I am a prospective undergraduate applicant RDing to Stanford. I have an extensive design and music portfolio which I consider arguably the strongest part of my application. For all of my other schools the Slideroom submission deadlines are either on or after the common app deadline date, yet Stanford’s deadline is a month earlier! I made the mistake of failing to check Stanford’s deadline, so I missed it. Which I understand is completely my fault for assuming that it would be on the same day as the other schools.
Is there anything I can do? Should I call admissions? And how strong is my application without it? I feel like Stanford is very big on STEM research and I don’t have much for that. My application is strong otherwise but there is nothing exceptional about it other than my porftolio.
Also, did anyone else here miss the deadline?
Although Stanford isn’t technically my “first choice school”, it is one of the only schools I will still apply to if I get into my early school.
I’m in the same position as you, found out last night. I don’t have answers, unfortunately, but I’d call admissions if you think including an arts supplement is absolutely imperative. I’m frustrated their deadline is so much earlier, but from what I understand, they discourage sending supplementary materials — if you’re able to communicate your interest in design and music in your essays, you can probably achieve an effect similar to submitting a portfolio. I’m not qualified to give definitive advice though, so if you’ve called their admissions office and they’ve said something else, keep us updated!
I had a similar issue…my problem was that I found it out near the end of November, so I prepared my Music portfolio and it was done before December 1. I was ready to submit, but apparently the ENTIRE application had to be submitted by December 1 to have the music portfolio considered, and I was far from getting my essays done. I called the Admissions, and they confirmed that if I can’t get the entire application + portfolio in by December 1 I won’t get to submit both. So here I am, just submitting my app without portfolio and hoping they will be impressed by my essays even without a portfolio.
I goofed too with visual arts. I just recently became intrigued by Stanford (after the Dec 1st deadline) and found out a week ago that I missed the portfolio deadline. Oh well, at least I’ll know if I have enough credentials without any of my strong artistic background boosting me up. That should be interesting!
Unless you are a national level artist submitting an art portfolio is probably not going to help, in fact it may hurt the application according to some AOs. I imagine Stanford intentionally sets the deadline one month ahead for art portfolio probably more as a discouragement than as an invitation.