A complete application consists of the following three elements:
- a filled-out and submitted application, accessed above
- a $35 application fee, payable through this link
- a scheduled interview (made by reaching out to pinto@umich.edu).
Questions about the application? Feel free to reach out to pinto@umich.edu.
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For your ease of reference, the questions that make up the Personal Statement component of the application are copied here, just to save you from having to go into the application form to review them:
A. What’s something that you’ve been curious about recently and decided to learn more about? How did that curiosity arise and how did you (start to) satisfy that curiosity? What might this example show about how your brain engages with ideas? In other words, what does it look like when you get interested in something? You could write about anything—your new knitting hobby, a house of worship you recently walked into, 19th century French poetry, a mysterious stranger, a YouTube channel, sports betting, whatever!
B. For most students, the NELP experience, while rewarding and fun, includes adversity of various kinds—exposure to cold and wet weather; the hard, physical work of maintaining camp; strenuous backpacking; occasional interpersonal conflicts; being away from friends and family and separated from technologies like cell phones and email; the academic rigor of a program that packs nine credits of upper-level work into 45 days. How does challenge, pressure, and even discomfort play out in your life? How has it been a part of the way you learn? Please be honest and detailed about this, and give us an example.
C. Tell us about something you’ve read recently that has been meaningful to you—a work of fiction, an article, an essay, a tweet, a psalm, a book of poems…. Why was it important to you?
D. What’s one of the strangest things you believe? Why do you believe it?
E. Tell us something else about yourself, something you haven’t yet touched on, that helps define or describe you and helps bring into focus what you would bring as a member of the NELP community.
