Profile Questions vs. Short Essays

<p>For the Stanford supplements, there are two parts: the profile questions and the short essays.
Firstly, should I take the profile questions as seriously as the short essays? Personally, I do not understand how this is possible, as the questions are as mundane as "Name your favorite books, authors, films, and/or musical artists". How seriously should I take this question? Should I just list my favorite books with no further information?
Secondly, am I right in assuming that the short essays are the "true" supplements? That is, they are the part that everyone sees as the real part of the supplement? The profile questions are 300 characters, and the short essays are 2000 characters, so I made that assumption.</p>

<p>“Should I just list my favorite books with no further information?”</p>

<p>That’s what I did, I think. The only “further” information I think I gave was qualifying what I meant by saying I like The Wall Street Journal by saying I don’t agree with a lot of its politics but it’s got a really great art section or something.</p>

<p>Obviously the essay part is what the admissions officers are really going to care about. I’d imagine they’d like to get as well-rounded picture of you as an applicant as possible. You know, not just some brain that has a great SAT score and can write a decent essay about finding themselves on a road trip to New Mexico or something, but a person who likes music and books and all the other neat things life has. </p>

<p>I wouldn’t stress out about what you put for the short questions. One of my friends who got in put stanford.edu as one of his “favorite websites.”</p>

<p>I put down the failbook website on mine. Why not make them laugh?</p>

<p>For your favorite books, did you put down title and author or just title?</p>

<p>It says use two lines…I need at least two lines to describe each of my last 2 summers. How important is the two-line limit?</p>