Calling Stanford Fall 2008 Applicants

My UCLA Family essay has turned out quite well... so I may use it for Stanford's "what matters". That'll give me roughly 700-800 reuseable words (2 pages double spaced), so I'll just flesh it out a bit and I'm done...

My essays are

Essay A - Personal, nothing to do with work
Essay B - Career, professional goals
Essay C1 - Professional Leadership
Essay C2 - Extracurricular Leadership

50% pro/50% personal... should be a good mix. Too bad I won't talk about my volunteering at all since there are no essays for that. Essay A will have to compensate.

EDIT: sangoman:

A quick question to all of you -

are you guys following any specific margins? I dont see any recommended margin dimensions - or am I missing something?

thank goodness, NO margin requirements... but I wouldn't go further than 0.5" on each side... I'd probably go 0.7"...

Hello Stanford Applicants!

Stanford Website states:




What application material are they talking about? I know they require a hard copy of transcript, but that's after an admission.

Would anybody know?

I believe it's if you send your rec packages on paper.

I got an email from one of my recommenders saying that the hard copy of the Stanford recommendations (printed off from the application website itself) is different from the online version of what the recommenders need to answer. Did anyone have that problem? I can't seem what the recommenders see, so I'm waiting for him to let me know how they're different.

I don't understand how they can be different though, since the pdf they included was right where I signed up for the recommenders! Grr...

I am in the game

Kryzak,

Could you please define what margins did you find most appropriate for S apps? I mean "top", "bottom", "left", "right"? As far as I understand you were talking about 0,7 margin as a max but can it be applied to both "left"/"right" and "top"/"bottom" margins or there is some difference?

S wants one reco from a peer/team that means "someone who can speak descriptively about what it's like to work side-by-side with you on a project or on a team."

"This letter of reference may come from within or outside the workplace. For example, you could choose a co-worker from your organization, or you could pick a colleague from a community activity."

"It should be a person for whom there is no structural/titular/positional influence in your relationship."

Is it ok if I take one reco from a peer with whom I hadn't worked in the same organisation but who is a person knowing me very well and with whom I discussed several business projects related to my work? The thing is that I am very honest with that peer and he can give the adcom a better idea of who I am than any of my past or present colleagues.

Will it be a violation in the eyes of admissions officers if I choose that person as one of my recommenders?

Regards,
nick_sun

hi nick,

I used 0.7" margins on all four sides. Actually, one of my essays I'm using 0.5" on all four sides.

The peer recommender you picked sounds good, as long as he/she can talk about specific examples that show your qualities and not just say "he's a great guy"

I chose a co-worker that I've never worked specifically on a project with, but we went through the same leadership training and activities together, so she knows me pretty well and what I've done.

Thank you, kryzak.

I hope it will be ok if I choose a friend as a peer.

By the way, does 0.7" mean 0.7 inches or 1.77 centimeters or vice versa?

Nick

If you choose a friend, he or she should be someone who has worked with you on something before, whether planning a birthday event or community service or a club. Otherwise the examples he or she has might not be specific enough. Just my opinion.

0.7" = 0.7 inches. " = inches.

Hi Kryzak ..just wondering. are you using different margins for different essays?

I'll probably put all essays together and then decide what margin I need to fit them all in 7 pages.

Hey K, been away for a while - travelling from college to college

First up - thanks again for the three year heads up an additional info gideline.

Secondly - please see that we have to upload the 4 stan essays in 3 different upload document sections - as in there is no one place where you can go in for a direct 7 page upload. Now I know we can mangle/strange our essays such that the matters one is 3.75 pages long and the what matters one is 1.25 long, i would strongly advise against it. If possible try to stick to their recommended lengths

Finally just how cool is it that one of our peeps (mNeo) is already flying the gmatclub flag high

sangoman, thanks for pointing that out. Hrm, this is very interesting. If they want us to upload it separately, then it'll allow us to play with the margins a bit for each of the essays. Of course, Stanford is the only school that still states that the page lengths are recommendations. I'll paste the instructions here for people's benefit.

I've got a strategic question about C-essays

I can see that for me it might be easier to answer C3 and C4 rather than C1 and C2. All C's topics seem to be connected with leadership. But I am not sure what Stan will value higher and whether it is possible to avoid both C1 and C2 in the application essays. What do you think?

Regs,
nick_sun

I would definitely try to answer one of C1 and C2, just because Stanford likes students who made an impact in the world/people's lives. I'm answering C2 and C4 to show impact and initiative. C3 is more about perseverence.

I guess it depends on which questions you have the best answers for, and how your other two essay questions portrayed you.

Good luck!

Thank you, kryzak.

I think it is both perseverence (C3, C4) and leadership (C1, C2)

Btw, I've heard that R1 is critical for S, i.e. R2 will be much weaker than R1. What's your opinion on that?

Nick