Stanford: Selective But Not Standardized

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What tips do you have for writing effective application essays?

The most important one, which is going to sound silly, is answer the question. You'd be surprised how many people will write essays, and you finish reading them and say, "Gosh, they really didn't answer the question we were asking." We try to be specific in guiding candidates with the words that we use, so the question is not just what matters most to you, but rather, what matters most to you and why? You'll see people who'll tell us what matters most to them, but they won't tell us why. Or they'll tell us what matters but not what matters most.

At a panel in which I participated a couple of years ago, a counterpart from another school said you should have someone look at your essays after you've written them and then ask him or her to tell you what question you're answering.

My second tip would be to think a lot and then write. Recognize that this is an integrative process. Think, write, think, write, think, write. If you go through the process like that, it becomes a way for the applicants to learn about themselves, and a byproduct is that they have essays that they turn in to us. The goal is for the candidate to have a chance for some structured reflection to think about where he or she is in life and career and come up with a vision for the future and how to get from point A to point B.

Approach the essay writing process as a way to learn about yourself and not how to market yourself to the school. People are often told that the essays are a great chance to market themselves to business schools, and we think that's wrong. We think in business terms that the essays are an accounting activity. Applicants are not looking at the admissions committee and saying, "This is what ad comm. want to hear, so I'm going to deliver that." Instead, they're looking inside and saying, "How can I explain what this is?" This goes back to the broader question of how you stand out. If you're marketing or you think you know what Stanford wants, then guess what? Everyone else has the same information you have. If you're marketing to a school, you end up looking much more like everyone else. If you're accounting—looking at what's inside and putting that on paper— then no two people look the same.

How does Stanford view admissions consultants (BusinessWeek.com, 6/27/2006)?

We are not fans of admissions consultants. This is a process that already is expensive and high-stress. In a lot of ways, [the admissions consulting] industry feeds on those two things, and it makes it more expensive and more stressful in a lot of cases. That's not ideal for us or for the applicants. But they're a fact of life. The good thing about business is that whenever there's a chance to make a profit, someone is going to come up with a business. The bad thing about business is whenever there's a chance for profit, someone is going to come up with a business.

What is the biggest mistake applicants make when filling out an application to Stanford?

The recommendations are so important because they are a chance for us to get third-party evidence of your impact, performance, and who you are. People need to spend enough time thinking about their recommenders and making sure they are picking people who really know them well and will make the time to write detailed, thoughtful, supportive recommendations. They are not taking advantage of this opportunity to have someone sing their praises. We also ask for a peer recommendation, and many of those come from people who are not a peer. That makes us wonder a bit about judgment.