When students think about what admissions officers are looking for, their focus usually turns towards academic factors such as GPAs, standardized test scores, and the rigor of high school courses. Stanford University also cares what you do outside of the classroom. As a result, participating in extracurricular activities is a great way to make your application stand out from the crowd.
This focus gives you time to develop your skills while also illustrating a willingness to dedicate yourself to a particular activity — something admissions officers love to see in students. We advise students to attend these programs in their sophomore or junior year so you can put them on your application for college. Stanford requires applicants to submit two letters of recommendation written by teachers. When choosing two teachers to complete these letters, make sure you choose instructors who you genuinely enjoyed and know you well.
Admissions officers are looking for heartfelt, personal, and detailed responses. Unlike other schools, admissions staff also accept an additional letter from another person — other than a counselor or teacher — who knows you well. Adding this to your application can work wonders if pulled off correctly. This could be a coach, an extracurricular instructor, an employer, or even a peer in school. We advise students to not use their parents, siblings, or friends as this can come across as unprofessional.
During your application process to Stanford, you have the option to have an interview with an alumnus of the university. Not only does it give you a chance to ask specific questions about applying to and attending Stanford, but it also reflects positively on your application. Admissions staff keep tabs on which students attend the interview as it demonstrates an eagerness to learn more about the university.
Keep in mind that the contents of the interview will be relayed by the alumnus back to the Stanford Admissions Office. Stanford University requires all applicants to complete a series of essay prompts along with their standard application. The whole purpose behind these essays is to give applicants a chance to reveal more about themselves than other parts of the application allowed.
In addition, the responses to these essays provide Stanford admissions staff with a more complete picture of each applicant. As a result, these essays are an excellent opportunity for students to greatly increase their chances of getting accepted. Instead, you need to take time to truly understanding what the prompt is asking both explicitly and implicitly.
You also have to determine what admissions staff want to know in general. The biggest difference is that Stanford then not as well recognized nationally and Internationally, thus there were fewer applicants and somewhat higher acceptance rates. However, the number of students in the undergraduate school was about the same as now. A large number of my freshman class were from California, or from other US states. There were very few international or foreign students. I had a good GPA, certainly not close to a 4.
My SAT score was somewhat better than average, but not one to brag about. One teacher of mine seemed to think highly of me, so I expect she provided a good letter of recommendation.
Without her encouragement, I would not even have applied as most of my friends were planning to go to Cal University of California and I had already been accepted there. I had held some summer jobs and was on the track team at a not-so-well-known High School in Stockton, which is fairly close to Palo Alto.
No one in my family had ever gone to Stanford but had always encouraged me to attend College. Two of my high school friends were also accepted and I did not consider either to be any better qualified than I.
In fact, one flunked out in less than a year. I was in awe of most students in my first-year classes. For the most part, they seemed smarter, perhaps they were just more sophisticated than smarter. Many were from well-to-do or well-known families, This was not true in my case. So I entered Stanford with no idea how fortunate I was to be accepted.
Parents and students alike often feel out of their depths when applying to these highly selective schools. AdmissionSight is a leading college admissions expert with over a decade of experience successfully helping students overcome challenging acceptance rates to earn a spot in the university of their choice. We focus on helping applicants nail all aspects of their application to gain a competitive edge in the admissions process.
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By having a good idea of these factors, you'll be able to see whether or not you have them. And from the looks of it, it can be easy to find out because they're not that difficult to have.
But it pays to be honest in assessing yourself thoroughly to the max. They also listed the factors of the selection process in the context. Stanford talked more about it when they say, As no two Stanford students are similar, each Stanford applicant is unique. All applicants are born and brought up in a unique environment. The circumstances one applicant was living in may be different from the other. Stanford understands this very well. Thus, when they review the application, they pay attention to the applicant's unique circumstance.
By considering applicant achievements in context, they will know how you excelled in your environment. Stanford is interested in learning what was available to you in your school and how you took advantage of it. Open and encouraging, less stressful, and more cooperative. Your mental health and academic health are equally essential. Group work is highly supported by peers and faculty alike.
Crucial decisions affecting students are made only after consultation and discussion. They value your input. And there are no research fiefdoms — you can move freely between advisors and subfields. Nowadays, economics is highly a cross-disciplinary field. The great thing about studying a Stanford is that you can take courses, collaborate, and research with faculty from equally top-notch departments across the university, including Computer Science, Statistics, Mathematics, Psychology, and Political Science, as well as groups within the School of Medicine, the Graduate School of Business, the School of Education, and the Law School.
The program is intentionally designed to foster student connections—with each other, faculty, and even top tech firms in nearby Silicon Valley. Programs like the First-Year Seminar Series, Second Year RA Match, and Third Year Seminars where students present their work-in-progress and papers to peers and faculty, can lead to co-authorships and lifelong collaborations.
Never undervalue the influence of sunshine and fresh air. Stanford University is an enormously competitive school considering scores requirements.
The SAT 25th percentile score of this college is The SAT 75th percentile score of Stanford is You can also focus on the 25th percentile and 75th percentile in both sections. For Math, the 25th percentile and 75th percentile are and , respectively. For EBRW, the 25th percentile and the 75th percentile are and , respectively.
Here, we can see you need to gain more Math marks to achieve the same percentile score. If you're weak in one section, try to score higher in the other section than required. So, even if you get more marks than needed in one section but less in another, you may still come to the necessary composite score. Every college has its SAT score policy which decides its college's approach in evaluating student's scores.
In the case of Stanford University, the path they have is the "highest section. This policy is also known as "superscoring. For example, if one student takes the SAT exam twice, for the first attempt, the composite score is In the score of , is of maths, and is of EBRW.
In the second attempt, he again receives as a composite SAT score. Thus, your highest Math score is on the first attempt, and the highest score in EBRW is on the second attempt. And as SU has a policy of the highest section score, they will consider each subject's highest score.
It will benefit the student as his score raised by 40 points, which now became Thus, due to the highest section policy, it's a must to retake the SAT examination. It gives you a great chance to raise your score. Stanford's composite 25th percentile score is 32, and the 75th percentile score is Stanford doesn't have any minimum score requirements. However, less score than given will make conditions hard for you to get admitted.
The composite score of ACT is an average of all 4 section scores. Hence, to get the aimed composite score, you need to score the aimed score in every section. You need a solid GPA to get admitted to Stanford. The GPA required for Stanford is 4. It would help if you had a high school grade of "A" to get this much GPA. Also, check the below table published on Stanford University's website.
Common Application and Coalition Application is a portal to apply for your desired college. While applying, you need to fill in the application sections, a need for all schools. You also need to answer the specific questions asked by Stanford University.
After you're above the 50th percentile, get to work on overcoming the first myth which claims that grades are everything.
Stanford cares about far more than just academics, so try to squeeze in some good extracurriculars and volunteer experience.
Once you have a sufficient set of baseline activities, it's time to overcome the second myth by understanding that Stanford is not all about being diversified and well rounded. You want one area to stand out above and beyond all the others; this spike will be one of the most important parts of your application. Now that we've gone over the biggest myths and facts about Stanford admissions, let's take a look at another part of the highly prestigious university: its emphasis on STEM and what this means for you, whether you're into STEM or not.
This means that—all else being equal— if your interests learn more toward engineering, you'll get a slight boost in your admission chances.
So if one student were a top young writer and another were a top math competitor, it's likely that the latter would have a slightly better chance of getting into Stanford. Don't just take my word for it, though—you can Google it yourself. You'll see that Stanford is in the US News ' top-ranked engineering schools, while Harvard and Yale are nowhere near the top Part of this, however, is a self-fulfilling prophecy: because good engineering-type undergrads come here, it becomes an ideal place for similarly minded students.
As a result, math-related classes and extracurriculars are not the only things that matter when applying to Stanford. The next two sections will give you advice based on which subjects you plan to study in college. If you're less into STEM, read the next section. But if you're already focusing on a STEM area and plan on continuing to do so, skip on ahead to the section after for my most helpful tips.
Do you plan on majoring in a humanities or similar subject? Then this section is for you! Just because Stanford leans more toward engineering, that doesn't mean that the only way to get in is to be an engineer. While the school has a fantastic engineering program, it's also incredibly strong in non-STEM fields, such as economics and literature. Your application can be completely bereft of engineering aspirations, and you can still do well. In fact, I am quite sure that any humanities-heavy application that would do well at Harvard , Yale, or Princeton would do equally well, if not better, at Stanford.
Nevertheless, don't forget the fact that Stanford likes baseline diversity. Your spike doesn't need to be related to STEM, but you should still be strong in quantitative subjects as a whole. Because Stanford has a large number of applicants, they have enough humanities-spike applicants who can at least get the basic A or A- in the hardest math and science classes. You should take care to put enough effort into these subjects so you don't drop down to the middle of the pack.
Stanford doesn't take the excuse "I'm just not a math person" and, in fact, they're probably against the culture that makes such a phrase commonly acceptable in the first place.
Once you get below a on SAT Math or a 30 on ACT Math, Stanford will know you don't have a full command of standard concepts in math, such as factorizing variables or applying the Pythagorean theorem. All it requires is mastering baseline content of math and understanding the highest-gain SAT Math strategies.
You can study on your own by reviewing and mastering math content first while focusing lightly on math strategy. If you're studying with PrepScholar , we will automatically detect your situation and give you the right study material for this improvement. Students whose forte isn't engineering should know that Stanford is welcoming of interdisciplinary study. Indeed, the school would love to see you talk not just about the humanities, but also how your expertise in the humanities uses areas such as computer science or math to help refine your analysis.
Assuming you are truly interested, it will help your application if you mention an aspiration to use some amount of engineering in your future studies. For example, if you're into religious studies with a focus on the Old Testament, you might talk about how you'd like to use statistical analysis to refine the documentary hypothesis. Usually, spikes are much easier if done in a field with natural talent and that you thoroughly enjoy.
A STEM spike would make much less sense for you, not to mention that it'd be a lot less pleasant to accomplish. Consider competitions for speech, debate, writing, essays, and so forth. For example, for enthusiasts of debate-type activities, there's Model UN , Junior State of America , governor's school , mock-trial , and nationwide debate.
Competitions provide a direct way for admissions officers to see how good you are , but you can also do other tasks that qualitatively seem similarly accomplished. For example, if you started a theater club that has an impressive number of audience members or consistently do journal-quality academic research on Victorian English literature, you'd be well positioned for your spike. To learn more about working on your spike for college, check out our guide on how to get into the Ivy League search for "Part 2" and scroll down to 4.
If your strong point is quantitative, then that's a great advantage. After all, Stanford is engineering tilted! Even more to your advantage, I personally got into Stanford following this path , so I will have much more refined strategies for you here, including naming specific programs to try. You should also be taking the most difficult STEM courses offered at your school. For the AP exams, aim for a 5 in each of these fields.
If you're naturally talented at STEM and are taking the hardest courses, there's a high probability you'll get great grades; however, you want to turn that high probability into a certainty.
Many students who are strong in STEM want to focus on only what they're interested in at that moment. It's important to see the benefits to your STEM education that are possible if you get into Stanford, and to convince yourself it's worthwhile to put in the grind that's often necessary to get good grades in school. To illustrate this point more clearly, let me tell you the real story of my high school classmate.
Let's call him Kevin. Kevin was intensely bright, would score at the top of intelligence tests, and was into battle bots. He would literally put all his time into building these robots, often skipping English classes, physics classes, and even sleep to spend time on this intense passion he had. In the end, he earned Ds in English and Cs in Physics which he was otherwise great in. Sadly, when it came to admissions time, Kevin wasn't able to get into any college ranked within the top With his intelligence, he could have easily swept the US News top 50 if he'd put even a modicum of diligence into his schoolwork.
The next step is to ensure your academics outside of STEM meet at least some baseline of quality. This doesn't mean you have to be great in the humanities, but it does mean you'll want to keep the Bs in the humanities to a minimum. While you don't need to take any AP classes in the humanities I didn't! They're difficult enough that getting a sufficiently high score signals you're in the 95th percentile or above in all the US—certainly enough to qualify as well rounded.
I firmly believe that being great quantitatively correlates with being smart in general. You can definitely get these scores if you put your mind to it. The only caveat is that you'll need to be reasonably fluent in English.
If you're not a native speaker and aren't fluent, I suggest you make this a priority, probably through immersion in an English-speaking country. The same skills you used to become good in quantitative subjects will be useful in mastering these standardized tests. Since you're only targeting a or 28 or above on these sections, you don't need to stress as much about the last few problems and being careless. You do , however, need to memorize all the most common SAT grammar rules and learn how many questions you can afford to get wrong without sacrificing your score goals.
Round out your Stanford application with some lower-hanging fruit if possible. Assume a leadership position in some club that requires public speaking, whether that's debate, Model UN, or something else. Many areas in politics and law are surprisingly close to the logical systems you're used to in STEM. You might also consider playing a sport. Many JV teams are not incredibly competitive. Also, be sure to play to your strengths: if you're more dexterous than strong, you might want to choose squash, for example.
If you're fast and have good hand-eye coordination, consider baseball. Sports teams will take up a ton of time, though , so check that you're well positioned and able to handle the time commitment before making any decisions. Our guide lists hundreds of extracurriculars , which you can use to brainstorm how you can build a diversified base. Note that for your activities, you don't need to be especially great at them—participation is what ultimately matters here.
This is where you really get to show off your STEM skills. When it comes to spikes, the name of the game is to be highly ranked in recognized fields. One of the most natural environments to be ranked in is a competition. Now, obviously, the more recognized the competition, the better.
As you might imagine, the most well-known, difficult, and participant-heavy competitions are the most prestigious. For your Stanford application, it's better to rank in the top 1, of one of the most prestigious competitions than it is to rank in the top of a competition of middling prestige.
This means you should try to aim for the most prestigious competition you can actually do well in. You should consider competitions from highest prestige down in that order whenever possible.
We know what kinds of students colleges want to admit. We want to get you admitted to your dream schools. These are two competitions everyone applying to Stanford should consider entering. The USAMO series is all about pure math and solving problems fairly quickly think a few minutes to an hour in a timed environment.
By contrast, the ISEF is more about tinkering around, spending days and months doing research similar to what you'd do in college, and then presenting your results.
Here's a sample AMC 12 Problem. If you can solve this without any issues, then you'd be a strong candidate for a math competition:. Three real numbers in the interval [0, 1] are chosen independently and at random. What is the probability that the chosen numbers are the side lengths of a triangle with positive area? You can see the answer and a full explanation at AoPS Online. If you're very good at math, then you should seriously consider the USAMO series more unofficial information here —it can really be your spike.
The USAMO series is so prestigious that I've known Stanford students whose main spike was placing within the top 1, or 2, in this competition. Most importantly, though, hundreds of thousands of the most mathematically strong students participate in it , making a top ranking really impressive.
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