3 Stellar Stanford Essay Examples
Stanford is one of the most selective colleges in the nation, with an acceptance rate typically under 5%. If you want to snag a spot at this renowned university in sunny California, you’ll need to write standout essays.
Stanford is known for it’s short and whimsical prompts that give students a lot of freedom to let their creativity shine through. In this post, we will be going over three essays real students have submitted to Stanford to give you an idea of how to approach your essays. We will also share what each essay did well and where there is room for improvement.
Please note: Looking at examples of real essays students have submitted to colleges can be very beneficial to get inspiration for your essays. You should never copy or plagiarize from these examples when writing your own essays. Colleges can tell when an essay isn’t genuine and will not view students favorably if they plagiarized.
Read our Stanford essay breakdown to get a comprehensive overview of this year’s supplemental prompts.
Essay Example #1
Prompt: Virtually all of Stanford’s undergraduates live on campus. Write a note to your future roommate that reveals something about you or that will help your roommate—and us—get to know you better. (100-250 words)
Hey roomie!
I’m so excited to meet you and share our first year at Stanford, but I should probably warn you. By the end of fall quarter, I guarantee that you will be sick of hearing me ask, “Do you want to be in my one second?”
For the past couple of years, recording a one-second video every day has been my way of finding excitement in even the most boring days. I promise that while we’re roommates, my one-second clips will make every day an adventure.
Some of my personal favorites:
- Ice skating in Millennium Park in Chicago
- Watching Netflix with my 3 sisters (usually Jane the Virgin)
- Baking a cake in physics class
- Petting my 17-pound rabbit, or my 2-pound rabbit
- Family karaoke night featuring the High School Musical soundtrack and my terrible singing
- Playing in Pep Band at basketball games with my best friends
- Winning Mario Kart (I am a self-proclaimed professional)
- Playing with a friend’s new puppy
- Selfies with my Target coworkers after handling an army of coupon moms
I’m excited to capture our first year together at Stanford, from Big Game to our first ski trip. Even on days where studying in our dorm seems like the highlight, I’ll suggest a spontaneous ice cream run so we’re not THAT lame.
So when I inevitably ask you to be in my one second, I promise that it’ll be worth it (and you can’t say I didn’t warn you).
Sincerely,
Your soon-to-be bestie/adventure buddy/one-second-a-day-video-taking roommate
Sara
What the Essay Did Well
This is such a fun essay to read because it shows us who this student is outside of her academics and extracurriculars. There isn’t a single mention of her academic interests or the clubs and organizations she is in—ironically, that’s the strength of the essay! By focusing her essay around her one second a day video, it allows her to demonstrate to the reader her most natural self. Outside the confines of a classroom or pursuing extracurricular achievement, these are the things that bring her joy and make her interesting; conveying that idea is the exact point of Stanford asking this question.
Bulleting her most memorable one second videos is a great way to share a wide variety of stories without making the essay too dense. They are quick thoughts—not even fully formed sentences—but they all start with a verb to bring a sense of action to the essay. Not to mention, she was able to work in a good amount of humor. Including her “terrible singing” at karaoke night, being a “self-proclaimed professional” at Mario Kart, and the “army of coupon moms” at her job isn’t necessary for each story, but adding it in gives admissions officers an extra little chuckle.
No space is wasted in this essay, even down to the sign-off. She could have ended by saying “Sincerely, Sara“, but instead, she added an extra line to excitedly describe herself as “Your soon-to-be bestie/adventure buddy/one-second-a-day-video-taking roommate.” As if we didn’t get enough of a taste of her personality throughout, this student closes with a run-on thought that conveys her child-like enthusiasm at going to Stanford and meeting her roommate.
What Could Be Improved
Overall, this is a really strong essay. That being said, there are a few sentences that could be reworked to be a bit more fun and align better with the rest of the essay.
For example, the starting off with an admission that her roommate might get sick of hearing about her one second videos is cute, but it could be made stronger by really leaning into it. “Hi roomie! Here’s to hoping you aren’t ready to throw my phone out the third-floor window of Branner by finals!” With this opening, we are immediately asking ourselves what could this student possibly be doing with her phone that would cause her roommate to chuck it out a window. It builds suspense and also adds humor. Not to mention, she would be including a dorm on campus to show she has thoroughly research life at Stanford.
Another sentence that could use some extra TLC is “I promise that while we’re roommates, my one-second clips will make every day an adventure.” Again, a nice sentiment, but it doesn’t stimulate the reader’s mind in the same way an example would. She goes into some of the one seconds they will capture at Stanford later on, but it wouldn’t hurt to add another example here. She could write something like this: “With me everyday will be an adventure; I’ll have the clip of you trying scrambled eggs and strawberries at the dining hall for proof (trust me, it’s how they were meant to be eaten).“
Essay Example #2
Prompt: Virtually all of Stanford’s undergraduates live on campus. Write a note to your future roommate that reveals something about you or that will help your roommate—and us—get to know you better. (100-250 words)
Dear stranger (but hopefully future roomie),
Are you looking for someone that:
Sees you only at night when they are going to sleep?
Thrives being taciturn?
Unnerves you on the eve of your exams?
Doesn’t tell Moroccan fairy tales each night?
Yowls while sleeping?
Abhors lending you their clothes?
Never nibbles on snacks and won’t bring you Moroccan cookies?
Doesn’t ask you to go for a walk on campus?
Fidgets when you need help?
Uproots a spider they cross without asking you for help?
Not ready to sing with you if you play Beyonce’s songs?
Don’t fret if you said no to all of the above. That just means we are the perfect match because I am the opposite of everything I described above! It would be my great pleasure to introduce you to the person with whom you will not just share a room, but also have unforgettable moments. Be ready to spend nights laughing–it is not my fault if I keep you up all night with my jokes. Words cannot express how excited I am to find out what makes you, you! I’ve cleverly hidden our theme within my note. In case you didn’t notice, reread the first letter of each line.
P.S: It may be difficult for you to say the “kh” in my name, especially if you don’t speak Arabic or Spanish. So feel free to call me Yara.
What the Essay Did Well
This is a charming way to introduce yourself to a future roommate. Not only did they spell out all the ways they will be a loyal and dependable roommate, but they literally spelled out a secret message! Accomplishing this shows this student took extra time and care into crafting statements to add an extra layer of creativity.
This student also imbued aspects of their personality in these statements—once you flip it around. We see how important their Moroccan heritage is, as they look forward to sharing “Moroccan fairytales each night” and “Moroccan cookies” with their roommate. We see how caring they are when it comes to “lending you clothes” and not fidgeting “when you need help.” They also include some humor in some lines: “Yowls while sleeping.” Each sentence helps piece together different aspects of this student’s personality to help us put together a full picture.
What Could Be Improved
Although the idea of presenting a bunch of contradictory statements puts a nice spin on the structure, be cautious about going this route if it gets too confusing for your reader. Certain lines create double negatives—”doesn’t tell Moroccan fairytales,” “never nibbles on snacks,” “not ready to sing with you“—that take the reader an extra second to wrap their head around what the student is actually trying to say. Admissions officers spend a very limited amount of time on each essay, so you don’t want to include any language that requires additional brain power to digest.
This essay is also missing the closing to the letter. The author includes “Dear stranger” and “P.S.“, indicating they are writing the essay in the format of a letter. Their letter requires a closing statement and a sign-off of their name. Without them signing their name at the end of the essay, the P.S. they include doesn’t make as much sense. If the reader doesn’t know what their name is, how would they understand their nickname?
Essay Example #3
Prompt: Tell us about something that is meaningful to you and why. (100-250 words)
I am an avid anti-annotationist; the mere idea of tainting the crisp white pages of any novel with dark imprints of my own thoughts is simply repulsive. However, I have one exception—my copy of George Orwell’s 1984, weathered and annotated in two languages. While victimized by uneven handwriting eating away at the margins, it is the only novel I still hold beloved despite its flaws.
Two years before reading 1984, I was indulging in the novels of Dr. Seuss, not because of my preferences, but because my reading level was deemed an “A”—the reading level of a toddler. I was certainly anything but that; I was a fresh-off-the-plane immigrant and rising middle schooler who could barely name colors in English.
After reading the likes of A Very Hungry Caterpillar like a madman, my next step was purchasing more advanced books in both English and Korean, so I could understand the nuance and missing details of novels after I initially read them in English. This crutch worked perfectly until George Orwell’s 1984—the first novel I purchased and read without the training wheels of a translated copy. It took me weeks to finish the book; it was painfully slow, like a snail inching toward an arbitrary finish line.
I read the novel twenty-seven times, each reading becoming faster and revealing more information. When I look at my copy of 1984, I still cringe at its weathered and tainted pages, but I can’t help admiring that initial portal between two literary worlds.
What the Essay Did Well
This is undoubtedly an excellent writer who produced an exceptionally strong essay. Right from describing themself as an “avid anti-annotationist,” we can tell this is going to be different than you typical essay. While many students will choose something related to their academic or extracurricular passion, this essay choose a specific book. Although 1984 is so much more to them than simply a novel, as they reveal through the essay, the focus on an individual object as something meaningful is such a powerful image.
This student does a beautiful job conveying their journey through the symbol of 1984. They measure time using the book (“Two years before reading 1984“), and use well-known children’s novels like A Very Hungry Caterpillar and Dr. Seuss to convey just how far they came without explicitly needing to describe how behind they were. Describing reading 1984 without a translated copy as ditching “training wheels” further emphasizes their growth.
The meaningfulness of 1984 is reinforced through the focus on its “weathered and tainted pages.” Admitting to the reader at the beginning that they hate marking up books, yet their favorite book is annotated from cover to cover, highlights how 1984 is so much more than a book to them. It is a symbol of their resilience, of their growth, and of a pivotal turning point in their lives. Although the student doesn’t say any of this in their essay, their skilled writing reveals all of it to the reader.
One of Stanford’s deepest values is intellectual vitality (in fact, there’s a whole separate prompt dedicated to the topic!). This student demonstrates this value through establishing a willingness to learn and a love of cross-cultural literature. All the while, this student is authentic. There’s little posturing here intended to impress the admissions officers with the student’s resilience and deep love for the written word; instead, he is genuine in sharing a small but authentic part of his life.
What Could Be Improved
This essay has very little that needs to be improved on, but there is one crucial question that would have been nice to have answered: why 1984? Out of all the books in the world, why was this the one this student decided to commit to as the first all-English novel? Was it just by chance, did a teacher encourage them to pick it up, or did the premise of the book speak to them? Whatever the reason, it would have been nice to know to further understand its significance.
Where to Get Your Stanford Essays Edited
Do you want feedback on your Stanford essays? After rereading your essays countless times, it can be difficult to evaluate your writing objectively. That’s why we created our free Peer Essay Review tool, where you can get a free review of your essay from another student. You can also improve your own writing skills by reviewing other students’ essays.
If you want a college admissions expert to review your essay, advisors on CollegeVine have helped students refine their writing and submit successful applications to top schools. Find the right advisor for you to improve your chances of getting into your dream school!
