What matters most to you? essay

[dancer733]

<p>I am having loads of trouble with this essay. I love Stanford and wish it was the why stanford prompt. :( oh well.</p>

<p>How do you choose one thing? A lot of things matter to me, and any attempt I make at this essay seems to try to encompass everything and just sounds unfocused. What are they looking for? Your values? An activity? Intended career? People in your life?</p>

<p>How did you approach this essay? Anyone else having this problem?</p>

[lordfarquaad]

<p>Initially, I struggled with this topic too. I tried to find the “right answer.” But after a while, I forgot about finding an answer the admissions office would like to hear and tried to find something that truly mattered to me, something that no one else could explain in the same way I could. Once I got writing, I had fun with this one and focused on a unique perspective of mine. Mine wasn’t on a big topic like world peace, family, friends (though those do matter to me, and it doesn’t mean you can’t write about them), but on something really small, and something that I could speak profoundly about. Write about anything that you can spin in a personal, heartfelt way. I’m sure you could write about family, friends, a job, world peace, recycling, anything; as long as you put your soul into the writing process to make the essay unique. Of course, easier said than done. </p>

<p>Another perspective. I actually read this today, after I submitted my app a couple days ago. After reading it, I’m happy I didn’t force a “fake” answer that the admissions officers would “like” per se. </p>

<p>

Dean Shaw on admission
Over the course of six months in 2009, five Palo Alto teenagers committed suicide by putting themselves in front of oncoming commuter trains. A shocked and grieving community came together to try to understand why, and the neighboring Stanford community became acutely aware of the stress affecting young people. We asked Dean of Admission and Financial Aid Richard Shaw to address a topic that is now at the forefront of the admission office and the university as a whole:</p>

<p>How are college admission professionals and university
officials addressing student stress?</p>

<p>The Palo Alto tragedy was a wake-up call. While it’s impossible to assign a cause to suicide, I can’t help but imagine that the emphasis in school on continuously “doing” more is negatively impacting students. </p>

<p>In my thirty years in admission, I have never perceived so much anxiety over academic and extracurricular schedules. Where has the pure joy in learning and exploring interests gone?</p>

<p>This year my staff and I viewed Race to Nowhere, a film that portrays a school system that emphasizes breadth over depth and produces exhausted and drained students. These are critical concerns that necessitate a national conversation about how best to support adolescents in their development. We are committed to students who have been energized by the depth of their experiences and who will bring that passion to Stanford.</p>

<p>We also see evidence of student stress at the university level, and I have been witness to a growing conversation among university administrators to mitigate that stress. Our Undergraduate Advising and Research office has launched The Resilience Project (resilience.stanford.edu), a program suggesting that failure, while disappointing, is as valuable as the success students have been trained to expect. </p>

<p>In revising this year’s Stanford Supplement, we asked Stanford faculty member Dr. Denise Pope, a leader in addressing student stress, to help us offer a question that would engage students profoundly and reduce application anxiety. Our final short essay question?</p>

<p>“What matters to you and why?”</p>

<p>After all, this is what we really want to know.

</p>

<p>The article’s on the second page of the pdf: <a href=“Page Not Found : Stanford University”>Page Not Found : Stanford University;

[dancer733]

<p>Thanks for the article, that was really interesting! Funny you said recycling, because that actually is one of my topics I was throwing around.</p>

[lordfarquaad]

<p>No problem! Hahaha, well, I am a mind-reader Nah, lucky guess! Good luck writing!</p>

[treesplease]

<p>Out of curiosity, what was your answer?</p>