Top Three Tips for the Stanford Supplementals

Stanford is one of the most competitive schools to get into, and its supplemental prompts are different from other schools. You’ll need to write 3 essays of 100-250 words and 5 short answers of 50 words, in addition to your main college essay. But remember: you’ll be competing with the best students in the country (and around the world), so you’ll need to make sure that every response you submit is both distinctive and well written. If you don’t put in the work, there’s no reason to apply, because your application will simply be removed from the pile. 

If you’ve been reading our blog, you’ll know we don’t believe in reading sample college essays and we don’t think there’s any formula you can follow. But we do think some general guidelines can be helpful, so here are our top 3 tips for writing the Stanford supplementals.

Use the “excitement about learning” and “life experience” prompts to reveal two unusual things about yourself

In general, when you have multiple college essay prompts, you should avoid recycling information in your responses. If you’ve already written about why you’re interested in AI in one prompt, try not to mention it anywhere else. In the case of the Stanford supplementals, this means you’ll need to provide the admissions committee with eight different insights about yourself, since there are eight prompts. 

The most important place not to recycle information is in the first and third supplemental questions. The first asks you to convey an idea or experience that makes you genuinely excited about learning, and this is obviously a place to discuss your main academic interests. If you just say “I’ve always been interested in tech” and go on to describe a path that other applicants have taken, the admissions officer isn’t going to pay attention; if you say something surprising, they will.

The same is true for the “life experience” prompt: if you just provide a list of the same extracurricular activities as everyone else, they won’t be very interested; if you tell an unusual story, they will.

Don’t be fooled by the “roommate” essay

Stanford asks you to write a note introducing yourself to your future roommate, and this causes students endless difficulties. The challenge with the Stanford roommate college essay is to write a note to someone your age, while taking into consideration that it’s being read by admissions officers. So the note shouldn’t be as formal as your other responses, but it also can’t contain abbreviations and emojis.

Here’s a classic mistake students make. The prompt says: “Write a note to your future roommate.” Fifty percent of students start the note by writing, “Dear future roommate.” Would you ever begin a note this way? Of course not. You’d say “Hey roomie,” or something like that.

Don’t give admissions officers a reason to throw out your application. Get the tone of this response right and introduce yourself in a way that makes you sound like a considerate, interesting person who will be a great roommate.

Every word of the short answers is important

The 5 short answers are limited to 50 words, but this doesn’t mean you can spend less time on them! In our experience, these responses are some of the most difficult college essay prompts to get right. Here’s how you do it.

First, read the prompt and try to come up with a response that will make you stand out. Don’t say something conventional (for example, “the most significant challenge society faces today is global warming” or “I would have loved to have witnessed the signing of the Declaration of Independence”). Instead, pick something that will make your response memorable.

Then try writing about it as concisely as you can. When you’re done, take a break, then look at your response again and rewrite it. Repeat this process until you have 5 responses that make a powerful impact within the 50 word limit.

Finally, remember that every word of all your Stanford supplementals will count. If you decide to apply (and you should, if your scores are in the ballpark!), you’ll need to put serious work into your responses. But it’s worth it, because your efforts may just pay off!