50 Successful Stanford Application Essays
50 Successful Stanford Application Essays
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Publishers Group West
Annotation: Offers tips and techniques to help applicants to Stanford and other colleges with writing the admissions essay, providing questions and answers from former admissions officers, advice from students, and mistakes to avoid.
Genre: [Education]
 
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Catalog Number: #6580899
Format: Paperback
Reading Level: 7.0
Interest Level: 9+
25 Essay Mistakes that Guarantee Failure

For every open slot at Stanford, there are about 15 eager applicants vying for it-and you're one of them. On paper, most applicants appear very similar. All are well qualified academically with high grades and test scores and solid involvement in extracurricular activities.

Imagine the admissions officer who must choose which of these well-deserving applications to accept. How will he or she make the decision? Very often, the essay makes a difference. The essay is the one chance for you to share a piece of yourself that is not encapsulated in the dry numbers and scores of the application. It is your opportunity to demonstrate why you'd be a perfect fit at the college, how you'd contribute to the student body and why the college should accept you over those other 14 applicants.

The essay is also the one part of your application that you have complete control over. You can write it the night before it's due and turn in a piece that is half-baked, or you can spend a little time on the essay and turn in one that can set you apart from the competition.

The truth is that you don't have to be a good writer to create a successful admissions essay. Nor do you need to have survived a life changing event or won a Nobel Prize. Writing a successful admissions essay for Stanford is actually much simpler.

The secret is that any topic can be a winner but it all depends on your approach. If you spend the time to analyze your subject and can convey with words that quality of thought that is unique to you, you'll have a powerful essay. It doesn't have to be beautifully written or crafted as the next great American novel. At its core the essay is not a "writing test." It's a "thinking test." So you do need to spend the time to make sure that your thoughts are conveyed correctly on paper. It may not be pretty writing but it has to be clear.

So how do you do this? While we can give you tips and pointers (which is what you'll read in the analysis section following every essay) the best method is to learn by example. You need to see what a successful end product looks like. While there is no single way to produce a winning essay, as you will read, there are some traits that successful essays share. You'll learn what these are by reading the examples in this book as well as the interviews with admissions officers. Then you can write a successful essay that is based on your own unique experiences, world view, way of thinking and personal style.

Why are admissions essays so important to getting into Stanford? At their most basic level, essays help admissions officers to understand who you are. While grades, test scores and academic performance can give the admissions officers an estimate on how prepared you are to handle the academic rigors of college, the essay offers the only way they can judge how your background, talents, experience and personal strengths come together to make you the best candidate for their school. For you, the applicant, the admissions essays offer the best opportunity to share who you are beyond the dry stats of your academic record. It's kind of amazing actually. You start with a blank sheet of paper and through careful selection, analysis and writing, you create a picture of yourself that impresses the admissions officers and makes them want to have you attend their school.

Ultimately, this book is designed to help you create a successful essay that gets you accepted. It will guide you toward writing that essay by sharing with you the successes of others who have written to gain admission to Stanford.

If you're like most students, you would like to know the magic formula for writing an admissions essay. Although we would love to be able to tell you, unfortunately, no such formula exists. Writing is so individual and the options so limitless, that it's impossible to develop a combination that will work for every essay. However, this doesn't mean that we're going to send you off with laptop in hand, without some guidance. Throughout this book you are going to see the "right way" to do things. So we thought it would be useful to start off with a few common mistakes that other students have made. You'll want to avoid these. In fact, some of these mistakes are so bad that they will almost guarantee that your essay will fail. So avoid these at all costs!


Excerpted from 50 Successful Stanford Application Essays: Get into Stanford and Other Top Colleges by Kelly Tanabe
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

Helping applicants navigate the intricate yet vitally important essay process at elite schools such as Stanford -- a university that enrolls students from all 50 states and 52 countries and has an admission rate less than five percent -- this go-to guide helps prospective students see for themselves what it takes to be admitted to selective programs at colleges nationwide. Along with the 50 essay examples that give a detailed analysis of the strengths and even weaknesses of each essay, there are tips from college admission officers and successful applicants and a description of the 25 essay mistakes that guarantee failure. For highly judicious colleges, the essay is one of the most important factors in whether students are admitted or rejected, yet this resource, from a pair of award-winning authors and college application gurus, will help readers temper their fears and inspire their writing.


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