Hi!
Every college has it’s own quirky way of preferring certain applications over others. U Chicago likes kids who think really out of the box, Northwestern likes sincerity etc etc. What does Stanford do? If any current or past Stanford students could comment on how they presented themselves in their applications, that would be really helpful too!
Thanks
We had a discussion about this in the Class of 19 Facebook page, and the one quality we all agreed on was that Stanford is looking for unique students with personalities. The classic Ivy League applicants who pump their whole app with academic ECs, mindblowing test scores, and sparkling transcripts are not as valued as students who do well in school, but also prove that they’re interesting, driven people. If you get in, you’ll get a handwritten note from the admissions officer who reviewed your application, and almost everyone I know had one that mentioned their unique personalities and dedication as one of the deciding factors.
Best of luck to you on the application process.
Thank you! I appreciate your response
I am a Stanford Class of 2019’er, here are my 2 cents.
I am going to have to disagree a bit with @weizhong 
Sorry, I hope we can still be friends on campus 
I think the students who go to the Ivy League also have incredibly unique personalities and drives that rival Stanford students. Each elite university, in my opinion, is looking for three key components in their admitted students, qualifications, unique personality/drive, and fit to the university’s ideals.
Qualifications are the basic needs for a college student at these schools, such as being able to handle the academic rigor and stress of an elite university. (A vast majority of applicants clear this hurdle which is measured by ACT/SAT scores, GPA, etc.)
Unique personality/drive is what @weizhong was talking about. Having extracurriculars that show your passion or devotion to something can show this. Having a personal story that shows your courage, integrity, etc. can show this. Or even having a dream that you strongly want to make into a reality can show this. There are an infinite number of things that can show this, do it in your own way that makes sense to you. For your application this would be your essays, which are supported by your extracurriculars.
Now, lastly and most importantly is fit. Which is whether the above unique personality/drive meshes with Stanford. This isn’t something you can fake. If you decide to morph your “personality/drive” to align with the university you are applying to, you will most likely be seen through. So you will need to be introspective and objective in deciding which university you belong at.
Now that that rant is over 
Here is the answer to your question in terms of fitting what I see as the Stanford ideals.
A few of the values I have seen Stanford espouse have been teamwork, intellectual vitality, empathy, and blurring the line between disciplines. These come from one of the assigned readings Stanford has given us pre-frosh this summer, The Innovators by Walter Isaacson. Also Stanford’s motto is “The wind of freedom blows.” This can be taken in an intellectual sense IMO, meaning Stanford wants students that are intellectual explorers who passionately seek out knowledge. Stanford is a place where students like this can have all the resources necessary to seek out the knowledge they want.
This has been a pretty wishy washy post with very few concrete answers and I’m sorry about that. At the end of the day the admissions process is extremely subjective and unpredictable. But if you have qualifications, a unique personality/drive, and fit you have a very good chance of being admitted.
You probably already have, but check out: http://admission.stanford.edu/basics/selection/index.html
That is Stanford’s Undergraduate Admissions website. Read the stuff they have written and watch some of the videos Stanford has posted online on youtube, even the videos that aren’t relevant to admissions. Through this try to get a feel of what Stanford is and if you think you are a fit, then craft your application in a way that shows that with passion.
Good luck and remember that you can do great wherever you go!
@youngster9 I agree that those three things are important, but I think the most important thing (as the original question was about what’s unique about Stanford’s admissions process) is still the personality of the student. This was something that my interviewer also brought up in conversation, and it’s something that I think is important for people to understand as part of an admissions process.
Faking a personality is not going to end up very well for you at most schools, let alone Stanford. Not only do you have to judge your “fit” for a school, but the admissions officers also judge your fit by asking themselves if you’d be a good fit for the school that you’re representing. I think that this concept is very important to understand, because Stanford has an eye for particular students that are intellectually driven, passionate, and genuine about what they do.
However, I’m gonna have to disagree a little with @youngster9 (Sorry! I also hope we can be friends when we get to the Farm! :D) in that I think that one of the important concepts about Stanford (which makes it different from East Coast schooling) is the fact that there’s an air of practicality and real world applicability in its atmosphere. The Innovators makes a point of noting that those who were most successful were not necessarily the dreamers, but the dreamers who had partners or the tools to make things actually happen.
Part of this is reflected in the “start-up” atmosphere of Stanford, which is all about students making new businesses that can do new and interesting things. One of the concepts that Stanford has constantly espoused (and has become well known for) is not necessarily academia for the sake of academia, it’s academia for a better purpose in the real world. That’s kind of reflected in the admissions process, as one of the things that my admissions officer noted was so important for them. The applicants who were successful weren’t just the ones who won awards or placed highly in tests; they were the ones who found meaning in those awards, or used those talents for a better purpose to help themselves or others.
As always, best of luck to you on the application process.
@weizhong I absolutely agree that Stanford has a much larger focus on practicality and impacting the real world. I think your statement about finding value in your awards, not just earning them is a perfect way to express that.
The only area where I disagree with you on this is that Stanford is unique in this sense. Stanford is very different in their focus on how academia is used by its students, but the academia is the foundation of an education at Stanford and any other elite university. The type of student you are describing is the optimal applicant, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t get into Stanford and instead an east coast school because they are student with dreams that align more with those schools compared to Stanford.
I think we can respectfully agree to disagree though 
I think Stanford likes students who have both the ability to collaborate and stand on their own two feet, who don’t get lost in the group but derive energy from it; who have the ability to adapt and to work across discipline and to ultimately use all of that for the purpose of making a difference.
From the one kid who I know that was accepted, I would say they like kids who are leaders who start things . This kid was a class president that started a club and started a business. His grades and test scores were very good but not perfect which didn’t seam to matter to Stanford.