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Stanford has the following as short answer questions:
1) Describe an experience or idea that you find intellectually exciting, and explain why.
2) Jot a note to your future roommate relating a personal experience that reveals something about you.

What kind of thing are they looking for? I'm not sure what to write... Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

By Firebird12637 (Firebird12637) on Saturday, October 09, 2004 - 11:17 pm: Edit

they are looking for short essays, approx 250 words each, about:
1.) an intellectually stimulating experience or...
2.) a note to someone that reveals something about you.

haha, not sure how much that helped you. Like, seriously, im not sure what you expected other people to tell you...the directions are pretty specific.

By Marlgirl (Marlgirl) on Sunday, October 10, 2004 - 12:07 am: Edit

I understand the directions, I'm just having trouble thinking of what exactly to say and was hoping people could offer examples of what they have/will write. I guess I know what to do for the 1st one, but I'm not quite sure what to do for the second one.

By Jess13 (Jess13) on Sunday, October 10, 2004 - 12:01 pm: Edit

I love the "picture is worth 1000 words" prompt. I'm using that even though I'm not applying to Stanford. Marlgirl, were you the one deciding between Stanford and Yale?

By Marlgirl (Marlgirl) on Sunday, October 10, 2004 - 12:40 pm: Edit

Yeah that was me... and probably quite a few other people too.

By Jess13 (Jess13) on Sunday, October 10, 2004 - 01:18 pm: Edit

What tipped you toward Stanford?

By Marlgirl (Marlgirl) on Sunday, October 10, 2004 - 08:01 pm: Edit

I'm honestly not sure I could really explain it... most of it was this realization that I was sick of not being decided and just needed to make a decision. Usually I'm really logical about this kinda thing, but this was certainly an exception. I felt that in the end I'd end up choosing Stanford... I'm not sure that I can explain why I thought that, but I did. Plus one of the people writing me a rec is a Stanford prof from math camp last summer, and he's going out of town soon so I needed to decide. Basically it came down to a couple of things:
1) Stanford is much stronger in math/science, and I'd meet more people there who really love math/science. Plus the resources are amazing. I decided that the concentration of people in math/science/engineering (about 50% of all students) would mean it's more likely to find students with similar interests and students who really love math/science. I'm sure I'd find this at Yale too, but it seems as if it'd be more common at Stanford.
2) Chances at each... out of a class of about 80-90, we usually have about 5 girls get into each school (all girls school just fyi). I'd have a better chance at Stanford with high grades + math/physics major + stanford math camp + rec from my calc teacher who went there from undergrad through his PhD (and my rec from my physics teacher certainly won't hurt either...). Looking at who got into each school applying early over the past few years, Stanford seems more likely to accept me. Also, Yale has an unofficial cap of 4-5 students a year, about 3 early from my school. I decided it'd be foolish to risk not getting into either school, since my chances were less at Yale early (I'd say like 65% chance early at Yale, 95% early at Stanford). I'll still apply regular Yale and who knows? maybe I'll be lucky and get in there too.

That was probably a longer response that you wanted/expected... but oh well.

By Jess13 (Jess13) on Sunday, October 10, 2004 - 10:18 pm: Edit

thanks, I appreciate the detail. good luck with everything!