a brief essay, either personal or creative, which you feel best describes you.

Here is the excerpt of the diversity essay sample from our Georgetown essay examples: 

Georgetown University Essay Example

The best thing I ever did was skip eight days of school in a row. Despite the protests of teachers over missed class time, I told them that the world is my classroom. The lessons I remember most are those that took place during my annual family vacation to coastal Maine. That rural world is the most authentic and incredible classroom where learning simply happens and becomes exponential. 

Years ago, as I hunted through the rocks and seaweed for seaglass and mussels, I befriended a Maine local hauling her battered kayak on the shore. Though I didn’t realize it at the time, I had found a kindred spirit in Jeanne. Jeanne is a year-round resident who is more than the hard working, rugged Mainer that meets the eye; reserved and humble in nature, she is a wealth of knowledge and is self-taught through necessity. With thoughtful attention to detail, I engineered a primitive ramp made of driftwood and a pulley system to haul her kayak up the cliff. We diligently figured out complex problems and developed solutions through trial and error.

After running out of conventional materials, I recycled and reimagined items that had washed ashore. We expected to succeed, but were not afraid to fail. Working with Jeanne has been the best classroom in the world; without textbooks or technology, she has made a difference in my life. Whether building a basic irrigation system for her organic garden or installing solar panels to harness the sun’s energy, every project has shown me the value of taking action and making an impact. Each year brings a different project with new excitement and unique challenges. My resourcefulness, problem solving ability, and innovative thinking have advanced under her tutelage. 

While exploring the rocky coast of Maine, I embrace every experience as an unparalleled educational opportunity that transcends any classroom environment. I discovered that firsthand experience and real-world application of science are my best teachers. In school, applications of complex calculations and abstract theories are sometimes obscured by grades and structure. In Maine, I expand my love of science and renourish my curious spirit. I am a highly independent, frugal, resilient Mainer living as a southern girl in NC. 

Why this essay worked

This is one of the Georgetown supplemental essay examples that works, and here’s why. The author starts the essay with an interesting hook, which makes the reader want to learn more about this person and their perspective. 

Throughout the essay, the author illustrates their intellectual curiosity. From befriending Jeanne and creating a pulley system to engineering other projects on the rocky coast of Maine, the author demonstrates how they welcome challenges and work to solve problems. 

Further, the author mentions values that matter to them—taking action and making an impact. Both facets are also part of Georgetown’s core values . By making these connections in their essay, the author shows the admissions committee exactly how they would be a great fit for the Georgetown community. 

Finally, the author uses their experience in Maine to showcase their love of science, which is likely the field they will study at Georgetown. Like this writer, you should try to include most important parts of your identity into your essay. This includes things like life experiences, passions, majors, extracurricular activities for college, and more. 

Rice University Essay Examples

The Rice University essay examples are from this prompt: 

The quality of Rice’s academic life and the Residential College System are heavily influenced by the unique life experiences and cultural traditions each student brings. What personal perspective would you contribute to life at Rice? (500-word limit)

Rice university essay example.

Like every applicant, I also have a story to share. A story that makes me who I am and consists of chapters about my life experiences and adventures. Having been born in a different country, my journey to America was one of the most difficult things I had ever experienced. Everything felt different. The atmosphere, the places, the food, and especially the people. Everywhere I looked, I saw something new. Although it was a bit overwhelming, one thing had not changed.

The caring nature of the people was still prevalent in everyday interactions. I was overwhelmed by how supportive and understanding people were of one another. Whether it is race, religion, or culture, everyone was accepted and appreciated. I knew that I could be whoever I wanted to be and that the only limitation was my imagination. Through hard work and persistence I put my all in everything that I did. I get this work ethic from my father since he is living proof that anything can be accomplished with continued determination. Listening to the childhood stories he told me, my dad would reminisce about how he was born in an impoverished area in a third world country during a turbulent and unpredictable time.

Even with a passion for learning, he had to work a laborious job in an attempt to help his parents make ends meet. He talked about how he would study under the street lights when the power went out at home. His parents wanted something better for him, as did he. Not living in America changed nothing about their work ethic. His parents continued to work hard daily, in an attempt to provide for their son. My dad worked and studied countless hours, paying his way through school with jobs and scholarships. His efforts paid off when he finally moved to America and opened his own business. None of it would have been possible without tremendous effort and dedication needed for a better life, values that are instilled within me as well, and this is the perspective that I wish to bring to Rice. 

This diversity essay sample references the author’s unique life experiences and personal perspective, which makes it one example of college essays that worked. The author begins the essay by alluding to their unique story—they were born in a different country and then came to America. Instead of facing this change as a challenge, the author shows how this new experience helped them to feel comfortable with all kinds of people. They also highlight how their diversity was accepted and appreciated. 

Additionally, the author incorporates information about their father’s story, which helps to frame their own values and where those values came from. The values that they chose to highlight also fall in line with the values of the Rice community. 

Williams Supplemental Essay Examples

Let’s read the prompt that inspired so many strong Williams supplemental essays examples again: 

Every first-year student at Williams lives in an Entry—a thoughtfully constructed microcosm of the student community that’s a defining part of the Williams experience. From the moment they arrive, students find themselves in what’s likely the most diverse collection of backgrounds, perspectives and interests they’ve ever encountered. What might differentiate you from the 19 other first-year students in an entry? What perspective(s) would you add to the conversation with your peers?

Williams college essay example.

Through the flow in my head

See you clad in red

But not just the clothes

It’s your whole being

Covering in this sickening blanket

Of heat and pain

Are you in agony, I wonder?

Is this the hell they told me about?

Have we been condemned?

Reduced to nothing but pain

At least we have each other

In our envelopes of crimson

I try in vain

“Take my hands” I shriek

“Let’s protect each other, 

You and me, through this hell”

My body contorts

And deforms into nothingness

You remain the same

Clad in red

With faraway eyes

You, like a statue

Your eyes fixed somewhere else

You never see me

Just the red briefcase in your heart

We aren’t together

It’s always been me alone

While you stand there, aloof, with the briefcase in your heart.

I wrote this poem the day my prayer request for the Uighur Muslims got denied at school. At the time, I was stunned. I was taught to have empathy for those around me. Yet, that empathy disappears when told to extend it to someone different. I can’t comprehend this contradiction and I refuse to. 

At Williams, I hope to become a Community Engagement Fellow at the Davis Center. I hope to use Williams’ support for social justice and advocacy to educate my fellow classmates on social issues around the world. Williams students are not just scholars but also leaders and changemakers. Together, we can strive to better the world through advocacy.

Human’s capability for love is endless. We just need to open our hearts to everyone. 

It’s time to let the briefcase go and look at those around us with our real human eyes.

We see you now. Please forgive us.

As we mentioned above, the Williams acceptance rate is incredibly low. This makes the supplemental essay that much more important. 

This diversity essay sample works because it is personal and memorable. The author chooses to start the essay off with a poem. Which, if done right, will immediately grab the reader’s attention. 

Further, the author contextualizes the poem by explaining the circumstances surrounding it—they wrote it in response to a prayer request that was denied at school. In doing so, they also highlight their own values of empathy and embracing diversity. 

Finally, the author ends their cultural diversity essay by describing what excites them about Williams. They also discuss how they see themselves interacting within the Williams community. This is a key piece of the essay, as it helps the reader understand how the author would be a good fit for Williams. 

The examples provided within this essay also touch on issues that are important to the author, which provides a glimpse into the type of student the author would be on campus. Additionally, this response shows what potential extracurricular activities for college the author might be interested in pursuing while at Williams. 

How to Write a Cultural Diversity Essay

You want your diversity essay to stand out from any other diversity essay sample. But how do you write a successful cultural diversity essay? 

First, consider what pieces of your identity you want to highlight in your essay. Of course, race and ethnicity are important facets of diversity. However, there are plenty of other factors to consider. 

As you brainstorm, think outside the box to figure out what aspects of your identity help make up who you are. Because identity and diversity fall on a spectrum, there is no right or wrong answer here. 

Fit your ideas to the specific school

Once you’ve decided on what you want to represent in your cultural diversity essay, think about how that fits into the college of your choice. Use your cultural diversity essay to make connections to the school. If your college has specific values or programs that align with your identity, then include them in your cultural diversity essay! 

Above all, you should write about something that is important to you. Your cultural diversity essay, gender diversity essay, or community essay will succeed if you are passionate about your topic and willing to get personal. 

Additional Tips for Community & Cultural Diversity Essays

1. start early.

In order to create the strongest diversity essay possible, you’ll want to start early. Filling out college applications is already a time-consuming process. So, you can cut back on additional stress and anxiety by writing your cultural diversity essay as early as possible. 

2. Brainstorm

Writing a cultural diversity essay or community essay is a personal process. To set yourself up for success, take time to brainstorm and reflect on your topic. Overall, you want your cultural diversity essay to be a good indication of who you are and what makes you a unique applicant. 

3. Proofread

We can’t stress this final tip enough. Be sure to proofread your cultural diversity essay before you hit the submit button. Additionally, you can read your essay aloud to hear how it flows. You can also can ask someone you trust, like your college advisor or a teacher, to help proofread your essay as well.

Other CollegeAdvisor Essay Resources to Explore

Looking for additional resources on supplemental essays for the colleges we mentioned above? Do you need help with incorporating extracurricular activities for college into your essays or crafting a strong diversity essay sample? We’ve got you covered. 

Our how to get into Georgetown guide covers additional tips on how to approach the supplemental diversity essay. If you’re wondering how to write about community in your essay, check out our campus community article for an insider’s perspective on Williams College.

Want to learn strategies for writing compelling cultural diversity essays? Check out this Q&A webinar, featuring a former Georgetown admissions officer. And, if you’re still unsure of what to highlight in your community essay, try getting inspiration from a virtual college tour . 

Cultural Diversity Essay & Community Essay Examples – Final Thoughts

Your supplemental essays are an important piece of the college application puzzle. With colleges becoming more competitive than ever, you’ll want to do everything you can to create a strong candidate profile. This includes writing well-crafted responses for a cultural diversity essay, gender diversity essay, or community essay. 

We hope our cultural diversity essay guide helped you learn more about this common type of supplemental essay. As you are writing your own cultural diversity essay or community essay, use the essay examples from Georgetown, Rice, and Williams above as your guide. 

Getting into top schools takes a lot more than a strong resume. Writing specific, thoughtful, and personal responses for a cultural diversity essay, gender diversity essay, or community essay will put you one step closer to maximizing your chances of admission. Good luck!

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Community Essay Examples

When we think about community, we often think about a group of people who share something in common. This could be a shared interest, background, or identity. But what exactly is a community? And what does it mean to belong to one?

There’s no single answer to these questions, as communities can take many different forms. But psychologists have proposed some key features that are often present in successful communities. These include a sense of shared purpose or goals, a sense of social cohesion or connection between members, and a sense of belonging.

Belonging is an important part of human psychology. We all have a need to feel like we’re part of something larger than ourselves. This could be a, friends, family, or a community. When we feel like we belong, we tend to be happier and more content. We may also be more motivated to achieve our goals.

belonging to a community can provide us with a sense of purpose and social connection. It can also help us to develop a stronger sense of self-identity. If you’re thinking about joining a community, look for one that shares your values and goals.

A lot of people believe that in order to belong somewhere as a teen, you have to dress a certain way or do something to fit into their apparent “community.” I couldn’t disagree more. To me, community is my friends, family, and people who mean a lot to me. However, that’s not the correct meaning. Community actually refers to a group of people living in close proximity. In my opinion, this should be how everyone thinks of community.

A group of friends or family who are there for you and love you no matter what. Thats the type of community i want to be apart of.

A sense of belonging is important for our psychological and cognitive development. Without a sense of belonging, we can feel isolated, anxious and depressed. A strong sense of belonging can help us to feel more secure, confident and happy. Belonging to a community can provide us with a support network, a sense of identity and a feeling of connectedness.

There are many different types of communities that we can belong to, such as our families, Friends, neighbourhoods, religious groups, sporting clubs or cultural associations. It is important to feel like we fit in and belong within these groups.

We can belong to more than one community and our sense of belonging can change over time. For example, we may feel more or less connected to our community during different stages in our lives. There are many factors that can influence our sense of belonging, such as our age, gender, culture or social status.

Belonging is a basic human need and it is important for our mental health and wellbeing. A sense of belonging can enhance our self-esteem, increase our resilience and help us to cope with difficult times. When we feel like we belong, we are more likely to cooperate with others and behave in ways that benefit the community.

I am not sure if it is something special, yet it was largely values and thoughts that I gathered as I grew older. My father is a wonderful guy with excellent principles who has helped to shape who I am today. My mother also taught me numerous good qualities and assisted in forming who I am.

I grew up in a lower-income family so we had to stick together and help each other out, which I think helped create a strong bond between us. I was also always around my cousins and uncles and they were like brothers to me, so I think that sense of community has always been important to me.

Belonging to a community is important for many reasons. It can provide individuals with a sense of identity and purpose, as well as a support network of people who can offer advice, help and companionship. Additionally, being part of a community can encourage people to participate in activities that contribute to the greater good, such as volunteering, fundraising or working on behalf of a cause. Finally, belonging to a community can simply be enjoyable and make people feel happy and connected.

There are many different types of communities to which people can belong. Some examples include religious communities, political communities, online communities, neighbourhoods, sports teams and clubs. It is important to find a community that fits with an individual’s beliefs and values in order to get the most out of the experience.

My friends have great ways of thinking and are really wonderful people, so I can’t take all the credit. I must give some credit to my pals since they have fantastic methods of thinking and are wonderful individuals. That isn’t everything, though; many of these ideas come from me and ideas I conceive in my head about how the world should be run.

One of the things I’ve been thinking about recently is the idea of community and how important it is to our lives. I was born and raised in a small town in New Hampshire and ever since I can remember, community has been an important part of my life. The people in my town were always there for me when I needed them and I knew that I could always count on them.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized that community is even more important than I thought it was. Studies have shown that belonging to a community can have a positive impact on our mental and physical health. Being a part of a community gives us a sense of purpose and belonging. It helps us to feel connected to something larger than ourselves and to feel supported by others.

The community that we belong to can also have a big impact on our cognition. Studies have shown that people who are a part of a supportive community tend to have better cognitive function than those who don’t. This is likely because belonging to a community gives us a sense of social connectedness and support, which can help to protect our brain from the negative effects of stress.

So why is community so important? There are many reasons, but one of the most important is that it helps us to thrive. When we feel like we belong to something larger than ourselves, we are more likely to take care of ourselves and our community. We are also more likely to feel happy and fulfilled in our lives. So if you’re looking for a way to improve your life, consider finding a community that you can belong to. It just might be the best thing you ever do for yourself.

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A Reflective Essay on Creating a Community-of-Learning in a Large Lecture-Theatre Based University Course

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“Community” It’s everywhere! In thousands of geographical locations throughout the land people gather in small, medium, and large groups (or dispersed associations) for some common purpose. (Lenning and Ebbers 1999 , p. 17)

The benefits of creating learning communities have been clearly established in educational literature. However, the research on ‘community-of-learning’ has largely focused on intermediate and high-school contexts and on the benefits of co-facilitation in the classroom. In this paper, we contribute to educational research by describing an approach for a large (1000 + students/year), lecture-theatre based, university management course. This approach largely excludes co-facilitation, but offers a unified and integrated approach by staff to all other aspects of running the course. By applying an ethnographic methodology, our contribution to the ‘community-of-learning’ literature is a set of strategies that enable a sense of belonging and collective ownership amongst all participants in the course. We describe the experienced benefits, as well as challenges, of such teaching, as we outline the methods we use to enhance students’ perception of belonging to a community-of-learning. We conclude by making recommendations as to the requirements of adopting a community-of-learning teaching approach to tertiary education.

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de Vries, H.P., Malinen, S. A Reflective Essay on Creating a Community-of-Learning in a Large Lecture-Theatre Based University Course. NZ J Educ Stud 55 , 363–377 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40841-020-00165-1

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Introduction

“Belonging” is both a powerful and ambiguous concept.  It reflects something essential to the human experience — a core need — but is not as tangible or easily comprehensible as shelter, nutrition, and rest. Appropriately, belonging rests in the middle of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. 1 This suggests that belonging is both tremendously important and central to the human condition. Yet exactly why that is so is less obvious. Defining belonging is no simple task.

This essay serves as a backdrop to the papers submitted for this volume. These papers cover topics ranging from  motherhood-driven civic engagement by migrant mothers in Sweden, to “togetherness” oriented childhood education in Denmark, to refugee-led Covid-19 responses in Berlin and their impact on the experience of integration. As these papers draw upon a conception of belonging presented or prompted by us, we wish to describe the contours of our understanding of the term so the papers make sense in context. Our presentation is not exhaustive, but should be sufficient to the goal of making the papers comprehensible in their own terms.

Defining Belonging in the Negative

Perhaps the best way to understand belonging is through the light of contrast, by defining what it is not. Let’s start with Equity and Inclusion. Equity and Inclusion refer to how social groups are stratified across society and critical institutions. Inclusion is a concept that demands institutions and communities open themselves to members of formerly excluded social groups. For example, in the 1960s Yale University finally admitted women onto its campus as undergraduate students, decades after most public universities had done so. 2 Inclusion is a powerful regulative ideal, as well as a strategy or mechanism for reducing social inequality.

Equity moves beyond simple or formalistic notions of equal treatment. When groups are situated differently in society with respect to status, resources, and opportunities, then equal treatment can perpetuate rather than ameliorate social, economic, legal, or political inequality. This is where ‘equity’ comes in. Equity is a recognition that sometimes fair treatment requires differential treatment. Most European constitutional systems recognize equity in this form, as captured by the Spanish expression: “ igual a los iguales y desigual a los desiguales ”, also known as equal treatment.

This is obvious in some cases, as when we prioritize vulnerable groups for vaccines or create special accommodations for people with disabilities or pregnant women. But it is denied in other contexts in which formal equal treatment can lead to significant disparities.

While important concepts, neither equity nor inclusion guarantee belonging. It is possible for institutions to become accessible to formerly excluded groups, and for social or economic disparities to be ameliorated or even eliminated, even as social stigmas or feelings of exclusion persist. Women, for example, were admitted into Yale, but excluded from the social life of the university, from its social clubs to its dining halls. Tangible resources and measurable disparities can be equalized even as certain social stigmas persist, such as caste or gender associations. In India, for example, affirmative action programs can guarantee employment opportunities for lower caste social groups, but that does not mean that cultural assumptions have been extirpated. 3

In this sense, belonging goes beyond Inclusion and Equity, yet includes them in meaningful ways. It would be difficult to imagine that belonging can fully manifest in a society where social groups are excluded from key institutions or large disparities exist between those groups. Yet, belonging calls for something more.

Manifesting Belonging

In our conception, Belonging is both objective and subjective.  It can be quantified and measured, but it is also perceptual, laying in the eye of the beholder. In this respect, Belonging, unlike both Equity and Inclusion, contains a psychological component — an affective component, which shapes the way social groups regard whatever it is they are regarding, an institution, a city, or even society writ large.

If members of a social group feel as if they belong, then belonging exists.  But if they do not, despite being included and having little tangible resource inequities or other disparities between groups, then belonging is lacking. Thus, in biographies of women such as Sonia Sotomayor and Michelle Obama, they report a feeling of “not belonging” on Princeton’s campus of the 1970s. 4 Both women came from vastly different social and economic milieus — the Bronx and the south side of Chicago, respectively — than that which they encountered on that Ivy League campus.

Belonging can be measured by campus climate, and climate surveys, but these surveys must reflect both objective and subjective experiences. 5 This also explains the development of so-called “mindset” interventions, messages designed to signal or express greater belonging, and hopefully engender it in the process. 6

This reveals a core element of belonging: the expressive or communicative message that a group belongs. It can be expressed explicitly, through representation or by signaling that members of a particular group are welcome in a particular space, institution, or community. It can also be expressed implicitly, as when accommodations are made, such as when special food or holidays are provided for. For example, the French Military created accommodations for Muslim cultural traditions by having halal foods served in the military, and providing space for prayer and worship. 7 The absence of accommodations or sensitivities is an equally simple way to signal that members of certain groups do not belong.

Illustration by Peter Wood

Realizing Belonging

As important as these components are to belonging, there is still a missing component to a full manifestation of belonging. Belonging is perceptual and tangible; it is a feeling and a practice. But belonging requires more than accommodation; it also demands agency.

A board or council may be diverse and inclusive, but if members of socially marginalized groups are included without the ability or agency to re-shape and redesign the institution, then inclusion is realized without full belonging. In this model, members of the socially marginalized group are brought in as guests rather than as members. Simply revisiting holiday schedules or respective food traditions can help members of social groups feel more welcome, but they do not create a sense of ownership or control over the mission, values, or core operation of the institution.

Belonging is realized fully when included groups have more than a voice — they are actually able to reshape the institution together with existing stakeholders. Thus, hospitals and other anchor institutions are not just responsive to elite sensibilities, but oriented to serve communities’ needs.  In the process, some institutions may need to be redesigned or their mission rethought. Efforts toward realizing this conception of belonging are already underway in examples like Germany’s requirement for employees to comprise a third of supervisory board seats in companies of at least 500 employees, and half in companies of 2000 or more. Research shows that this measure to provide a decision making role to employees broadens the issues and concerns companies give attention to while simultaneously increasing profits and productivity. In another instance of co-creative belonging, the organization Participatory City worked with the council of the Borough of Barking and Dagenham in the United Kingdom to address the area’s high levels of homelessness, violence, and unemployment. They worked with community members to create a welcoming committee for newcomers, plant community gardens together, and collaborate on community improvement projects. These activities have fostered a sense of togetherness and shared destiny among the residents of Barking and Dagenham, as people have overcome prejudices and isolation to strengthen bonds and deepen community. This kind of agency — co-creation — is the most radical and potentially transformative aspect of true belonging. 

How, then, can these ideas be brought into practice? This digital volume makes significant headway into answering this question. Because Europe and America, and indeed, much of the world, are struggling with many of the same issues, we seek to transport the frame of belonging into the European context to explore models and exciting case studies, as well as to deepen our collective understanding of the problems that impede a sense of belonging. This volume is one fruit of this emerging work.

Toward Belonging

The papers brought together for this online publication illuminate our understanding of the nuances of belonging and model how we can realize it in practice. Exploring topics and themes such as refugee integration, civic engagement and mutual aid, human development and well-being, motherhood and race, as well as much more, this volume is a major step toward deepening our understanding of inter-group dynamics and processes, interventions, and case studies that can promote or lead toward greater belonging. What follows is a brief introduction to a few of the papers included in this digital collection.

Jessica Joelle Alexander’s paper on “Obligated Togetherness” or “ Fællesskab ” is a fascinating exploration of holistic cultural values and practices that emphasize well-being and inclusion in Denmark. Drawing upon a major national survey conducted in 2016, the author demonstrates how certain cultural practices, namely, intentionally and specifically incorporating lessons on social connection and wellbeing into parenting and education, contribute to societal well-being and belonging. She explores, in local terms, how the focus on togetherness and connectedness may lead to a correlation with happiness — in a country that is consistently described as one of the happiest in the world. 

In his essay, Tom Crompton, the Director of the Common Cause Foundation, brings to the fore the role that values — and especially our perception of fellow-citizens’ and neighbors’ core values — plays in community cohesion, well-being, and a sense of belonging. Unsurprisingly, he finds that recognising our mutual core values and value commitments can bridge understanding and build community. Looking at programming his organization has conducted in Manchester, England, the author describes community based interventions work in the real world.

Jonelle Twum’s essay explores the grassroots activities of migrant mothers in the suburbs of Sweden.  Making use of  her fieldwork and interviews, she helps us understand processes of racialization, integration, and gender-informed interventions in Sweden’s exurban areas. In particular, she illuminates strategies employed by these women to thrive and to imagine spaces of greater belonging — even as official institutions and municipal leadership fail to provide the material resources needed to support their communities.

Daniel Stanley, the CEO and founder of the Narrative Futures Lab, deconstructs our understanding of polarization. Although conventionally understood in simplistic or categorical ways, such as racial or economic polarization, he suggests that polarization is best viewed as a byproduct of deeper forces and dynamics, and related to a number of other disturbing phenomena. This essay challenges assumptions about individual and group psychology and political conformity from the post-war period, while also arguing, more hopefully, that a better understanding of the problem can lead to belonging and social cohesion.

Evan Elise Easton provides a broader perspective on refugee experiences in Germany, as they relate to integration processes and activities that foster a sense of belonging. In particular, their essay describes and elevates the cutting edge work of refugee led organizations in Berlin during the Covid-19 Pandemic — allowing us the opportunity to see how integration relates to belonging and community building in a time of social turmoil.

Building Belonging

Belonging is a broad, encompassing concept, and there is no single prescription for how it can be manifested or realized, as the papers in this volume will amply illustrate. It is also a multi-faceted concept relating to agency, connection, place, identity, and security, among other elements. As a result, belonging can exist in many forms or be expressed or experienced in a myriad of different ways.

Belonging can exist in a superficial sense or a deeper sense. It can be experienced as a social dynamic between people or institutionalized in governance, organizations, and associations. It can become embodied in laws, codes, rules and regulations, or it can exist as norms and cultural values.  Intergroup dialogue projects in the United States and Europe that not only create spaces for exchanging stories, but also teach how to communicate across boundaries of difference or realize shared values, advance belonging.

The pressures and challenges within our societies make the work of building belonging more complicated, but also more necessary. Economic inequality, displacement and migration, social media and technology, ethnic conflict and religious violence, wars and political oppression, are tectonic forces that build pressure under our societies. The pressure is often relieved through social fault lines, such as those of race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity and religion. If we are to build stronger and more cohesive societies, less susceptible to the dangers of demagoguery and division, then we need to find ways to retrofit our social structures and institutions to survive these pressures.

Art description: “As I read through the introduction for this article, I wanted to understand inside myself what it means to feel a sense of belonging. After some processing, I was drawn to the feeling of sitting around a campfire with friends — an activity that creates, within a foreign space, a sense of home and shelter. In this image the four figures gather around the flame, cradled within a nurturing, open gestured hand.”

Artist bio:  Peter Wood is a British artist who was born in Bedford, England in 1991. He studied in London at Central St Martin’s College of Art and Design, and later at the University of Westminster, where he graduated with a degree in Illustration and Visual Communication in 2014. He has been living in Berlin since 2016 and works as an artist, selling prints at an outdoors art market, and through illustration commissions.  

• 1 Maslow, Abraham. “A Theory of Human Motivation.” Psychological Review 50, no. 4 (1943): 370–96.
• 2 Fetters, Ashley. “The First of the ‘Yale Women.’” The Atlantic , September 22, 2019. https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/09/first-undergraduate-women-yale/598216/.
• 3 "Why India Needs a New Debate on Caste Quotas.” BBC News , August 29, 2015. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-34082770.
• 4 Lithwick, Dalia. “Sonia Sotomayor, Outsider.” Slate , September 4, 2015. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2015/09/sonia-sotomayor-conversation-at-notre-dame-first-latina-doesnt-feel-like-she-belongs-on-supreme-court.html .
• 5 “My Experience Survey 2019: Campus Findings and Recommendations.” UC Berkeley Office of the Chancellor, 2020. ttps://myexperience.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/myexperiencesurvey2019-final.pdf .
• 6 Dweck, Carol. Mindset: The New Psychology of Success . New York: Ballantine Books, 2006.
• 7 Onishi, Norimitsu, and Constant Méheut. “In France’s Military, Muslims Find a Tolerance That Is Elusive Elsewhere.” New York Times , June 26, 2021. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/26/world/europe/in-frances-military-muslims-find-a-tolerance-that-is-elusive-elsewhere.html .

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Sense of belonging to community and avoidable hospitalization: a population-based cohort study of 456,415 Canadians

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• Epidemiology
• Psychology and behaviour

A sense of belonging to a community is a dimension of subjective well-being that is of growing population health interest. We evaluated sex-stratified associations between community belonging and risk of avoidable hospitalization. Adult men and women from the Canadian Community Health Survey (2000–2014) were asked to rate their sense of community belonging (N = 456,415) and were also linked to acute inpatient hospitalizations to 31 March 2018. We used Cox proportional hazards models to assess the association between community belonging and time to hospitalization related to ambulatory care sensitive conditions (ACSCs) and adjusted for a range of sociodemographic, health, and behavioural confounders. Compared to those who reported intermediate levels of belonging, both very weak and very strong sense of belonging were associated with greater risk of avoidable hospitalization for women (HR 1.29, 95% CI 1.12, 1.47, very weak; HR 1.15, 95% CI 1.03, 1.27, very strong), but not for men (HR 1.12, 95% CI 0.97, 1.29, very weak; HR 1.08, 95% CI 0.98, 1.19, very strong). This study suggests that community belonging is associated with risk of ACSC hospitalization for women and provides a foundation for further research on community belonging and population health.

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Introduction.

Subjective well-being has been recognized as an important predictor of health outcomes and health behaviours, and it has emerged as a significant point of discussion in the areas of health policy and public health intervention 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 . One dimension of well-being is one’s sense of belonging to community, which has been characterized as a shared sense of connection and identity to a community 7 as well as attachment to and comfort within a community 8 . The concept of community belonging has been of longstanding research interest 9 and has been discussed in the broader research context of place attachment, rootedness and social capital 10 . Prior research suggests that weaker sense of belonging to one’s community is associated with negative health indicators and outcomes, including self-rated health 11 , 12 , self-rated mental health 13 , unfavourable changes in health-related behaviour 14 , and unmet healthcare needs 15 .

Studies have demonstrated associations between various measures of social connection (e.g., social support, loneliness, social isolation) and downstream health outcomes, including cardiovascular disease 16 , prolonged hospitalization 17 , hospital-treated infections 18 , and mortality 6 , 19 , 20 . An important health outcome that is largely unexplored with respect to community belonging is avoidable hospitalization, which is often considered to be that related to ambulatory care sensitive conditions (ACSCs) that should not require acute hospitalization if appropriately managed in outpatient settings 21 .

Community belonging is a multi-dimensional concept that draws upon theories of social connections and place attachment 10 from a variety of disciplines, including but not limited to sociology, psychology, and health promotion. Notably, Berkman et al. developed an overarching conceptual model that links social networks and health, and drew upon Émile Durkheim’s theories of social integration, John Bowlby’s attachment theory, and social network theory 22 . Their model suggests that a combination of social processes and psychobiological processes are involved, and can be extended to explain the relationship between community belonging and health-related outcomes, such as avoidable hospitalization. Conceptually, having a weak sense of community belonging may trigger social processes that influence health by: (1) reducing the community contacts available for receiving health-related information; (2) lowering transmission and reinforcement of healthy social norms, behaviours, and attitudes, leading to unfavourable behaviours such as delayed help-seeking and poor treatment adherence, and; (3) decreasing access to community services and resources 23 . These processes could also influence more proximal pathways, such as increasing one’s chronic stress responses. Ultimately, the combination of these social dynamics stemming from a lack of community belonging could elevate the likelihood of preventable illness requiring hospitalization 11 , 14 , 24 , 25 .

Aside from a study that found an association between weak community belonging and lower odds of diabetes-related hospitalization among Canadians with diabetes 23 , no studies have evaluated the relationship between community belonging and avoidable hospitalizations in the general Canadian population, and none have incorporated sex-stratified analyses. A focus on a broader range of upstream psychosocial factors has the potential to inform decision-making for our health and social systems to generate large-scale improvements in health outcomes across populations. The examination of this relationship is of particular interest for Canada, where the universal healthcare system minimizes financial barriers to healthcare but non-financial (e.g., psycho-social) barriers still exist 26 . The objective of this study is to evaluate the association between community belonging and avoidable hospitalization using a population-based cohort of adult men and women residing in Canada.

Study design and sample

We conducted a population-based cohort study of respondents of the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) 27 , and included survey respondents aged 18–74 years at the time of interview from eight CCHS cycles between 2000 and 2014. Those under 18 were excluded because risk factors for pediatric preventable hospitalizations tend to differ from adult preventable hospitalizations. Consistent with the definition of ACSC hospitalization used in this study 21 , individuals aged 75 years and older were excluded due to the high prevalence of multiple comorbidities in older adults, posing challenges in distinguishing preventable hospitalizations from those that are not 28 . Respondents were excluded if they: (1) had a death date preceding interview date, which indicates either an erroneous date of death or linkage); (2) resided in Quebec at the time of interview, as the province of Quebec does not report to the hospitalization database used in this study 29 , and/or (3) were pregnant at the time of interview, due to the potential for deviation of health and behavioural characteristics (such as BMI and alcohol consumption 30 ) from typical baseline values during pregnancy. We adhered to the principles outlined in the Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) Statement 31 . This study was approved by the University of Toronto’s Research Ethics Board (#41965).

Data sources

The CCHS is a cross-sectional survey administered by Statistics Canada, and contains data on community belonging as well as demographic, socioeconomic, behavioural, and health-related factors 27 . The survey collects health-related data from Canadians 12 years and older and is representative of 98% of the population. Data collection is completed every two years until 2007 and annually thereafter. Individuals are excluded from the survey if they: live on reserves or other Aboriginal settlements, are institutionalized, are a full-time Canadian Forces member or live in the Quebec health regions of Région du Nunavik and Région des Terres-Cries-de-la-Baie-James. The survey data were individually linked to the Discharge Abstract Database (DAD) up to 31 March 2018, using a generalized record linkage software (G-link) that utilizes deterministic and probabilistic linkage methods 32 . The DAD is maintained by the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) and collects information regarding hospital discharges in all provinces and territories in Canada except Quebec 33 .

Exposure: community belonging

Community belonging was captured by the CCHS, which includes a question asking respondents to rate their sense of belonging to their local community on a 4-point Likert scale, ranging from very strong, somewhat strong, somewhat weak, to very weak. This single-item measure has been used in prior studies and has been found to be significantly associated with social capital as well as health and mental health outcomes 12 , 14 , 34 . We re-categorized community belonging to a 3-level variable: very strong, intermediate (which includes somewhat strong or somewhat weak), very weak. This categorization focuses on those with the strongest and weakest reported belonging compared to those who felt less strongly about their belonging and were similar. As a sensitivity analysis, we also modelled the 4-level and 2-level categories.

Outcome: avoidable hospitalizations

The DAD was used to obtain information on avoidable hospitalizations from the CCHS interview date to the end of follow-up (31 March 2018). Avoidable hospitalizations were defined as acute care hospitalizations of individuals younger than 75 years old for an ACSC, which include the following: grand mal status and other epileptic convulsions, chronic lower respiratory diseases, asthma, diabetes, heart failure and pulmonary edema, hypertension, and angina 21 . ACSCs were identified using International Classifications of Disease 9th version (ICD-9) and International Classifications of Disease 10th version (ICD-10) codes (Supplementary Table 1 ).

Potential confounders

Potential confounders were selected a priori based on support from prior literature (Supplementary Table 2 ) and the Andersen Newman Framework for determinants of medical care 35 . The directed acyclic graph (DAG) can be found in the Supplementary Fig.  1 . Overall, full adjustment included demographic and socioeconomic factors (age, ethnicity, urban/rural classification, newcomer status, marital status, household income quintile, household education level) as well as health and behavioural factors (alcohol consumption, smoking, physical activity, body mass index, and the presence of four major and common chronic conditions including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease/emphysema, cancer, diabetes, heart disease, operationalized as yes/no for each).

Statistical methods

Descriptive analyses of the full range of factors were stratified by sex, community belonging, and ACSC hospitalization status. Weighted Kaplan–Meier survival curves were created to compare ACSC hospitalization across levels of community belonging in women and men. Cox proportional hazard models were used to estimate the hazards associated with the three-level community belonging exposure and the outcome of future ACSC hospitalization for women and men separately. We defined the study time as being from the CCHS interview date to ACSC hospitalization, right-censoring for the study endpoint (March 31, 2018), 75th birthdate or death (maximum follow-up of 18 years). The results of three models are presented: unadjusted (Model 1), intermediately adjusted for survey cycle, demographic and socioeconomic variables (Model 2), and fully adjusted for survey cycle, demographic, socioeconomic, health and behavioural variables (Model 3). Survey weights from Statistics Canada were used to produce nationally representative estimates and account for complex sampling design and non-response bias. Bootstrap weights were incorporated to calculate variance estimates. Missing data were imputed using hot deck imputation methods for item non-response in large-scale surveys 36 . Imputation cell variables included age, sex, province or territory of residence, and urban/rural residence. Every variable with missing data had non-response rates of less than 5%. Analyses were conducted using SAS, version 9.4 (SAS Institute, Inc., Cary, North Carolina).

Sensitivity analysis

Provinces and territories transitioned from ICD-9 to ICD-10 over a six-year period beginning in 2001 37 . To assess if the change in coding classification had an impact on the primary analysis, a sensitivity analysis was run limiting the study start date to April 1st, 2004, the date in which all provinces and territories (except for Quebec) implemented ICD-10. To address concerns of selection bias and account for ACSCs at baseline that might impact community belonging, we also conducted an analysis in which ACSC hospitalizations were included if they occurred at least two years after the CCHS interview date. To evaluate the potential impact of bias resulting from hot deck imputation, a model was run utilizing a non-imputed cohort incorporating ‘unknown’ categories for all covariates with missing or unknown responses. A survival model that included self-rated general health as a potential confounder was also run to examine the possibility of residual confounding by self-rated general health.

The final cohort consisted of 456,415 respondents, representing a weighted population of N = 34,332,000 (Supplementary Fig.  2 ). Both men and women exhibited similar trends in baseline characteristics across levels of community belonging (Table 1 ). Compared to those who reported very strong belonging, those who reported very weak community belonging were more likely to be younger, be of visible minority status, live in urban areas and report being in the lowest income quintile. Adults with very weak community belonging were also less likely to be married/common-law, have more than secondary school education, be regular drinkers, and be physically active.

Overall, 2.2% of the population experienced one or more ACSC hospitalizations after survey interview. For women, 3.3% of those with weak sense of belonging were hospitalized for an ACSC, whereas only 2.4% of those with strong sense of belonging were hospitalized for an ACSC. Among men, 3.3% of those with weak sense of belonging were hospitalized for an ACSC, while 3% of those with strong sense of belonging were hospitalized for an ACSC (Table 1 ). Those who experienced ACSC hospitalizations during follow-up were more likely to be older, be widowed, separated, or divorced, report being in the lowest income quintile, be current light smokers, and have poor self-rated health—compared to individuals who did not experience ACSC hospitalizations during follow-up. Adults who experienced ACSC hospitalization were also less likely to: be visible minorities, have more than secondary school education, be physically active, and be of normal BMI status (Table 2 ).

Graphical assessment of the differences in time to ACSC hospitalization across levels of community belonging using Kaplan–Meier survival curves showed that women with very weak belonging appear to have the least favourable outcomes in terms of time-to-hospitalization, followed by women with very strong belonging (Fig.  1 ). Men with very weak belonging and men with very strong belonging appear to have similarly less favourable outcomes in terms of time-to-hospitalization, compared to men reporting somewhat strong/weak community belonging. Table 3 presents sex-stratified Cox proportional hazard models for the association between community belonging and time to first ACSC hospitalization after survey response. In unadjusted models (Model 1), both very weak and very strong community belonging, compared to intermediate levels of belonging, were associated with a significant increase in risk of avoidable hospitalizations in women (very weak: HR 1.82, 95% CI 1.60, 2.07; very strong: HR 1.44, 95% CI 1.30, 1.59) and in men (very weak: HR 1.44, 95% CI 1.25–1.68; very strong: HR 1.42, 95% CI: 1.29–1.56).

Kaplan–Meier curves stratified by sense of community belonging for women and men.

Adjusting for demographic and socioeconomic variables (Model 2) and additionally for health and behavioural factors (Model 3) attenuated associations between community belonging and avoidable hospitalization. Compared to women with intermediate sense of belonging, women who report very weak community belonging have a 29% greater risk of avoidable hospitalization (HR 1.29, 95% CI 1.12, 1.47) while women who report very strong community belonging have a 15% greater risk for avoidable hospitalization (HR 1.15, 95% CI 1.03, 1.27). However, these associations were not observed in men (very weak: HR 1.12, 95% CI 0.97, 1.29; very strong: HR 1.08, 95% CI 0.98, 1.19).

The sensitivity analyses consisting of the lagged ACSC hospitalization outcome (Supplementary Table 3 ), adjustment for self-rated general health (Supplementary Table 4 ), restriction to outcomes ascertained using ICD-10 (Supplementary Table 5 ), and a non-imputed cohort that included missing variables as a separate category (Supplementary Table 6 ) resulted in similar effect sizes to the primary analysis, and no changes in the direction of risk. In addition, we re-ran the analysis using both the 4-level and 2-level variations of community belonging and while direct comparisons are not possible given the different referent group, we observed the same findings of increased risk for low community belonging among females (Supplementary Tables 7 – 8 ).

Ethics approval, and consent to participate in the survey was obtained by Statistics Canada. All analyses were conducted under project number 21-MAPA-UTO-7020 at the University of Toronto site of the Canadian Research Data Centre Network, a secure laboratory which provides access to micro-data holdings of Statistics Canada and has in place a detailed protocol to protect the confidentiality of respondents. Consistent with this protocol, all frequencies have a rounding base to the nearest five respondents, and tabulations resulting in cell-counts under 30 individuals were not released.

Our study examined the relationship between community belonging and avoidable hospitalizations using a population-based cohort of Canadian adults. After adjusting for potential confounders, both very strong and very weak community belonging, compared to intermediate sense of community belonging, were associated with an increased risk in ACSC hospitalization, however the association is more pronounced for very weak community belonging compared to very strong. After fully adjusting for confounders, these associations remained conclusive among women, but not men. A previous study reported an 80 per cent increased odds of diabetes hospitalization among adults 45 years and older with pre-existing diabetes who reported weak, compared to strong, community belonging 23 . This is consistent with our findings related to those reporting very weak community belonging. Our findings are also in line with studies that demonstrate the importance of social connections for favourable hospitalization outcomes 17 , 38 , 39 . A recent study that found individuals who reported low life satisfaction had almost three times the risk of ACSC hospitalization compared to those who reported the highest level of life satisfaction 3 , while another found that weaker sense of belonging was associated with longer length of stay in hospital—most strongly among older adults 17 .

Current studies generally report a dose–response relationship between stronger community belonging and favourable health outcomes 12 , 14 , 40 , for which we find partial support. In addition to observing higher risk of avoidable hospitalization among those with very weak belonging, we found that those reporting very strong belonging were also at higher risk of avoidable hospitalization. In spite of our efforts to account for a variety of potential demographic, socioeconomic, health and behavioural factors, our findings could be vulnerable to residual confounding, although alternative explanations for the negative health impacts of social capital have been proposed 41 . A strong sense of community belonging could place more demands, responsibility, and obligation on the individual to contribute to their community, potentially leading to elevated levels of stress. In much the same way as individuals can adopt and emulate others’ beneficial health behaviours, those closely connected to a community with unhealthy or harmful health practices may likewise adopt these behaviors, and in turn, face greater risk of adverse health consequences. Regardless, this finding warrants further investigation into this relationship and other risk factors and conditions that could be driving this pattern.

Few studies have conducted sex-based analyses of the relationship between social connections and down-stream health outcomes with which to compare our findings, and those that exist have produced mixed results. A Finnish study of 206 older men and women found that low social support was associated with higher mortality risk for women, but not men 19 . The authors of this study suggested this difference could have been related to the fact that women in the study were more likely than men to be widowed and living alone, and thus more dependent on social connections. In contrast, an older study of Finnish men and women demonstrated a graded association between social connections and mortality for men, but not for women 20 . With respect to the relationship between self-rated health and sense of community belonging, we observed little difference between men and women 12 . The potential for community belonging to improve health outcomes for women versus men may also vary based on the aspects or types of social connections under consideration, as one study of community belonging and depression suggests 42 . The relationship between a variety of risk factors (such as comorbidity, socioeconomic status, and physical activity) and ACSC hospitalizations are known to differ for women and men in Canada 43 . Furthermore, other sex- and gender-based differences in health (i.e. biological/social factors, traditional gender roles) and behaviours (e.g. healthcare seeking patterns) could impact the relationship between subjective well-being and healthcare utilization. More research on the mechanisms behind such sex-based differences is needed to inform health and social policy, and suggests such policies need to be tailored to men and women.

Strengths and limitations

Our study has multiple strengths. First, the use of record-linked data provides a unique opportunity to evaluate the individual-level association between hospitalizations and community belonging—a measure that is not commonly captured in administrative data. Second, we aimed to reduce bias and improve accuracy by accounting for time at risk and adjusting for a variety of demographic, socioeconomic, health and behavioural factors. Third, we conducted several sensitivity analyses accounting for potential bias arising from variations in administrative data collection, missing data, and residual confounding, all of which provided evidence for the robustness of our primary results.

Our study also has limitations. First, there may be risk of measurement error in the covariates given the self-reported nature of the CCHS. This is a particularly important consideration for the exposure, as community belonging is a subjective concept that may be understood differently across different subgroups, 11 , 25 including sex 44 . Furthermore, the CCHS and DAD captures data on sex, but not gender, so we were limited in our ability to explore gender-based variations in belonging and how differences in socialization might impact the relationship between community belonging and avoidable hospitalization. However, this is still a growing area of research, and at present, this single-item measure of community belonging has been shown to be an efficient and parsimonious measure that captures community belonging as well as related aspects such as social capital and attachment to place 10 , 34 . A second and related limitation is that we were not able to account for change in residence across the follow-up period. Moving to a different neighbourhood could lead to changes in one’s sense of belonging to their local community, as social connections are presumably lost in one place and built in another. We hypothesize however that such variations over time would bias our results toward the null. That we still detected significant associations without accounting for neighbourhood changes underscores the potential strength of the relationship between community belonging and avoidable hospitalizations. A third limitation is that we were only able to ascertain death for those with a discharge disposition indicating death in the DAD, thus, there is a risk of incomplete censoring for those who died outside of hospital or before the collection of discharge disposition data in ICD-10. Fourth, although we adjusted for many potential confounders, we were limited to the information available on the survey and administrative data and our results remain vulnerable to residual confounding. Lastly, while our findings are not fully generalizable to all of Canada (as the DAD does not capture data from Quebec and the CCHS has several population exclusions), our study does capture a large sample from the majority of Canadian provinces and territories and utilizes survey weights to account for non-response bias and the sampling strategy of the survey.

We observed that women with very strong and very weak self-reported sense of belonging to their local community had increased risk of avoidable hospitalization, while no conclusive associations by community belonging were found for men. These findings add to the current growing literature on the importance of subjective well-being to health, provide a foundation for further research on the association between community belonging and hospitalization, and draws attention to the importance of sex to variations in subjective well-being and health. Future studies should build upon this work and consider examining the impacts of life stage on community belonging and its relationship to sex-specific population health outcomes. This study may help inform decision-makers regarding strategies and policies aimed to reduce avoidable hospitalizations in Canada.

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Acknowledgements

All analyses were conducted at the Toronto Region Statistics Canada Research Data Centre of the Canadian Research Data Centre Network (CRDCN). The services and activities provided by the CRDCN are made possible by the financial or in-kind support of SSHRC, CIHR, CFI, Statistics Canada and participating universities whose support is gratefully acknowledged. The views and opinions expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Statistics Canada, CRDCN, or the Government of Canada. This study was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Priority Announcement for Population and Public Health held by L.C.R (FRN 72064429). S.M.M. was supported through a Canadian Institutes of Health Research Postdoctoral Fellowship (FRN 72063084). L.C.R. was supported through a Canada Research Chair in Population Health Analytics (FRN 72060091) and the Stephen Family Research Chair in Community Health at Trillium Health Partners. Funding organizations had no role in the study design, data analysis, interpretation of data, the writing of the manuscript, nor the decision to submit the article for publication. No financial disclosures were reported by the authors of this paper.

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Contributions

All authors conceptualised and designed the study. All authors contributed to the statistical design of the study and M.L. conducted the data analyses. M.L. had direct access to the dataset. All authors interpreted the data. M.L. and S.M. conducted the literature search and M.L. wrote the first draft of the manuscript. All authors critically revised and approved the final version of the manuscript. L.R. had final responsibility for the decision to submit for publication.

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Lu, M., Mah, S.M. & Rosella, L.C. Sense of belonging to community and avoidable hospitalization: a population-based cohort study of 456,415 Canadians. Sci Rep 14 , 21142 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-71128-5

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Received : 18 January 2024

Accepted : 26 August 2024

Published : 10 September 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-71128-5

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