<p>I don't know how long my responses should be or if I should use complete sentences. Am I stressing out unnecessarily? Do these actually impact your admissions decision?</p>
<p>Don’t stress over them because there’s no “trick” or right answer in the questions. You just need to list things, and most of the questions don’t actually require any kind of deep thought.</p>
<p>Pretend that your friend is asking the questions ;)</p>
<p>The only one that requires some thought, I think, is the “What is the biggest challenge society faces?” one. I think that your answer to that one would have a little more weight than the others (because it does give insight into your views on society, which is more profound than your favorite movies or events or whatever), but that’s only my opinion. I think the others just give the officers a little insight into your humanity and tastes, but it’d be pretty strange for them to make a judgment about your character from your favorites (unless someone said something like: My favorite event was protesting LGBT rights with Westboro this fall.) Haha. Seriously, though, I wouldn’t stress over it.</p>
<p>Don’t stress. Just answer honestly. The purpose of those questions is just to make sure you’re not a robot and still have normal likes and interests outside of school. Kind of like those odd-ball questions they sometimes ask in college interviews. They just want to see the realer and more casual side of you.</p>
<p>Okay thanks. Did you guys follow the 2 lines suggestion?</p>
<p>My summer one almost finished the word limit (not because I did that much during the summer). Some of my lists were 3 lines. 2 lines is a general guideline and there was a '14 admit in another thread saying that he used up almost all of the word count for all of the questions.</p>
<p>Of course they have weight. If they didn’t, why would Stanford bother asking? As if they didn’t have enough to read already.</p>
<p>And I must disagree a bit with the above posters. I don’t think it’s entirely about answering honestly or devoid of deep thought. You should always tackle your application keeping the image you’re portraying in mind. Your answers should be thoughtful in that they reveal something about yourself/make the adcoms think or laugh.</p>
<p>Moreover, at an info session, the admissions officer readily conceded that for questions such as “what is your favorite book,” they don’t want to see something like ‘Harry Potter’ – they want to see where your academic/intellectual interests lie. So, to that end, it’s not about being COMPLETELY honest.</p>
<p>Hahaha^</p>
<p>We had a discussion in the lounge about what we put down as our favorite book, so many people, including myself, put Harry Potter. The admissions officers must have gotten so tired seeing that.</p>
<p>“Moreover, at an info session, the admissions officer readily conceded that for questions such as “what is your favorite book,” they don’t want to see something like ‘Harry Potter’ – they want to see where your academic/intellectual interests lie. So, to that end, it’s not about being COMPLETELY honest.”</p>
<p>But isn’t one’s entire application pretty much showing where his academic interests lie? The “intellectual vitality essay”, the “Why Stanford” (in which one could talk about a particular department at Stanford he wants to be a part of), the Common App essay, one’s transcript, SAT’s, choice of SAT II’s, recommendations, even the roommate essay…So to repeat oneself even more in the short takes seems strange. I mean, I don’t doubt that the admissions officer said that, but personally I think it makes more sense for the short takes to finally show a different side of the applicant: the human side. Not everyone’s favorite book relates directly to his intellectual interests. Same with all the other answers. To force a fit for each one seems like it would come off as extremely pretentious and robotic, and admissions officers always say they’re looking for kids with personalities, not just academic machines…</p>
<p>Well, picking Aristotle as your fave book proves you aren’t a machine…that you’re really interested in it, persay.
That’s the way I look at it.</p>
<p>^You think? I mean, works by Aristotle are certainly some people’s favorite books, but I can see others putting it down just because it sounds smart. I guess there’s no way of knowing whether one is being truthful or pretentious, though. But what I’m saying is that someone shouldn’t be faulted or considered “devoid of deep thought” if they happen to like things that aren’t all super-intellectual. Some of my answers on there were more academic and intellectual, but I answered them all honestly and honestly, not everything I like is academic. For instance, I put that Disney’s Robin Hood, High School Musical, Fox and the Hound, etc were some of my favorite movies because they are truly the ones I enjoy the most (I do have objective and “intellectual” reasons for liking them as well, but I didn’t put any explanations on my short takes). But I didn’t put Citizen Kane or Good Will Hunting or other more traditional answers just because they may sound smarter…</p>
<p>Well, my intellectual essay is about why I love philosophy. So, for me at least, I can use Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions, or Plato/Aristotle, as my “fave” book.</p>
<p>Yeah, for you, then that would definitely make sense and wouldn’t seem pretentious.</p>
<p>You don’t have to list something by Aristotle or anything that you really wouldn’t read on your own time (although, I did read some Plato in my free time…). The point is, it’d be much more revealing to list a book that you really enjoyed but also had to think a bit to understand the meaning. To that end, even traditional high school canon books like Lord of the Flies or Brave New World would work better than Harry Potter.</p>
<p>Yeah, I see what you mean. I thought about putting something like “The Kite Runner” which has been a favorite book of mine since 8th grade, but I put “Mike and Psmith” because–while it’s not as deep by any means–it’s also more unique and shows something about my usual tastes (I usually prefer witty, clever, lighthearted comedies to tragic dramas; “Kite Runner” is one of the few sad dramas that I enjoy, so I thought it’d be better to show something that fits my usual tastes). Hopefully it’ll be okay. :)</p>
<p>I already submitted and my answers were 2 or 3 lines on the text box screen, not the print preview. How long were yours?</p>
<p>Yeah, mine were 2-3 lines in the text area when filling up the common app, which only turned out to be 1-2 lines on the preview. The only exception was the summer question, where I wrote around 250 characters. I think when they referred to two lines, they meant on the online text box, not the preview. Otherwise we’d always be using up the 300 characters.</p>
<p>I sure hope you’re right! And, I totally agree with you. But I wasn’t so sure when my daughter was filling this out and she wrote that she enjoyed reading Seventeen and People, as well as National Geographic. And, our local newspaper. Or that she listed websites she liked: Facebook and Craigslist…okay she did have CNN.com. I suddenly had this flashback of Sarah Palin being interviewed by Katie Couric. Yikes! Couldn’t she at least have written Newsweek??? This is STANFORD, after all! Nope. The prompt is what newsapers, magazines and/or websites do you enjoy? She doesn’t enjoy reading Newsweek. Arrghhh.</p>
<hr>
<p>Eiffel said:</p>
<p>But isn’t one’s entire application pretty much showing where his academic interests lie? The “intellectual vitality essay”, the “Why Stanford” (in which one could talk about a particular department at Stanford he wants to be a part of), the Common App essay, one’s transcript, SAT’s, choice of SAT II’s, recommendations, even the roommate essay…So to repeat oneself even more in the short takes seems strange. I mean, I don’t doubt that the admissions officer said that, but personally I think it makes more sense for the short takes to finally show a different side of the applicant: the human side. Not everyone’s favorite book relates directly to his intellectual interests. Same with all the other answers. To force a fit for each one seems like it would come off as extremely pretentious and robotic, and admissions officers always say they’re looking for kids with personalities, not just academic machines…</p>