Admission Process
Ethan Madore
Stanford takes its time. Don’t expect to hear from Stanford for several months after you apply. If you’re accepted, it will probably be the last, climactic moment of your application cycle (in March or even April.)
Stanford knows why you’re applying — don’t waste space on Why Them.
Faye Deal has run the show at SLS admissions for decades. She claims to read every file. Her motto is that she looks at the ‘distance traveled.’ We find her open to dramatic comeback narratives, from the right applicant. The SLS admissions process involves some level of faculty review, especially for candidates who are neither easy yeses nor nos.
One of our Stanford admissions insiders reports a compelling image of the SLS admissions office: each potential candidate detailed on a notecard, with AOs shifting them around to consider who might get along with who. More than other schools, Stanford is building a community. It likes candidates who both have an interesting brand and who might mesh well with other interesting people.
Application requirements
Essay prompts
What's actually different about Stanford's application
Ethan Madore
- Don’t worry about the PS—you should almost always submit your unmodified standard, two-page personal statement (i.e. your Harvard Statement of Purpose)
- You can’t submit a diversity statement. If you’re a URM whose background is important context—and if you have something central to your candidacy to say in your Perspective—make sure you get it out somewhere else in this application (the PS, a 250-word)—but do it gracefully. If it seems shoehorned in, it’ll fail.
- You should submit one of Stanford’s fun 250-word essays. The three books, three songs, and teach a class prompts are offered every year, in addition to a rotating, usually more wacky option. You can submit two of these, but it’s not necessary. If you’re an incredible writer, or if you have multitudes to express, you can do two.
- You can submit a ‘Time You Disagreed’ essay, but you shouldn’t try to backdoor a slightly modified diversity statement unless that statement happens to authentically be about encountering difference and therefore softening your stance. Stanford added this essay in response to a controversy on campus, and some members of our Committee view it more as a marketing ploy from SLS, reassuring their alumni that they welcome ideological diversity (i.e. conservative students) on campus. Write it if you have a good angle, but understand that the point of this essay is to come across as temperate and excited to engage and respect those with profoundly different points of view. You have the option of writing a similar, shorter essay for Yale—consider using the same topic.
- SLS’s application is fairly different and their decision process is slow. They know they’re getting the pick of the litter. If you’re applying to the T14, focus on more time-sensitive schools like Duke first.