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Prompt:<\/p>\n

There are two essays for this application. The first is based on choosing between one of the two images or one excerpt and the second essay prompt is a short essay that focuses on you. Please be sure to scroll below the excerpt to find the second Essay Prompt.<\/p>\n

Your response to essay one should be at least 500 and no more than 800 words in length.<\/p>\n

Choose one<\/strong> of the below TWO images or the narrative excerpt below (note: each image has an accessible description provided) to address the following: what does this image say to you? Or what is the excerpt conveying? You are welcome to take any approach or perspective you like in discussing the image or excerpt. For instance, you can tell a story based on the image or excerpt, or look at it as artwork, or comment on the economic, political, social, or environmental meanings the image or excerpt might convey. This is an opportunity for you to be creative and showcase your analytical skills.<\/p>\n

\"“Helicopter — Honors Admission essay prompt image #1<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Option 1 image description: “Helicopter Alley” by Peter McBride (used with permission) “This is what one day of traffic looks like inside Western Grand Canyon: A time-lapse composite merge of 160 individual flights on two different flight paths during an eight-hr period. In 12 hrs, the total count soared to 363 helicopters. The number of flights to this location on the south rim of the Grand Canyon are unregulated, with some days bringing in over 500 flights making this heliport… one of the busiest in the world.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
$\"Just$
Honors Essay Prompt for 2026 Admission, option 2<\/figcaption><\/figure>Option 2 image description: Just across Route 66 from the sawmill, was “Los Chantes” (also known as the Stanfield Slums), a sawmill worker’s camp consisting of one bedroom shacks, where Jesse [Dominguez’s] father initially lived. Presently, the University Plaza Shopping Center Safeway on South Plaza Way is at this location. At the age of 17 Jesse Dominguez’s father moved to Flagstaff from Mexico after he found work at the Saginaw-Manistee Sawmill where he remained employed until his retirement. (Courtesy of NAU Special Collections)\n
<\/p>\n
Honors Essay Prompt for 2027 Admission, narrative option 3: Excerpt from John Steinbeck’s *Grapes of Wrath<\/em> Chapter 12:<\/p>\n*
“Highway 66 is the main migrant road. 66 – the long concrete path across the country, waving gently up and down on the map, from Mississippi to Bakersfield – over the red lands and the grey lands, twisting up into the mountains, crossing the Divide and down into the bright and terrible desert, and across the desert to the mountains again, and into the rich California valleys.<\/p>\n
“66 is the path of a people in flight, refugees from dust and shrinking land, from the thunder of tractors and shrinking ownership, from the desert’s slow northward invasion, from the twisting winds that howl up out of Texas, from the floods that bring no richness to the land and steal what little richness is there. From all of these the people are in flight, and they come into 66 from the tributary side roads, from the wagon tracks and the rutted country roads. 66 is the mother road, the road of flight.<\/p>\n[…]\n
“And now the high mountains. Holbrook and Winslow and Flagstaff in the high mountains of Arizona. Then the great plateau rolling like a ground swell. Ashfork and Kingman and stone mountains again, where water must be hauled and sold. Then out of the broken sun-rotted mountains of Arizona to the Colorado, with green reeds on its banks, and that’s the end of Arizona. There’s California just over the river, and a pretty town to start it. Needles, on the river. But the river is a stranger in this place. Up from Needles and over a burned range, and there’s the desert. And 66 goes on over the terrible desert, where the distance shimmers and the black centre mountains hang unbearably in the distance. At last there’s Barstow, and more desert until at last the mountains rise up again, the good mountains, and 66 winds through them. Then suddenly a pass, and below the beautiful valley, below orchards and vineyards and little houses, and in the distance a city. And, oh, my God, it’s over.”<\/p>\n
*<\/p>\n*
“Essay” 2 instructions and prompt:
\nPlease write five sentences describing yourself, your life, and your experiences that, taken together, form an accurate view of who you are. Be creative! <\/em>List more than 5 and we will only read and consider the first 5. Do not list information provided in your résumé. This is not a rehash of what you’ve already submitted telling us about yourself. These five sentences should be “little nuggets” of information that give us insight into who you are. It’s information that you couldn’t work\/sneak into an essay or onto your résumé, but information you feel is really important in showing us just who you are, “where you come from.” The sentences should not simply reiterate information from your résumé, but they may enhance information mentioned on your résumé. Smart applicants will make good use of this opportunity and make each of the five sentences about something different. Think of these sentences as showing us aspects of who you are, including what you do, what you love, your favorite things, your deepest desires, your most grandiose dreams….. These are snapshots, not short stories, that give us a view of you and your unique perspective.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
Respond to both prompts for consideration (Note that essay 1 has 4 options for you to choose to respond to). Please have your Honors College Essays of Admission (prompts above) and resume ready to submit before\u00a0<\/b>clicking the “Apply to Honors on-line” link below. This link is only accessible to prospective Honors students who have first been admitted to NAU who have a 3.0 HS Core GPA or higher. Essays should be submitted in .doc, .docx, or .pdf formats ONLY. Not submitting in one of these three formats will delay your admission decision. You are also asked to copy and paste your resume and essays into text boxes. Formatting will not be preserved in the text box, which is why we ask for an uploaded document. The evaluation of the essays and resume will not be affected by the appearance of the text box submission.<\/p>\n
Your resume<\/h3>\n
Please consider this an opportunity for you to describe yourself to us in ways beyond a record of your employment. This document should help us find answers to questions like:<\/p>\n
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What things are you interested in?<\/li>\n
What student or community groups or organizations are you a member of?<\/li>\n
What do you do with your spare time? Do you play club\/school sports? Do you volunteer? Where? How often?<\/li>\n
What leadership<\/strong> positions do you have?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
While formatting is not required, keep in mind that resumes with little structure, or narrative in nature, can be more difficult to evaluate for reviewers.<\/p>\n
Please note that we do deny student admission to Honors. Should you wish to have your application re-opened for a second review, we ask that you submit a new essay and a new resume along with a completed teacher evaluation (send teacher evaluation to honorsadmissions@nau.edu).<\/p>\n
Other admissions policies<\/h3>\n\n
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Honors Admission essay prompt image #1<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Option 1 image description: “Helicopter Alley” by Peter McBride (used with permission) “This is what one day of traffic looks like inside Western Grand Canyon: A time-lapse composite merge of 160 individual flights on two different flight paths during an eight-hr period. In 12 hrs, the total count soared to 363 helicopters. The number of flights to this location on the south rim of the Grand Canyon are unregulated, with some days bringing in over 500 flights making this heliport… one of the busiest in the world.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
$\"Just$
Honors Essay Prompt for 2026 Admission, option 2<\/figcaption><\/figure>Option 2 image description: Just across Route 66 from the sawmill, was “Los Chantes” (also known as the Stanfield Slums), a sawmill worker’s camp consisting of one bedroom shacks, where Jesse [Dominguez’s] father initially lived. Presently, the University Plaza Shopping Center Safeway on South Plaza Way is at this location. At the age of 17 Jesse Dominguez’s father moved to Flagstaff from Mexico after he found work at the Saginaw-Manistee Sawmill where he remained employed until his retirement. (Courtesy of NAU Special Collections)\n
<\/p>\n
Honors Essay Prompt for 2027 Admission, narrative option 3: Excerpt from John Steinbeck’s *Grapes of Wrath<\/em> Chapter 12:<\/p>\n*
“Highway 66 is the main migrant road. 66 – the long concrete path across the country, waving gently up and down on the map, from Mississippi to Bakersfield – over the red lands and the grey lands, twisting up into the mountains, crossing the Divide and down into the bright and terrible desert, and across the desert to the mountains again, and into the rich California valleys.<\/p>\n
“66 is the path of a people in flight, refugees from dust and shrinking land, from the thunder of tractors and shrinking ownership, from the desert’s slow northward invasion, from the twisting winds that howl up out of Texas, from the floods that bring no richness to the land and steal what little richness is there. From all of these the people are in flight, and they come into 66 from the tributary side roads, from the wagon tracks and the rutted country roads. 66 is the mother road, the road of flight.<\/p>\n[…]\n
“And now the high mountains. Holbrook and Winslow and Flagstaff in the high mountains of Arizona. Then the great plateau rolling like a ground swell. Ashfork and Kingman and stone mountains again, where water must be hauled and sold. Then out of the broken sun-rotted mountains of Arizona to the Colorado, with green reeds on its banks, and that’s the end of Arizona. There’s California just over the river, and a pretty town to start it. Needles, on the river. But the river is a stranger in this place. Up from Needles and over a burned range, and there’s the desert. And 66 goes on over the terrible desert, where the distance shimmers and the black centre mountains hang unbearably in the distance. At last there’s Barstow, and more desert until at last the mountains rise up again, the good mountains, and 66 winds through them. Then suddenly a pass, and below the beautiful valley, below orchards and vineyards and little houses, and in the distance a city. And, oh, my God, it’s over.”<\/p>\n
*<\/p>\n*
“Essay” 2 instructions and prompt:
\nPlease write five sentences describing yourself, your life, and your experiences that, taken together, form an accurate view of who you are. Be creative! <\/em>List more than 5 and we will only read and consider the first 5. Do not list information provided in your résumé. This is not a rehash of what you’ve already submitted telling us about yourself. These five sentences should be “little nuggets” of information that give us insight into who you are. It’s information that you couldn’t work\/sneak into an essay or onto your résumé, but information you feel is really important in showing us just who you are, “where you come from.” The sentences should not simply reiterate information from your résumé, but they may enhance information mentioned on your résumé. Smart applicants will make good use of this opportunity and make each of the five sentences about something different. Think of these sentences as showing us aspects of who you are, including what you do, what you love, your favorite things, your deepest desires, your most grandiose dreams….. These are snapshots, not short stories, that give us a view of you and your unique perspective.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
Respond to both prompts for consideration (Note that essay 1 has 4 options for you to choose to respond to). Please have your Honors College Essays of Admission (prompts above) and resume ready to submit before\u00a0<\/b>clicking the “Apply to Honors on-line” link below. This link is only accessible to prospective Honors students who have first been admitted to NAU who have a 3.0 HS Core GPA or higher. Essays should be submitted in .doc, .docx, or .pdf formats ONLY. Not submitting in one of these three formats will delay your admission decision. You are also asked to copy and paste your resume and essays into text boxes. Formatting will not be preserved in the text box, which is why we ask for an uploaded document. The evaluation of the essays and resume will not be affected by the appearance of the text box submission.<\/p>\n
Your resume<\/h3>\n
Please consider this an opportunity for you to describe yourself to us in ways beyond a record of your employment. This document should help us find answers to questions like:<\/p>\n
\n
What things are you interested in?<\/li>\n
What student or community groups or organizations are you a member of?<\/li>\n
What do you do with your spare time? Do you play club\/school sports? Do you volunteer? Where? How often?<\/li>\n
What leadership<\/strong> positions do you have?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
While formatting is not required, keep in mind that resumes with little structure, or narrative in nature, can be more difficult to evaluate for reviewers.<\/p>\n
Please note that we do deny student admission to Honors. Should you wish to have your application re-opened for a second review, we ask that you submit a new essay and a new resume along with a completed teacher evaluation (send teacher evaluation to honorsadmissions@nau.edu).<\/p>\n
Other admissions policies<\/h3>\n\n
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Application policies<\/h3>\n\n\n
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Essays<\/h3>\n
Your “essays”\u00a0 will be evaluated both on your content and ideas as well as on writing conventions such as thesis, supporting evidence, organization, grammar, spelling, parallel construction, style, and mechanics.<\/p>\n\n
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Other admissions policies<\/h3>\n\n
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How to apply to the Honors College<\/h1>\n

How to apply to the Honors College<\/h1>\n

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Essays<\/h3>\nYour “essays”\u00a0 will be evaluated both on your content and ideas as well as on writing conventions such as thesis, supporting evidence, organization, grammar, spelling, parallel construction, style, and mechanics.<\/p>\n\n\n \n

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Other admissions policies<\/h3>\n\n\n \n

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Essays<\/h3>\n
Your “essays”\u00a0 will be evaluated both on your content and ideas as well as on writing conventions such as thesis, supporting evidence, organization, grammar, spelling, parallel construction, style, and mechanics.<\/p>\n\n
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Other admissions policies<\/h3>\n\n
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