Who should read this post: anybody applying to Stanford in 2019-2020. I will look at the writing situation of this oddly tricky prompt and summarize the approaches taken by three successful applicants as I wrap up this post. Read on for more.
Ah, the Stanford Roommate letter, excuse me, note, back for another year. It’s one of the three Stanford prompts, and it’s framed as an informal self-introduction to your roommate. But it’s still a supplemental “essay.” Go figure.
When you compare all of the other things Stanford wants you to explain, introducing yourself to your future roommate seems kind of lightweight, particularly given that it is one of three key supplemental essays Stanford requires. So why is this roommate prompt back for yet another year? Because somehow it works. For Stanford.
As the most difficult college application in the country, with an acceptance rate that will drop below 4% within three years, based on current trends, Stanford, has a big problem: tens of thousands of applications with grades in the solidly 3.9 and 4.0 range, unweighted, most with stellar test scores and a thicket of activities. The Letter to Your Roommate clearly helps them separate applicants, from one simple fact–this prompt has been on the docket at Stanford for over a decade. And it is a particularly tricky kind of “essay.”
It’s so good in fact that they have barely even changed the wording on this prompt since it launched, way before Barack Obama started a run for President. Here it is:
2. 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—know you better.
Your Audience and Writing Situation for the Stanford Roommate Essay
Let’s get one thing out of the way now: While Stanford does suggest that you can swap letters to your roommate when you first show up at your dorm to see who you will be sharing your living space with, your real audience is obviously not your roommate. It’s your application readers.
So a big challenge is how “formal” to be. Trying to write as if this really were just to a fellow student who by happenstance becomes your roommate is a mistake. But so is writing as if you are practicing a speech in front of a middle-aged judge.
To clarify your audience, most of my clients who have gotten into Stanford have had the opportunity to read their roommate’s letter, and they have also universally treated this as a bit of a joke, a slightly embarrassing moment that they quickly leave behind. For the obvious reason that one of the first things your roomie sees is part of your ploy to get Stanford admissions. It’s a “So that’s how you pulled it off” moment. They, like you, were casting about for some kind of “humanizing” details and some humor that would help them pick the lock to Stanford admissions. And then you maybe have to laugh off some personal quirk you decided to put upfront in your letter.
The best essays have some serious ideas in them, but framed and carried by some level of humor. A recent winner ended with a promise to have a My Little Pony decorative party. No doubt this was laughed off when the letter was read. And of course you can be too informal. For example, the language itself is not really the place to put to much informality, Dude. You get my drift, Bro?
So instead of thinking about this as really being to your roommate, think about it being to a hipster landlord who perhaps middle-aged but still sort of with it, and this landlord tis trying to find the smartest and most interesting people to pair up as roommates. In addition to offering some sense that you have an interesting personality and are maybe going places in a hurry, you also need to remember that part of this is what you want to share about yourself as a (prospective) roommate. If you want to discuss your frequent bouts of inspiration and in the process explain that these times tend to come late at night and that they simply must be accompanied by blasting music to drive your manic creativity, you may come across more as a self-absorbed jerk with no respect for your roommate’s peace, quiet or sleep than as a quirky and interesting artistic savant.
Seriously. I get this look at how enthusiastic/quirky stuff all the time in Stanford Roommate Letters, then have to ask the young author, Hey, how would you feel if your roommate blasted, say, some Bach organ music at 110 decibels at any hour of the day or night? Of course, I also see these very serious letters. Some are good, but few are great. After all, the performance here is about writing to somebody your age (with a chaperone) and that really, really serious take may not work out. You don’t want to come across as Stuart Smalley, for reals, folks. So if you are not someone like Greta Thunberg, with street cred like hers, try at least a bit of humor.
Feeling stumped? Let’s look at some successful examples, summarized.
Essay Ideas that Worked
So what kind of Roommate Letter does get one into Stanford? These three worked:
Essay Number One: Breakfast Cereal
I am not posting these essays in full, but here is a summary of each–please keep in mind that copying these ideas is a bad idea. These are just a representative examples of the range of ideas that I have seen be successful. Your own ideas need to be germane to you, but these may give you permission to write about things you had not considered . . . You can and should share these essays with a range of people, and dial it back, or pump it up, as necessary.
Stanford Roommate Essay 1–This successful applicant decided to write on his approach to breakfast, specifically, his experimental approach to breakfast cereal, for which he uses two bowls. He alluded to his friends’ view that his cereal obsession is truly eccentric by offering a somewhat tongue-in-cheek explanation of his drive to constantly experiment. Why should be accept cereal that is too mushy or too crunchy, and what happens if you combine a constantly evolving range of cereals? Into this approach, he was also able to drop references to digitizing information for a student-run organization at school to improve it, and doing lab experiments on polymers . . . which were successful. His refusal to accept mediocre cereal became a platform to suggest he experiments to improve everything. Obviously, this could become just a little too cute, but the applicant had a sense of seriousness as well as a sense of humor in this only slightly tongue-in-cheek essay.
Stanford Roommate Essay 2–This essay started with a homage to the refresh button on a web browser; by the end of the opening paragraph, this opening discussion of the refresh button had expanded to a kind of philosophy for life itself–his motto: refresh, renew and start over with a new perspective whenever you face a roadblock or feel a lack of inspiration in life. In paragraph two, he segued to his passion for scheduling and calendaring software. By now you are perhaps thinking, as you read this, that this is too mundane and, indeed, lame for a Roommate essay, but this applicant went on to explain how he runs a calendar for real events that are fixed to specific dates, which allows him to get tasks done on time, but that he also has an aspirational calendar, in which he imagines things he will do, and by doing so, and putting them on the calendar, makes them happen. That he in fact has several hundred calendars devoted to dreams and aspirations.
And some of these had already become successful at the time he wrote his Stanford essays, and he was able to name-drop things, like the a nonprofit he launched, bringing sports to underprivileged youth, and the trip he pulled off, solo, to Peru and the internship he landed at a financial advising firm for which he continued to work for years. And all of these activities were the subjects of other essays, so he was able to reinforce some of his activities and parts of the Common App main essay he wrote . . . gentle reminders for the reader are always a good thing. Imagine your poor college application reader in, say, hour 8 of reading data, activities, essays . . . and assigning a ranking, all in about 15 minutes. Or ten. You never want to repeat activities verbatim on your essays, but a bit of a reminder never hurts.
Stanford Roommate Essay 3–This applicant wrote about . . .rapping. And this for a prospective business major and entrepreneur who has no plans to go into the music industry. At this point.
Interestingly, rapping is very much a minor activity for this applicant, who has not really composed all that many raps. But the essay had authenticity, because this applicant had done some rapping, genuinely loves the genre, and got together with a friend to write a rap aimed at deflating tension between the applicant’s school and a cross-town rival, then made a video in which the applicant and friend visited the cross-town rival “sharing the love” as they rapped about making peace. They posted it and got some support online.
This is the background of the essay, which talks more about liking to rap and the process of creativity. This applies to the roommate essay because of rap as a private-hours activity, engaged with at home, and the activity in this case was altered on my advice from blasting rap at all hours to having a set of Beats headphones constantly on the applicant’s ears or around the applicant’s neck, ready to use at any time. . . in the dorm room. It also quoted from that peace rap in a couple of places, and the focus overall was on an interest in creative engagement with social justice topics, which allowed the applicant to bring in a mixed-race background.
You don’t have to be constantly engaged with an activity for it to work in an essay; you just need some level of authenticity, which this had. And as a person whose identity is not totally tied up in Rap or Hip-Hop, this essay also skirted the kind of insider-war about who’s the best, what is legit and what is not in the realm of Hip Hop and Rap. . .Passion is welcome, but avoid editorial content that is not lightened with humor and a sense of perspective.
And don’t forget, for high octane and battle–tested essay development and editing, Contact Me.