Stanford boasts an acceptance rate of less than 5%. That means that you’ll be facing up against some of the best students and even the best grades and test scores won’t guarantee your acceptance.

But it’s worth it to apply anyway because you can just write the Supplemental Essay and be done with it right? Well, it’s a lot harder than that. That doesn’t mean that we want to discourage you from applying. In fact, quite the opposite! Having the chance of getting accepted by a school as competitive as Stanford will be fantastic for your future; just make sure that you’re ready to put in more elbow grease in these applications.

There are two reasons why the Stanford Supplemental Essay Prompts are more difficult than others.

• One, it’s much, much longer than other admissions essays
• Two, the sheer amount of competition makes Stanford’s admissions process fall under the holistic admissions category.

Most universities require you to answer 2-3 admissions essay prompts. Stanford has, if you haven’t seen their questions already, a total of 11 Questions. While some of these questions are simpler than others, this is still work.

You can’t afford to wait until the last minute to answer these questions; if you did, you had better get writing and finding your preferred proofreaders and editors soon.  

Stanford Supplemental Essays: Holistic Admissions

As for holistic admissions, you can find more information on their page here. (https://admission.stanford.edu/apply/selection/) Briefly, holistic admissions is a process of college admissions that universities tend to use when they are bombarded by too many qualified applicants. When there is no difference between Johnny and Samantha because they both have perfect marks and perfect test scores, the admissions officers have no choice but to look deeper into their extracurriculars, character, achievements, and essays.

This multiplies the importance of the admissions essay because it not only allows for the written word to compensate for mere numbers and grades, but it becomes one of the only few defining factors that can differentiate you from the rest of the admissions pool.

So, make sure to write the Stanford Supplemental Essay Prompts as well as you can. It’s one of the most important factors of your admissions process before you press that submit button!

Here at Penningpapers, we couldn’t leave you empty-handed. We put together a tutorial and guide that covers all tof Stanford’s Supplemental Essay Prmopts.

List of Stanford Supplemental Essay Prompts

1. Briefly elaborate on one of your extracurricular activities or work experiences. (150 words)
2. What is the most significant challenge that society faces today? (50 words)
3. How did you spend your last two summers? (50 words)
4. What historical moment or event do you wish you could have witnessed? (50 words)
5. What five words best describe you? (10 words)
6. When the choice is yours, what do you read, listen to, or watch? (50 words)
7. Name one thing you are looking forward to experiencing at Stanford. (50 words)
8. Imagine you had an extra hour in the day — how would you spend that time? (50 words)
9. The Stanford community is deeply curious and driven to learn in and out of the classroom. Reflect on an idea or experience that makes you genuinely excited about learning. (250 words)
10. Virtually all of Stanford’s undergraduates live on campus. Write a note to your future roommate that reveals something about you or that will help your roommate — and us — know you better. (250 words)
11. Tell us about something that is meaningful to you and why. (250 words)

How To Write The Stanford Supplemental Essay

Below you will find the complete guide to each of the Stanford supplemental essay questions. There are 11, and we cover some of the most important things to keep in mind as well as a few extra points to consider if you want to stay competitive in the application process.

Essay Prompt #1

Briefly elaborate on one of your extracurricular activities or work experiences. 150 words

Let’s answer the question that may be on everyone’s mind first: “is writing about extracurricular activities better or work experience better?”

The answer to that is this: whichever makes your character feel more complete. If your work experience included 300 hours of soulless community service picking up peacock poop at a park and dreading existentially, it may be more wise to talk about that dance club you joined and had fun with because it expressed your creative vision in physical movement.

Don’t forget you’ll be limited to 150 words or fewer, so keep it short! How? Focus on the word “elaborate.” This doesn’t mean you have to talk about what age you were when you worked as an intern and how you had a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich that day.

We recommend that, if you’re having trouble keeping your word count less than 150 words, you elaborate on only one inference of your topic. If you dedicated time to the engineering team in your school, how does it add to your character and make youa  good candidate for Stanford?

Remember: You want to avoid repeating the same topic more than once. We highly recommend that you keep your topics diversified. If your admissions essay all focus on something related to your academic career, you’ll appear flat; that’s exactly what holistic admissions would not favor. Dedicate each topic to an aspect of you that paints a better picture of who you are as a person.

Think of it like this: what qualities, if left out, would make you feel incomplete as yourself? Your new app? The comic you’ve been working on?

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Essay Prompt #2

What is the most significant challenge that society faces today? 50 words

Okay, this one is quite loaded. So, before you jump in headfirst into this topic, think first about the practicalities of approaching this essay. Ask yourself this: “What are some of the most common things people will say in response to this prompt?”

Make a list for yourself, at least ten. This will give you a good idea of not only the categories of topics to avoid, but also how to approach your answer the right way. Having a unique answer will also avoid unnecessary competition by having to compare your answer to other very competent, smart applicants.

Another problem with having a stereotypical topic is that it can very easily become more than you can chew. Take Trump for instance. Writing about all of the societal downfalls that came with his presidency would be quite difficult if you have to squeeze them all in a 50 word count.

You also don’t have to have all the answers to the problem. Providing an answer to this great societal challenge in a less-than 50 word response would be quite arrogant.

Note: The importance of this question is that your choice of societal challenge will reflect you as a person. For instance, a person who talks about the lack of societal weight on the importance of telling the truth would suggest that the applicant is a person who values integrity and can see past superficial gains.

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Essay Prompt #3

How did you spend your last two summers? 50 words

Two summers. 50 words or fewer. That’s quite a small number of words for so eventful a time period. That is, unless your summers have been ultimately uneventful.

If you haven’t done much for your summers, then we recommend focusing all fifty of your words on only one or two things and elaborating on them.

If you had an eventful summer, don’t be afraid to make a list of the things you’ve done with your time. You won’t be stretching yourself out too much since you’ll be writing this to show the admissions officers that you’re more than just your grades and scores.

A diverse set of things will show that you’re an applicant who has a vibrant personality that makes them more than just the average hard-working student.

If you had an eventful summer for one year and a boring one in another, just make sure to elaborate on the boring one so it’s more fleshed out. It also makes it appear more important and therefore justify the lack of other events.

Sample:

Summer 1: Helped international friends with English skills. Attended an engineering competition. Raised money for the fashion club by selling shirts online. Practiced dancing with friends

Summer 2: Took a break from work and visited Sequoia National Park to finally, at last, take a long and deep breathe away from the mundane rat race.  

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Essay Prompt #4

What historical moment or event do you wish you could have witnessed? 50 words

Alright, there are two very important factors to consider with this essay question:

One, your reason for visiting this historical moment should be something with a strong meaning other than, “it sounds cool.” Typically, this means that it should be something that has a personal connection with you.

Two, your reason should therefore be hyper specific and not so broad that you can’t narrow down into anything.

Here’s are some examples:

1. You’d love to be there when Mary Shelley composed her classic Frankenstein because you find a deep connection with successful female authors who made it big in the world.
2. You wish you were there to see the economic recovery of Seoul in the 1900’s because you feel that you took your family’s hardships in Korea for granted.

If you don’t have anything emotionally charged in your life that would connect with a historical event, it’s okay to have something fun in this one. This is one of the shorter essay questions after all.

Here’s an example of a fun essay response:

1. I’d like to travel back in time to 5500BC in Poland. It would be both satisfying yet horrifying to see the poor soul who first discovered cheese by telling himself, “those rotting curds of old milk that have been sitting in the sun seem like a fine delicacy.”

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Essay Prompt #5

What five words best describe you? 10 word limit

There are, just like the previous essay question, two things you need to keep in mind:

1. Make sure that you don’t have any words that are predictable or may be used by other people. You want to have something that is different and expresses your personality much more than superficial adjectives.
2. A smarter way of using adjectives is using multiple words into one modifier. Though this may limit the amount of words you can use, you’ll still have a much more vibrant response. 

Here are some examples of how this would look:

1. Religiously nerdy, Animator, Kingdom Hearts
2. Literary Snob, Secretly Anime Zealot
3. Everything according to plan, sometimes

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Essay Prompt #6

When the choice is yours, what do you read, listen to, or watch? 50 words

This one will have a few things you’ll need to keep in mind when writing in relation to the rest of the Stanford Supplemental Essay prompts.

Are your other essay responses wide? As in, are they covering a wide variety of topics in one essay prompt?

Are your other essay responses tall? As in, are they only covering one or a few topics in depth?

You want to make sure that all your Stanford admissions essays have a variety of both tall and wide responses. If you only have wide responses, you lack the depth needed to make your admissions essays profound. If you only have tall responses, you will lack the range of experiences to show the Stanford admissions officers you have much of an interesting background.

As such, you can reply to this question wide or tall. Either way, please remember to have a good variety of wide and tall essay responses throughout your Stanford application.

Example of tall response: When my mother get’s back from work to my baby-brother sleeping and father out with friends for Mahjong, I love finishing the last of the day’s chores while my mother tells me stories of how hard life was in China. I love listening to how different things were.

Example of wide response:  A collection of Youtube “To-Watch” videos: 500 years of correcting “historical” Halloween costumes, A cozy Victorian-inspired sewing workroom, Millennials and Baby Boomers Seek To Understand Each Other, Thus Spake Zarathustra Audiobook, Dr. Pimple Popper, Copywriting guide/tutorial, Marketing 101 content writing, Magnus Carlsen “This is one of the dumbest moves”

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Essay Prompt #7

Name one thing you are looking forward to experiencing at Stanford. 50 words

You might recognize the commonality this has with the “why us” college questions you see in the Common App. This is practically the same thing, except the Stanford essay #7 is asking in more casual language.

Here’s a few pointers to keep in mind about this.

• You shouldn’t talk about the stereotypical superficial features of the school such as the “cool environment” or “small classroom sizes” or “Hoover Tower” or “that fountain hopping thing”. These are surface-level attributes that don’t really matter that much to a more serious question.
• Don’t say anything that you can get at another school. You can be intellectually challenged at any university and you can meet cool friends at any other school.
• Don’t fall for the research trap. Researching more information about your school of choice is important, sure. It’s very common for applicants to just regurgitate what they heard or read on the Stanford website about their vision or traditions.
• Don’t do the “I visited Stanford one time and I just knew that it was perfect” thing. Visiting the school and relying on the claim that “it was just perfect” is a cliché, no matter how true it may be. Think of it as a sleazy playboy boyfriend telling his ex-girlfriend that, “she was always the one”. Grossed out? Yup, we are too.

Wow, that was a lot of “don’ts” on our part. Well, don’t worry. If we slashed any of your ideas, we won’t leave you empty handed.

The best method of approaching this kind of question, and any kind of “why this college” for that matter, is to connect one of Stanford’s attributes to your dreams; the result should be what you look forward to.

Stanford’s “x” + your dream = what you look forward to.

Example: Stanford’s entrepreneurial edge will pair well with my passion for developing my new business. I look forward to the future that I’ve drawn in my mind for what my relationship with Stanford may create when my business launches.

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Essay Prompt #8

Imagine you had an extra hour in the day — how would you spend that time? 50 words

Remember that one thing your friend recommended you to read or watch or do? Yeah, that would be a great response.

What wouldn’t be a great response is something generic and uninteresting. It’s one thing to have a boring thing to do with your time, it’s another if it’s similar to the rest of the applicants’ essays.

*cue eyes glazing*

Here’s a few things that would appear generic.

• Video games
• Hanging out with friends
• Eating
• Sleeping
• Social media
• Studying
• Doing something related to your major

You’ll notice we also added “doing something related to your major”. We don’t say this because that’s a bad thing to do, but because it’s generic and also indicates a tone of trickery.

Students oftentimes will try to shoehorn just how hard-working and motivated about their careers they are into everything. If you try to do this in a Stanford essay that was meant to show your unique qualities, you’ll only appear like you’re trying to game the system and like you’re a boring person with nothing else going on in their lives.

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Essay Prompt #9

The Stanford community is deeply curious and driven to learn in and out of the classroom. Reflect on an idea or experience that makes you genuinely excited about learning. 250 words

Hey, look at that! A max of 250 words! That’s 200 words more than the maximum we usually get. That doesn’t mean this won’t still he hard to fit in though. As for the prompt, think about whether you want to write about an idea or experience; remember this, though:

          You can’t just talk about learning in general.

Talking only about how you became passionate about just learning in general is a surefire way to funneling your Stanford application into generic-land.  

Talking about an idea? What specific idea makes you excited to learn a particular topic?

Talking about experience? What experience made you want to learn about a specific topic?

You can’t just talk about your development for a “thirst for knowledge”. Knowledge about what? If you can pinpoint exactly what you are excited to learn about, the admissions officers will know that you’re more well-developed. If you just talk about how a “thirst for knowledge”, you’ll only sound like an obnoxious motivational video on Youtube spouting platitudes.

Trust us! College admissions officers, not only the ones at Stanford, are sick of that trope!

Hint: If you can, make sure to connect this your will to learn a topic with a part of your personality that you haven’t shared with the admissions officers yet.

It may be difficult with the short word count, but your Stanford application can turn from good to great when you connect to your personality and character. The overall point of the admissions essays is to get to know your character better, after all.

Your will to learn software engineering may indicate your violent determinism to finish unfinished products.

Your curiosity to learn different mediums of art may highlight your tendency to think outside the box when searching for solutions to problems (or forms of expression).

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Essay Prompt #10

Virtually all of Stanford’s undergraduates live on campus. Write a note to your future roommate that reveals something about you or that will help your roommate — and us — know you better. 250 words

Here’s a quick disclaimer about roommate culture that you should know if you haven’t already:

Most roommates don’t write each other letters like this. Roommates mostly just share chores, occasional nods, and  hang outs or get togethers when they’re occasionally bored.

Think of them as friends who you would also study with and get to know. You don’t really get to know them through long prose and eloquent speech. You just… get to know them. Met at a bar, shared hobbies, anything that’s more casual is more realistic.

Now with that said, the Stanford roommate essay is different beast.

 Because the essay is limited to a maximum of 250 words, you still want to make use of that maximum. That means you can’t just say “hey roomie, hope we get along” and have that be the whole essay, as natural as that sounds in the real world.

Here are a few pointers to keep in mind when writing the roommate essay.

• Remember: this is about showing the admissions officers what kind of a person you are and what your character is.
• You shouldn’t have to write this like an actual realistic letter to your roommate.
• Pepper in a few surface-level characteristics about yourself. This can include hobbies, quirks, interesting physical features, favorite music, etc.
• Have a few paragraphs dedicated to the deeper levels of your personality. These paragraphs are where your more personal details come into play.
• Make sure to add strong imagery in the paragraphs referred by the previous bullet point.
• This is one of Stanford’s “longer” supplemental essay questions, so be precise with where exactly you dedicate your simple and complex writing styles.

This essay gives applicants a lot of flexibility, so you can be very creative with this. It’s also for this reason that we recommend that you have an admissions expert check through your writing.

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Essay Prompt #11

Tell us about something that is meaningful to you and why. (250 words)

Meaning. It’s the “why” that constitutes practically every college essay. It’s the most important factor considering reasons to wake up in the morning.

This one is important. Very important.

The final Stanford supplemental essay is where you can show the admissions officers why the world continues to turn for you. For us, we believe that this is a difficult one to write a silly topic on.

You can write the other essays on more fun and silly topics, but you would have a better chance on a good essay if you wrote this on a serious note. Being one of the longer prompts with a heavier question, you are essentially framed into a more profound topic.

Note: If you find that you’re having a hard time thinking of a good, profound topic for this essay, we highly recommend you talk to (at least) three college essay advisers. We provide free first-time reviews, if you need it; you aren’t obligated to choose only us though!

One of the things you should watch out for that is vagueness. This mistake is made a lot for this particular essay and you’d want to make sure you don’t sound wishy washy about what moves you.

A good way of writing this is using what’s meaningful to you and trying to manifest that into its quintessential form. This means aking that item and symbolizing it in its truest manifestation.

Examples:

1. Your dog was meaningful to you before she died. That meaningfulness came in making everyday mundane life fulfilling and happy. Her presence was like having a surprise birthday party and seeing all your friends smiling and laughing and giggling about stupid things because all that mattered in that time was happiness.
2. Your friends in an online game are meaningful to you. They bring meaning to your life because you feel that all the arguing at home and driving to and from school and work gets boring and existential. Talking to friends after a long day, not even playing, just talking, is what makes logging on to the game worth it and meaningful.

These are only a few examples of topics that would work. As for the structure, you’d want to make sure that however you write it, it should have a good piece of imagery to highlight the weight of the meaningful topic.

For instance, you might want to have a structure like this:

• 1^st paragraph: A hook that shows what is meaningful to you.
• 2^nd paragraph: Why is that thing is meaningful? (short)
• 3^rd paragraph: Why is that thing meaningful? Describe with more imagery and detail.

Remember: what’s meaningful to you can also be ideas. For example: justice, forgiveness, empathy, perseverance, gratitude, community.

If what’s meaningful to you is an idea or concept, you still have to make sure you narrow down. Ideas are often vague already, so you’ll have to be specific about how that idea manifests.

Here’s how a structure might look if you wrote about a meaningful idea.

• 1^st paragraph: A hook that shows justice is meaningful to you.
• 2^nd paragraph: Write an example on how that justice manifests. (short)
• 3^rd paragraph: Write an example on how said manifestation of justice gives you meaning and fulfillment. Describe with more imagery and detail.

Still having trouble with the Stanford supplemental essay questions? Embarrassed to ask for help at the last minute because “I’m applying for Stanford! I’m a genius! What’ll they think of me if I ask for help?!” Well, we don’t judge people who seek help; we do judge people who don’t because of pride, though! 

So don’t be afraid of seeking help! The Stanford supplemental essays are not easy and breaking through competition is even harder. We provide free first-time revising services for those who need help on such a difficult set of prompts.