how good are the essays accepted by Stanford?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Stanford University
1

<p>I've read quite a few essays here and there that helped their applicants get into top colleges. But the red flags that I see are that we don't know what the applicant's other stats are. Maybe a person was the best... math person in the US, in which case he wouldn't need a very extraordinary essay in order to get the big envelope. But if he/she had merely acceptable stats, then the essay must have been exceptional compared to those of others. Also, the essays seem kinda outdated because for those essays that do show the profiles, the SATs are the old versions. And the admission process is much more competitive, now that many students are taking advantage of all the various resources available.</p>

<p>So my question is how much should we trust the old essays that harvard or stanford accepted in the past several years as role models in terms of quality and expression for us to create our own essays? Because now that a lot of people have read them, there would have to be a lot more of essays at that level</p>

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<p>Reading a good essay doesn't mean you can write at the same level.</p>

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<p>Last year, someone wrote they talk to the adcom from Stanford and he said out of 1000 essays he read, he liked 600, out of the 600 he could only admit 80(?).</p>

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<p>^I really hope that's not the case. That's *****ing scary. I always imagined it to be like "1000 apps but only 300 were good enough essays and 100 of those got in" so it's still a 10% acceptance rate, but for those with good essays its like a 33.33% chance of getting in. But this was just my wishful thinking and is in no way reflective of reality unfortunately :(</p>

5

<p>"How good are the essays accepted by Stanford?" --- ummm, along with the other recs and metrics, they were good enough.</p>

<p>There really isn't an answer to this question if you think about it. A "great" and stimulating essay bundled with mediocre transcript will lead most likely to a reject.</p>

<p>This is only one sliver of your overall picture -- asking how "good" were those that Stanford admitted -- that just seems to be a bizarre question to me, if I can be frank.</p>

<p>Regardless, good luck to you all. Maybe you'll find this article interesting?
U.Va</a>. Office of Admission Essays</p>

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<p>I found the link
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/stanford-university/525549-advice-admissions-officer-who-admitted-me-hs-students.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/stanford-university/525549-advice-admissions-officer-who-admitted-me-hs-students.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>5 percent acceptance. Nice lol..</p>

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<p>"Reading a good essay doesn't mean you can write at the same level."-amciw</p>

<p>I disagree. If you see some great essays, at least you would have a better idea of where you need to be.</p>

<p>how do you quote someone in that gray box?</p>

9

<p>
[quote]
I disagree. If you see some great essays, at least you would have a better idea of where you need to be.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I really hate to be annoying, but theory =/= practice.</p>

<p>To quote place the text you want like this:</p>

<p>{quote}Text here{/quote}</p>

<p>You use regular brackets, not the squiggly ones I used, though.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
test

[/quote]
</p>

<p>dfsadsafsafdsafdsa</p>

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<p>I agree, just seeing a couple of good essays isn't going to suddenly give you the ability to write well. The quality of writing is proportional to the practice of writing. In addition, you shouldn't be organizing your essays to match that of the accepted essays. Copying another's style would be a confirmation to yourself that a) you don't know how to write and b) you have no originality.</p>

12

<p>It's what you say much more than how you say it. </p>

<p>Adcoms spend only a few minutes reading each essay, so you have to show them something that they like. Don't worry about writing like an english major, sound real.</p>