How much weight does Stanford put into an applicant’s personal statement, supplemental essays, and short answers? My ACT is low for them (31), but my personal statement has been described as “one of the best we’d ever read” by my flagship state university. Will Stanford look past my test scores if I have a good essay?
@homeschoolflexin How did you find out what your flagship state university thought of your essays?31 might be a little bit low, but what I can tell you is my kid got into Stanford REA with 33 ACT but he was also a NMF in CA so they might have taken that into account.
They only saw my personal statement.
Stanford is one of the universities that most requests supplements, so they REALLY want to know you as a person. I know someone who got in with 750 Math 2 and 2080 SAT. I know another one who got in with 2060. Those people were international students who did not have superstellar ECs, but their essays showed a great fit with Stanford. So I’d say Stanford puts a lot of weight into the PS and supplements 
Stanford’s going to weigh every bit of your app package. There is no magic.
Subscores matter more than composite. You should know how much your whole picture matters. And that they look for more than some flagship do.
Thank you all. As it stands right now, I have a 32 superscore (35r, 34e, 31s, 28m) but I know that I am going to have to really impress with my supplementals. Will it help at all that I am applying as a religious studies major as opposed to a different, more popular major?