“O, wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in’t!”
― William Shakespeare, The Tempest
yep! so as a general tip keep in mind columbia’s “core” component - deff not saying you should keep mentioning it everywhere (trust me, every applicant will mention it so if you’re trying to answer the why columbia part i wouldn’t make this your shining feature). what i mean is throughout my app i kept in mind that columbia really cares about students who show an interest in learning about all sorts of things, interdisciplinary studies, and esp classical / intellectual / philosophical works. ofc never ever “fake” anything (again, admissions officers who have read thousands on thousands of essays and supplements can tell) but do think about how you can emphasize the learner in you.
tips on answering stanford’s “short answer” questions
(from someone who really doesn’t know what she’s talking about but will try to give you the best advice she can). also: here’s my tag of stanford app advice. for those asking i also got into columbia, georgetown, and duke and would love to help with those apps as well (i love LOVE talking about the columbia app but georgetown app gives me headaches)
firstly i’ll direct you to a couple posts. you should probably trust their advice more simply because they’ve been doing this for a while: collegeessayguy, pavedwithverbs, collegevine. didn’t use all of these but i’m reading through them now and i can affirm that most of the advice is very very helpful.
general tips from personal experience and advice from my teachers / counselors:
i’d say that you are definitely allowed to make your answers informal, funny, quirky, and that they should definitely reveal your personal voice, interests, hobbies. in fact since the space is so small, if you don’t feel the need to use complete sentences, don’t - i didn’t for some of my answers and it was fine
do not try to seem hyper-intellectual and ~profound just because you think that’s what stanford wants, don’t try to force excessive humor if that’s just not you. not saying to not do these things - only that you shouldn’t do them if you’re faking it, because i promise you that college admissions officers can tell.
don’t be redundant. use every word to your advantage. but it’s so important to also not be random and use the space to supplement what the admissions officer already knows about you from your essay. it’s like this, let’s say you write your common app about your experiences as a student journalist. and then, your extracurriculars essay is about film club. okay, so, you could put the nightcrawler or spotlight as one of your favorite films, connecting investigative journalism with filmography. suddenly, it doesn’t seem like they’re reading about two separate people, one a journalist and the other a film enthusiast, but instead, they are reading about someone uniquely interested in both. wow all that advice sounds so good in my head i hope it makes sense.
also don’t think too much...the point i made above might sound like it’s a lot of work if you aren’t into journalism & film, but these answers should come prettyyyy naturally for whatever you love. the hard part shouldn’t be finding things to put but actually narrowing down from your endless list of options. so please do me a favor and just brainstorm the heck out of these lists, and then cut down from there - trust me when i say that that will help you tremendously.
ok this is getting pretty long and i doubt anyone cares to hear from me this much so more tips on specific rapid fire questions below the cut!
(note: i can only tell you about what i personally think for each of these, who’s to say that someone else’s method didn’t also work?):
Name your favorite books, authors, films, and/or artists. & What newspapers, magazines, and/or websites do you enjoy? i personally used a bullet list format here, but instead of using all my characters up to list everything, i also put a couple words describing why i liked what i wrote. also, i maybe would not list everything in the same “genre” as in don’t make everything in your list books, or all of it films... (see why in this answered question here). for newspapers & websites, again just use the method of listing out as much as you can, and get rid of redunancies to save space. for ex i would’t include both the slate and vox on my list (unless i had the room for it) simply bc they don’t reveal anything new. also, be honest - i totally put tumblr on my list just so y’all know
What is the most significant challenge that society faces today? ahh, the miss america question. in my honest opinion this isn’t the best question to ask bc just what do they expect us to write in such a tiny amount of space? but the most i can tell you here is to be specific, even if it’s what you think is a “cliche.” don’t be afraid to talk about world hunger, but make sure you address it in specific terms or from a new perspective. also idk if this helped my app, but i made sure my answer somewhat related to my majors of interest
How did you spend your last two summers? pretty self-explanatory question. i will say don’t be afraid if you didn’t do anything ~productive. just talk about experiences you had - to me, hiking your favorite mountain with your dog is just as cool as some summer program
What were your favorite events (e.g., performances, exhibits, competitions, conferences, etc.) in recent years? i really ran the whole spectrum with this answer. i talked about book panels i had been to as well as a food festival... but like i said, short takes should (imo) supplement your application as well as introduce something you maybe didn’t get a chance to talk about in your app. i’m really into prison reform, but didn’t get a chance elsewhere to talk about it, so i mentioned a panel where i met a prison reform activist
What historical moment or event do you wish you could have witnessed? this was the hardest one for me, i don’t know why. i think it’s a combination of trying to find something original but also meaningful and the literally endless possibilities. i finally settled on something that somewhat reflected my passions and political beliefs (i think it’s dumb when people tell you you shouldn’t be political on your app. obviously don’t be offensive, but since my whole “thing” was wanting to work in politics and volunteering for campaigns, it would have been misleading to erase all that from my app). what helped me was avoiding the “reflex answer” - for example, if you consider yourself a civil rights activist, the reflex answer is mlk, jr. and while ofc he is incredibly important, it might be better to go with something that not everyone would think of
What five words best describe you? look up “best way to describe yourself” on google, and then try not to use those words lol. while you may be conscientious, passionate, determined...so are most people who apply. think outside the box, maybe don’t even use five separate words but go for a five-worded sentence
that’s all i can think of for now hopefully this will help one or two of you.
p.s. thanks to this anon for asking about tips for the short takes section on the stanford app! send any more questions my way, i know college app season must be taking a huge toll on all the seniors rn!
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hey pls do a post on short takes! i love this part of the app but it's also super nerve wracking thank you soo much for helping anxious, confused applicants like me! ily
i’m going to work on this rn, hopefully will post tomorrow!!
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