Stanford has one of the lowest acceptance rates out there. Because of this, we get a lot of questions about Stanford from students and parents alike. For the Class of 2025, Stanford had an overall acceptance rate of 3.9%. That is already very low, but there is more to this story. The overall acceptance rate is a combination of early acceptances and regular decision acceptances.
Usually, when we work with students we suggest applying to Stanford early if they are serious about it. This is because Stanford is a school that historically has much higher early acceptance rates than RD acceptance rates. For example, for the Class of 2024, the overall acceptance rate was 5.19% and the early acceptance rate was 13.9%. Meaning the regular rate was more like 4.3%. Now that the overall is even lower, that means the RD is highly competitive. That being said, if you didn’t apply early, you still can apply RD, you need to make sure you are a highly competitive candidate.
That’s where we usually come in. We work with our students to make them as competitive as possible. Stanford applicants have great grades and test scores, so you have to do a lot to stand out in a crowded field. It’s important to have a great Common App essay as well as a strategic approach to the Stanford supplements and the activities section. We do this with our students every day.
We have a full blog post on how to tackle the Stanford supplement, but if you are applying RD, you need to go even deeper than just a “good supplement.” Our biggest tip here is you need to get creative.
Stanford’s supplement is on the long side. There are 5 short answers (all under 50 words) and then 3 short essays (under 250 words.) While all of the writing is “short” the number of questions, will make this supplement feel like a long task. While it is a lot, you need to approach this supplement with tact and creativity.
What do we mean by this? Let’s break it down. For the short answers, the name of the game is choosing an interesting choice. Ideally, one that stops the reader and makes them say, “hmmm… unique.” For some questions, this is easier than for others. For example, the question which asks you “How did you spend your last two summers?” needs to be how you spent your last two summers. But others give you a lot more room to be creative. They have a question asking you to elaborate on an extracurricular. This is a great one to be quirky on. Don’t just talk about the first thing in your activities section. Choose something unique that you haven’t talked about yet.
The short answers don’t give you a ton of space to be creative in your writing style. Not to say you can’t do a list or a haiku—we love that—but the essays are where your writing can really shine. We push our students to really consider not only what they write but how they write. Every essay needs to at least be a story. We are talking the basics; beginning, middle, and end. But on top of that, great essays often play with form. This is especially important when it comes to competitive supplements. Stanford actually sets up students well for creative writing. One of their questions asks students to write a letter to their roommate. That is creative writing. We push our students to approach the other two questions with the same creative attitude. We love when students use dialogue, poetry, narrative devices, vignettes, etc to help get their points across. Approaching essays as creative writing can be hard, especially for students who aren’t strong writers yet. This is why it’s so important for us to support and work with our students in the writing process.
The Stanford application is a tall order especially when it comes to their highly competitive RD process. If you or your student is serious about Stanford, we highly suggest working with a counselor to ensure they put their best foot forward. Their acceptance is going to come down to standing out with an outstanding application and that is a hard task for a 17-year-old to complete on their own.
Want to learn more about applying to Stanford? Reach out here.