Our Selection Process

Application Evaluation

Evaluation of our applicants consists of many things, but four key and common factors are…

Curriculum

We do not have a required high school (or college) curriculum, but we do make recommendations. We expect freshman applicants have engaged in a rigorous curriculum and chosen from among the most demanding courses available in secondary school. It is not necessary to have loaded your schedule with every advanced course offered; but if such courses are available to you, we expect you have taken advantage of many of them.  Our most competitive freshman applicants often have 4 years (grades 9-12) of English, 4 years of math (including Calculus), 4 years of social studies, 4 years of science (including Biology, Chemistry and Physics) and 4 years of a foreign language. 

There is flexibility, however, in how we view an applicant’s curriculum.  For example, an applicant may be competitive with just 3 years of a foreign language through 11th grade but also with 5 math courses taken in the last 4 years.  Conversely, an applicant may be competitive with double languages all 4 years and just 3 years of social studies.  

While most of our applicants have enrolled in an accredited secondary school program (or college), students from schools that may not have undergone the accreditation process as of yet, as well as those with exceptional circumstances are given equal consideration.

Teacher/Instructor Evaluations

As we read the two required evaluations, we hope to discover specific evidence of your intellectual vitality. For this reason, we want to hear from those teachers/instructors who know the most about your performance in an academic setting. The evaluations for freshman applicants should be from teachers who taught you in the 11th or 12th grades in one of the core academic subjects (English, math, foreign language, social studies, or science) – though we will certainly accept evaluations from earlier grades in unusual circumstances.

Essays

The evaluation of your application essays may inspire more myths than any other part of the college admission process. One of the misperceptions applicants might hear is that we are looking for a “right answer” in your essays. That is impossible, as there are no right answers. We read essays to get to know you as a person and to learn about the ideas and interests that motivate you.

The strongest essays are those where the student’s genuine voice stands out. Because we want to discover who you are, resist the urge to "package" yourself in order to come across in a way you think Stanford wants. Such attempts simply blur our understanding of who you are and what you can accomplish.

Extracurricular Activities

Learning about your extracurricular activities and nonacademic interests helps us to discover your potential contributions to the Stanford residential community. Students often assume our primary concern is the number of activities in which one participates. In fact, an exceptional depth of experience in one or two activities may demonstrate your passion more than minimal participation in five or six clubs. We want to see the impact you have had on that club, in your school, or in the larger community, and we want to learn of the impact that experience has had on you.

In some cases, exceptional abilities in athletics may influence our decision if the applicant is otherwise well qualified, but such abilities never, by themselves, ensure admission to Stanford.