Calling all Stanford Fall 2009 applicants!

I went to the information session in LA tonight. This school is just mind-boggling. I didn't attend the info sessions for Wharton or HBS, but tonight's Stanford info session just blew me away. There is no other school like Stanford on the face of the planet. Their class size and their network are small on purpose - they cherry pick the most impressive and accomplished applicants in any application given year, and their bets have paid off big time so far. It almost seems like looking at a list of HBS alumni shows you who runs the East Coast and traditional "establishment" companies and firms. Looking at a list of Stanford GSB alumni shows you who has changed the world over the past 50 years through innovation. They drove this point home and dubbed Stanford "the business school of the future".

Additionally, the resources and career opportunities out of the big S are unparalleled. Other schools may pitch entrepeneurship as some sort of buzz word, but I don't think that there is any other school in the world where VCs will come to campus to wine and dine students and look for their next big idea to fund.

I am truly floored. Even though my odds are slim, my gut is telling me that I should craft some truly solid essays over the next few months and give it a shot.

I think arguing about the rigid word limits is relatively fruitless. Realistically, as long as your aggregate word count is within the reasonable bounds for a timely essay read-- I think it's safe to assume that the adcom will still take interest in what you have to say, regardless of how your words are allocated to each individual essay. I can't imagine a GSB adcom reading somebody's Essay A and think to herself, "This candidate only wrote 550 words on what matters most to him. Clearly, the world matters less to him than that other candidate who wrote 800 words."

I think the conclusion you can draw, however, is that Stanford is particularly focused onwhat makes you tick, what's important to you, and how you have manifested those interests/goals in all aspects of your life. I think it's equally safe to say that colorful anecdotes of "what matters most to you" can just as easily appear in other Essays (B, C), even if it's not in Essay A. And while you won't be fighting world hunger in every single essay, I think overarching themes of "empathy" and "thinking outside yourself" (or whatever matters most to you) can easily transcend multiple essay topics.

So in my opinion, the main takeaway is to focus more on what you're writing and how you're writing it, and less so where you're writing it.

FYI I updated the opening post on this thread with GMATclub applicant stats. Please PM me or post a reply if you have applied and then again with your accept/ding result (hopefully the former!!).

I am sucking at them. I still havent finalized my first essay... working parallel with stan and mit app.....

Plus one of my recs havent been submitted yet, so we are pretty much in the same boat.... I am nervous too

for those still working on essay a, i found the info here super helpful. i've exercepted out a few parts, but i encourage reading the entire page.

https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/mba/admissi ... ays-p.html

"We are not always aware of the forces that ultimately move us. While focusing on the "how" questions—how to survive, how to get ahead, how to make a name for ourselves—often we forget the "why" questions that are more essential for finding and staying on the best course: Why pursue this objective? Why behave in this manner? Why aspire to this kind of life? Why become this type of person?

These "why" questions help us realize our highest aspirations and our truest interests. To answer these questions well, we must decide what matters most to us, what we will be able to contribute to in our careers, what are the right (as opposed to the wrong) ways of behaving as we aim toward this end, and, ultimately, what kind of persons we want to become. Because everyone, everywhere, wants to live an admirable life, a life of consequence, the "why" questions cannot be ignored for long without great peril to one’s personal stability and enduring success. It is like ignoring the rudder on a ship—no matter how much you look after all the boat’s other moving parts, you may end up lost at sea."


Essay Philosophy

The Stanford MBA Program essays provide you a disciplined opportunity to reflect on your own "truest interests" and "highest aspirations."

While the letters of reference are stories about you told by others, these essays enable you to tell your own story, what matters most to you and why, as well as how you have decided you can best contribute to society.

Please think of the Stanford essays as conversations on paper—when we read files, we feel that we meet people, also known as our "flat friends"—and tell us your story in a natural, genuine way.

Our goal is to understand what motivates you and how you have become the person you are today. In addition, we’re interested in what kind of person you wish the Stanford MBA Program to help you become.

Reflective, insightful essays help us envision the individual behind all of the experiences and accomplishments that we read about elsewhere in your application.

The most important piece of advice on these essays is extremely simple: answer the questions—each component of each question.

An additional suggestion for writing essays is equally straightforward: think a lot before you write. We want a holistic view of you as a person: your values, passions, ideas, experiences, and aspirations.

Essay A

In the first essay, tell a story—and tell a story that only you can tell.

This essay should be descriptive and told in a straightforward and sincere way. This probably sounds strange, since these are essays for business school, but we don’t expect to hear about your business experience in this essay (though, of course, you are free to write about whatever you would like).

Remember that we have your entire application—work history, letters of reference, short-answer responses, etc.—to learn what you have accomplished and the type of impact you have made. Your task in this first essay is to connect the people, situations, and events in your life with the values you adhere to and the choices you have made. This essay gives you a terrific opportunity to learn about yourself!

Many good essays describe the "what," but great essays move to the next order and describe how and why these "whats" have influenced your life.

The most common mistake applicants make is spending too much time describing the "what" and not enough time describing how and why these guiding forces have shaped your behavior, attitudes, and objectives in your personal and professional lives.

Please be assured that we do appreciate and reward thoughtful self-assessment and appropriate levels of self-disclosure.

Myth #1: Tell the Committee on Admissions what makes you unique in your essays.

This often leads applicants to believe that you need to have accomplishments or feats that are unusual or different from your peers (e.g., traveling to an exotic place or talking about a tragic situation in your life).

But how are you to know which of your experiences are unique when you know neither the backgrounds of the other applicants nor the topics they have chosen? What makes you unique is not that you have had these experiences, but rather how and why your perspective has changed or been reinforced as a result of those and other everyday experiences.

That is a story that only you can tell. If you concentrate your efforts on telling us who you are, differentiation will occur naturally; if your goal is to appear unique, you actually may achieve the opposite effect.

Truly, the most impressive essays that we read each year are those that do not begin with the goal of impressing us.

Submitted!!! I imagine this is what giving birth feels like.

Recommender questions:



Plus a skills evaluation checkbox grid. I've attached the actual Letter of Reference form.

I just stumbled on this part of Stanford GSB's website. I am totally wowed by how much they have here.

https://videogsb.stanford.edu/

Good luck everyone! Just remember, the timing of an interview invitation has NO correlation with likelihood of acceptance... invites really are sent out as the applications are read, and the order of reading is a random process. I know plenty of people here (myself included) who received invites between mid-December and mid-January.

Also got an interview! Ironically right after I finished my HBS interview!

2/2 on interviews!! woohoo!

Also, because stanford has an 80% yield, they need to admit around 450 for a class size of around 360.

Given the 800-1200 (1200, not 1000... at least in the email sent out after hitting submit on the application) number of interviews: Best case scenario is 56%, worst case scenario is 38%.

Here you go:

1. Please describe your relationship to the candidate, and describe the circumstances under which you have known her or him.

2. How is the candidate’s impact on your organization different from that of other well-qualified individuals in similar roles?

3. What do you like most about the candidate?

4. Please describe the most constructive feedback you have given the candidate. Please also detail the circumstances that caused you to give the feedback.

5. Is there anything else (positive or negative) about the candidate that we should know?

I don't think anyone has the right to be arrogant just because s/he is in certain position. S/He should be thankful of the opportunities s/he had been given to achieve that position, no one does it alone. If my interviewer (if I get an interview) were like that, that would be -1 for Stanford.

Thought i would pass on this post about Stanford's executive challenge. It's stuff like this that make me want to go to S... Video is included.

https://www.stanford.edu/group/mba/blog/ ... 008_1.html

You guys totally broke the "yep" chain!! SHame on you both!

ndiaconu: I haven't heard of much activity this week either.. but it's not entirely surprising since Stanford is now on it's winter break. They did say they would continue to send out invites, but that they would be bundled together. It might be that they haven't sent any of those bundles yet. Don't really worry too much though... From years prior, it sounds like plenty of interview invites go out through decision day.

Hey all -

Derrick Bolton posted an update a few hours ago about where they are on interview invitations:


https://www.stanford.edu/group/mba/blog/ ... views.html

yep.... doesn't sound so good. :-/

the other thing that's interesting is that DB had said they would interview between 800-1200 people this year. If they're doing 600 in round 1, what does that mean for the other rounds.