<p>Hi,</p>
<p>I’m doing the Short Essays, but I’m not sure how to reply to the questions. For the first question, I wrote about an idea I had about how to write a text-to-speech program, but is that really relevant (I have other examples I could use, though none as good). </p>
<p>Also, how long should the essays be, roughly…? How much space are you given to write them in the supplement (page-wise)?</p>
<p>"Candidates must respond to all three questions/topics. Responses must be at least 250 words but should not exceed the space provided in the Supplement.</p>
<li>Stanford students are widely known to possess a sense of intellectual vitality. Tell us about an idea or an experience you have had that you find intellectually engaging.</li>
<li>Virtually all of Stanford’s undergraduates live on campus. What would you want your freshman year roommate to know about you? Tell us something about you that will help your roommate—and us—know you better.</li>
<li>Tell us what makes Stanford a good place for you"</li>
</ol>
<p>Thanks ^^. ;)</p>
<p>I’m sure your essays will be fine. I did my first one on my experience at a physics camp I attended, particularly learning about black holes. I can’t really guide you as to what to write for your essasy though. The point is to make your essays your own.</p>
<p>I don’t remember the amount of sapce that was provided, but what you can do is to go on Common App and onto the Supplement page for Stanford and copy and paste your essays into the respective spaces. Quite a few universities, although you were given a word limit, also had a character limit (I don’t remember if this was true for Stanford). So when you’re done check them there to see whether or not they fit and edit them to suit. Hope this helps! :D</p>
<p>The character limit is 1800 characters per short essay, so I think you should keep it between 250 and 325. I just checked my word counts from December, and mine ended up being 254, 258, and 273.</p>
<p>Wow… You’re seriously getting started already??? I started my application at the end of December of last year… I didn’t even give college a thought at all until November '08.
Mine were all a little under 300 words I think. Around 250 or so. I don’t really remember. lol. I just know that, on one of them, I only had 8 or so characters left when I was done.</p>
<p>How did you find those essay questions? </p>
<p>We went to the common app website, but couldn’t get too far. It seems they want you to choose Stanford as a school on your list in order to get to the supplement; then they tell us it’s too late (presumably for class of 2013)</p>
<p>you are starting this way too early, will therefore think too much, will therefore be more likely to get stressed out.</p>
<p>lol I didn’t write my essays for Stanford until like December 24th >< Submitted on Christmas.</p>
<p>^Me too!! It was a nice Christmas present…</p>
<p>lol well I had to submit on Christmas because I was going on a band trip from then until after the application deadline.</p>
<p>Thanks for the info. I just want to confirm…are these questions for students entering in September, 2009 or September, 2010?</p>
<p>^^^ uh, if you’re entering in september 2009 you’ve already been accepted and enrolled…</p>
<p>Those are the questions for freshmen entering in fall 2009, but the questions should be essentially the same for people planning on applying next year. The wording might be slightly different, but I doubt it will be significant.</p>
<p>i’m pretty sure they’re always exactly the same.</p>
<p>Not necessarily. I’m pretty sure the roommate essay used to ask for an actual letter/note to your roommate, rather than something that would help your roommate know you better.</p>
<p>We went on a tour of Stanford and the admissions rep suggested there would be little to no change to the essay prompts from '09. After getting the “application deadline has passed” message on the Common Ap site, you can post a “ticket” asking for the prompts and they will provide it.</p>
<p>As for those planning on an SCEA application, why not at least start thinking about essays now, if you have the spare time. I kind of thought the high powered juniors were up to their eyeballs with APs the last few days.</p>