what matters most to you and why stanford sample essay

What matters most to you and why: Stanford GSB Essay

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Stanford GSB seeks outstanding and diverse people who seek a transformative experience at Stanford GSB and in turn, seek to transform lives, organizations and the world — that is, to make a significant impact. The GSB is looking for people who will make a big difference and have a better shot than most in being able to execute. Stanford GSB students often have an ‘unexpected’ trait, talent, or experience. The Stanford application essays are essential to showcasing character and experiences as well as the key evaluation criteria of leadership, intellectual vitality, and personal qualities.

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Successful Examples of Stanford GSB Essays

Here’s a snapshot of the caliber of expertise on our SBC team .

HBS Admissions Board at Harvard Business School HBS MBA

HBS Admissions Board at Harvard Business School Kellogg MBA

Director HBS Admissions at Harvard Business School MBA, the Wharton School

HBS Admissions Board at Harvard Business School

Director HBS Admissions at Harvard Business School HBS MBA

Admissions Officer at Stanford's Graduate School of Business (GSB) MBA, Stanford's Graduate School of Business (GSB)

Asst Director MBA Admissions at Stanford's Graduate School of Business (GSB) Director MBA Admissions at Berkeley’s Haas School of Business

MBA, Stanford's Graduate School of Business (GSB) Minority Admissions, the GSB Diversity Programs, the GSB

Associate Director MBA Admissions at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania

Associate Director MBA Admissions and Marketing at the Wharton MBA’s Lauder Institute

Director, the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania Professional Writer

Assistant Director MBA Admissions at Columbia Business School (CBS) NYU Admissions

Assistant Director MBA Admissions at Columbia Business School (CBS) M.S.Ed, Higher Education, U of Pennsylvania

Associate Director MBA Admissions at Columbia Business School (CBS)

Ashley is a former MBA Admissions Board Member for Harvard Business School (HBS), where she interviewed and evaluated thousands of business school applicants for over a six year tenure.  Ashley  holds an MBA from HBS. During her HBS years,  Ashley  was the Sports Editor for the Harbus and a member of the B-School Blades Ice Hockey Team. After HBS, she worked in Marketing at the Gillette Company on Male and Female shaving ...

Kerry is a former member of the Admissions Board at Harvard Business School (HBS). During her 5+ year tenure at HBS, she read and evaluated hundreds of applications and interviewed MBA candidates from a wide range of backgrounds across the globe. She also led marketing and outreach efforts focused on increasing diversity and inclusion, ran the Summer Venture in Management Program (SVMP), and launched the 2+2 Program during her time in Admissions. Kerry holds a B.A. from Bates College and  ...

A former associate director of admissions at Harvard Business School, Pauline served on the HBS MBA Admissions Board full-time for four years. She evaluated and interviewed HBS applicants, both on-campus and globally.  Pauline's career has included sales and marketing management roles with Coca-Cola, Gillette, Procter & Gamble, and IBM.  For over 10 years, Pauline has expertly guided MBA applicants, and her clients h ...

Geri is a former member of the Admissions Board at Harvard Business School (HBS).  In her 7 year tenure in HBS Admissions, she read and evaluated hundreds of applications and interviewed MBA candidates from a diverse set of academic, geographic, and employment backgrounds.  Geri also traveled globally representing the school at outreach events in order to raise awareness for women and international students.  In additio ...

Laura comes from the MBA Admissions Board at Harvard Business School (HBS) and is an HBS MBA alumnus. In her HBS Admissions role, she evaluated and interviewed hundreds of business school candidates, including internationals, women, military and other applicant pools, for five years.  Prior to her time as a student at HBS, Laura began her career in advertising and marketing in Chicago at Leo Burnett where she worked on th ...

Andrea served as the Associate Director of MBA Admissions at Harvard Business School (HBS) for over five years.  In this role, she provided strategic direction for student yield-management activities and also served as a full member of the admissions committee. In 2007, Andrea launched the new 2+2 Program at Harvard Business School – a program targeted at college junior applicants to Harvard Business School.  Andrea has also served as a Career Coach for Harvard Business School for both cu ...

Jennifer served as Admissions Officer at the Stanford (GSB) for five years. She holds an MBA from Stanford (GSB) and a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Jennifer has over 15 years experience in guiding applicants through the increasingly competitive admissions process into top MBA programs. Having read thousands and thousands of essays and applications while at Stanford (GSB) Admiss ...

Erin served in key roles in MBA Admissions--as Director at Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley and Assistant Director at Stanford's Graduate School of Business (GSB). Erin served on the admissions committee at each school and has read thousands of applications in her career. At Haas, she served for seven years in roles that encompassed evaluation, outreach, and diversity and inclusion. During her tenure in Admissions at GSB, she was responsible for candidate evaluation, applicant outreach, ...

Susie comes from the Admissions Office of the Stanford Graduate School of Business where she reviewed and evaluated hundreds of prospective students’ applications.  She holds an MBA from Stanford’s GSB and a BA from Stanford in Economics. Prior to advising MBA applicants, Susie held a variety of roles over a 15-year period in capital markets, finance, and real estate, including as partner in one of the nation’s most innovative finance and real estate investment organizations. In that r ...

Dione holds an MBA degree from Stanford Business School (GSB) and a BA degree from Stanford University, where she double majored in Economics and Communication with concentrations in journalism and sociology. Dione has served as an Admissions reader and member of the Minority Admissions Advisory Committee at Stanford.   Dione is an accomplished and respected advocate and thought leader on education and diversity. She is ...

Anthony served as the Associate Director of MBA Admissions at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, where he dedicated over 10 years of expertise. During his time as a Wharton Admissions Officer, he read and reviewed thousands of applications and helped bring in a class of 800+ students a year.   Anthony has traveled both domestically and internationally to recruit a ...

Meghan served as the Associate Director of Admissions and Marketing at the Wharton MBA’s Lauder Institute, a joint degree program combining the Wharton MBA with an MA in International Studies. In her role on the Wharton MBA admissions committee, Meghan advised domestic and international applicants; conducted interviews and information sessions domestically and overseas in Asia, Central and South America, and Europe; and evaluated applicants for admission to the program. Meghan also managed ...

Amy comes from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania where she was Associate Director. Amy devoted 12 years at the Wharton School, working closely with MBA students and supporting the admissions team.  During her tenure at Wharton, Amy served as a trusted adviser to prospective applicants as well as admitted and matriculated students.  She conducted admissions chats with applicants early in the admissions ...

Ally brings six years of admissions experience to the SBC team, most recently as an Assistant Director of Admission for the full-time MBA program at Columbia Business School (CBS).  During her time at Columbia, Ally was responsible for reviewing applications, planning recruitment events, and interviewing candidates for both the full-time MBA program and the Executive MBA program. She traveled both internationally and dome ...

Erin has over seven years of experience working across major institutions, including University of Pennsylvania, Columbia Business School, and NYU's Stern School of Business. At Columbia Business School, Erin was an Assistant Director of Admissions where she evaluated applications for both the full time and executive MBA programs, sat on the admissions and merit scholarship committees and advised applicants on which program might be the best fit for them based on their work experience and pro ...

Emma comes from the MBA Admissions Office at Columbia Business School (CBS), where she was Associate Director.  Emma conducted dozens of interviews each cycle for the MBA and EMBA programs, as well as coordinating the alumni ambassador interview program. She read and evaluated hundreds of applications each cycle, delivered information sessions to audiences across the globe, and advised countless waitlisted applicants.

Respect is the one word that sums up my life’s passions. At first glance, this simple word may seem a bit vacuous to describe something so profound to my being. But respect has truly been the guiding principle in my life: the one that I learned at an early age, the one that has influenced my decisions, and the one that drives me today.

As the son of American expatriates, I was raised abroad in a sea of diversity. To foster our development, my parents immersed my brother and me in local culture. We attended bullfights and visited flea markets tucked into the hillsides of the Andes Mountains. Living and interacting with residents of these distant lands taught us to respect those different than us. Through active involvement with the local heritage and customs, we learned that people are people everywhere and that all initially deserve my consideration and respect.

As I matured, this worldview guided my social interactions and ultimately shaped my diverse group of friends. The lessons of respect, taught from my experiences abroad, have given me an open and accepting personality. When I meet new people, I consider their circumstances and try to appreciate their point of view. As we learn about each other, it’s those select occurrences when a new person treats me with the same regard – considers my feelings and returns the respect I bestow – that we initiate the bonds of true friendship. This dogma has helped me forge a diverse band of brothers that serves as a foundation in my life. I met one of my adopted brothers in high school. He was a Russian immigrant whose parents had forsaken him at age 16. He worked the night shift at McDonald’s to support himself, but was kind enough to buy me, a stranger, dinner. A man who would offer so much when he had so little, especially to a stranger, earned my respect. He represents a fraction of my extended family. While each of my companions holds different and important beliefs, our underlying respect ties us together.

My grandfather furthered my lessons on respect. Born in Russia in 1927, he immigrated to the United States at age 21 as the Communist Party planted its roots. As a displaced immigrant, he arrived without friends and knowing little English. Nevertheless, he held two jobs, attended night school and completed his mechanical engineering degree in nine years – all while supporting a growing family of five. My grandfather’s life story and his sacrifices have instilled a strong work ethic in me. More importantly, the admiration I have for his achievements has engendered my deepest respect. His accomplishments taught me to respect my past and seize opportunities to honor those who came before me. While not an explicit lesson, I have applied these values to the core of my decision-making process. To dismiss what was surrendered for my well-being is to disrespect my heritage.

Respect drove my decision to attend the University of Alabamaon a merit-based scholarship. Although I had other options, I felt that my family had worked very hard to support me, and the opportunity to earn my education at minimal cost would, in some small way, repay my family. I remembered my grandfather’s teachings as I earned my degree. Given my free tuition, I crammed my schedule with courses in biological engineering and finance. I joined a prominent fraternity and established a tutoring program for struggling members. Using my personal computer, I formed a small online business to generate revenue for personal expenses. Having the luxury of some free time, I invested myself in community service activities. Teachings of respect have guided my life. They influence the way I interact, the way I make decisions, and the way I want others to treat me. Respect is at the heart of my friendships, and it is respect that gives me my drive to succeed. I strive to respect myself and earn respect from my family, friends, and co-workers, as well as from those who I have yet to meet. My values of respect have shaped me and will continue to define me.

When I was a little girl, my dream was to grow up and marry the king of Morocco. Yes, I admit, I wanted to be a queen, wear beautiful clothes, and live in a marvelous palace. But deep inside of me, I think I also wanted to play a role in Morocco’s destiny, to help lead it into an era of modernity. For me, the king of Morocco represented the Moroccan people and, as such, was the person who could do the most for our country. To my young mind, he seemed like the ideal partner to accompany me in my crusade. Growing up, I became more realistic and gave up the marriage goal. (Both the king of Morocco and I are married, so there is not a big chance of it happening anyway!). However, I still maintain dreams of helping Morocco develop. Accepting responsibility for these dreams has meant accepting that the path that best enables me to accomplish them may actually require me to live outside Morocco for some time. What matters most to me is keeping in touch with my Moroccan roots and doing what I can to give back to where I came from.

?My first sixteen years in Morocco contributed to my deep love for its rich traditions, varied culture, and contradictions. The Moroccan people are very warm and friendly. Strangers are welcomed into private homes and invited to share meals from the same plate. The Moroccan idea of family is much broader than in the West: it encompasses parents, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, neighbors, even friends. In fact, following custom, I call my mother’s girlfriends “aunt.” Since a typical family gathering may include 100 people, I usually bump into a lot of aunts. ?The Moroccan cuisine, cooked in terracotta containers, mirrors the country’s diverse origins. Spices from different origins–saffron, curcuma, cumin, cinnamon—are mixed into a savory blend that is often cited as one of the most appreciated in the world. Morocco’s unique geographical position, between the Western and oriental worlds, between the North and the South, also makes it a historical crossroads of cultures: the Berbers from the Atlas Mountains, the Spanish from Andalusia, and the Arabs from the Middle East. As a result, each region of the country possesses its own unique identity, which contributes to the national culture as well as its own legacy. For example, since I am from Rabat, the capital of Morocco, at my wedding I was proud to wear the wedding dress specific to the “Rabati’s bride.”

?At the same time, Morocco is a true melting pot of world religions. It is perhaps one of the few places on earth where Muslims and Jews live in perfect harmony. On his deathbed, King Mohamed the Fifth, who led Morocco to independence from France, told his son, the soon to be King Hassan the Second: “take care of my Jewish people.” I was educated to live among all religions, and my best friends were Christians, Jews, and Muslims. We respected their holidays, and they respected ours. We learned their principles as they learned ours. This multidimensional education taught me one of my most important principles, tolerance, especially essential for someone destined to live abroad. This principle has always helped me to understand others and respect their opinions even if it completely contradicted my own.

?As I grew up, I also became more aware of Morocco’s contradictions: the great differences between the “haves” and the “have-nots,” the illiteracy (50% of the population can’t read), the disturbing plight of many women (in rural areas, 90% of women are illiterate), and the weak economy. Yet, despite all this, I believe that Morocco can find growth and prosperity by investing in information technology, particularly since every year Morocco trains many high-quality engineers eager to be part of its economic development.

?Some of my optimism for Morocco stems from my pride in the accomplishments of my own family. During the 15th century, my ancestors, engineers and sailors from Spain, fled from religious persecution into Morocco (specifically, Fez and Rabat) where they became ship builders and traveled the seas. This heritage of travel fits well with my sense of myself today as a multicultural person–I too am driven to seek out challenging international experiences. As a young girl, for example, I traveled all over Europe, South Africa, and along the Mediterranean Sea. Later, I lived in France for seven years and have lived in the United States now for two.

?Naturally, I have inherited my family’s interests and skills. From my father I inherited quantitative strengths and the problem-solving temperament of an engineer. He is a reflective but independent man who owns his own carton manufacturing business. I spent many hours in his factory learning about operations and managing people (my father has 70 employees, from factory workers and engineers to salesmen and administrators). From my father I also inherited my love of nature. The country is still where we both go to find calm away from the pressures of life. Some of my favorite memories are the hours we spent discussing the hazards and pleasures of agriculture on the country property where he grew strawberries.

?My mother, however, has been my true role model, and it was from her that I inherited my drive and leadership skills. She is Morocco’s first dermatologist and first female professor of medicine. She has always been a great inspiration to me and a great source of emotional support. The grand lesson she taught me is that if a woman wants to be successful, she has to be the best, better than any male. This is a rule she has always applied to herself.

?Even my mother embodies Morocco’s contradictions. She is a very modern woman who assumes great responsibility in her professional and private lives, but a traditional woman as well. While she supports my loftiest ambitions she also insists that I learn how to cook and learn more housekeeping skills! So, during my vacations, at her insistence, I took cooking classes to become the more “perfect” housewife.

?Throughout my childhood, family conversations often focused on Morocco’s problems and ways to solve them. My mother’s concern for Morocco led to her election as director of the education and healthcare department of Forum 21, a not-for-profit organization that proposes situation analyses and makes recommendations to Morocco’s legislators. Like my mother, I also attend the Forum 21 sessions to discuss Morocco’s problems with other participants. Part of my patriotic impulse to help Morocco stems from my parents and the socially focused environment they created.

?I was educated in a French school in the capital of Morocco, Rabat. Not only did I have both French and Moroccan professors, but the French school also attracted all the foreigners living in Rabat. As a result, it has always seem perfectly natural to me to have classmates or co-workers from all over the world: Europe, Japan, China, Africa, the U.S.. ?At the French school, we were taught French history, French literature, French civilization, and even France’s civil rights and laws! It’s no wonder that I became eager to discover this country from the inside, and perhaps other challenges as well. I also wanted to study in the engineering field because I was not only attracted by quantitative disciplines but also because I knew Morocco needed all kinds of engineers (mechanical, chemistry, software…) to build its developing economy. After my high school graduation, my excellent grades enabled me to obtain my French high school diploma with the highest honors, ranking first among 300 senior students. In 1994, I was admitted to the most selective Classes Préparatoires aux Grandes Ecoles, the preparatory classes for scientific and engineering French schools, at the Lycee Louis Le Grand in Paris. My peers were all the best students of their high schools, and the competition was tougher than anything I had known. The only things that mattered to me then were mastering math, physics, chemistry, philosophy, and the next subject so I could be among the 5 percent who made it into the best schools. At Lycee Louis Le Grand, students are called “taupes” (“moles” in English) because the study program is so intense you have to bury yourself in your books with little chance of ever seeing daylight. After a few months, many students feel like giving up and leaving the program (30% actually do after the first year). I found myself in a radically new environment, facing the additional challenge to adapt to a harsh competitive process. Fortunately, my determination saved me from becoming discouraged by the workload. At the end of these grueling preparatory classes, I took competitive exams for France’s scientific schools. I was admitted to all the best French Grandes Ecoles and joined Ecole Polytechnique (whose acceptance rate is around 3%) as the only female foreigner admitted out of 6,000 applicants!

?While I was a student at the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris, I met my husband, a Moroccan national who was born in France and has lived in France, Turkey, and the United States. This encounter was another kind of cross-cultural experience for me as my husband is a Moroccan expatriate who has never lived in Morocco. Our visions of Morocco are clearly different, and this has always put some spice in our relationship! He is also passionate about negotiation and psychological impacts of interpersonal relationships.

?After 4 more years in France, where I worked as a Business Analyst for Arthur D. Little, My husband and I decided to start from scratch and begin a new life on the west coast of the U.S. For him, it meant fulfilling an old dream, an academic career (in fact, he is now a third-year Ph.D. student in the Organizational Behavior Department of the Stanford Graduate School of Business). For me, it meant Silicon Valley, the “Mecca” of new technologies, start-ups, and entrepreneurs; the home of brilliant young technology “freaks” and billionaires; and a legendary place of advanced knowledge. In the Valley, I could learn even more about telecommunications and the Internet, my practice area at Deloitte and the industry in which I am determined to build my career. Three months after transferring to Deloitte’s Palo Alto office, I began to realize that staying in consulting, where one is by definition more an observer than an actor, would prevent me from being at the center of things. To be at the leading edge of technology advances, I decided instead to work in a research & development position and joined France Telecom R&D.

?Since 1994, then, I have lived the “expatriate’s life” outside Morocco for more than a third of my young life. It might seem natural for me to have distanced myself from my Moroccan preoccupations and my crusade for Morocco’s development. But my extended absence from my homeland has actually intensified my love for it, and I still return to Morocco four times a year (whether I am in France or in the U.S.).

?I express my love for Morocco in many ways. In my personal life, I have maintained most of my close friendships in Morocco, and visit each of them as much as I can when I return there. I also fast during the month of Ramadan and observe the same Ramadan traditions that I would if I were in Morocco (I cook the traditional soup, Harira, for example, and I gather with friends for the traditional breaking of the fast).

?I also express my love through community service. As a student at Ecole Polytechnique, I joined the AMGE, the Moroccan French Grandes Ecoles Students Association. In particular, I was in charge of organizing the annual job fair, which invited Moroccan companies operating in France to meet with and recruit Moroccan students studying in France. In 1998, I convinced ten of these companies to spend around $2,000 each to participate in the fair, and they eventually hired seven Moroccan students for entry and mid-level positions. ?In 1999, I also led the organization of a festival at Ecole Polytechnique that AMGE sponsored to help Paris-area French and European students discover Moroccan music and food. I arranged to have Moroccan belly dancers perform and served Moroccan specialties and mint tea. The event was a total success: more than 500 individuals attended, and since then, the Moroccan festival has become an annual institution organized every year by the AMGE in a different Grande Ecole.

?As an Ecole Polytechnique student, I also joined the humanitarian association, Action Sociale de la KES (ASK), which organized tutoring sessions in the poorer suburbs of Paris. Through ASK, I began tutoring Malika, a nine-year-old Moroccan girl who, knowing only Arabic, could not understand her classes. For a year and a half I tutored her in French and math for two hours every week. She opened up to me personally and told me stories about her life and her dreams. At her end of year party, I was happy to be able to meet her family and congratulate them in Arabic for their daughter’s accomplishment. She was admitted to the next grade.

?These first experiences at helping Morocco “from a distance” were intensely satisfying and inspired me to think of bigger, more ambitious ways to help. Two years ago, my father and my brother created a company called that promotes Moroccan handicrafts by selling them all over the world via a web site. I was closely involved from the beginning as a shareholder, and I was particularly responsible for selecting the pieces of Moroccan handicraft we sold and transforming part of them to make them more appealing for the western market, like changing colors and materials while keeping the original features. I spent my vacations traveling around Morocco, meeting with craftspeople and convincing 60 of them, representing more than 15 corporations, to become our partners in showing off the beauty of Moroccan crafts. My challenge was to have them agree to sign off on our “quality charter,” which requires them to respect copyright laws and satisfy Western quality standards. Today, it is a successful company with revenues of over $500,000 in 2004, mainly in Europe. At Stanford, I would like to work on a project to learn how to promote the company in the United States and write a business plan toward this goal.

?In Morocco, I am also one of the founders and since 1999 have been the president of a small association that is dedicated to improving Morocco’s educational system. We publish a quarterly journal on the status of education in Morocco, and we fund 20 scholarships a year for Moroccans aged 8 to 12 who lack family or resources, so they can study in Morocco’s best schools. From my own finances, I also personally sponsor two of these scholarships (amount in Moroccan currency : 15,000 DH, which represents $1,500) and meet with my two young scholars every time I return to Morocco. At Stanford I would to give this association an international dimension by building new relationships with similar U.S. associations, either through a summer internship or through the Africa Business Club. We would ask for support from U.S. companies that deal directly with Morocco. With these funds, we would also organize immersion trips to Morocco for U.S. high school students and to the U.S. for Moroccan high school students.

?I have also integrated my love for Morocco into my professional life. I am the project manager in San Francisco for Studio Creatif, France Telecom R&D’s futurist lab for thinking imaginatively about the future of the organization. I am in charge of designing new concepts of telecommunication services to be offered by France Telecom to CEOs in 2012. In 2002, I interviewed 30 CEOs and would-be CEOs in France and in the United States to understand how they picture themselves in the future. To enrich the study and give it a stronger international dimension, I decided to include Moroccan CEOs in my sample since it is important to me to look at the other, developing world side of the “globalization” coin. So, during one of my vacations in Morocco I interviewed five leading Moroccan CEOs. Finally, I have also integrated my love for Morocco into my professional long-term goals. As I elaborate in essay B, I plan to take advantage of my position at the international division of a global telecommunications company to contribute to help North African countries develop telecommunications and Internet industries.

?My ability to deepen my contribution to Morocco’s future will not rely only on my professional experiences and skills, however. My broad international experiences—in France, Europe, Africa, and the U.S.–have given me interpersonal skills and a sense of perspective that will be essential as I implement my ambitious my dreams of helping Morocco.

?Seeking out multicultural experiences is one of my joys. When I was a Research Assistant at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, in 1999, I had an American roommate and an Indian roommate. Though I considered myself, as a Parisian and Moroccan, to be a cosmopolitan person, Anuradha was the first Indian I had ever met. We quickly began sharing our stories and experiences about our countries, and exchanging our favorite dishes. We both realized that though Morocco and India are distant geographically, our cultures and traditions were very similar. For example, we both had a henna ceremony in our weddings. This instinct to share and learn will help me build partnerships as I work toward Morocco’s brighter future.

?Today, as a Product Manager at France Telecom Research & Development, I am in charge of pitching eBusiness-related R&D project proposals to internal sponsors in France in order to win budgets for our research and manage these R&D projects. This requires me to play the role of intermediary between ours labs in France and San Francisco. As such, I often have to switch fluently from one culture to the other. Because of the time difference, the American team frequently uses email to send proposals, exchange comments, and obtain approvals. Even though I was not a huge fan of emails in France, I quickly adopted it as a primary means of communication since the San Francisco office prefers written to oral exchanges. In fact, I became so immersed in American office culture that I almost forgot that the French still prefer direct, phone-based exchanges for in-depth discussions. Learning how to work comfortably and well in the style that is most appropriate for a given culture has helped me to obtain the research budgets I need to achieve our goals.. These intercultural skills will also help me help Morocco.

?Though it looks like I may never have the chance to become Queen of Morocco, I will gladly settle for having a big impact on the future of Morocco.

Sharing a makeshift cake with strangers at the Charlotte airport as the clock strikes midnight on my birthday. Meeting with a Partner on the mountains of Park City, so breathless by the elevation I can barely get a word in. Dashing from an anniversary dinner to catch an impromptu flight to London for a project kick-off. My resume will have detailed my professional experiences to-date, but underneath each of the bullets are dozens of memories like the above. Upon reflection of these memories, one thing I know for sure is that I am not the typical Consultant. I have chosen adaptability to define me above other characteristics that may have hindered me from pursuing this path.

My favorite personality test will tell you that I am introverted, intuitive, a thinker, and a planner. Growing up, I was markedly different from my sisters, and you could typically find me reading in the clothing racks as my mother took us shopping, or out loud in the back seat of our family car while my sisters tried to listen to their favorite N*Sync song. As I considered my future career, my instinct told me that an introverted bookworm should not pursue a client-facing, heavily social and unpredictable career filled with endless experiences like the above.

Three years later, I am thankful that I overcame these fears and insecurities and adapted myself to the life of a Consultant, fully embracing these experiences. For others, adaptability might mean something else, but everyone will have to embrace some version of adaptability in the near future. At X, my focus has been building a market around the Future of Work – how technology, demographics, and globalization will change the nature of work. I have become a leader in this space, crafting our response to clients’ questions for dozens of discussions, pursuits, and conferences. I have succeeded at developing compelling thought leadership, but the fundamental challenge of driving this point of view in market is similar to the fears I once held as I embarked on my career.

I believe the central theme of the Future of Work is the concept of adaptability – the need for companies and individuals alike to be agile and willing to engage in lifelong learning to keep up with today’s constant rate of change. In the same way that I overcame my fears to pursue my passions, millions of workers (and their leaders) will have to overcome theirs in order to succeed in a future that is increasingly uncertain and irrevocably different – and that is a difficult pill to swallow.

Adapting to uncomfortable situations does not come naturally to many. Fortunately, my personal journey and background has accelerated this skill for me. I am the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors and the daughter of a failed small business owner who reinvented himself at 50. The epitome of strength and adaptability, my grandparents came to America after being liberated from the camps, started a family in Queens and opened a small Jewish bakery that was eventually passed on to my father. By the time I was born, the business was being overrun by supermarkets and my father’s lack of passion became its downfall. I grew up in an environment of uncertainty, but also with a role model who learned an entirely new trade after a 25-year career and found a job that excites him every day.

The time came for me to embrace the strength and adaptability of my forefathers this past November, when my mother suffered a sudden and fatal heart attack. Moving forward seemed inconceivable, but the following year turned out to be the highlight of my career to-date. The same week that my mother passed, I was offered a role directly supporting a Human Capital Partner in building a new practice grounded in the thought leadership I helped to develop in the Future of Work space. Despite my personal hardships, I could not pass up the opportunity to be involved in transforming the face of Human Capital. I took on the role, and was immediately immersed in setting the strategy for the new business that will deliver large-scale transformations following Future of Work discussions. This has meant gaining experience with cognitive technologies, considering how they will fundamentally change jobs, and developing new ways to transform the workforce for the future. It has been a fast-paced role, vastly different from traditional Consulting client work. Adaptability has revealed itself not only in the wake of life’s hardest moments, but also during exciting times like these, pushing me to take on ambiguous and advanced roles at X.

My insight into adaptability has been a personal journey that impacted not only my professional focus, but also my community work. Much of the struggle my father experienced in changing his career path came from not having a college degree. As a first generation college graduate, my passion for literacy and education access has steered me to become a leader in my community as a founding Board member of X and a volunteer high school mentor. I try to instill adaptability in the students I mentor and the non-profit leaders and school administrators I have the pleasure of working with, sharing the opportunities afforded by the same disruption my clients face such as rethinking the skills we teach our students, crowdsourcing global expertise to the classroom, and augmenting the physical classroom with digital tools. Adaptability in this context does not only mean prevailing over hardship to pursue your passions, but also fundamentally changing the way we think about delivering education in the future.

Grounded in the concept of adaptability, my personal, professional and community experiences have informed my dream of becoming an eminent strategist on transitioning Fortune 500s to the Future of Work and a Board member of innovative education NPOs transforming how we develop the future workforce. In pursuing an MBA from HBS, I will be able to bring my own unique perspectives and ability to adapt to the unparalleled case method, peer and alumni network and global community. This will accelerate and broaden my thinking on how to instill adaptability into organizations and our future workforce, ultimately deepening my ability to lead through the transition to the Future of “X”– work, education – you fill in the blank.

Being a part of the growth story for both my nation and my family’s business is what matters most to me. My experiences have led to my strong attachment to home and family, and I feel a strong responsibility to develop a legacy for Brasil and for Mendonca Propriedades, our family real estate development firm.

In retrospect, growing up in Sao Paulo was an experience of tremendous exposure to both wealth and poverty. Through our family business I interacted often with both middle class people like my own family, and those who had trouble paying their rent. This was just life as I knew it, and the culture and vitality of the city was what I focused on as I enjoyed international cuisine and celebrated Carnaval every year. My mother and father enjoyed art and culture and often took us to museums and events. My experience of Sao Paulo and Brasil was one of excitement and color.

When I attended University in the United States I was exposed to the stark contrast between my colorful, tropical city and what life was like in the US. While I was accustomed to the visual contrast between rich and poor in Sao Paulo, Ithaca New York was a city where most people lived a similar life. When I hosted friends in my home in Brasil they were shocked by the favelas (slums) visible through my high rise apartment windows. I was able to see my city with new eyes, and I wanted to do something about it.

Brasil is poised to be the economic powerhouse of South America, and I want to be part of this development and be a force for greater economic equality. The new opportunities in Brasil should be available to everyone – and the key is both access to sanitary dwellings and education. Since college I have volunteered to spend a few weeks a year teaching soccer to children in favelas, along with tutoring. I also run a fundraising effort every year for education in Brasil and have encouraged many of my friends to join my volunteer vacations.

In the long-term I plan to orient my career around developing our family business to have both a for-profit and pro-bono element. As I assist my father in growing our development activities in Sao Paulo and other cities in Brasil I will also set up a program where our employees may donate their time to help non-profit development organizations build affordable housing for the poorest residents of our city.

The economic renaissance in Brasil must lead us both to stronger development and to help those who are less fortunate. I plan to develop this legacy both for the city I love and for my family. I hope to see my children take over our business someday, and I want them to be proud of what we have accomplished.

SBC’s star-studded consultant team is unparalleled. Our clients benefit from current intelligence that we receive from the former MBA Admissions Officers from Harvard HBS, Stanford GSB and every elite business program in the US and Europe.  These MBA Admissions Officers have chosen to work exclusively with SBC.

Just two of the many superstars on the SBC team: Meet Erin , who was Assistant Director of MBA Admissions at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business (GSB) and Director of MBA Admissions at Berkeley’s Haas School of Business.

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How to Answer Stanford GSB’s Essay: What Matters Most To You and Why?

In opening its application for the 2020-2021 cycle, Stanford GSB  demonstrated that its iconic essay question persists for well over a decade.

Stanford’s “What matters most to you, and why?” query embodies the sentiment ‘simple but not easy.’ It demands a level of profound self-awareness and unapologetic authenticity that can overwhelm the most excellence-driven applicant in the hopes of conveying something distinctive, intelligent and resonant.”

Regardless of whether Stanford GSB is on your application shortlist, dedicating time to think about this question is a valuable, notes Fortuna’s Tatiana Nemo , a Stanford GSB alum & former MBA admissions interviewer. “This kind of perspective-taking helps unearth a clarity of purpose that’s invaluable for anyone who’s ever wrestled with the expectations of others, peer pressure and unexamined momentum,” says Nemo. “If the question is tackled bravely and thoughtfully, with keen focus on the action of speaking from the heart rather than worrying on the effect that doing so will create, then it provides a substantial and valuable view into the applicant’s motivations, character, fears and beliefs.”

Fortuna’s  Heidi Hillis , Stanford GSB grad and former GSB Alumni Interviewer, has encouraged many successful candidates to delve deeper in the spirit of getting this question’s core, which is inextricably linked to the school’s tagline: Change lives. Change organizations. Change the world.

‘A GOLDEN TIME TO PAUSE, GET INTROSPECTIVE & MAKE SURE YOU’RE HEADED WHERE YOU WANT TO GO’

“It is so easy to get caught up in the day-to-day, to plow forward with life and career without really considering our values. It’s a vital thing for everyone to do periodically, but especially early in your career,” says Hillis. “It’s a golden time to pause, get introspective, and make sure you’re headed where you want to go – that you even know where you want to go and what success looks like for you. This essay question makes you stop and think about what it is that makes you who you are.”

So, why has Stanford posed this question  for so long?

Stanford GSB Assistant Dean of MBA Admissions & Financial Aid, Kirsten Moss, discussed  what MBA Admissions really wants  at the CentreCourt MBA Festival in San Francisco in 2017.

“One of the things that has been proven over and over in research is that highly inspirational leaders who get the highest level of performance from their organizations really know what drives them, and they are thinking beyond themselves to the problems they can make change and have an impact on. So in our application one of our key questions is ‘what matters most and why?’, and it has been an iconic question for a long time,” says Moss. “Taking the time to understand what matters to you will be your true north as a leader, no matter what school you go to, in the rest of your life… You will be one step ahead of the game in terms of being able to motivate others.”

So what matters most to you, and why? Listen first to your instinctive gut response and jot it down – we’ll revisit it momentarily.

CONSTRUCT A TIMELINE OF INFLUENCES, CIRCUMSTANCE & MOMENTS THAT HAVE IMPACTED YOU

Stanford suggests aiming to write 650 words (slimmed down from previous years), allowing no more than 1,050 words to cover this essay and a second essay question, “Why Stanford? ” Perhaps you feel you can answer the first part of the question with one word, with things like knowledge, relationships or chocolate. But the belly of the question, the part that discloses your life’s calling and singularly uniquejourney for getting there, requires significant reflection. Why does that particular thing matter to you more than any other?

If you’re getting overwhelmed gazing blank page and blinking cursor, Nemo advises: “Invest time building a timeline of the influences, instances, moments that have shaped you. Dig deep connecting the dots between what has shaped you and who you’ve become. Devote essay A to talk about past and present, and talk about the future in essay B. Both essays need to be coherent and could read as a single story.”

Our expert coaches at Fortuna Admissions offer guidance on how to best approach the structure of these questions, while persuasively relaying your narrative:

• Begin by with recognizing an individual, occasion or experience that poignantly influenced you.
• What lessons, morals and values, did you garner from this person or experience?
• How do you specifically utilize these lessons, morals and values in your daily life, and how do they influence your motivation and views of the world? (Bear in mind Stanford’s motto above.)
• How has your professional progression been linked to the aforementioned?
• Conclude by reiterating the connection between your values and career aspirations, and why these ambitions are important to you.

QUESTIONS TO ASK YOURSELF

If you’re still drawing a blank on what truly matters to you, commence by writing down your formative experiences to date, and examining aspects like:

• What was your childhood like? How did your parents or guardians and your environment impact you? What did you do regularly, elective or mandatory?
• What did your academic path look like? Were you a focused student? How did your peers influence you? Who did you surround yourself with? How did you feel emotionally as a teenager? What were you most involved with?
• What has your professional trajectory looked like? Are you pleased with the choices you’ve made? Do you harbor any regrets? What do you enjoy or dislike about your career and why?
• What extra-curricular engagements and hobbies do you participate in and why?
• What do you love or dread about life? What makes you blissful or unhappy, agitated or upset?
• What keeps you up at night? In this life, what do you sincerely care about?

Look back at all of your responses, including what you originally jotted down as your gut response. Can you distinguish underlying themes throughout? Probably. You might surprise yourself in recognizing an unconscious method to the madness of your life! Think about soliciting friends and family for anecdotes about you that may not be front of mind. By articulating a compelling story, you can highlight the major themes and link them to the overarching ideas communicated in your essays.

DARE TO BE PERSONAL, VULNERABLE AND HONEST

Even though you might have to allocate hours to this essay between brainstorming, due diligence, connecting with others, authoring a draft, then another (and then another), don’t forget that it’s all inside you. As my Fortuna colleague Sharon Joyce  highlighted in Writing a Powerful MBA Essay , “There is no right story other than your own. And the person best poised to tell that story is you.”

Push yourself to be vulnerable, genuine and distinctive. “It is common to see answers like ‘never giving up’ or ‘always to push myself beyond my comfort zone’ – thematically that’s okay, but make sure to go beyond. Give examples and tell stories that only you can tell,” says Hillis. “Don’t tell a story that you think the admissions committee wants to hear – your essay is not a marketing tool. It’s ok – sometimes even better – to share a failure story. Tell the story that defines who you are and how you came to be that way. Use details – colors, smells, feelings. Let the reader go away knowing something that they only could have learned in the essay.”

Shouldn’t we all take the time to ponder what matters most to us and why, whether we’re applying to an MBA program or not? Undertake this exploration a personal challenge, not merely as an obligatory business school essay question. Stanford wants to know what matters most to you, and you should, too.

Want more advice?

View my related article for advice on How to Tackle All Stanford GSB Essays , as well as advice on Stanford GSB’s Short Answer Essay by Fortuna’s Heidi Hillis. You can also check out detailed, expert MBA Essay Tips for all top 20 business schools.

Updated September, 2021

Fortuna Admissions Co-Founder and Director Matt Symonds is Business education industry expert and columnist for Forbes, The Economist, BusinessWeek, the BBC, among other publications. For more free advice and a personal, candid assessment of your chances, you can sign up now for a  free consultation .

The post How to Answer Stanford GSB’s Essay: What Matters Most To You and Why? first appeared on Fortuna .

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Advice, tips and insights from the admissions dream team., table of contents, stanford gsb essays: tips & strategy on writing what matters most.

• By Matt Symonds

The Stanford GSB essays continue to present a formidable exercise in self-awareness.

The Stanford GSB application esssays include two required questions and two optional short-answer questions. From these questions, the GSB wants to understand why we do the things we do, why we make certain choices in life, and the opportunities and challenges we face. Take this on as a personal feat, not just a series of MBA essay questions.

Rather than providing a hard word limit for each essay, the school sets a combined limit for both Stanford GSB essays at 1,000 words. They recommend up to 650 words for the iconic “What matters most to you and why” Essay A and up to 350 words for the “Why Stanford GSB?” essay. They say that they often find effective essays written in far fewer words.

By offering not just one but two optional short answer essays, the GSB is inviting you to get more personal in the main essay A, providing another space for you to detail your professional accomplishments and contributions. The second optional question, under Personal Information, invites you to elaborate on how your background or life experiences have helped shape your recent actions or choices

Stanford GSB Essay A

“What matters most to you and why?” (approx. 650 words)

This notorious question has become emblematic of the Stanford GSB essays, and typically ties applicants in knots as they try to come up with an answer that they hope is clever, striking or profound. The school is looking not just for extremely bright and successful individuals, but also people who have strong values and want to have a positive impact in the world. Taking the time to really think about this question provides invaluable insight into your life purpose and values. The “true you” that emerges from this introspection helps the GSB to evaluate your fit and and potential contribution to the class, which helps them select students forming a diverse and dynamic community.

Stanford suggests aiming to write 650 words/ Maybe you feel that you can answer the first part of the question in one word, with things like love, family or chocolate. But the heart of the question, the part that reveals your life’s calling and uniquely personal journey to get there, requires deeper introspection. Why does that one thing matter more than any other?

If you’re staring in terror at the blank page, Fortuna’s Tatiana Nemo , a Stanford GSB alumna and former MBA admissions interviewer, advises: “Invest some effort in building a timeline of the influences, instances and moments that have shaped you. Dig deep, connecting the dots between what has shaped you and who you’ve become. Devote essay A to talk about the past and present; talk about the future in essay B. Both essays need to be coherent and connected, so they could read as a single story.”

To best tackle the structure of this Stanford GSB essay question, start with identifying a person, event or experience that greatly impacted you, and think about the morals, values and lessons you gained from this experience or interaction. How do you use these lessons today, and how do they impact your drive, your motivation, and your vision of the world? The best Stanford GSB essays that worked in the past delivered a narrative that’s both personal and courageous in answering this question. (Fortuna coaches have sample Stanford GSB essays that have proven effective in the past.)

Even though you might have to spend hours on this essay brainstorming, researching, talking with others, writing a draft, and then another (and then another), just remember that it’s all inside you. It’s your story, and you just have to find it and pull it out.

Kirsten Moss, Stanford GSB’s former assistant dean of MBA admissions & financial aid, explained to Fortuna’s Matt Symonds why the GSB has stuck with this question for so long: “One of the things that has been proven over and over in research is that highly inspirational leaders who get the highest level of performance from their organizations really know what drives them, and they are thinking beyond themselves to the problems they can make change and have an impact on,” Moss told Symonds at a CentreCourt MBA Festival in San Francisco. “Taking the time to understand what matters to you will be your true north as a leader, no matter what school you go to, in the rest of your life… You will be one step ahead of the game in terms of being able to motivate others.”

For more guidance on this question, view my analysis in Forbes .

Why Stanford GSB Essay B

“Why Stanford? Describe your aspirations and how Stanford and your GSB experience will help you realize them.”   (approx. 350 words)

If the first Stanford GSB essay is about your past and present, the second “ Why Stanford GSB ” essay is about your future. Stanford asks you to explain your decision to pursue graduate education in management and the distinctive opportunities you will pursue at Stanford. If you hope to create one of the best Stanford MBA essay examples , then your school research really needs to shine. What classes, clubs, events or other elements of the program and community will catalyze the impact you are aiming to make in the short, medium and long term? Dig deep and get specific; show Stanford that you’ve done more than just read about the different programs on the GSB website .

This is also where you should lay out career vision, in a highly focused and concise way. Beyond connecting the dots for your interviewer, you also really need to be specific to you. Fortuna’s Heidi Hillis , Stanford GSB alum and former alumni interviewer, advises her clients: “Look at every sentence and make sure no one else could have said it. Why do you need to be a better leader? In what way? How is the Stanford MBA and its offerings uniquely positioned to help? Consider specific aspects of your career vision when making the case to Stanford. If you have the room, potentially cite what kind of internship or post-MBA job you’re seeking.”

Optional Essay 1

“Think about times you’ve created a positive impact, whether in professional, extracurricular, academic or other settings. What was your impact? What made it significant to you or to others? You are welcome to share up to three examples.” (200 words for each example)

Introduced for the first time in 2019, this short answer question is a valuable invitation to reveal where you’ve been most impactful. You’ll do well not to consider it optional, and respond with with both substance and specificity. Behind this question is Stanford GSB’s belief that past behavior is the best predictor of future potential. It’s very likely your examples will appear in other parts of the application: a bullet on the resume, a story used to support the recommendation — even on the application itself, which asks you to talk about your “most significant accomplishment” for each job. The best Stanford GSB essay examples all went  deeper with this question and didn’t repeat something that may be found elsewhere. Your responses should add value to your overall application. They should support the essays and the rest of the application, in highlighting why you find each circumstance to be impactful.

Stanford GSB Optional Essay 2

Tell us about a time within the last three years when your background influenced your participation in a situation, interaction, or project. (200 words)

This is a slight revision of a previously used Stanford GSB optional essau, which posed the question in the context of work or school. This wording invites you to draw upon a wider spectrum of situational examples or experiences. In this question, the GSB seeks to uncover the less visible forces that shape candidates’ lives, opportunities, decisions and achievements. This optional essay is a way for the admissions committee to recognize the challenges – or privileges ­– certain applicants face to get to where they are, even when students themselves may not see them as distinctive or noteworthy. Like the required essays, answering this question in an authentic and compelling way requires both substantial introspection and self-awareness. It’s a recognition that beyond your test scores, college  transcripts, and career achievements, prospective students come from different backgrounds that shape both their decisions and actions in invisible ways. Similar to this Berkeley Haas optional essay , it’s a signal that the GSB wants to support the admissions committee’s decision-making by supplying a full and rich understanding of who each applicant truly is.

This question has always been part of the GSB application but has been elevated from a short-answer field on the form to an optional essay. Think of it as a place to talk about an aspect of your life that hasn’t been addressed anywhere else. The good news is that it can also take a more lighthearted turn, touching on a sport you’re involved in, your side gig in improv comedy, your training as a concert pianist. Be sure to show how this has shaped your presence and impact in the workplace.

When you understand and articulate what matters most to you, along with the forces that shape you, you’re claiming a self-awareness and clarity of purpose that set you up for success not just at business school, but also with relationships and career. Stanford wants to know what matters most to you, and so should you.

Let’s Get You In

Fortuna Admissions is a dream team of former MBA admissions directors and officers from top business schools, including Wharton. With our unparalleled collective expertise, we can help you develop a clear vision of your goals for business school and beyond. We work closely with you throughout the application process and provide expert guidance at every stage to maximize your chances of admission to a top school.

Our free consultations are consistently rated as the best in the industry. To learn more about Fortuna and get a candid assessment of your chances of admission to Wharton and other top programs, book your consultation session now .

Want more free advice?

View related articles by Fortuna’s expert coaches on Stanford GSB:

• MBA Admissions Masterclass: How to Get Into Stanford GS B (video)
• MBA Interview Prep for Stanford GSB + Example Behavioral Questions
• MBA Letters of Recommendation: Strategy for Stanford GSB & HBS

You can also view one of our top resources , the MBA Admissions Essay Masterclass featuring   Stanford GSB, below.

All MBA Admissions Essay Masterclasses in our series, featuring insider advice from former gatekeepers of the world’s top business schools, are available on Fortuna’s YouTube channel .

• Posted on July 31, 2024

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Stanford Graduate School of Business Application Essay Example

How many times have you thought about what truly matters most to you? Or what fuels your drive, or what guides your decisions above all else? There is a good chance that you have never thought deeply about your response to any of these questions. That makes the Stanford GSB’s main essay prompt—What matters most to you, and why?—surprisingly vexing. Answering it well requires a considerable amount of introspection and honesty, something we do not always give ourselves the time to do.

The following essay response to “What matters most to you, and why?”, along with its associated commentary, is one of fifty essays featured in  “What Matters?” and “What More?”: 50 Successful Essays for the Stanford GSB and HBS (and Why They Worked) ,  a book co-authored by our firm’s founder,  Liza Weale .

We have selected Jules’ essay to share here because it captures the reflection and authenticity that can make for a successful GSB essay, at least according to the Stanford GSB admissions committee! We also like the essay because of the absence of any single incredible story. Too often, people assume that the only people accepted by into GSB’s MBA program are those who are running a unicorn start-up or are, as the saying goes, “saving the world.” Yet, even more relatable stories can reveal a tremendously inspiring person worthy of attending the GSB!

Stand by Me, Stand by You – Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB) Application Essay Written by Jules, GSB MBA

Pre-reading commentary from liza weale, founder of gatehouse admissions:.

Jules is a reapplicant to the Stanford GSB. Reapplicants have different strategies they can choose from for their new essay submission, and we reached out to Jules to learn how similar this essay was to the first one she submitted. She shared that in her first GSB application, she had focused on relaying what she wanted the GSB to know about her. Afterward, she realized that she had never actually answered the school’s question (for herself or for the admissions committee), and although she had presented a robust, multidimensional picture of who she was, her essay lacked the singular thrust the prompt demands. This time, rather than trying to control how the school might perceive her, she simply answered the question truthfully and sincerely. Kudos to Jules for recognizing the importance of being authentic in her essay!

In the essay, Jules makes no mention of her earlier application. Instead, she discusses three disparate situations—a classmate’s suicide, a difficult sibling relationship, and a company reorganization—and links them via what matters most to her: relationships. Her essay also conveys a strong sense of discovery and reflection, and each challenge better equips her for the next. Another thing Jules does well is openly admit her shortcomings (notably, her impatience with her brother). As we have said before and will undoubtedly say again, business schools are not expecting, or even seeking, perfection. Jules references her impatience matter-of-factly, with no sense of defensiveness or dramatization, thereby earning the reader’s compassion.

Some applicants might think Jules had the “good fortune” of finding herself in what was surely a very difficult work situation, rife with opportunities to demonstrate commitment, integrity, and empathy. Yet BigBoxCo would not likely have put Jules in the middle of this reorganization had she not already displayed these traits. Throughout her essay, Jules’s actions clearly underscore who she is, ultimately giving the GSB admissions committee compelling and sufficient evidence of its desired Demonstrated Leadership Potential.

What matters most to you, and why?

Stand by Me, Stand by You (written by Jules, GSB MBA)

My cell rings. Victoria. One of my co-mentors to a group of high school underclassmen. “Hi… I think you should sit down for this.” Victoria pauses, “Amit killed himself tonight.” [1]

Amit was one of our 40 freshmen mentees. A few times a week, we’d bring the mentees together, as one or in smaller groups, to provide a “safe space” in the school’s high-pressure environment. I’d only been involved in the program 9 months, but it had become integral to my high school experience.

The news of Amit’s suicide rocked me, and my grieving was intense. The school’s guidance counselors reached out, as did friends and family, but I didn’t know how to accept their help. The only people who I felt understood were other members of our group. With them, I could share my feelings of disbelief and guilt and listen to theirs. We used each other to figure out how to grieve and accept what happened. But we also channeled our pain towards action, organizing a Suicide Prevention gathering, visiting Amit’s family, and creating a field day to inspire some happiness.

These relationships saved me, and saved us, and while it took time, I ultimately got through the worst of this period. I was left with a profound appreciation for the power of relationships. I also gained resolve to fix an important one that I’d let languish.

My twin brother Johnny struggled with depression for much of my childhood. Anything set him off, resulting in hours of hysteria and cries for attention. I tried not to upset him, which essentially meant not interacting at all. In fact, Johnny was why I’d begun mentoring: I felt disconnected from him and ill-equipped to help, so I latched onto mentoring in school to build relationships and have an impact.

But after I’d processed much of my grieving for Amit, I started reevaluating my approach with Johnny. I realized I was angry at Johnny for the state of our relationship without taking any responsibility myself. I’d never tried to understand the reasons behind his outbursts and instead assumed ill-intent. I also realized I had never been upfront with him about how his actions impacted me.

Slowly, I got more comfortable dealing with Johnny when I felt he was irrational. I also tried harder to understand his feelings, and I asked him to be honest right back. This hasn’t been easy, and even now that Johnny is in a good place, we still have to intentionally work on our interactions. [2] But it has gotten us to what I gratefully have today—a relationship that is truly one of the most meaningful in my life.

More recently, the importance of relationships again showed itself. I joined BigBoxCo shortly before the company decided to dismantle a 30-person Product Development team. The tasks would be absorbed by folks in other groups, while the 30 people would be reallocated to different areas across BigBoxCo.

Over the next 18 months, I had to maintain absolute secrecy as I documented everything I could about the processes. Without letting on the reason behind my attendance at meetings or my line of questioning, I spent significant time with people who would be impacted by the reorg. I struggled internally, wondering if I could do my job with integrity, without feeling like I was betraying these people, many of whom I called “friend.” [3] I focused on my belief that the reorg was better for the company and those affected, and I hoped my involvement in the project would help me support them once they began their new roles.

After the changes were announced and we moved into implementation, I prioritized connecting with colleagues whom I couldn’t tell about the reorg. I reached out initially to clear the air about my involvement in the project but continued reaching out when I picked up on their eagerness to ask me for advice on navigating the new structure. Throughout this period, I’ve found no one holds anything against me. Instead, many of my relationships have actually gotten stronger—my colleagues seem to trust me and appreciate how committed I am to their success.

To this day I grieve for Amit and mourn the fact that I couldn’t help him more. But, I take solace in the fact that, since his death, I have realized what matters most to me: that I have and form strong relationships. They fulfill me and give meaning to my actions, and in turn, my actions give meaning back to them. [4]

Additional Commentary from Liza:

[1] Dealing with heavy topics such as suicide in a business school essay can be challenging. Stating the situation clearly and simply, with one or two salient details, will provide enough context for the admissions reader to be able to empathize without thinking you are “playing the sympathy card” (to quote candidates who worry the admissions committee might perceive such topics negatively).

[2] Sometimes, candidates are tempted to shout from the hilltops, “Look! I fixed the issue! Just like that!” The truth, of course, is that change takes time, and because Jules admits that the relationship can sometimes still be challenging, the reader is more likely to appreciate her efforts to improve it.

[3] Jules again reveals her struggles, reassuring the reader that she is like the rest of us—human!

[4] Jules chooses to clearly state what matters most to her at the very end of her essay, but by this point, her answer is a foregone conclusion. By laying out the evidence from the start, she has more than convinced us that relationships matter most to her, and as result, she needs very few words for her conclusion.

If you would like to see more examples of successful HBS and GSB essays, you can purchase the entire guide  here .

For strategies on crafting your response to “What matters most to you, and why?”, read our Essay Analysis for the Stanford GSB .

Topics in this resource:

MBA Essay Examples

Stanford Graduate School of Business

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Stanford Essays Examples

Stanford essays examples – introduction.

Located in sunny California, Stanford is a top choice school for many students. In this guide, we’ll look at the Stanford supplemental essays. Then, we’ll review some Stanford essays examples and discuss how they can help you write your own Stanford essay.

Stanford is ranked as one of the best colleges in the US , and for good reason. Students are in control of their learning, whether that means exploring STEM research opportunities or double majoring thanks to Stanford’s quarter system .

It’s no surprise that with Stanford’s popularity, it is a hard school to get into. According to US News, the Stanford acceptance rate is just 4%. The Stanford acceptance rate also ranks Stanford among the most selective schools, so receiving a Stanford acceptance letter is no small feat. 

As you begin the Stanford application process, it can be helpful to review Stanford essays that worked. Then, you can apply the tools from these Stanford essays examples to your own writing.

Our guide to the Stanford essays examples will include:

• The number of Stanford essays to expect on the application
• What matters to you and why Stanford essay examples
• Stanford roommate essay examples, and more!

How many essays does Stanford require?

There are eight required stanford supplemental essays for 2022-23 applicants ..

While eight Stanford essays may seem like a lot, remember that not all the Stanford essays are full-length essays, like the two-to-five-page essays you write for class or the 650-word personal statement you will write for the Common Application. Your Stanford essays help the admissions team get to know you. 

Before we dive into some Stanford supplemental essays examples, let’s think about the Stanford essay prompts. Unlike other schools that only require applicants to write one or two supplemental essays , Stanford requires students to answer multiple short answer and short essay prompts.

Put simply, your Stanford essays help the admissions team learn about you on your own terms.  Just wait until you read our Stanford roommate essay examples – how many college applications ask you to write a letter to your future roommate?

There are two types of Stanford essays: short answer and short essay. 

Stanford short answer.

Short answer Stanford essays can only be 50 words max , so they are only a few sentences long. As you’ll see in our Stanford supplemental essays examples, 50 words is not a lot of space. When answering the short answer Stanford essays, you’ll need to learn how to use your words carefully to make a clear and memorable impact on your reader.

Before you’ve read some Stanford essays examples, you may think these types of Stanford essays don’t allow students much room to express their thoughts and ideas. Later, when we look at Stanford essays that worked, you’ll see just how creative you can be when answering the short answer Stanford essays.

Stanford Short Essay

The short essays are slightly longer. These Stanford essays are between 100 and 250 words long , so you can expect these Stanford essays prompts to be more comprehensive than the short answer prompts. As you read our why Stanford essay examples, note that they fall into this category. Instead of being quick snapshots, the Stanford essays that worked will have more of a narrative , taking the reader through a beginning, middle, and end.

No matter if you are responding to the short essay or short answer Stanford essays, make sure you answer the prompts completely. As the admissions team reviews your Stanford essays, they’ll quickly notice whether you successfully answer the prompt . That means if there is a “what” and “why” section of the prompt, your Stanford essay should thoroughly address both.

By now, you’re probably ready to get into some Stanford essays that worked. First, let’s take a look at the prompts behind our Stanford supplemental essays examples.

What are the Stanford essay prompts?

Next up is the Stanford essay prompts. As previously mentioned, Stanford supplemental essays are two lengths: up to 50 words or 100-250 words. 

Since the Stanford essays are so short, you might think they matter less. However, that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Stanford is a prestigious and selective school. So, Stanford Admissions will expect your most thoughtful and well-executed responses to their questions.

Currently, there are three Stanford short essays (100-250 words) and five short answer Stanford essay prompts (50 words max). These prompts are subject to change each year, so make sure you’ve done your research and found the most up-to-date prompts on Stanford’s application and essays page for first-year applicants and transfer applicants .

Note that some of the Stanford essay examples in this guide are from previous admissions cycles. This means that your Stanford application may ask you to complete a slightly different prompt than you’ll see in our Stanford essays examples. While some of the examples included in this guide may not reflect the current Stanford essay prompts, they can still help you complete your Stanford application.

The short answer Stanford supplemental essay prompts (50 words max) include:

• What is the most significant challenge that society faces today?
• How did you spend your last two summers?
• What historical moment or event do you wish you could have witnessed?
• Briefly elaborate on one of your extracurricular activities, a job you hold, or responsibilities you have for your family.
• Name one thing you are looking forward to experiencing at Stanford.

The longer Stanford supplemental essay prompts (100-250 words) include:

• The Stanford community is deeply curious and driven to learn in and out of the classroom. Reflect on an idea or experience that makes you genuinely excited about learning.
• Tell us about something that is meaningful to you and why.
• 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.

Before we dive into the Stanford essays examples we’ve provided below, let’s start thinking about what it takes to write a great Stanford essay.

How do I write a good Stanford essay?

Just like there is no easy answer to how to get into Stanford, there is no easy answer to how to write a good Stanford essay. Our Stanford supplemental essays examples are all as different and unique as the students that wrote them. You’ll especially notice this once we start looking at Stanford essays that worked (like our what matters to you and why Stanford essay examples). While these Stanford essay examples all respond to the same prompt, each is unique.

That being said, when you look at different Stanford essays examples, you’ll start to notice they have some things in common. All of our Stanford essays examples clearly and concisely answer all aspects of the prompt. They do so in an engaging and specific voice that reflects some element of the writer’s character. This may include their creativity, humor, intellect, or values.

Overall, good Stanford essays examples will reflect positively on who a student is and why they’d be a good fit for Stanford. Part of Stanford’s vision is making a difference, so don’t be afraid to keep that in mind when reviewing our Stanford essays examples.

Stanford Essay Examples

Now, let’s jump into our Stanford supplemental essays examples. Rather than showing you a random collection of Stanford essays, we are focusing on Stanford essays that worked. Each of these Stanford essay examples is well executed . Each of these Stanford essay examples takes a strong approach to the prompts and shows a clear sense of identity and perspective.

First, we’ll take a look at some short answer Stanford supplemental essays examples. Then, we’ll move on to the longer Stanford essay examples, including our Stanford roommate essay examples and our what matters to you and why Stanford essay examples. 

Stanford Essays Examples- Short Answers

What is the most significant challenge that society faces today (50 words), stanford essay examples #1:.

The deterioration of political and personal empathy. There’s been an aggressive devaluing of inclusive mindsets and common ground rules—the kind of solidarity of purpose necessary to accommodate divergent viewpoints, respect evidence, share burdens, and tackle national/international emergencies like climate change and immigration. We are fumbling—in backwards tribalism—while the world burns.

Stanford Essay Examples #2:

Where’s Waldo books. 

By searching for Waldo, we subconsciously teach children that certain people aren’t meant to belong–they are meant to be hunted. Our brains may be hardwired to notice people who are different, but we are instructed to treat those people differently. 

Searching for Waldo must be consciously unlearned. 

Stanford Essay Examples #3:

Ignorance poses a paradoxical issue: we can’t solve a problem that we don’t know exists.

For fifteen years, I heard gentrification and thought humanitarian. The Oxford English Dictionary had even taught me that gentrification means “positive change.” How can such atrocities become noticed when our perceptions are so skewed?

Stanford Essay Examples #4:

Greed. The root of all evil. To make momentous strides towards improving societal conditions, people and corporations must put aside their greed. Unfortunately, greed – the deep, dark desire for power and money – is the dominant force at work in many aspects of society, making it society’s most significant challenge.

These Stanford essays examples are powerful. Each of these Stanford essays examples is also unique. In each response, the writer uses the prompt to showcase their core values and beliefs. 

You might be surprised how much these Stanford essay examples are able to contain in just 50 words. While this prompt does not contain two separate parts asking “what” and “why,” the above Stanford essays that worked answered both parts anyway. All four Stanford essay examples start by clearly naming the challenge (“deterioration of political and personal empathy,” “Where’s Waldo books,” “ignorance,” and “greed”), then explaining why it is a challenge or what this challenge keeps us from.

Next, let’s look at more Stanford essays that worked for other short answer prompts.

How did you spend your last two summers? ( 50 words )

Stanford essays that worked #1.

Learned to drive; internship in Silicon Valley (learned to live alone and cook for myself!); a government Honors program; wrote articles for a publication; lobbied at the Capitol; attended a young writers’ program; read a whole lot.

Stanford Essays that Worked #2

My goal: Adventure

2015: Moved from North Carolina to Texas (mission trip to Birmingham, Alabama in between), vacationed in Orlando.

2016: Pre-college math program in Boston, engineering program at another university, Ann Arbor, mission trip to Laredo, Texas, vacation to northern California including the lovely Palo Alto.

These two Stanford essay examples are snapshots that capture your life outside of school . Both of these Stanford essay examples choose to forego typical sentence structures for a more abbreviated, list-type presentation. This can give you room to include more experiences from your summers.

While these two Stanford essays examples are good, these Stanford essays examples aren’t the end-all be-all for this type of prompt. To improve your response, you might sneak in a “why” element to your answer. 

You might not wish to just list what activities you did over the summer , as this may repeat the kind of information found in an extracurricular or resume portion of your application. So, try to touch on what you learned or how you grew from these activities.

The second of our Stanford essay examples does this well by framing up their experiences into a unified goal: adventure. We then learn more about this student by the fact that adventure to them means exploring STEM topics and giving back to their church community. 

What historical moment or event do you wish you could have witnessed? ( 50 words )

Stanford essay examples #1.

Valentina Tereshkova’s 1963 spaceflight. Tereshkova’s skill, grit, and persistence carried her from working in a textile factory, through grueling tests and training, to becoming the first woman to fly solo in space. Her accomplishment remains symbolic of women’s empowerment and the expanded progress that’s possible with equity in STEM opportunities.

Stanford Essay Examples #2

In 2001, Egyptian authorities raided a gay nightclub, arresting 55 men. The prosecutors tried them under fujur laws—initially passed by Egyptian nationalists to counter British ‘immorality’ during colonization. 

Watching the prosecution construct homosexuality as un-Egyptian would illustrate the extent anti-Western sentiment drove homophobia and how similar anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric remains today. 

Stanford Essay Examples #3

Most definitely Paganini’s legendary one-stringed performance; one-by-one, his violin strings snapped mid-performance until he was left with only the G-string. Being Paganini, he simply continued to play flawlessly all on that single string!

Stanford Essay Examples #4

Change does not happen without courage. I wish I could have witnessed the courage it took for the four A&T students sit in at the Woolworth’s counter in my hometown. I want to see the light overcoming darkness that created a change to last forever.

These Stanford essays examples show what each writer cares about. They also illustrate how these students connect with the world around them. In each of the above Stanford essays examples, the reader learns more about what the writers are passionate about as well as what they value: perseverance, courage, justice, and beauty.

While these are not exactly why Stanford essay examples, they do showcase what kind of revolutionary or impactful work you might dream of accomplishing with your Stanford education. Never underestimate the opportunity to layer meaning into your essays. Each of these Stanford supplemental essays examples use an external event to show something about an individual student. 

What five words best describe you? (5 words)

Stanford essays #1.

Speak up. Take action. Together.

Stanford Essays #2

Peter Parker meets Atticus Finch

Stanford Essays #3

The light of the world

Although these are the shortest of the Stanford essays examples, they are perhaps the most difficult to write. Summing yourself up in five words is no easy task. Each of these Stanford essays examples takes a different approach, whether that is a few small sentences, a cross of characters, or a poetic line.

When the choice is yours, what do you read, listen to, or watch? (50 words)

Read: The New York Times, Vox, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Quora. Favorite authors include Siddhartha Mukherjee, Atul Gawande, Dushka Zapata, and Zora Neale Hurston. 

Listen: This American Life, The Daily, Radiolab, Invisibilia, U.S. and French pop. 

Watch: The Good Place, Brooklyn 99, YouTube science, baking, and fingerstyle guitar videos.

Read—an unhealthy number of self-help books, re-reading Just Kids by Patti Smith, every one of Audre Lorde’s books… 

Listen to—Danez Smith’s slam poetry (my personal favorite? Dinosaurs in the Hood), Still Woozy, Invisibilia… 

Watch—all the television I was forbidden from watching when I was twelve, POSE, ContraPoints, YouTubers criticizing ContraPoints… 

Read: On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, The Wendigo, How To Write an Autobiographical Novel, Night Sky With Exit Wounds, Brainpickings.org weekly newsletter

Listen: Shostakovich, Lauv, Atlas, 20-hour-rain soundtrack on Spotify 

Watch: Avatar, Forrest Gump, Schindler’s List, Hachi (if in the mood to cry), any Marvel movie!

These Stanford essays examples showcase each writer’s interests and influences. They highlight intellectual media where appropriate, but they also remain honest. As you write your own Stanford essays, remember to stay authentic. 

Name your favorite books, authors, films, and/or artists. (50 words)

Stanford essay that worked.

I love literature and art that helps me explore my roots and learn to love myself. These works and authors include: The Color Purple, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Maya Angelou, Day of Tears, Hope for the Flowers, and Langston Hughes.

This essay is very similar to the Stanford essays examples above. It gives the reader a sense of this student’s interests and shows what they might engage with on Stanford’s campus. 

What newspapers, magazines, and/or websites do you enjoy? (50 words)

Stanford essays that worked.

I enjoy newspapers and magazines that enable me to learn something everyday. I like National Geographic because it lets me learn more about science. Once it even inspired me to do a self directed project on albatrosses. I also enjoy The Economist as it gives me a well rounded view of today’s politics and economics.

This essay is another of the “content” Stanford essays examples. This prompt, however, asks students to articulate the sites and sources where they turn to find content. 

Unlike our other Stanford supplemental essays examples, this example limits itself to two sources. Generally, we wouldn’t recommend essentially repeating the prompt, as this essay does in its first sentence. Instead, jump right into your details and specifics, and utilize that extra space to tie in something more valuable.

What were your favorite events (e.g., performances, exhibits, competitions, conferences, etc.) in recent years? (50 words)

“December 24th, 9pm, Eastern Standard time.” Rent began. I was sitting in between my best friends. We were losing circulation in our hands from holding on too tight and washing off our make-up with our tears. I felt an immense sense of harmony with the play and it was fantastic.

This is another variation of the above Stanford essays examples. This prompt, however, focuses on events. The narrative quality drops you right into the moment, which says so much about how this writer felt about the performance by showing an action rather than only explaining with words.

Name one thing you are looking forward to experiencing at Stanford. ( 50 words )

I live by my motto: “Dare!” in all instances of Truth or Dare.

Apparently, so do the students who brave Secret Snowflake. It spotlights what I love most, Truth or Dare minus the truth. Will I attempt to break the jalapeno eating record? Hop into The Claw in sub-zero temperatures? 

One of the reasons this “why Stanford essay example” works so well is its specificity. The level of detail included in this “why Stanford essay example” shows that this writer has done research into what Stanford has to offer. This highlights their enthusiasm and dedication to Stanford over another top college. 

If you aren’t able to take an in-person tour to visit the campus, there are plenty of ways to learn more about Stanford and its campus culture. We have countless webinars to help you get a sense of what life at Stanford is like. Check out our virtual college tour , Stanford University panel , and our How to get into Stanford: My Admissions Journey series to learn more about Stanford.

Imagine you had an extra hour in the day — how would you spend that time? (50 words)

I’d split my hour two ways, investing time in my own wellbeing and in others. Half I’d spend baking treats for friends, which would double as a personal gift, since I find baking—like running—relaxing and restorative. The second half I’d spend answering Quora questions—something I’ve been meaning to pay forward.

At eight, I dreamed of becoming a YouTuber, documenting life in rectangular video. Each year, this dream drew further from reach.

With extra time, I’d retrieve what time stole. Creating comedic skits or simply talking about my day, I’d pursue what I value most—making others laugh and capturing beautiful moments.

These Stanford essays examples show how some prompts are more open-ended than others. There’s an infinite number of possibilities you could explore with more time. However, both of these Stanford essays examples discuss something the writer values. Making others laugh, and giving to others—these are traits of people who will likely want to build community with their peers on campus.

Stanford Supplemental Essay Examples – Short Essays

The stanford community is deeply curious and driven to learn in and out of the classroom. reflect on an idea or experience that makes you genuinely excited about learning. (250 words), stanford essays examples:.

From my earliest days, I have been a storyteller. I have imagined futuristic worlds where climate change has turned plants carnivorous, or where simulation technology has allowed us to learn history by experiencing it. But of all of these worlds that I write into stories, there is one in particular that captivates me:

“Which face should I get? I’m debating between these two, but I think I like the nasal bridge on this one more.”

In this futuristic world, people shop for faces that can be affixed with a head transplant. The people simply browse through a catalog and choose from the available options in the way we might shop for wedding cakes. Following the transplant procedure, one’s previous head is added to the catalog for purchase by the next buyer. 

The idea seems completely bizarre.

That is, until we begin to more carefully consider the present. On Earth, beauty sways society, leading to the emergence of cosmetic surgery as one of the fastest-growing industries. Here, rapid scientific advancement trumps every earthly limitation, and scientists have recently completed the first successful head transplant on a monkey. 

These considerations coalescing, my bizarre idea suddenly comes to life. What is to say that, in 100 years or so, we won’t break the barriers of cosmetic limitations and wear a head that we weren’t born with? The idea terrifies me, but perhaps that is why I am so drawn to it: Science eliminates limitations. It is already eliminating the “fiction” in my “science fiction.”

Many of our other Stanford essays examples explicitly answer the prompt in the opening line. This essay, however, begins by revealing a broader truth about the writer: that they are a storyteller. This is something they embody throughout their essay, allowing the reader to imagine what the writer was like as a child before plunging them into a futuristic idea of their own.

They then connect this with the real-world science that connects to this broader idea. This grounds their interest and imagination with something going on in our world. By the end of the first of our short Stanford supplemental essays examples, we understand that this individual has passions across multiple disciplines. This essay merges science and literature to create a vivid picture of who the writer is and how they’d contribute to Stanford’s campus. 

Stanford students possess an intellectual vitality. Reflect on an idea or experience that has been important to your intellectual development. (250 words)

“Indefinita eres.” Latin for “you are limitless.” I believe that we are all limitless. That with passion, hard work, and resilience almost any dream can be accomplished. And I have a lot of dreams.

My entire life, except for the two years I wanted to be Hannah Montana, I have strived to help others. My dream is to be a leader in bioengineering, shaping and contributing to the forefront of bioengineering research, in order to make a positive impact on the lives of others. Through my endless passion for math, science, and engineering, combined with my resilience and collaborative abilities, I know I will be able to accomplish this.

I have countless other dreams and aspirations as well. I started Latin in 6th grade and I was terrible at it. I decided I would become a “Latin master” to lay a foundation for Spanish fluency in college. I studied hard for four years and by my sophomore year I was extremely honored to earn a silver medal in the Latin III National Latin Exam. I want to run a half marathon (after my sprint triathlon, of course). Through dedication and discipline I have worked from barely being able to run to morning 7 mile runs and will be at 13.1 by April 2nd for the Big D half marathon.

Like other Stanford supplemental essays examples, this piece showcases how much information and personality you can fit into a single essay. This writer chose to focus on an idea versus an experience, which allowed them to talk about multiple moments of growth and perseverance and their variety of passions.

Great Stanford supplemental essays examples will make the most of any prompt. So long as you answer the prompt completely, don’t be afraid to pull together different moments of your life. Just make sure you have a through line to keep everything focused and connected!

Stanford Roommate Essay Examples

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. (250 words), stanford roommate essay examples #1.

In the spirit of inaugurating the life-long relationship I hope we’ll build this year, let me tell you a little about myself.

Hi, I’m Tom. I’m the second child of a comically over-optimistic refugee mother (my Vietnamese name translates, literally, to “celestial being”) and a proud Kentuckian with a deep passion for student-driven advocacy. I have two parents, two stepparents, a nineteen-year-old sister (a junior in Product Design, here, at Stanford), a three-year-old half-sister, two cats, one dog, and a complicated life that spans two households. So, I’m used to sharing space and managing shifting schedules.

I’ve also always been the “Mom” friend. To me, the little things—a chocolate chip cookie when I know a friend has a rough day ahead, words of encouragement before a big presentation, or staying up late to explain a tough physics problem—mean the most. I’ll be there when you need me—be it studying for tests or navigating personal challenges.

I recycle incessantly and am known to snatch cans out of the trash, wash them, and relocate them to neighboring blue bins. I keep a regular sleep schedule, rarely going to bed past midnight or waking up later than 8:30. I’m averse to gyms, opting instead to go for runs in the morning or follow along to a YouTube workout in the afternoon. 

I’m passionate, but also even-keeled. I think life is best taken in stride—worrying has never gotten me anywhere, but flexibility has taken me everywhere. I look forward to an awesome year!

Stanford Roommate Essay Examples #2

Dear Roomie, 

Some disclaimers before we room together: 

1. If I arrive before you, don’t be alarmed by the tissue boxes everywhere. My parents made the conscious decision to expand our cat population despite (or because of) my allergies, and my four cats probably ambushed my suitcase while I was packing. So don’t be surprised if I invite you to one-too-many games of Exploding Kittens. It’s me projecting my fantasies, so please indulge me.

2. Whenever you open a Google Doc around me, change the font to Georgia or Cambria (my personal favorites). If you’re a seasoned Arial user, you’re likely mindlessly going along with what everyone else is doing—I get it. But Arial is objectively a bad font; the only acceptable time to use Arial is if you’re being passive aggressive… and even then, just use comic sans… (Criticizing people’s font choices is only half my personality, I promise.) 

3. You’ll see me embarrassing myself around campus by flailing on the dance floor, doing improv, or in drag, and I hope to see the same from you. I want to get excited about everything you’re passionate about– interests I’ve probably never even thought about before. 

When I’m armed with a bottle of Zyrtec, being my roommate isn’t all bad. I’ll bring copious amounts of Peach Snapple bottles, probably enough to last the semester. You can take as many bottles as you want, so long as you leave me the Snapple “Facts”…. I’m an avid collector. 

Stanford Roommate Essay Examples #3

Hey Roomie! Yesterday was insane. I still can’t quite get over the energy in that stadium after that final play. I guess Berkeley couldn’t take back the axe to cut down these Trees!

I’m writing you this since I have an 8:30 Syntax and Morphology with Dr. Gribanov. I know, it’s early, but that class is honestly worth waking up for. Last Friday, he spent the entire period rambling about why regardless and irregardless are the same thing, but responsible and irresponsible aren’t. Just a fun little thought to start your day.

I’m also writing you this as a quick apology. I won’t be back from Mock Trial until late evening, and then I’ll be practicing for Stanford Symphony auditions. So, if you hear cacophonous noises in your sleep, it’s most likely me. Plus, it’s Mahler Symphony No. 1, so you might not sleep much anyway. Kidding.

These next few days are jam-packed, but I’m craving some much-needed bonding time! I have a proposal: how does a jam session this Friday at Terman Fountain sound? I’ll bring the guitar and plenty of oldies sheet music, you just gotta bring a snack and the desire to sing! I’ve sold a few people already. Join us?

Well, I’m headed to breakfast now. Text me if you want me to grab you anything.

Stanford Roommate Essay Examples #4

Dear Roomie,

Tupac Shakur is not dead. You might believe that he is, because yes, his body is buried somewhere. But many of his messages are still very much alive. So future roomie, if we are going to be as close as I hope (and if you see me rapping “Life Goes On” in my Star Wars pajamas), you should know this about me:

As a biracial person, I have felt extremely troubled for the past few years regarding the social inequalities and injustices in our society. 2PAC says in his song “Changes,” “I’m tired of bein’ poor and even worse I’m black.” He says “I see no changes.”

I want to change this. I want Tupac’s spirit to behold a United States in which everyone has equal access to education and to healthcare. A U.S. where no one is discriminated against based on their race, gender, sexuality, or religion. I have already begun working towards equality, through educational outreach and political volunteerism. I will continue this at Stanford, through participating in peaceful protests and spreading awareness of the issues at hand. This might mean you’ll notice me coming and going a lot or going on frustrated rants about the ignorance and injustices in our society and our world. However, I hope you’re a person who will not only understand my perspective but be willing to march towards equality with me.

I am so excited for this year and the many years to come!

As noted in our Stanford Essays Guide , the Stanford roommate essay shows up nearly every year. These Stanford roommate essay examples show how fun a prompt like this can be to answer. Each of our Stanford roommate essay examples takes a slightly different approach. Some students write from the perspective of already attending Stanford; others opt for a list of important need-to-know facts.

The Stanford roommate essay examples show how open-ended this prompt actually is. If, after reading our Stanford roommate essay examples, you feel like you have no idea what to write about, know that there is no perfect recipe for responding to this prompt. Each of our Stanford roommate essay examples has a unique quality and flair.

A good rule of thumb you can take from our Stanford roommate essay examples is to remember who your audience is. Some essays touch on classic roommate topics, like sleep schedules, activities, and sharing snacks. However, the writer only includes these facts as a means of showing who they are. 

What Matters to You and Why Stanford Essay Examples

What matters to you, and why (250 words), ‘what matters to you and why’ stanford essay examples:.

“You’re stupid!!” exclaimed James. “Well you’re ugly!” shouted Ethan. We were sitting around the dinner table and my brothers, as usual, were bickering. After about two minutes of this, my dad broke into song. He sang, in a mostly on pitch falsetto, “what the world needs now, is love sweet love.” My brothers, my mom and I all rolled our eyes, but of course we kept singing. Then we sang “All you need is love” and “I’ll be there.” After years of this constant playlist, during laundry, dinners, and hikes, I realized what truly matters to me: love.

Love is what makes my life worth living. Whether it be love of my family, of my friends, of my activities, or of my future it makes me excited to get up and start my day. The sense of harmony I feel when dancing in the car with my family, or painting with my friends, or working with my team on our solar car is indescribably fulfilling. Through playing ukelele and singing with my family to working diligently in a lab to create a process that will alleviate the pain of another person, I will have the love that is of utmost importance to me. I will fill my life and the lives of others with love and harmony.

The last of our Stanford supplemental essays examples shows just how honest and vulnerable you can be in your essays. This essay does a great job of showing rather than telling. It gives us a great example of what love looks like to this student and how love continues to be the most important thing in their life.

How to write Stanford Supplemental Essays: 5 Tips!

1. start early.

If you’re worried about getting your Stanford essays up to par with these Stanford essays examples, don’t leave them to the last second. Begin by familiarizing yourself with the Stanford prompts and reviewing our Stanford supplemental essays examples. This can be the first step in your writing process. Next, start brainstorming topics and ideas you can start incorporating into your drafts.

2. Keep an idea journal

Now that you’ve reviewed different Stanford supplemental essay examples and have read Stanford essays that worked, it’s time to get brainstorming. Try writing down the main topics of each Stanford essay prompt, like “roommates,” “important experiences,” or “content I like.” Have a place where you can write down all your ideas as soon as they come to you. That way, when it comes time to start drafting your Stanford essays, you’ll have plenty of ideas.

3. Think outside the box

If you’re having trouble coming up with an answer to one of the Stanford essay prompts, don’t worry. Remember our “what matters to you and why Stanford essay examples?” These questions are at the core of what Stanford admissions is looking for. You’ll include traces of them in every Stanford essay you write regardless of which prompt you answer.

4. Consider what Stanford Admissions will take away from your Stanford essays

For instance, think about the Stanford roommate essay examples. While the prompt asked students to direct their attention to their future roommate. Remember your reader will be coming in with the perspective of an admissions officer, not your potential future roommate. While this may seem like the space to offer up fun, random facts about yourself and your interests, consider how the characteristics you choose to highlight build upon other aspects of your application and Stanford essays.

5. Draft, edit, rewrite, edit, and edit again

These Stanford supplemental essays examples weren’t written overnight. You can’t expect to produce Stanford essays as engaging and effective as our Stanford essay examples unless you put in enough time and effort. Remember, our Stanford essays examples are final drafts. Make sure you get your first draft down on paper as soon as you can so you have plenty of time to edit, proofread, and finalize your essays.

Stanford Essay Examples- Final Thoughts

Applying to Stanford can feel overwhelming, especially given the low Stanford acceptance rate. If Stanford is your dream school , you should do all you can to ensure your Stanford essays shine.  

If you’re looking for answers on how to get into Stanford, think carefully about every aspect of the Stanford application. Knowing the requirements for the Stanford application will be much more helpful than worrying about the Stanford acceptance rate.

Focus on what you can control

So, focus on the parts of the Stanford admissions process you can control, like your responses to the Stanford essay prompts. Understanding the prompts, then looking at Stanford essays that worked, can give you a sense of what Stanford admissions looks for when reviewing applications. Then, you can take the lessons and learnings from Stanford essay examples and incorporate them into your own essays.

Take a look at our how to get into Stanford guide for more tips on the Stanford application process. We discuss how Stanford Admissions reviews applications, the Stanford acceptance rate, the interview process, and more strategies on how to get into Stanford.

As you begin working on your Stanford essays, feel free to look back on these Stanford essays examples. Rather than using them as a shining example you need to model your own Stanford essay after, think about why they worked, the impact they had on you, and how you can incorporate those techniques into your own essay. So remember, get started early, and good luck.

This article was written by Stefanie Tedards. Looking for more admissions support? Click here to schedule a free meeting with one of our Admissions Specialists. During your meeting, our team will discuss your profile and help you find targeted ways to increase your admissions odds at top schools. We’ll also answer any questions and discuss how CollegeAdvisor.com can support you in the college application process.

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2024-2025 Stanford MBA Essay Tips and Example Essays

Jun 24, 2024

• Who is Stanford GSB looking for?
• How should I answer the Stanford essay questions?
• Essay Length
• Make sure you get into Stanford GSB

UPDATE : This article was originally posted on August 20, 2018. It has been updated with new information and tips below. 

With a mission to “ to create ideas that deepen and advance our understanding of management and with those ideas to develop innovative, principled, and insightful leaders who change the world ,” Stanford Graduate School of Business is at the top of many applicants’ list of dream schools.  

However, with increasing competition over the small number of spots at this haven for innovative thinkers, securing a place at Stanford is more challenging than ever. 

That’s why we’ve prepared this guide to help you use your Stanford GSB admissions essays to stand out . We’ve rounded up our best tips and links to Stanford MBA sample essays to ensure you give your Stanford application your best shot. 

1. Who is Stanford GSB looking for?

“At Stanford, we strive to ensure that a diversity of cultures, races and ethnicities, genders, political and religious beliefs, physical and learning differences, sexual orientations and identities is thriving on campus. Such diversity will inspire new angles of inquiry, new modes of analysis, new discoveries and new solutions … Our diversity ensures our strength as an intellectual community. In today’s world, diversity represents the key to excellence and achievement.” – Persis Drell, Provost, Stanford University

Every year, Stanford GSB’s admissions team selects around 400 students from over 6,000 applications for the honor of joining their prestigious MBA program. Though what “fits” at Stanford is constantly evolving, they do tend to admit slightly younger applicants (with an average of 5.0 years of work experience). Stanford also works hard to admit a highly diverse group of students. 

Applicants offered admission also tend to have outstanding GMAT scores (the average for the Class of 2025 was 738) or exceptional GRE scores (the average for the Class of 2025 was 164Q and 164V) .  

Nonetheless, that does not mean that Stanford looks simply for good test-takers. Instead, they want a talented, principled group of leaders who will use business to positively impact the world. 

According to Stanford’s Admissions team: 

If this sounds like a community in which you’d be right at home, you’ll first have to prove you’ve got what it takes by successfully answering Stanford’s open-ended admissions essay questions. 

2. How should I answer the Stanford essay questions?

Writing any admissions essay is a tough task , however, Stanford raises the bar when it comes to presenting a highly challenging yet open-ended prompt. 

According to Stanford, here’s what they want to see in your admissions essays. 

Keep reading for a more in-depth look at how to turn this rather open-ended task into a standout essay! 

2.1. Essay A

Essay a: what matters most to you, and why.

For this essay, we would like you to reflect deeply and write from the heart. Once you’ve identified what matters most to you, help us understand why. You might consider, for example, what makes this so important to you? What people, insights, or experiences have shaped your perspectives?

Like most excellent admissions essays, this essay begins with in-depth brainstorming. 

Questions like “What matters most to you” are not questions we commonly ask ourselves on a daily basis, so the answer might not be readily apparent to you. 

During this brainstorming period, you should focus on retroactively connecting the dots and thinking about the future. What moments in your life did you feel most engaged or fulfilled? Have you overcome any challenges that marked your identity? What are your values ?

Regardless of which topic you choose, make sure it is genuine and that you can point to specific moments in your life during which you have acted on this value. This is not a purely philosophical essay in which you examine a core value. Instead, it is a picture of your motivations, intentions, and lessons as you have navigated your life’s many ups and downs. As I always tell clients, if you argue that what matters most to you is sustainability but you can’t provide a single example of acting to make your company or community more sustainable, perhaps you should go back to the drawing board or consider how to tweak your examples to tell a clearer, more compelling story.

If you’re having trouble getting started, or aren’t sure you’ve really identified the right path forward, family members and close friends can be an excellent resource to help you zero in on the best topic.

After you choose your theme, you must go about supporting it . This does not mean you should simply copy/paste examples from other essays. This simply won’t work for Stanford. 

Instead, carefully consider times when you clearly acted upon the core value you’ve presented. For example, if you state that being an independent thinker is what matters most, describe a time in your life when you went against the grain — and it paid off. 

In writing your examples, be sure not to lose your theme, as this essay must be a coherent exploration of how your life has centered around what matters most to you. 

TOP TIP : Striking upon a core value that GSB has never heard of before is almost impossible. The admissions committee has read thousands upon thousands of essays. Instead of standing out by choosing a unique (but perhaps under-supported) theme, choose the theme that genuinely demonstrates what you’re all about .

Lastly, be sure to make sure the essay includes you and your personality . The key to this is what we call voice . To help you demonstrate your voice, we suggest you keep the following tips in mind:

• While writing, imagine you were explaining what matters most to you to a good friend or family member. How would you explain it to them? Which words would you use?
• Explain the feelings and emotions you experienced during the events you are describing.
• Think about the tone you want to write in and how it reflects how you feel or felt about the experience you describe.
• Use sensory descriptors like how specific environments, events, people, or objects looked, smelled, tasted, felt, or sounded.
• It’s okay to use informal language (e.g. contractions, slang, exclamations, etc.) in this essay to reinforce your voice! While this is a formal essay, these elements are often a welcome addition.

2.2. Essay B

Essay b: why stanford.

Describe your aspirations and how your Stanford GSB experience will help you realize them. If you are applying to both the MBA and MSx programs, use Essay B to address your interest in both programs.

This question is essentially a goals essay , a common type of essay required of applicants at many elite business schools. 

In this essay, you have a big task. In around 350 words, you need to discuss:

• Any context from your past experience that helps underline your motivation for your goals
• Your specific-post MBA goals
• Why you believe an MBA is necessary to reach these goals
• How a Stanford MBA will help you reach these goals

Each of these elements must be included and must build off of each other.

We suggest beginning your essay with a hook or experience from your past that demonstrates your motivation or past experience with your target industry. For example, if you are looking to go into developing green technologies, you could write about your country’s current green energy capacity; your first experience with sustainability as a teenager; a past work project focused on applying technology effectively; or your experience with sustainable business practices. As long as the story underlines why you care about your goals, it can work as an effective introduction to your essay.

Second of all, many candidates think they do not need to specifically state their goals, or that it’s better to leave “their options open.” If you are applying to elite business schools, however, you must have and present absolutely clarity about your goals. 

Second, you should clearly demonstrate why you need an MBA . 

An MBA is not a catch-all degree that serves a purpose for all career paths. As such, you need to demonstrate that the goals you have set for yourself require the additional training an MBA can provide. 

Be thoughtful about this particular section. If you don’t need to improve in any meaningful way, you might be presenting the argument the admissions committee needs for why you can’t actually benefit from an MBA. 

Furthermore, if you show fluffy or unsupported reasons you need to hone your skills, you’ll also likely see your application tossed aside in favor of an applicant who was able to clearly demonstrate how they plan to leverage their time at business school. 

Third, show how Stanford can specifically help you grow in the areas you’ve identified. Mentioning that you want to go to Stanford because of its ranking or sunny California location will not cut it here. 

Instead, show that you understand the flexibility of Stanford’s curriculum and have done significant, thoughtful research into how the opportunities both inside and outside of the classroom can help you grow. You should also definitely mention how you can contribute to the community. 

Unlike other goals essays, however, you should also keep the theme you’ve presented in your first essay in mind. If you write a goals essay that is completely at odds with what you’ve shown is most important to you in life in your first essay, this inconsistency will likely end your Stanford application journey. However, it is okay if they are not explicitly related.

Finally, if you are applying for the Stanford MSx program , you are given an additional 50 words to also discuss your interest in this particular program. 

2.3. Optional Essays

In addition to the two main essays, Stanford also has four optional short essays. These essays give you additional space to show off different elements of your profile and highlight areas you might not have been able to include in your What Matters Most and Why Stanford essays. 

2.3.1 Optional Impact Essays

Question: Think about a time in the last few years when you’ve created a positive impact, whether in professional, extracurricular, academic, or other settings. What was your impact? What made it significant to you or to others?

If you would like to discuss your contributions more fully, this section is the place to do so. Perhaps you would like to expand upon a bullet item from your resume and tell us more about the “how” or “why” behind the “what.” Or maybe you have had an impact in a way that doesn’t fit neatly in another part of the application. You are welcome to share up to three examples (up to 1,200 characters, or approximately 200 words, for each example).

Though these responses are technically optional, we highly suggest using this space to highlight professional or extracurricular achievements that you may not have been able to address in your What Matters Most essay. In particular, try to show a variety of achievements that complement your stories in other parts of your application and work to include stories with clear outcomes. 

2.3.2 Additional Context Essay

Additional Context: We know that each person is more than a list of facts or pre-defined categories. With this question, we provide you with an optional opportunity to elaborate on how your background or life experiences have helped shape your recent actions or choices. (1,200 characters) 

Stanford GSB values applicants who can contribute to its greater community and the educational experience for all. This question tests how prepared, willing, and capable you are to draw on what you’ve experienced thus far in life to contribute to a project, class discussion, or community or interpersonal challenge. For that reason, it’s important to keep in mind that they are not asking you to show a time when you offered input — instead, they want to see when something about your personal or professional background proved to be the key to winning the day. 

For example, one of our clients, Fabrizio, had a brother who had been unemployed for a long period of time, and he personally witnessed how demoralizing the lack of support he received during this period was. Then, when tasked with working on a workforce transition project at his consulting firm, he made sure to design initiatives that took into consideration how layoffs affect real people. In your essay, similarly look for a time when your previous experience or core values inspired you to take action. 

Keep in mind you must limit yourself to 1,200 characters including spaces . 

2.3.3 Additional Information Essay

Additional Information: We are deliberate in the questions we ask. We believe that we get to know you well through all of the elements of your application. Complete this section only if you have critical information you could not convey elsewhere on your application (e.g., extenuating circumstances affecting academic or work performance). This section should not be used as an additional essay. (1,200 characters

Stanford, like most top business schools, gives you space to explain any gaps or weaknesses in your profile. This should not be a place to discuss why Stanford should admit you, who you know from Stanford, or who you know from Stanford. It most certainly should not be a continuation of your Why Stanford essay. 

Furthermore, just because there is no stated word limit does not mean you should write more than is absolutely necessary here. In my opinion, if you’re writing more than 200 words you might want to revisit your essay to ensure every part is needed. 

If you’d like to learn more about what topics justify an optional essay – and how to write these essays – check out our post on the topic here . 

3. Essay Length (Essays A and B)

Your answers for both essays A and B combined may not exceed 1,000 words.

Each of you has your own story to tell, so please allocate these words between the essays in the way that is most effective for you. In our experience, the recommended 650/350 word length suggestions works very well. 

Looking for Stanford GSB MBA essay examples? Check out our real sample essays that got our clients admitted here .

4. Make sure you get into Stanford GSB

One of the most common mistakes we see in MBA essays is that candidates fail to tell compelling stories . This is important because if your stories are not compelling, they will not be persuasive. At the same time, they must be backed by strong examples that establish a track record of success and prove to the admissions committees why you belong at their school. 

Striking this balance between content and creativity can be tough, however, as succeeding means not only choosing the right stories but ensuring they are told in an optimal manner. 

This is why our iterative developmental feedback process here at Ellin Lolis Consulting helps you mold your message through the application of our storytelling expertise until it reflects exactly what makes your profile stand out and show fit with your target program. 

That’s the approach we took with Giulia, who was admitted to Stanford. In her words, “I will never forget when I told Ellin I wasn’t applying for my dream school because I was sure I wouldn’t be accepted. She encouraged me to apply, and in the end, I was accepted. 

The team is so well prepared to help the applicants with their specific needs. Above all, I felt I invested in mentoring and coaching, more than just help with the MBA process. Ellin and her team balanced perfectly dreaming with having my feet on the ground!”

Not only can you take advantage of our editing expertise through multiple edits – you can also benefit from it after a single review! If your budget is tight, our editors will be happy to help polish your text as much as possible and leave “bonus comments” so you can keep working on it on your own!

No matter how long we work with you, we will always ensure your essays shine . Sign up to work with our team of storytelling experts and get accepted.

5. Deadlines

Here are the 2024-2025 deadlines. You can access the online application here .

Stanford Round 1 Deadlines

Application Deadline : September 10, 2024

Interview Notification : Ongoing

Decisions Released : December 5, 2024

Stanford Round 2 Deadlines

Application Deadline : January 8, 2025

Decisions Released : April 3, 2025

Stanford Round 3 Deadlines

Application Deadline : April 8, 2025

Decisions Released : May 29, 2025

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Stanford GSB MBA Application Essay Tips and Deadlines [2024 – 2025], Class Profile

In this post, we provide guidance and information to support you in creating and submitting your application to the Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB):

Stanford GSB application essay tips

Stanford gsb application deadlines, stanford gsb class profile, essay a: what matters most to you, and why.

For this essay, we would like you to reflect deeply and write from the heart. Once you’ve identified what matters most to you, please help us understand why. You might consider, for example, what makes this so important to you. What people, insights, or experiences have shaped your perspectives?

The Stanford GSB’s tried and true essay question “What matters most to you and why?” is one of the most challenging MBA application prompts to respond to (so start early). Unlike most MBA essays, Stanford’s is not about describing your accomplishments, even if “achievement” is what you value most. It is not about highlighting your career, even if “ambition” matters most to you. It is not about revealing your “humble beginnings,” even if your childhood is the stuff about which memoirs are written. The school’s primary essay is about what you value most and, more importantly, why it matters most to you. It requires a level of maturity and introspection that only such a question as this can demand. It gives Stanford insights into who you are and what you can bring to the GSB beyond your academics background, professional accomplishments, and personal attributes. 

So, where do you start? Start with the “what.” Ask yourself, “For what would I walk over hot coals?” Still stuck? Review lists of values that resonate with you. Is it peace, relationships, health, creativity, compassion, expression? The lists go on and on, and you should not worry about being cliché with your “what,” because your why will be unique to you and how you have lived your life.

Moreover, you can choose something symbolic to help you tell your story. I often talk about a ring my mother gave me. The ring is precious to me because of what it represents and how it has motivated me to make the choices I have made. It is a symbol of an unbreakable mother-daughter bond. 

Where do you go after identifying your “what matters most”? Remember that your “why” is more important than your “what.” You need to explain why the values you highlight are essential to you. The best way to illustrate your “why” is by providing specific examples of how these values have shaped your life. Refrain from offering career examples, because you can state your achievements in the optional “impact” essays, resume, and application form. Your recommenders should be writing about your career achievements as well. If your values only motivate you for work, then these values are likely ones that don’t truly matter most to you, despite your spending 60-100 hours per week working.  

• State the value that matters most to you.
• Explain why this value is essential to you.
• Provide specific examples (anecdotes) that illustrate how the value has shaped your life.
• Discuss how your value has influenced your decisions and actions.
• Explain why you are better off by having this value drive you.

The essay requires a level of honesty and authenticity that few others demand. Be specific and concise. The admissions committee wants to get to know the real you, so don’t be afraid to share your personal stories and experiences. 

Essay B: Why Stanford?

Describe your aspirations and how your Stanford GSB experience will help you realize them. If you are applying to both the MBA and MSx programs, use Essay B to address your interest in both programs.

Why Stanford? 

Two words pack quite a punch: why Stanford, indeed? As you approach this essay, consider that Stanford values intellectually curious individuals who can solve problems, see beyond the obvious, and connect the dots. Therefore, I suggest you begin your essay with what you hope to achieve after you graduate from the Stanford GSB. Don’t think about a role as you might with other post-MBA goals essays. Instead, consider the problems you want to solve at the organizations for which you hope to work in the future. It does not matter whether you are considering an MBB consultancy, a Fortune 100 behemoth, a small start-up, a large private equity firm, a midsize family business, or a nonprofit organization. Focus on identifying the problems you can solve with your current skill set and the knowledge you will gain at Stanford.

Next, address the crux of the essay: Why Stanford? Note that the question is not “Why the GSB?” It is “Why Stanford?” While you want most of your essay to be about how the GSB can help you achieve your aspirations, consider how other parts of Stanford can add value to your education. And please don’t state the obvious. Resist the temptation to lift your information directly from the school’s website. The admissions committee already knows that Stanford’s location is perfect for entrepreneurship, tech, and venture capital. They already know they are highly selective and, therefore, highly ranked. They already know the Stanford brand resonates worldwide — they communicated all this to you in their marketing materials. Instead, think about the resources, opportunities, and community Stanford can offer you that will enable you to reach your unique goals. Why does this program make sense for you?

Finally, you will want to discuss how you will contribute to the Stanford GSB community. How will you make a difference at Stanford? What unique skills and experiences do you bring to the table? Why will your peers benefit from having you as a member of their class? 

With only 1,000 words to use for Essay A (What matters most?) and B (Why Stanford?) together, you need to understand yourself, your goals, what  offers, and your unique value proposition to the Stanford community before tackling this essay. Stanford recommends dedicating up to 650 words for Essay A and 350 for Essay B. With this suggestion, the admissions committee is expressing their desire to see your introspection, but you don’t need to obsess over the suggested word count; just write fewer than 1,001 words for both essays combined.

If you are applying to both the MBA and MSx programs, the school suggests that you use Essay B to discuss why you are interested in both. In your essay, you will want to clearly spell out your reasons for applying to both programs and explain how you believe each one will help you achieve your goals. Also, if you strongly prefer one program over the other, you should express this in your essay.

Additional Context 

We know that each person is more than a list of facts or pre-defined categories. With this space, we provide you with an optional opportunity to elaborate on how your background or life experiences have helped shape your recent actions or choices. (1,200 characters)

Some applicants overlook this question, because Stanford tucks it within the Personal Information section of the application. Reflect on all the drop-downs menus you clicked on, and consider this mini essay a kind of bookend to Essay A, in which you discussed what matters most and why your values are what they are. For this essay, you need to consider how your identity and the uniqueness you bring to the table motivate your actions. Consider cultural upbringing, education, abilities, and life experiences. How have these factors influenced how you view the world? How has your identity – that core of who you are, that core of most significant influences and experiences – expressed itself in your recent actions? This essay is about getting to know you and what motivates you.

Given that you have only a meager 1,200 characters, select one factor that drives your decisions. Then, describe the action. Your action is the evidence you will use to support how and why that factor motivates you. For example, my life was heavily influenced by being the daughter of immigrants and a first-generation college student. It drove the overachiever in me. That background influences every action I take, from preparing clients for their GSB interview to advocating for the rights of disabled and infirm people. That identity is how I tell my story. Now, how will you tell yours?

Optional Short-Answer Question

Think about a time in the last few years when you’ve created a positive impact, whether in professional, extracurricular, academic, or other settings. What was your impact? What made it significant to you or to others? (1,200 characters)

Why does Stanford have optional essays? The school offers these impact essays because too many applicants tried to squeeze their accomplishments into their “what matters most essay.” If you are tempted to write about your achievements in that essay, stop. Then, cut and paste that information here instead. Now you have a space where you can highlight activities and describe your impact on work, extracurriculars, community service, family, or anything else. 

The best approach to writing an impact essay is to use a CAR or STAR with an added Sig (significance) framework. Select each impact to show some variety in your life (in other words, don’t draw all three examples from your daily work).

C = Challenge (What challenge did you face?)

A = Action (How did you address the challenge? What specific steps did you take?)

R = Result (What was the outcome? Quantify the outcome, if possible. Did you increase revenues? Did you decrease costs? Did you increase membership? Did you minimize the danger? If so, by how much?)

Sig = Significance (Why was this important to you? What did it mean for others in your life?)

S = Situation (What background must you describe for the reader to understand your example?)

T = Task (What was your goal?)

A = Action (What steps did you take to achieve your goal?)

R = Result (What was the outcome? Did you achieve the goal? Did you surpass the goal. If so, by how much?)

Sig = Significance (Why was this important to you? What did it mean for others?)

These frameworks will work for any behavioral question that an admissions committee or interviewers asks you. They will help you stay on point, so use them. Finally, be succinct, because the 1,200-character allotment includes spaces. 

Additional Information

We are deliberate in the questions we ask. We believe that we get to know you well through all of the elements of your application. Complete this section only if you have critical information you could not convey elsewhere on your application (e.g., extenuating circumstances affecting academic or work performance). This section should not be used as an additional essay. (1,200 characters)

Additional information “essays” exist so that you don’t have to make the admissions committee guess about any of the following scenarios:

• You had terrible grades your first year of university when your parent became ill, and you flew back and forth to care for your parent, or you worked 30 hours a week to make ends meet.
• You received a subpar GMAT or GRE score because you are not a strong test-taker and can prove it with your inadequate ACT or SAT score and your 4.0 GPA or because you were initially premed and realized after volunteering at a hospital that medicine was not your thing.
• You did not ask an immediate supervisor to recommend you because you have only been with the company for a short time, they do not know you well, or doing so could lead to losing your job.

Stanford also suggests that you use this section to discuss any academic research, because they do not want to see it on your one-page resume.

Additional information does not mean you should add an essay you wrote for another school. Feel free to bullet your reasons, making the section easier to read. If you have many bullets, you might have too many excuses, and many schools, including Stanford, could be a long shot for you.

Finally, no matter what your aspirations are, the Stanford MBA program can help you achieve them.

Your completed application, including your  and , is due at 4:00 p.m. Pacific Time on the deadline date for the round in which you apply.

Source: Stanford GSB website

***Disclaimer: Information is subject to change. Please check with the Stanford GSB to verify its essay questions, instructions, and deadlines.***

Here’s a look at the Stanford GSB’s Class of 2025 (data taken from the Stanford GSB website ):

Applicants: 6,190

New students: 431

U.S. students of color: 50%

International students: 36%

Countries represented: 55

Languages spoken: 53

U.S. students & Permanent Residents (Federal Guidelines)

• White (including Middle Eastern): 47%
• Asian (including Indian subcontinent and Philippines): 24%
• Hispanic/Latino: 12%
• Black or African American (including Africa and Caribbean): 8%
• Multi-race: 7%
• Declined to identify: 3%
• American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, Other Pacific Islander: 0%

Undergraduate Degrees

• Engineering: 26%
• Economics: 21%
• Business/Commerce: 20%
• Math/Sciences: 15%
• Social Sciences: 13%
• Arts/Humanities: 5%

Average GPA: 3.77

First-generation college graduate: 11%

Hold advanced degrees: 17%

U.S. institutions: 82

Non-U.S. institutions: 83

Average years of work experience: 5

Industries Represented

• Investment Management/Private Equity/Venture Capital: 19%
• Consulting: 17%
• Technology: 13%
• Government/Education/Nonprofit: 10%
• Consumer Products & Services: 9%
• Healthcare: 7%
• Financial Services: 5%
• Military: 5%
• Arts/Media/Entertainment: 4%
• Cleantech/Energy/Environmental: 4%
• Manufacturing: 3%

Organizations represented: 295

Average GMAT: 738

GMAT range: 630-790

Average GRE Verbal: 164

GRE Verbal range: 149-170

Average GRE Quantitative: 164

GRE Quantitative range: 150-170

Average TOEFL: 113

TOEFL range: 104-120

Our team of MBA admissions experts includes former admissions directors, published authors, and highly experienced business school admissions consultants. We are all primed and ready to help you secure a seat at your dream school, just as we have done for thousands of clients for the past 25 years. Schedule your free consultation , and speak to an expert admissions expert!

By Natalie Grinblatt, a former admissions dean/director at three top business schools. Natalie has reviewed more than 70,000 applications, interviewed more than 2,500 candidates, and trained nearly 700 admissions directors and alumni volunteers to select outstanding candidates for admission. Her clients gain admission to top programs, including those at Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, MIT, Cornell, Columbia, Berkeley, Chicago, Northwestern, and NYU. Natalie holds an MBA from Michigan Ross. Want Natalie to help you get Accepted? Click here to get in touch!

Related Resources:

• M7 MBA Programs: Everything You Need to Know in 2024
• Admissions Straight Talk Podcast
• Five Tips for Applying for Stanford’s Knight-Hennessy Scholarship

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Tips for Your Stanford Graduate School of Business Application Essays

June 24, 2024

Melisa Prevost

Stanford GSB Application Essay Tips, 2024-2025

And then there were 1,000… The application essays for the Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB) are among the more expansive and demanding of those for the top MBA programs; the GSB truly wants to get to know you. With a 650-word essay that necessitates some soul-searching, 350 words on your interest in Stanford specifically, and multiple optional short answers that allow you to reveal purpose and impact, you have plenty of opportunity to paint a more complete picture of yourself that goes well beyond your grades and test scores. The GSB application gives you a chance to think holistically about your goals, your career, and how an MBA fits into those plans. 

Essay A: What matters most to you, and why? (650 words recommended)

This simply worded question often vexes applicants, but that is because many perceive that there is a “right” answer they need to provide. But Stanford is agnostic with respect to topic. For example, it is not better to write about your quest for knowledge or worse to write about your desire to have impact. What matters (those words again!) here is that you share whatever has truly been the driving force, or will be the driving force, within your life — both anecdotally and through clear personal experience. The “why” part of this question is key; dig deep and demonstrate the reasons behind your passion for whatever you say matters most to you.

The GSB admissions committee is seeking authenticity and values, but that doesn’t mean that everything needs to be sunshine. You can show that your values evolved through a failure or by finding inspiration through others’ examples. Feel free to be vulnerable in this essay — to the extent that if you left it in the printer at work, you might feel a little exposed if a colleague were to find it.

We often think of this essay as having three distinct sections, where a theme emerges, manifests through experience, and finally matures and is validated. It isn’t complete heresy to write, “What matters most to me is…” at some point in your essay, but it should be unnecessary, because the reader should fundamentally understand the point of your piece without those words being written. Either way, make sure that your theme is very clear to the reader. 

Essay B: Why Stanford? (350 words recommended)

Unlike many business schools, the GSB notably doesn’t explicitly pose the conventional “What are your goals?” question along with its “Why us?” prompt; it just asks, “Why Stanford?” However, we still think that many applicants can benefit from grounding their essay in a discussion of their goals to help contextualize their “Why Stanford?” answer.

We’d like to challenge you in this essay. What if you did not write about the popular “Touchy Feely” course (“Interpersonal Dynamics”) or “Startup Garage” course? So many applicants write about these Stanford experiences! Take a step back, connect with students or recent alumni, go beyond the program’s most popular offerings, and really dig in and share your reason for wanting to be at the Stanford GSB more than any other program. 

Do your homework! Beyond just sharing a list of programs and classes, be specific about how you might take advantage of nonacademic features of the GSB and perhaps of some broader Stanford University resources and how you would contribute to those experiences. Show that you really, fundamentally understand the culture and spirit of the program. When you write this essay, don’t be afraid to go high-minded and “big picture” if that makes sense for you. Stanford doesn’t mind dreamers as long as they are grounded in reality in some way. The GSB likes to think of itself as a place where people go to embrace world-changing ideas (check out the school’s motto), and you can paint yourself as such a person as long as you do so with sincerity. Even if you are on a conventional path, such as consulting or private equity, there can absolutely be a place for you at the GSB. You can present your shorter-term goal as a means of achieving your bigger, longer-term dream — or as just your big, long-term dream itself. Either way, whatever goals you share, you need to think carefully about how the GSB will be your catalyst and then “prove” that in your essay.  

Optional Short Answer Question

Optional question 1: think about a time in the last few years when you’ve created a positive impact, whether in professional, extracurricular, academic, or other settings. what was your impact what made it significant to you or to others (1,200 characters), if you would like to discuss your contributions more fully, this section is the place to do so. perhaps you would like to expand upon a bullet item from your resume and tell us more about the “how” or “why” behind the “what.” or maybe you have had an impact in a way that doesn’t fit neatly in another part of the application. you are welcome to share up to three examples. (up to 1,200 characters, or approximately 200 words, for each example).

Do you need to provide three examples for this prompt? The answer is basically “Yes!” unless you simply don’t have three examples of impact. The goal here is for the admissions committee to get to this point in your application, read your three stories, and say, “Wow! I can’t believe how much more there is still to learn about this applicant!” Ideally, you will share three examples that all include new information about you. What hasn’t the committee learned about your personal life, community experience, professional successes, or academic triumphs elsewhere in your application? Although you might be tempted to write three generally awesome stories about yourself, don’t lose sight of the fact that you need to discuss moments when your actions had a direct impact on others. 

Even in such a short submission, you still have room to share a full anecdote that provides sufficient color to make the experience “real” for the admissions reader. Do not just write, “My greatest moment of impact was when I….” That kind of writing is almost always boring and minimizes the reader’s suspense and attention. Instead, set the stage, present a moment of conflict, and then drive home that you were able to positively change the experience for the better. Demonstrate your impact! 

The GSB application gives you the opportunity to share multiple experiences. Take the time to be strategic and think what stories you want to share across the essays. Be strategic in how you approach each essay, and be sure to not be redundant by sharing the same story in multiple areas of the application.

In Stratus Admissions’ How to Get into Stanford Graduate School of Business , you will find information on a variety of the MBA program’s offerings, such as the Startup Garage, “Interpersonal Dynamics” class, Global Management Immersion Experience, and the MBA Challenge for Charity. 

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Stanford What Matters Most, and Why?

T he Stanford Graduate School of Business wants to know “What matters most to you, and why?” If you are starting work on Stanford’s “What matters most” essay, chances are you are struggling!

One thing you need to know right from the start is that struggling is essential to succeeding in this assignment.

In this article, we offer advice on how to approach the first part of the “what matters” question. We’ll address the “why” question in a later post.

Answering Stanford’s “What matters most” essay question requires self-reflection and self-discovery. You are expected to examine the life you’ve lived and the choices you’ve made. Which is to say that what matters most to you may be revealed by your past actions and decisions.

Your answer could take the form of a statement of philosophy, sense of purpose, ideal, belief, value, mantra, passion, or love. It could be a person, a place, or a thing. There is no “right” answer nor is one form of expression better than another.

In your essay response, you will be expected to show the admissions committee how this “whatever it is” has manifested itself in your life. Therefore, you should begin this writing assignment by looking back at your life and performing some advanced “accounting.” Although looking backward is an important part of discovering your answer, what matters most to you might not be the same at every point of your life. Be aware that Stanford’s question is asking what matters to you most now — today .

The Right Approach

The wrong approach to tackling this essay question is to start with an answer you think will appeal to the Stanford GSB admissions committee and then attempt to find evidence from your life to support it.

Just as there is no ideal form for your response, there is not only one path to follow to find your answer.

If you are embarking on this journey, we have marked the trailheads of a few paths to explore. You don’t have to complete every single exercise in the list below. Rather, you should start down the path that looks most appealing and see where it takes you. If you’re not completely satisfied with where you end up, don’t give up; simply try another path.

Follow Your Struggles

In his book The Art of Dramatic Writing , Lagos Egri wrote, “a character stands revealed in conflict.” What does a playwright, writing about a character in a drama, have to teach us about answering Stanford’s “What matters most” essay? A great deal, as it turns out.

What is true for a character in a play is also true for you as a human being. To discover what matters to you, examine the times you’ve been under strain, stress, and pressure. In times of tremendous conflict, your character is revealed and your values are tested. A value becomes your value when it has actually cost you something. You may think that “protecting the environment” matters most to you, but have you made any sacrifices for this value? This is part of the “accounting” exercise I alluded to in the introduction. The “value of a value” can be measured in terms of sacrifice – of time, money, comfort, etc. You may think something matters to you, but has it ever cost you anything of value?

Follow Your Decisions

The things that truly matter most to you have guided you consciously or unconsciously at the times of your life when you were faced with important decisions. For this exercise, begin by identifying the big decision points in your life—the major forks in the road. Don’t analyze them right away; just write down some brief reminder phrases (e.g., “choosing between colleges”).

When you have a good list, go back and write a short story about making the decision. What were the options you were presented with, what did you think about each one, how did you “feel” about each one, and what choice did you eventually make and why? Finally, read all of your decisions stories together and see if you can discover a common thread or theme – a value that guided you or a belief or philosophy that you followed to make your decisions. This exercise may help you to see what matters most to you more clearly.

Follow Your Motivations

“What makes you tick?” From one perspective, Stanford’s essay question asks you to think about what motivates you. Think about the times in your life when you were truly motivated and energized. Food and sleep certainly matter a great deal, so consider the times that you worked through meals and sacrificed sleep for something that mattered more. At that time, what were you working on or what goal were you working towards? This exercise could reveal your deepest sources of motivation.

Follow Your Bliss

This advice is courtesy of the philosopher Joseph Campbell. Campbell believed that we should “follow our bliss” to discover our purpose in life. For this exercise, write down short narratives about the moments in your life when you were enjoying yourself so much that you lost track of time – i.e., the moments when you experienced bliss. Write down where you were and what you were doing at the time. It’s very likely that you were engaged in a pursuit that truly mattered to you.

Follow Your Sorrow

If your bliss isn’t the royal road to the answer of what matters most to you, then consider looking in the opposite direction: remember the times that you were truly unhappy – your darker days. This exercise is certainly not as fun as reminiscing about your joys and triumphs, but it can be revealing because depression, anxiety, and dissatisfaction are often signaling that we are not living according to our values or fulfilling a deeper sense of purpose. Think back to those painful moments, and ask yourself what was missing from your life? You may have been living in a way that was contrary to your deeper values. Perhaps what matters to you will be revealed by its absence.

Final Thoughts

You may discover your answer to Stanford’s “what matters most” essay question by following one of the paths above, or perhaps your answer will only become clear after you’ve traversed them all.

So how do you know when you have arrived at your destination? Only you can say for sure. It is the point that you decide that you no longer care what a Stanford admission committee thinks about your answer – this is what really matters to you and if it’s not what matters to them, then so be it!

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Stanford GSB’s Essay A: What Matters Most to You, and Why?

Perhaps the most famous MBA admissions essay, the first of just two essay prompts from the Stanford Graduate School of Business asks MBA applicants to dig deep into their personal motivations to answer the question.

A great “What Matters Most” essay will involve personal topics and strong emotions. As former Stanford GSB admissions director Derrick Bolton once said, “Essay A should be so personal that if you were working on it at 2am and accidentally printed a copy to your office printer, you would break out in a cold sweat, grab the keys, floor it and drive as fast as you could to the office to snatch the essay before anyone could read it.”

No possible topic is too intimate. Successful applicants to the Stanford GSB MBA program have written about topics as wide-ranging as overcoming drug and alcohol addiction, having an abortion, taking pride in their ethnic identity, receiving advice from a valued mentor, or using their professional career to make a social impact.

Below, we present three perspectives on this iconic essay.

Personal Essay

• What matters most to you, and why? (Suggested Word Count: 650 words)

Behavioral Essays

• (Optional Question) Think about times you’ve created a positive impact, whether in professional, extracurricular, academic, or other settings. What was your impact? What made it significant to you or to others? (Up to 1200 characters, approximately 200 words for each example; up to three examples)
• We know that each person is more than a list of facts or pre-defined categories. With this question we provide you with an optional opportunity to elaborate on how your background or life experiences have helped shape your recent actions or choices. (1200 characters)

Career Goals Essay

• Why Stanford? (Suggested Word Count: 350 words)

Optional Essay

• We are deliberate in the questions we ask. We believe that we get to know you well through all of the elements of your application. Complete this section only if you have critical information you could not convey elsewhere on your application (e.g., extenuating circumstances affecting academic or work performance). This section is not meant to be used as an additional essay. (No word limit)

Source: Stanford GSB

The Importance of Story

Figuring out the core of your personal story, and how to explain it in a way that the Stanford Stanford GSB admissions reader can understand, is a critical part of a successful Stanford A essay.  Expert Admissions Consultant Yaron Dahan talks about the power of storytelling in essays like this one:

Don’t Overwrite

Many applicants think they have to be a creative writing genius to produce a great Stanford A essay. Nothing could be further from the truth. As Founding Partner Alice van Harten explains, using a simple writing style puts the focus where you want it — on your content.

A Guest Opinion on “What Matters Most to You, and Why?”

We asked our friend Kyle, an HBS MBA graduate and an experienced MBA admissions consultant, what he thinks of the prompt, and a few strategies for how to answer it. Here’s what he said:

I’ve found that most admissions consultants provide the same advice on how to answer Stanford’s first essay question, and frankly it’s no different than the advice Stanford provides in the prompt itself: a good answer requires deep self-examination. Unfortunately, I’ve also found this advice to be remarkably unhelpful for MBA applicants setting out to answer the most difficult essay question in business school admissions.

So, while I agree that the Stanford MBA admissions essay requires significant self-examination and reflection, I hope to provide some more concrete advice for how to approach that process and how to know when you’ve gotten to a quality answer.

It’s about hard choices – those that have a real cost.

One of my favorite classes at HBS was Designing Winning Organizations , taught by Professor Robert Simons. At the beginning of the semester, he posed this question as one of the most significant that a company has to answer: “How do your core values prioritize shareholders, employees, and customers?” Of course, most companies want to please all three constituents, but those who do tend to fail. Only those companies that truly prioritize the three succeed. In his words:

“Value statements that are lists of aspirational behaviors aren’t good enough. Real core values indicate whose interest comes first when faced with difficult trade-offs.”

This proposition proves quite useful for students embarking on Stanford’s first essay question – “What matters most to you, and why?” – in that a good answer will show how you’ve prioritized the many important things in your life. It will be an accounting of the major trade-offs you have made, personally and professionally, and why you made them.

The problem is that most applicants aren’t entirely honest with Stanford (not to mention themselves) about what they prioritize.

So, consider the major choices you’ve made in your life, and think about not only the options that you chose but also the options that you didn’t:

• Where you’ve chosen to live – and, by implication, where you’ve chosen not to live.
• What jobs you’ve accepted – and what jobs you’ve rejected or never pursued.
• What things in your life get your time and attention – and what things don’t get it.
• How you spend your money – and what you don’t spend it on.

After listing many important choices that you’ve made, and understanding what you gave up as a result, also consider that you may not have always prioritized what matters most to you. In some instances, you unknowingly prioritize the wrong thing, and you learn from it. These misguided choices can be great fodder for your Stanford essay, too.

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An Example of Finding “What Matters Most”

Perhaps an example from my own life would help. For many years, I have wanted to work in media, specifically journalism. It has always been a passion of mine: I was editor-in-chief of my high school’s newspaper; I was a journalism minor in college; and I followed the news (and the news about the news) obsessively after college. So, when it came time to choose my summer internship during business school, I sought a corporate finance job in the media industry in hopes of figuring out a new business model to save the old and decaying industry of journalism. This required moving to a city with the highest concentration of media and journalism companies: New York City.

I loved the internship to be sure, and I felt passionate about what I was doing. But I was never that keen on living in New York, as none of the people I really cared about lived nearby. So, after a summer away from my closest friends and family, I learned that I wanted to live in Chicago after graduation, even though it would mean taking a job outside of the media industry, which is heavily concentrated in New York City.

Perhaps, then, what matters most to me is having a strong network of support close to me. I would have to consider the other choices I’ve made, and the choices I expect to make in the future, to really know for certain. But it was a misguided choice to prioritize the industry I work in over the people that live near me.

Making the choice to live in Chicago after graduation came at a real cost – namely not being able to work at the best companies in my first-choice industry – but it was worth it to me because it is more important to be near a strong support network of friends and family.

The CEO of the company I worked for in New York City said it like this: you can have anything you want in life, but you cannot have everything you want in life.

So, What Makes a Great Answer to Stanford’s First Essay?

So, I always push applicants who are answering this question to talk not only about the choices they have made, whether they were right or wrong, and why they have made them, but also what those choices cost them. What opportunities did they miss out on in order to prioritize what matters most to them? What did they have to give up?

What makes a really interesting answer to Stanford’s first essay question is when applicants can demonstrate how they prioritized what was important to them when it came at great cost – when their priorities were in conflict with other still important things.

If you feel like the choices you’ve made in life haven’t come at much of a cost, then consider: What things are you not ? What else would you have been doing if you hadn’t been doing what mattered most to you? How would you have been spending your time, energy, and capital? Do you live in a studio apartment so you can afford to travel one a month? Did you lose touch with a friend because you launched a website and spent all your time trying to make sure it succeeded?

Focus on the Why

Once you’ve identified a few good example of tough choices that you’ve made – where you’ve had to give up one important thing for another – it’s time to consider why you made the choice you did, and perhaps if you would still make the same choice today. The motives for why you made those tough choices – those choices with real costs – are what Stanford is interested in learning about. Perhaps you live in that studio so you can travel once a month because your parents taught you that worldly exposure is the most important value. Or, perhaps you lost touch with your friends to launch that website because you were dedicated to learning how to code for the first time – and learning new skills is the most important thing to you.

Starting from the bottom up, thinking about the hard choices you’ve made before thinking about what is most important to you, will always lead to richer, stronger essays. It’ll enable you to support your claim with hard anecdotes and stories – showing the Stanford MBA admissions committee what matters most to you and why, not just telling them.

Tell a story, and make it emotional (happy, sad, funny, or anything in between).

The writing should be much more personal and casual than a traditional MBA essay. You need your personality, humor, and sentiment to come through in a way that most business school essays don’t really demand. Fortunately, if you follow the advice above and pick something that has real cost associated with it, then you’ll have emotion built in right away. Talking about what you gave up, if you truly cared about giving it up, will almost assuredly force genuine emotion into the writing.

Don’t focus on your accomplishments and accolades.

Many applicants make the mistake of making this essay about what they have accomplished, and claiming those accomplishments (often tied together by some central theme) as most important to them.

This is not an essay about what you’ve accomplished – that is what your resume is for. Rather, it’s an essay about the events, people, and situations in your life that have influenced you. It’s an essay about who you are and what you prioritize as a result.

Why Stanford GSB loves this question

Great leaders are often self-aware, know what is important to them, and drive to it at all costs. Steve Jobs is a well-known example of this – a leader who was so singularly focused on one thing that he was willing to sacrifice social acceptance (before he became a tech idol) and what people thought of him, a cost that many of us would not be willing to pay.

Ultimately, Stanford’s first essay question is highly personal, so it’s likely you’ll need to rely on friends, family, and colleagues to help you work through your ideas.

Stanford GSB Essay Examples: How Former Clients Approached the Stanford Essay & Application Journey and Won Admission

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How to Write the Stanford GSB Essays

Introduction ‍.

Now that you’ve decided you want to apply for an MBA at the Stanford Graduate School of Business (Stanford GSB), you need to craft an application that will demonstrate your professional skills, experience, and academic record. You will also need to showcase your skills as a writer, your aspirations, and your individuality. 

The Stanford GSB essays are a crucial component of your Stanford application; they will illuminate your voice and authentic self to the admissions committee. Although writing the Stanford GSB essays can seem like a daunting task, this guide will help you understand, execute, and perfect your essays.

What are the Stanford GSB Essays? ‍

The Stanford GSB essays are two personal essays you'll complete as part of your application to Stanford. The infamous ‘ essay A ’ asks applicants, “What matters most to you, and why?” 

Stanford’s website encourages applicants to “ write from the heart ” and be genuine about what matters most to you and to make an argument for why it is so important. 

Essay B , on the other hand, asks applicants, “Why Stanford?” 

This essay provides the opportunity to describe your personal aspirations and how Stanford fits around them. 

Stanford also allows you to submit several optional short answer essay questions . These questions are completely optional and provide you with more words to discuss topics you may not have been able to address elsewhere in your application. The first prompt reads: 

“Think about times you’ve created a positive impact, whether in professional, extracurricular, academic, or other settings. What was your impact? What made it significant to you or to others?” 

This prompt allows you to provide up to three examples to discuss your resume further. 

The other optional short-answer Stanford GSB essay question asks you to:

“Tell us about a time within the last three years when your background influenced your participation in a situation, interaction, or project.”

This essay facilitates discussion about your background, like education, work, skills, race, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, or gender identity. 

Stanford GSB Essay Length

Both Essay A and B together should not exceed 1,050 words. 

Stanford recommends writing no more than 650 words for essay A and no more than 400 words for essay B. Stanford asks that all essays are double-spaced and submitted in one document with numbered pages. 

For Stanford’s optional question A, you can provide up to three 200-word responses. You should write around 200 words for Stanford’s optional question B essay. 

This length constraint may seem restrictive, but being concise and adopting the “less is more” approach can make for a particularly effective essay. As Stanford notes, “We often find effective essays that are written in fewer words.” 

What Is the Purpose of the Stanford GSB Essays? 

The rest of your application includes everything you need to make a good impression: adequate work experience , high grades, a lengthy list of extracurriculars, and a stellar resume . 

Stanford understands that you are more than the sum of your total experiences and credentials laid out on these pages. The Stanford GSB essays humanize your application and demonstrate to the admissions committee what makes you unique. 

Stanford GSB Essay A

Essay A is a deeply personal and subjective essay. There is no such thing as a perfect topic to write about here. 

The question, “What matters to you most, and why?” is purposefully tricky to answer as it forces you to delve deep into yourself and choose something that is most important to you. That is easier said than done, especially when so many of us have many great things in our lives that are important to us, like our families, friends, and jobs. 

Some may take the route of writing about big-picture ideas like eliminating poverty, ending world hunger, or halting climate change. But essay A is not the space to write what you think Stanford wants to hear, and doing so would be doing yourself a disservice. 

Derrick Bolton, the former Stanford admissions director , said that your essay should “... be so personal that if you were working on it at 2 AM and accidentally printed a copy to your office printer, you would break out in a cold sweat, grab the keys, floor it and drive as fast as you could to the office to snatch the essay before anyone could read it.” 

Some applicants write about controversial or uncomfortable topics, whereas others write about how they want to impact the world, or how their weaknesses have helped cultivate their strengths. 

Ultimately, how you want to portray your individuality and what you choose to write about is entirely up to you. 

Stanford GSB Essay B

Essay B reflects your personal reasons for applying to Stanford. This writing demonstrates why Stanford is the best fit for you and how completing your Stanford MBA will help you achieve your goals. 

Although you have a tight word limit to explain why Stanford is the school for you, you want to be specific to show that you researched the school and program. You also need to explain how Stanford’s program is a significant stepping stone to achieving your career and personal goals. 

You should have an understanding of your industry and what your working life could look like post-MBA. The other purpose of this essay is to demonstrate how your admittance will enrich Stanford’s class. 

Stanford Optional Short Answer Question A 

The optional question A is focused on uncovering more about you beyond your resume. 

Specifically, Stanford is “... interested in learning about the things you have done that are most meaningful to you.” While you can write about your most impactful experiences in the Stanford GSB Essay A, this prompt allows you to go beyond your resume. 

Perhaps you didn’t have enough words to discuss your love of photography in Essay A. In that case, this optional essay allows you to discuss your contributions more fully. 

Of course, you shouldn’t use this essay to ramble on about why you love Stanford. Write about that in your “why Stanford essay.” Instead, answer the question’s main focus — what positive impact did you create, and what made it significant? 

Write about your impact on a situation and emphasize your skills and abilities that will help you achieve academic and professional success. If you can point to your stellar leadership skills, you will show you are ready for an MBA.  

Stanford Optional Short Answer Question B

Stanford’s optional short answer question B asks you to discuss your background. “Background” is purposefully defined broadly. So, you can write about almost anything, ranging from your socioeconomic status to gender identity. 

Perhaps you chose to pursue a part-time job in college because of your gender identity. In that case, explain how and why your background influenced your decision. Self-reflection is key here.

What Is Stanford GSB Looking for in the Essays?

Stanford’s admissions team uses your Stanford GSB application essays to get to know you beyond your academic achievements. 

Specifically, they want to read about your experiences and hear your “genuine voice.” Each Stanford MBA essay is designed to allow you to open up to the admissions committee. Being authentic is vital here; Stanford’s admissions officers can tell if you are not genuine in your responses. 

There is no “right” or “perfect” answer to Stanford’s prompts. As Stanford says, “... the best answer is the one that is truest for you.” 

Looking at Stanford example essays is helpful, as they show you how other applicants have written about their lives. But they are written by other applicants with different experiences. 

Reflect on your own experiences in your Stanford business school essay, and you’ll increase your chances of admission. 

Step-by-step Guide to Writing the Stanford GSB Essays

Writing the Stanford GSB essays can be a daunting task; you may be asking yourself, “How can I effectively convey all that I want to in so few words?” 

Writing an effective essay about yourself can feel challenging, especially with such a low word limit. These essays are quite different from essays you may have done as an undergrad, where long essays are part of the curriculum. 

Remember that these essays are designed to be challenging, and it’s OK to find them difficult. This step-by-step guide will help get you started and provide tips to write a great essay. 

1. Pick Your Topic 

The first step to any essay is to pick your topic. 

For the Stanford GSB essay A, the best course is to brainstorm; think about all the things that are important to you and why you consider them important. Also, think about your achievements and why you set out to achieve them. 

2. Create an Outline 

After you’ve compiled a list, you can narrow down your topic and begin writing. A bullet-pointed list outlining your Stanford MBA essay’s rough structure will help you develop an overall framework.

3. Start Writing 

You can build upon the points you want to touch on and use supporting points as the foundation of your essay. Your essay should be easily separated into three parts:

• Introduction 
• Body paragraphs
• Conclusion 

Your introduction will introduce the topic, the body paragraphs will provide evidence to support your writing, and your conclusion will wrap up your essay neatly. 

4. Create Your Introduction 

Your introduction should captivate the reader immediately. The introduction is often where candidates introduce a relevant anecdote. 

Many people find it helpful to complete their introduction after the main essay is complete. It’s suitable to begin with your introduction or dive right into the body of your essay.

5. Write the Body 

The body of your essay should provide specific examples related to your anecdote. You should discuss what you’ve learned or gained from your experience. 

6. Write Your Conclusion 

Your conclusion should summarize your main points and reference the future you want. It should also leave the reader feeling satisfied that Stanford will help you toward that future. 

1. Brainstorm Why You Want to Attend Stanford 

With the “why Stanford” MBA essay, because you already have your topic, you will want to work out your specific reasons for why Stanford is the school for you. 

Again, brainstorming reasons will help you develop the framework of your essay. Does the school culture excite you? Are you looking to make connections within Silicon Valley?

Jot down every reason you can think of to narrow down your argument. Similar to essay A, your essay should have an identifiable introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion. 

3. Create Your Introduction

Your “why Stanford” essay introduction should immediately explain your interest in Stanford. Why is Stanford the school you want to go to? Alternatively, you can start writing the body of your essay first and return to the introduction after.

4. Write the Body 

The body of your essay should highlight some of your achievements and what you have learned from your experiences. You can also relate your background to classes offered in the program and how they would help you grow. 

5. Write Your Conclusion 

Your conclusion should leave the reader satisfied that Stanford is the only school for you. Be passionate, and be specific. 

For both essays, remember to revise, revise, revise. Your essays should be free of all grammar and spelling mistakes and should flow well. Be sure to read your writing aloud to see how it reads as this can help identify possible errors or substantive issues.

Stanford GSB Essay Examples and What Made Them Successful

Reviewing Stanford essay examples is a great way to understand how your writing should generally look, feel, and flow. Below are two compelling essay examples of Stanford GSB essays that worked. 

These are paragraphs taken from full examples of Stanford essays that worked and are not complete essays alone. To better understand the essays’ makeup, the introduction, body, and conclusion paragraphs are labeled. 

Stanford What Matters Most to You and Why Essay Example

What matters most to you, and why?

Sample Introduction:

One evening during a winter break in college, I was driving home and saw my disabled neighbor on our street, slumped over in his driveway, sobbing. I jumped out of my car and ran. 

The ramp to his house was obstructed by a few recently dropped off packages, and he badly needed to use the restroom, having been stuck there for almost an hour. He was a husband, father, grandfather, and former breadwinner, dehumanized by his disability and utterly helpless in this moment. 

Sample Body Paragraph:

I’m driven by finding answers to the most complex, most challenging problems faced by humanity; the ones that are too daunting, or those that go unrecognized. I had to do something. 

So, I rallied a friend, and together we built a low-cost, AI-driven speech-recognition platform that enabled voice-activated control over electronic systems in a household, thus affording increased independence to individuals suffering from ALS and multiple sclerosis. 

It was an exercise in creativity and persistence, and quite daunting at the outset. But, in the end, our solution worked, and cost a fraction of a now commercially available solution like Alexa.

Sample Conclusion:

In the long run, by proving the benefits of AI-driven healthcare to the world, I want to build an enterprise that not only develops sophisticated technology that improves quality of life but also molds the underlying fabric of healthcare policy. 

Like Uber or Airbnb, I dream of leading an organization that fundamentally shifts the contemporary regulatory paradigm in healthcare to one that appropriately reflects both the medical and psychological needs of the modern patient.

We’re all companions on a journey through life; the same random forces that imbue me with good health compel countless others to live in a state of constant suffering. Humanity is a gift, and I have a social and moral responsibility to empower others to live life with passion, dignity, and hope. It is a mission I am dedicated to for the rest of my life.

What Made This Essay Effective?

• The beginning of this Stanford MBA essay sample immerses the reader immediately into the story the student is telling. The rich anecdote is an excellent starting point to lead the rest of their writing, and we instantly want to know more about their journey. 
• The student’s motivations and passions are illuminated and supported throughout the essay. 
• The student demonstrated how they have worked with their passions and motivations creatively to develop a tool to increase independence for individuals living with disabilities.
• The student’s conclusion articulates their long-term goal and restates their passion. The student explained how they plan to dedicate themselves to their cause and improve others’ quality of life.
• The essay leaves the reader satisfied due to its genuineness.

Why Stanford Essay Example

Why Stanford?

Example Introduction:

Silicon Valley is the cradle of global innovation, a melting pot of creators and visionaries. Its one-of-a-kind community paces the world in invention, creativity, and impact. Stanford is at the nucleus of this ecosystem. 

I dream of building a company that pushes the frontiers of AI to fundamentally reshape the global health paradigm, and the GSB MBA offers unparalleled opportunities to explore myself and my passions on that journey.

Example Body Paragraph:

One important lesson I have learned through my experiences as an inventor is the importance of creativity in navigating constraints and creating lasting impact. I once spent months in rural [Country], with limited materials and guidance, building a [medical device]. Only much later, following conversation with a colleague, did I realize I was intuitively applying design thinking and frugal innovation principles in solving challenges. 

I now want a structured education in accessible, cost-effective, and human-centric design through courses such as Design for Health, which will be invaluable in realizing my mission of improving the quality of life for the disabled.

Example Conclusion:

Steve Jobs once famously said that you can only connect the dots in hindsight. I plan to spend my future creating impactful, long-term change in healthcare. When I reflect on life down the road, I am confident I will see my time at Stanford GSB as the brightest dot along the journey.

What Made This Essay Effective? 

• The student immediately states why they’re interested in attending Stanford and discusses how they will fit into the school. 
• They discuss what they’ve learned in their experiences. This shows that they are mature, reflective, and self-aware. 
• They link their experiences to a specific course at Stanford. This shows that the student has researched the program and is excited about Stanford’s course offerings. 
• This is an exciting and confident conclusion. The student summarizes where they expect to be in the future and how Stanford will help propel them to that goal.

Top Tips for Crafting Memorable Essays 

You want to make sure that your essays stand out for their exceptional quality; it’s not enough to develop pieces that get your point across but come off as formulaic and uncreative. 

Below we have compiled a few top tips for Essay A and B to ensure your essays help you stand out in the best way possible. You can also use these tips if you are struggling to understand how to write the Stanford short essays.

Be a Storyteller

Stanford GSB admissions readers are looking for rich anecdotes and well-crafted stories in essay A . 

Your unique experience is important — and a story worth telling. These elements will entice the reader to want to know more about you and your passions. These stories can be emotional and humanize you and your aspirations to the admissions committee. 

Think about the central theme for your essay, and relay a supporting anecdote. Be sure to give context to help the reader understand why this topic is so important to you. Don’t be afraid to get personal . 

Watch the Length and Keep It Fairly Simple 

When you’re writing about yourself, it can be tempting to write pages and pages to make sure you’re getting your point across. After all, you’re the only expert on the subject! But keep things concise, easily digestible, and confident. 

This assignment is not the space to show off your long-winded creative writing skills and detailed description. It’s also not the space to impress the admissions committee by writing what you think they want to hear. 

Your writing shouldn’t have any frills that can dilute or muddle your answer. Remember to keep things simple, be genuine, and be confident — these are the best ways to set yourself up for success. 

Do Not Focus on Your Accomplishments 

Your essays are not meant to be an opportunity to expand or regurgitate your previous work experience. Your essays can highlight things that you haven’t already discussed. Your resume and letters of recommendation already summarize your professional experiences — this an assignment to show your vulnerability and thoughtfulness. 

If there is an accomplishment that encompasses your passions that you haven’t previously discussed, that is OK. Talk about a person, event, or place that has shaped you. Your essay should give the admissions committee a glimpse at the real person behind the accolades.

Do Your School Research 

Stanford GSB essay B calls for you to do adequate school research. Think about why Stanford is the perfect school for you, and let your research support you. Are there classes, clubs, events, or program elements that will help you realize your goals? 

Be as specific as you can to demonstrate that you have done more than casually surf the school’s website. Your research will help you craft a stellar essay. 

There are No ‘Right’ Answers 

There are no right or wrong ways to write both of your Stanford GSB essays. Your story is yours to tell in whatever way you see fit. If your writing honestly reflects your passions, motivations, and dreams, you are on the right track. 

If you feel yourself agonizing and poring over every line, your essays may not be your brand of “right” quite yet. It sounds a little scary to rely on your intuition and to open up, but you will reap the rewards. 

Stanford GSB Essay FAQs

Writing the Stanford GSB essays isn't easy. However, we’ve put together several questions and answers to help you write killer MBA essays. 

1. How do I submit my Stanford GSB essays? 

You should upload essays electronically in one document. Preview the document to make sure that the formatting of your writing does not change. 

2. What’s the best way to go about editing my essays? 

Beyond checking your essays for plagiarism issues and spelling and grammar mistakes, you should also reflect on your essays’ flow and voice. 

Read your essays aloud and see if they sound and feel right.  An unbiased professional opinion is the best way to polish your essays. The experience of a professional review of your essays would be priceless. 

3. What if I want to exceed the word limit on my essays to fit in everything I want to say?

Exceeding the word limit is not recommended. Stanford is looking for MBA candidates who can write concise and compelling essays about themselves and their aspirations. Try to stay within the recommended 650 words for essay A and 400 words for essay B. 

4. Am I allowed to receive feedback on my essays from consulting services? 

Yes. You are allowed to have your essays reviewed after completion — appropriate feedback is when omissions or errors are addressed and you correct them after. Your thoughts and voice should remain the same. 

Inappropriate coaching occurs when someone else has crafted any part of your essay for you. If this happens, your essays are no longer an accurate representation of you and violate terms. Your application will then either be denied or revoked. 

5. What are the optional essays? 

There are two additional optional essays that candidates can complete as part of their application. The first is, “Think about times you’ve created a positive impact, whether in professional, extracurricular, academic, or other settings. What was your impact? What made it significant to you or to others?” This essay gives you the chance to discuss your resume further. You can provide up to three examples for a total of 600 words, or 200 words per example. 

The second optional essay asks, “Tell us about a time within the last three years when your background influenced your participation at work or school.” This essay facilitates discussion about your background, like education, work, skills, race, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, or gender identity. The word limit for this essay is approximately 200 words. 

6. Will it hurt my chances if I do not write the optional essays? 

The optional essays are just that — optional. If you feel that you’ve already addressed these topics in your application, there is no need. 

But if you want to expand on something that you may not have discussed already, feel free to complete these optional essays. Stanford has accepted applicants who have not completed these additional essays and has not accepted applicants who have completed them.

Excel on the Stanford GSB Essays, Ace the Application

Writing the Stanford GSB essays can be an intimidating task, but this guide should help you polish your essays to perfection. Remember to keep the purpose of both essays in mind as you write. Make sure that your writing is answering the questions that Stanford is asking. 

The step-by-step guide above can help you to complete your essay. The sample Stanford essays that worked illustrated above will help give you an idea of what makes a great Stanford GSB essay. The tips shared in the article will assist you in the memorability of your essay. 

Remember to tell your stories authentically and be genuine in your Stanford GSB essays, and you will be on the path to success.

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What matters most to you, and why the stanford mba wants to know, and so should you.

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This question is simple enough; though coming up with your answer can be a lot more challenging. This notorious essay is at the heart of the MBA application to the Stanford GSB, and typically ties applicants in knots as they try to come up with an answer that they hope is clever, striking, or even profound.  (The author is a co-Director of Fortuna Admissions, an  MBA Admissions Consulting  Firm).

Whether you’re actually applying to the MBA program at Stanford, or wondering about the career path that is right for you, taking the time to answer this question can provide invaluable insight about your life purpose, values, and true authentic self.  When you understand what matters most to you, it’ll help solidify your self-awareness and give you a strong foundation. This will lead to success at business school but also success with relationships and career.  It’s a question that is worth considering in spite of the pain and agony!

Stanford MBA Program essays provide you an opportunity to reflect on your own “truest interests” and ... [+] “highest aspirations.” Getty

So why does Stanford ask this question, and why they have stuck with it for so long? For Heriberto Diarte, a Stanford GSB alumnus and alumni ambassador, the question really gets to the heart of what Stanford is about, and links strongly to the school’s tagline, 'Change lives. Change organizations. Change the world’. “Stanford is looking not just for extremely bright and successful professionals, but also young people who have strong values, and who want to have a positive impact in the world."

"The school genuinely wants to get to know you and to understand your values," Diarte explains. "Stanford MBAs are driven by a desire not just to excel in their careers but also to help others and have a positive impact." Compared to other top business schools, Stanford is a relatively small program of around 400 students, and is seeking to build a very close knit, supportive community. Diarte points to the incredible warmth and spirit of collaboration and friendship that permeates the whole experience. "Stanford students have the ability to open up, be vulnerable, and grow in a supportive yet challenging environment. As such, the Admissions office works very hard to bring together a group of students who are open, humble and have strong integrity and this provides the foundation of the incredible level of camaraderie and trust that you find at the school. This is really core to Stanford’s brand and the identity of its community.”

So what matters most to you, and why? Start off with your intuitive or blink response. Write it down. We’ll come back to it later.

Now Stanford is suggesting 750 words for this essay. Maybe you feel that you can answer the first part of the question in one word, with things like family, love, or chocolate. But the heart of the question, the part that reveals your true calling in life requires deeper introspection. Why does that one thing matter more than any other?

If you’re staring at a blank page, perhaps we can start with some of the advice that Stanford GSB itself provides. They suggest that you think in terms of who you are, lessons and insights that have shaped your perspectives, and events that have influenced you. And they encourage you to write from the heart.

Stanford’s Assistant Dean of MBA Admissions, Derrick Bolton has been quoted to say ,‘please think of the Stanford essays as conversations on paper ‒ when we read files, we feel that we meet people, also known as our "flat friends" ‒ and tell us your story in a natural, genuine way.” If you look up ‘story’ in the dictionary, you will find a definition along the lines of ‘an account of imaginary or real people and events told in an entertaining way.” The best essays are told in a compelling ‘story-like’ way that may involve emotion, humor, inspiration, wit, insight, honesty, and simply - being yourself. A Stanford GSB admissions officer may be reading 20 applications today, 30 tomorrow, and hundreds more in the following weeks. So how can you make an impact, sound intelligent, be original, and engage your reader? This is no easy task but it’s time to put on your thinking hat and reach inwards to tell the story that you are the best qualified to write.

Our team at Fortuna Admissions offer  advice on how to best tackle the structure of this essay, while telling your ‘story’:

1. Start with identifying a person, event, or experience that greatly impacted you.

2. What morals, values, and lessons did you gain from this experience?

3. How do you use these morals, value, and lessons today, and how do they impact your drive, your motivation, and your vision of the world? (Remember, Stanford’s mission statement is ‘change lives, change organizations, change the world’.)

4. How has the development of your career linked to the above?

5. Conclude by restating the link between your values and your career vision, and why these goals are important to you.

If you’re still drawing a blank as to what really matters to you, start by noting down all of your experiences to date, and exploring things like:

• What was it like growing up? How did your parents/guardians and your surroundings shape you? Were you a happy child? What were you regularly involved in (by force or by choice)?
• What was school like? Were you focused? How did your friends influence you? What kind of people did you hang around with? How did you feel, emotionally as a teenager? What did you get involved with?
• What has your career been like? Are you happy with your choices? Any regrets?  What do you like/dislike about your job and why?
• What extra-curricular activities and hobbies do you engage in and what’s the reason behind them?
• What do you love or hate about life? What makes you happy or sad, frustrated or upset?
• What gets you up (or not get up) in the morning?  In this life, what do you really care about?

Now look at all of your answers – including what you initially wrote down as your gut response. Can you identify an underlying theme (or themes) throughout your life? I bet you can. It might amaze you that you have a method to the madness in your life! You could even talk to friends and family as they may have some anecdotes about you that have slipped your mind.  Now, through telling an interesting story, highlight the key themes and connect them to the general ideas expressed in your essays.

Even though you might have to spend hours on this essay through brainstorming, research, talking with others, writing a draft, then another (and then another), just remember that it’s all inside you… it's your story, and you just have to find it and pull it out.

Shouldn't we all really think about what matters most to us, whether we are applying to business school or not? This essay is, in fact, a very beneficial exercise to help with self-awareness, to understand why we do the things we do, and why we make certain choices in life. Take this on as a personal feat, not as an MBA essay question. Stanford wants to know what matters most to you, and so should you.

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Stanford GSB Essay Questions & Tips

Applying to Stanford GSB ? If so, you’ve likely begun thinking about how to approach the Stanford GSB essay questions and, more specifically, pondering ‘what matters most to you and why’. Who knew you would be doing so much soul searching during the MBA application process, right? We’ve got you covered. Read on for the Stanford GSB essay questions and tips to ensure your responses are as strong as possible.

Stanford GSB Essay Questions

• Essay A: What matters most to you, and why? For this essay, we would like you to reflect deeply and write from the heart. Once you’ve identified what matters most to you, help us understand why. You might consider, for example, what makes this so important to you? What people, insights, or experiences have shaped your perspectives?
• Essay B: Why Stanford? Describe your aspirations and how your Stanford GSB experience will help you realize them. If you are applying to both the MBA and MSx programs, use Essay B to address your interest in both programs.

Both essays combined may not exceed 1,050 words. Stanford GSB admissions recommends up to 650 words for Essay A and up to 400 words for Essay B.

Note that Stanford’s application also includes two optional short answer questions – see our advice on these at the end of this article:

• We know that each person is more than a list of facts or pre-defined categories. Please feel free to elaborate on how your background or life experiences have helped shape your recent actions or choices- (up to 1,200 characters, or approximately 200 words).
• Think about times you’ve created a positive impact, whether in professional, extracurricular, academic, or other settings. What was your impact? What made it significant to you or to others? You are welcome to share up to three examples (up to 1,200 characters, or approximately 200 words, for each example).

Before you think about putting pen to paper (or fingers to keys, as the case may be), it’s critical to take the time to truly understand Stanford GSB and what it looks for in successful applicants. To us, the best encapsulation of this can be found in the GSB’s mission statement: “Change lives. Change organizations. Change the world.”

While many business schools aspire to educate leaders that will make a difference in the world, there is a reason that ‘change lives’ comes first in this motto. The GSB embraces a strong belief that change originates from people. People with different perspectives interacting, challenging each other, and ultimately joining forces to push the limits of what seems possible. No man or woman can create change in a vacuum.

In practice, we find that successful applicants personify this mission statement by displaying the following characteristics:

• A belief that EQ and people are just as important as IQ and profits – While demonstrating impact is critical, Stanford GSB seeks those who deliver it through collaboration with and/or for the benefit of others.
• Strong self-awareness – The essay prompt says it all, Stanford GSB cares what matters to you and how it has influenced your choices in life. Scratching the surface of self-awareness is not enough; beyond articulating your emotions in a given situation, they want to see that you can connect situations to your core values and underlying motivations.
• A willingness to take risks – Change is impossible without some level of risk and change is the crux of the GSB’s mission. They want to see that you don’t let fear stand in the way of progress – for yourself and for others.

How to Answer the Stanford GSB Essay Questions

How do i uncover ‘what matters most to me’.

Attempting to crystallize what matters most to you is incredibly intimidating! If you’re digging deep enough, figuring this out is not something that can be done in a day or even a week. That’s why starting early is critical.

To begin, we love suggesting that clients read two great books, True North by Bill George and What You’re Really Meant to Do by Robert Kaplan.  Give thought to where you dream of taking your career (and life more broadly) and why.

From there, it can be helpful to think back to each major decision you’ve made in your life and reflect on why you made the choice you did. Are there any commonalities? Lastly, think about influential people or events in your life stretching back to childhood. What or who has made you who you are and why?

Once you’ve done all this reflection (and written it down!), look for points of intersection and interrelation. Sometimes another set of eyes from a trusted friend or family member can be helpful here. More times than not, there is a common passion, motivation, value, or trait that connects what you’ve done in the past and what you hope to do in the future. This common thread can serve as your overarching theme and answer to ‘what matters most to you’.

Turning Your Theme into a Strong Essay A

The essay itself should prove that this ‘thing’ is truly what matters most to you by laying out 2-3 stories and describing how they connect back to it. While the stories are typically told in chronological order, the essay should not read as your memoir. Be thoughtful and strategic, choosing only your most powerful examples.

Many times, successful essays begin with what we refer to as a ‘superhero origin story’. By this we mean the time in your life or experience that first brought your ‘thing’ (i.e., what matters most to you) into play for you. It is the defining moment that triggered a shift in your thinking or approach in a way that has stuck with you from then on out, influencing who you’ve become and who you hope to be in the future.

The balance of the essay should focus on one or two other situations from your life since the ‘superhero origin’ where the thing that matters most to you influenced your actions or choices. One of these (or a third topical area if you have space) can be devoted to your vision of the future. You have space to further spell out your plans in Essay B, but you should lay out, in broad strokes, how your ‘thing’ influences where you want to take your life in Essay A. 

Once you have the backbone of your essay in place, our advice is to go back and add stylistic nuances that demonstrate you possess the characteristics the GSB seeks. Describe interpersonal dynamics within each story and how you successfully navigated them. Layer in emotion and insights about yourself that demonstrate self-awareness.  Importantly, write so that the adcom feels your authentic passion for the topic you have chosen to discuss.

If this sounds difficult, that’s because it is. Writing a strong Stanford essay takes upfront investment in introspection and time to iterate (and then iterate again). It’s not uncommon for us to work through 10-20 drafts of this essay with clients because, even with professional help, that’s how long it takes to make it perfect.

Essay B is Straightforward but Not ‘Easy’

Once you’ve outlined generally where you want to take your life in Essay A, Essay B is your opportunity to get tactical. Share your specific post-MBA goals and describe why an MBA and the GSB’s program in particular are necessary to help you achieve them.

The keys here are specificity and personalization. If someone could blindly read your essay and think it applies to another MBA program, you are not being specific enough. If they could read it and think the ‘why Stanford’ you describe could help someone achieve different goals than those you are targeting, you are not personalizing your reasons sufficiently.

Writing a successful Essay B requires more than just perusing the GSB’s website for classes and its own description of why the program is unique. Talk to alums and current students, attend webinars, stroll campus if you can, and, critically, reflect on the specific skillsets (hard or soft) you need to build to achieve your most aspirational goals.

How to Answer Stanford’s Short Answer Questions

While these are truly optional, it seems like a missed opportunity not to highlight your unique perspective as well as a few of your best accomplishments. View these as a place to fill in any gaps – in other words, parts of your personal brand or ‘story portfolio’ that you haven’t covered in the main essays. It may help to write a list of all the stories you want to cover upfront and then move the puzzle pieces around, prioritizing the main essays.

A blend of personal and professional is best, both here and in the main essays – the adcom wants to understand the entirety of who you are as a person. Additionally, your short answers should be complementary but not repetitive with your main essays. Remember, you are trying to highlight personal qualities, experiences, and accomplishments that you haven’t been able to cover elsewhere.

Lastly, don’t grasp for straws here, so if you only have two accomplishments to share instead of three in short answer #2, that is ok. But do you best to answer both questions as thoroughly and thoughtfully as possible.

Overwhelmed? We get it – the Stanford GSB application is perhaps the most challenging MBA application out there. If you need assistance, feel free to reach out to schedule a free consultation. 

Katie is a passionate mentor and coach, helping her clients craft a unique, compelling story by leveraging her experience as a corporate executive, alumni interviewer, and campus recruiter. Before completing her MBA at Kellogg, Katie spent five years in banking where she learned practical finance skills as well as how to operate in a demanding, high pressure environment. She pursued an MBA in order to transition to an industry role where she could utilize her finance knowledge to drive change within an organization. Post-MBA, she worked in finance and strategy for a leading CPG firm, progressing to an executive role leading the finance function for a $2B business segment. Her experience managing diverse teams led to a passion for developing others. In addition to her day-to-day responsibilities, she led her firm’s MBA recruiting efforts and served as an alumni admissions interviewer for Kellogg.

Wharton MBA Essay Questions & Tips

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How To Write Stanford’s ‘What Matters Most’

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An aerial view of Stanford’s new nine-building complex for its business school.

Stanford’s Graduate School of Business’ celebrated (did I hear ‘dreaded’) What Matters Most essay (herein WMM) has both stumped and challenged applicants over the years. This question is (arguably) the furthest thing from a ‘traditional’ B-school question (though trends, including HBS’ question, are slowly following suit).

This essay requires deep levels of introspection and sincerity, often leading candidates to compare it to a psychology session. Applicants often ask: “What does the adcom want to hear?”

This unique question represents an opportunity for GSB to learn more about the values that guide a candidate’s life choices. In my experience, an effective WMM essay will reveal not only something intimate about the candidate but will also point to his/her potential as a future leader that will achieve impact.

TELL A STORY

So how do we achieve that effective WMM essay?

Let’s start from the beginning. Tell a story —and tell a story that only you can tell.

This essay should be descriptive and told in a straightforward and sincere way. This probably sounds strange, since this essay is for business school, but the adcom doesn’t expect to hear your business experience in this essay (though, of course, you are free to write about whatever you would like).

Your task in this first essay is to connect the people, situations, and events in your life with the values you adhere to and the choices you have made. This essay gives you a terrific opportunity to learn about yourself.

EXPLAIN HOW AND WHY THE WHAT HAS SHAPED YOUR LIFE

Many candidates make the mistake of not relating to both parts of this question; the ‘why’ here is instrumental. While the ‘ good ’ essays describe the “what,” the ‘ great ’ essays move to the next order and describe how and why this “what” has influenced your life.

So for your second task, be careful not to underestimate the value of describing how and why guiding forces have shaped your behavior, attitudes and objectives in your personal and professional life. Admittedly this is much harder, but it will also make for a stronger essay.

Consulting with GSB alumni, one once indicated to me that, “A great WMM essay will make me cry.” While I’ve helped candidates gain acceptance to GSB with essays that didn’t make me cry, I will agree that WMM necessitates a level of sensitivity and intimacy that is rare for most other B-schools applications.

CONSIDER THESE KEY ELEMENTS BEFORE YOU WRITE THE ESSAY

When you find yourself ready to answer this question, I have found the following approach to be very effective. First, identify a value or philosophy. Then, start with a sort of “personal story,” something from childhood, an anecdote, something that has guided you or helped sow the seed, or even solidify, WMM to you.

Next, develop two to three “stories” that serve to highlight the point you are trying to make. These “stories” should not be a grocery list of your achievements, they don’t even necessarily have to be something noted in your CV; in fact, in most cases, there will be no reference of this trait or story in your CV and this is okay.

Allow the following elements to guide your writing:

1) Sincerity – While it runs the risk of being too emotional or cliché-ridden, your essay needs to be personal, intimate, while at the same time logical. The story has to “fit” –  fit your personality, fit your stories, fit your other essays. It has to “make sense” and be convincing. The flow from one “story” to another has to be smooth, with each story sliding nicely into the next. Another great way to show sincerity could be to talk about personal/private moments, or about moments of weakness.

2) Community – Stanford’s commitment to social activism and contributing to one’s community is unquestionable. If possible, try to have at least one community service story, or at least some kind of community angle.

3) People – At the end of the day, regardless of what you chose as “ What Matters Most “, the most effective essays of this kind are often about people – interacting with people, caring about people, making an impact on others.

Whatever it is, your essay must have a clear “human touch” because, ultimately, achieving GSB’s motto, “Change Lives , Change Organizations , Change the World ”, will depend on your ability to connect with, motivate, and empower others.

Danielle Marom of Aringo Consulting

Danielle Marom is a senior application consultant with Aringo Consulting , an MBA admissions consulting firm founded by Wharton MBA Gil Levi. 

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• Sample MBA Essays

Creating a great technological company matters the most to me. My vast experiences in the hitech industry in Silicon Valley and exposure to several Fortune 500 companies have inspired me to create a great hi-tech company that will create innovative electronics products. Such products will empower millions of users around the world and make their life much easier than what it is now.

Moreover, my experience in Sony opened my eyes to the world of cutting-edge products. As a technocrat, I have researched extensively on various technologies and contributed immensely on various product developments. In the process, I also thought about various ideas and also discussed with my close associates on how to launch a company in order to materialize few of our ideas. In 2012, I finally relocated to India and launched my dream venture. I and other cofounders selected few brilliants ideas and worked days and nights to roll out our maiden product for the Indian education sector. It had the power to transfer how children between the ages of six to ten would learn. Our interactive platform would engage the students and give them relief from the boredom of classroom based studies. The initial responses from various schools were excellent and we vigorously marketed our solutions. However, six months down the line, I realized that our cash flow was far less than the projected revenue figure. Desperate for finance, I networked with various VCs and banks; but, could not secure enough cash that could save the venture.

They say that failure is the pillar of success. I have learnt a lot from the failure of my first venture. Upon reflection, I also realized that my work experience in the Silicon Valley has etched an indelible mark in my DNA. Stories of successful companies such as Sun Microsystems, LinkedIn and Netscape resonate in my heart. I have witnessed how these companies have changed the course of history. I also want to create a successful venture and become a game changer in the Silicon Valley.

Moreover, I am passionate to solve multidisciplinary problems. I want to create software products that will solve real world challenges in the industry such as how to make marketing more data driven instead of pure instincts of brand managers or how to leverage analytics to formulated market penetration strategy. This kind of problems would need expertise on a lot of subjects such as consumer behavior, brand awareness, marketing, advertisement, etc. and that attracts me to the Stanford MBA program. I dream to brainstorm on multi-disciplinary subjects with my globally diverse peers in the Stanford GSB Behavioral Lab.

Moreover, I have come across a medical condition called “Synesthesia” in which all our senses become merged into one and they overall create a halo effect on human beings. For instance, companies like Google, Microsoft and Facebook have “Os” in their names. Is that the secret of their branding success? I would like to brainstorm with neurological experts from Stanford School of Medicine. If my hypothesis is correct, then we can make branding a more data driven science compared to what it is today.

I believe that Stanford would help me to attain my career objectives of successfully launching a start-up in the Silicon Valley. Eventually, I aspire to become a venture capitalist who would evaluate innovative ideas and change the world. It will provide me numerous resources under one roof. I am determined to make most of my experience, brainstorm on innovative ideas with global peers and faculty members and launch my new venture post my MBA.

Final essay after brainstorming and 3 rounds of edits:

I have been inspired by a multitude of people in my life. However, it is the venerable trio of technology visionaries: Vinod Khosla, Reid Hoffman and Marc Andreessen, that has left an indelible impression on my mind. With Sun Microsystems, LinkedIn and Netscape respectively, each of them not only built an admirable technology company but also successfully metamorphosed into highly accomplished investors and venture capitalists. Building a high growth, future ready enterprise and eventually donning the hat of an investor to help other ambitious entrepreneurs succeed in their own ventures is how I REALLY envision my future.

On a contemplative weekend a few months ago, I noticed something interesting. Great consumer technology brands like Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Yahoo have something else in common. They all have one or more ‘O’s in their names. Could a multisensory neurological condition called ‘Synesthesia’ ( a condition where multiple senses like visual shapes and sound get intertwined) have a correlation with building a successful brand identity, considering the fact that our mouths make a more rounded shape when pronouncing these names? More importantly, if my hypothesis could be validated, could it be used to build software that would make brand building more affordable and data driven? It is multidisciplinary problems like these that have always excited me. It would indeed be awesome if I could brainstorm on such a problem with experts at the GSB Behavioral Lab and the Stanford School of Medicine, collaborate over caffeine with a cross-functional team of classmates at the Stanford Venture Studio to bring the idea to fruition and pitch it to Vinod Khosla to seek advice.

Despite tasting limited commercial success in my first entrepreneurial venture, the passion to build a great technology company has not wavered and I continue to seek the next disruptive idea. But, I am committed to doing it better this time. Equipping myself with a robust analytical framework for assessing market opportunities, building an organized approach to address the micro and macro challenges of operating a company and refining my go-to market and sales strategies are all steps I view as crucial to realizing my vision. And, I am confident that I would be able to add each of these elements to my repertoire at Stanford GSB. However, the tenacity to embrace risk when others seek refuge is the single most important quality that I seek to imbibe during my time there and having been situated at the epicenter of hi-tech entrepreneurship since it all started, Stanford GSB was undoubtedly the most natural choice.

I cannot wait to walk down the alleys of Knight Way. After all, it is the surest way to prepare for the marathon from the edges of Silicon Valley to the heart of Sand Hill Road.

If you are a serious applicant, you would do well to review both the client’s basic draft and the final essay I created after elaborate brainstorming and 3 rounds of meticulous editing. Compare the introduction, conclusion and the overall flow of ideas between the two.

Brainstorming with this client helped me to identify areas in which I can provide useful insights in my capacity as a strategy consultant for over a decade. As an admission consultant, I work with numerous applicants and helped the client understand what other applicants generally write and how he must differentiate himself from others. Based on my advice, he avoided the commonplace things and came up with something that was both original and refreshing. Repeated editing helped me narrate his story in a far more effective and convincing manner than would otherwise have been possible. I was able to showcase his maturity and story-telling abilities.

In the end, my partnership with this applicant turned out to be fruitful as he was admitted into Stanford GSB.

What matters most to you and why? (2nd example)

It is not without reason that the more civilized and developed societies around the globe give primacy to the freedom of expression in their ethical, social, and political value systems. Psychologists universally agree that every human being is naturally endowed with the gift of creativity, and I firmly believe that it is through the nurturing and flowering of this gift that individuals and societies symbiotically prosper. It might just be possible that there is a latent Socrates or Galileo or Ayn Rand in many of us, but how many of us possess the courage of our convictions to stand up against the might of majority opinion? Fear of rejection, like an ogre, nips our latent genius in the bud. We become just like everybody else, standardized cogs in the social machine.

It follows, therefore, that the way to both personal and collective advancement is to let a hundred flowers bloom, of course without crushing them when they do so! Let me take an illustrative example. I head an organization. It is not doing as well as I expected, and I want it to move forward at a faster and more competitive pace. I need ideas, a whole pool of them – tested ideas and untested ones, new ideas, daring ideas, out-of-the-box and improbable-sounding ideas. I want them all before I make my choice, because the more my choices, the greater the probability that I will find just what I am looking for, rather than a mere approximation of what I want. What do I do? Do I shut my cabin door, hang a Do Not Disturb sign on it, put on my thinking cap, and sit at my table thinking? After all, I am the boss, it is I who should be the ‘ideas’ man, it is I who should give the lead. Or do I call up all my senior executives and whoever else in the organization fits the bill, and get down to a solid brainstorming session?

When one compares the two options, how limited and exclusive the first one is; and how full of possibilities and inclusive is the second one! What the first option, in effect says, is, ‘This is my organization – you are here to do my bidding.’ It is an egotistical approach with which the employees will be at pains to identify. What the second option says is, ‘This is our organization. Let’s do things together.’ There is more respect for another here, and a greater appreciation of one another’s abilities that in turn foster a sense of belonging and make each member of the group strive for excellence. Creativity happens by itself – ideas tumble out, and the chances are that, somewhere in the heap of views that are so freely expressed, there lies the seed of the perfect solution for the problem at hand.

I believe it is precisely the lack of openness to what others might have to say, and the contribution they might be able to make that, by and large, has stifled innovation in India. As Narayan Murthy, the revered co-founder of the Indian multi-national Infosys has potently observed, not a single good innovation has come from India in the last decade. This is in sharp contrast to the prevailing situation in developed nations like the USA, where the sanctity accorded to the individual has resulted in a society that is forever pushing back the boundaries of creative endeavour in every field of human activity.

Now to come to our own family business: it relates predominantly to the industrial sector, and is run jointly by my father and my father-in-law. They are awesome leaders in their own way, no doubt, but over the past few years our business has begun to lose its fizz. Why? Because new businesses are coming up, which are run in new ways, using new technologies like E-commerce and IT, to which we had turned a blind eye. The dinosaur, they say, disappeared because it could not adjust to climate change. The industrial climate, too, had changed, and it took a great deal of convincing before I could make my father and father-in-law agree to venture into new sectors. I persuaded them to invest in new companies. The returns told their own story – they were higher than was expected in any other industrial sector. And there was an additional benefit: we got hands-on knowledge on IT and e-Commerce.

When you let a hundred flowers bloom, its fragrance spreads far and wide!

Stanford GSB’s Take on Demonstrated Leadership Potential

It is essential to understand stanford’s concept of leadership in order to portray it effectively in your application..

As per Stanford GSB’s evaluation criteria , the school seeks demonstrated leadership potential. But, isn’t that all B-schools look for leadership potential? The answer is “yes and no” – quite an ambiguous phrase, isn’t it? There are some unique nuances to Stanford’s concept of leadership that you should know about in order to showcase leadership effectively in your application . Let’s try to decipher what Stanford means by “demonstrated leadership potential”. Lets take word by word for our analysis.

First, Demonstrated:-

You must showcase what impact(s) you have made till date to your organization(s). Actions speak louder than words. Provide concrete evidence to convince the admissions committee that you have left an indelible mark in your organizations. Describe what you accomplished, how you challenged the status quo and what changes you have implemented. Stanford GSB admissions officers should be able to visualize you in action while reading the applications essays.

Second, Leadership:-

Leadership is an umbrella word. There are numerous aspects of leadership such as communication, coordination, collaboration, managing scope/schedule/cost/priorities of a project, controlling quality, handling personality conflicts, mentoring, networking and so on.

But how does Stanford defines leadership? As per GSB, leadership must be guided by ideal, even in difficult circumstances. That is what they call “directed idealism.” To provide meaningful leadership, you must have a core set of values that must guide you, just as the North Star used to guide sailors in old days. However challenging any project might be or whatever ethical dilemma you might have faced, Stanford expects that you showcase consistent actions that are driven by values.

Business leaders, especially the ones who are in top positions in global corporations and renowned non-profits, amass immense power. Common people generally view them as role models. Our society, in general, places huge responsibilities on the shoulders of such leaders. Corporate scandals, misuse of office or lapse in moral and ethical dimensions by corporate bosses send a wrong signal to the society at large. Hence, Stanford aspires to create a crop of leaders who will understand their tremendous responsibilities and act accordingly.

As an applicant to Stanford GSB, keep these points in mind while selecting your leadership stories.

Third, Potential:-

Stanford wish to see that you always walk the extra mile to accomplish your goals. You have the “fire in the belly” to become one of the top leaders in the industry. You are in constant look out to broaden your leadership horizon and grow as a leader. Hence, you network with senior leaders, read books of management gurus, and brainstorm with your peers to understand various issues of management.

Moreover, you are open to critique. You gracefully accept feedback and realize that constructive criticism is one of the best ways to know how others’ perceive you.

As you can see, the definition of “Demonstrated Leadership Potential” of Stanford is little different from those of other B-schools. Integrate these points into your entire application in order to differentiate from hundreds’ of other application.

How to Project Intellectual Vitality to Stanford?

Stanford is one of the most selective B-schools in the world. For the Class of 2019, it admitted only 6% of all applicants. So, an astonishing 94% of the applicants were rejected in the gruesome selection process. And many of these rejects have excellent academic and professional career. They are smart and accomplished. Yet, they were rejected. So how can you showcase to Stanford that you have all the necessary qualities that it is looking for. Let us walk you through Stanford’s evaluation criteria and give you some advice.

The very first point is intellectual vitality. Now, how do you define “intellectual vitality”? It has three fundamental parameters. They are:

1. Passion for ideas.

Ideas fascinate you! You embrace change and are always interested to know the next big idea. You scout for cutting-edge ideas that have the potential to change the status quo. You have the intellectual curiosity to dig out more about any idea in order to push the boundaries and explore new territories. How can it be utilized to make thing better? How can it change our existing beliefs? What will be the ripple effect of implementing this idea? Is this idea going to give us a new lens to see things in a different light? You think for countless hours for all such possibilities.

2. Dynamic, engaged mind.

You are ever curious like a child! You have a brilliant mind to probe into things. You are always comparing and contrasting things. You are trying to find out the reasons behind any event, however small or insignificant it might be. You always try to understand the background information behind everything in order to understand patterns. You try to understand the past in order to predict what might happen in the future. You try to comprehend the overlaps between disparate points and differences between similar ones. For you, engaging in such a mentally stimulating exercise is fun as well as passion. You are ever enthusiastic to know what you might find at the end of the tunnel. It’s a thrilling journey for you. And you do inspire others to join you in that journey.

3. Free thinker

You have an independent mind that is uncluttered from others’ opinion. You always talk to numerous bright individuals to listen to their opinions. But, you make your own judgement. You think something is correct not because your family or friends believe that. You always analyse things from multiple angles using numerous lens and form your own conclusion. Thereafter, you are not afraid to act as per your belief.

However, you are also not scared from being challenged on your ideas. In fact, you welcome such an intellectual exercise. You are passionate to listen to others’ viewpoint and then you put forward your own ideas. You’re a skilful devil’s advocate, and able to argue from multiple perspectives. You relish comprehending what drives and underlies opposing ideas and beliefs (there’s that curiosity again).

The above mentioned three points defines intellectual vitality in a nutshell. Now, how do you let Stanford’s admissions team know that you have the necessary intellectual vigor and vitality? Your application essays are the perfect place to showcase these qualities. Compose engaging essays, narrate your ideas in detail, and articulate all aspects of your argument with fascinating anecdotes. Luckily, if you are invited to an interview, you will get a golden opportunity to showcase the entire spectrum of your intellectual vitality to Stanford.

Sandip Bhattacharya, General Management Program (Harvard), Master's in Creative Writing (Oxford)

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6 Stellar Stanford Essay Examples

What’s covered:, essay example #1 – letter to your future roommate, one-second videos, essay example #2 – letter to your future roommate, study and fun, essay example #3 – letter to your future roommate, k-pop and food, essay example #4 – something meaningful, 1984, essay example #5 – something meaningful, ramen, essay example #6 – significant challenge short answer, where to get your stanford essays edited.

Stanford is one of the most selective colleges in the nation, with an acceptance rate typically under 5%. If you want to snag a spot at this renowned university in sunny California, you’ll need to write standout essays.

Stanford is known for it’s short and whimsical prompts that give students a lot of freedom to let their creativity shine through. In this post, we will be going over three essays real students have submitted to Stanford to give you an idea of how to approach your essays. We will also share what each essay did well and where there is room for improvement.

Please note: Looking at examples of real essays students have submitted to colleges can be very beneficial to get inspiration for your essays. You should never copy or plagiarize from these examples when writing your own essays. Colleges can tell when an essay isn’t genuine and will not view students favorably if they plagiarized. 

Read our Stanford essay breakdown to get a comprehensive overview of this year’s supplemental prompts. 

Prompt: 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—get to know you better. (100-250 words)

Hey roomie!

I’m so excited to meet you and share our first year at Stanford, but I should probably warn you. By the end of fall quarter, I guarantee that you will be sick of hearing me ask, “Do you want to be in my one second?”

For the past couple of years, recording a one-second video every day has been my way of finding excitement in even the most boring days. I promise that while we’re roommates, my one-second clips will make every day an adventure.

Some of my personal favorites:

• Ice skating in Millennium Park in Chicago
• Watching Netflix with my 3 sisters (usually Jane the Virgin)
• Baking a cake in physics class
• Petting my 17-pound rabbit, or my 2-pound rabbit
• Family karaoke night featuring the High School Musical soundtrack and my terrible singing 
• Playing in Pep Band at basketball games with my best friends
• Winning Mario Kart (I am a self-proclaimed professional)
• Playing with a friend’s new puppy
• Selfies with my Target coworkers after handling an army of coupon moms

I’m excited to capture our first year together at Stanford, from Big Game to our first ski trip. Even on days where studying in our dorm seems like the highlight, I’ll suggest a spontaneous ice cream run so we’re not THAT lame.

So when I inevitably ask you to be in my one second, I promise that it’ll be worth it (and you can’t say I didn’t warn you).

Sincerely, 

Your soon-to-be bestie/adventure buddy/one-second-a-day-video-taking roommate

What The Essay Did Well

This is such a fun essay to read because it shows us who this student is outside of her academics and extracurriculars. There isn’t a single mention of her academic interests or the clubs and organizations she is in—ironically, that’s the strength of the essay! By focusing her essay around her one second a day video, it allows her to demonstrate to the reader her most natural self. Outside the confines of a classroom or pursuing extracurricular achievement, these are the things that bring her joy and make her interesting; conveying that idea is the exact point of Stanford asking this question.

Bulleting her most memorable one second videos is a great way to share a wide variety of stories without making the essay too dense. They are quick thoughts—not even fully formed sentences—but they all start with a verb to bring a sense of action to the essay. Not to mention, she was able to work in a good amount of humor. Including her “terrible singing ” at karaoke night, being a “ self-proclaimed professional ” at Mario Kart, and the “ army of coupon moms ” at her job isn’t necessary for each story, but adding it in gives admissions officers an extra little chuckle.

No space is wasted in this essay, even down to the sign-off. She could have ended by saying “ Sincerely, Sara “, but instead, she added an extra line to excitedly describe herself as “ Your soon-to-be bestie/adventure buddy/one-second-a-day-video-taking roommate.”  As if we didn’t get enough of a taste of her personality throughout, this student closes with a run-on thought that conveys her child-like enthusiasm at going to Stanford and meeting her roommate. 

What Could Be Improved

Overall, this is a really strong essay. That being said, there are a few sentences that could be reworked to be a bit more fun and align better with the rest of the essay.

For example, the starting off with an admission that her roommate might get sick of hearing about her one second videos is cute, but it could be made stronger by really leaning into it. “ Hi roomie! Here’s to hoping you aren’t ready to throw my phone out the third-floor window of Branner by finals!”  With this opening, we are immediately asking ourselves what could this student possibly be doing with her phone that would cause her roommate to chuck it out a window. It builds suspense and also adds humor. Not to mention, she would be including a dorm on campus to show she has thoroughly research life at Stanford.

Another sentence that could use some extra TLC is “ I promise that while we’re roommates, my one-second clips will make every day an adventure.”  Again, a nice sentiment, but it doesn’t stimulate the reader’s mind in the same way an example would. She goes into some of the one seconds they will capture at Stanford later on, but it wouldn’t hurt to add another example here. She could write something like this: “ With me everyday will be an adventure; I’ll have the clip of you trying scrambled eggs and strawberries at the dining hall for proof (trust me, it’s how they were meant to be eaten). “

Dear stranger (but hopefully future roomie),

Are you looking for someone that:

S ees you only at night when they are going to sleep?

T hrives being taciturn?

U nnerves you on the eve of your exams?

D oesn’t tell Moroccan fairy tales each night?

Y owls while sleeping?

A bhors lending you their clothes?

N ever nibbles on snacks and won’t bring you Moroccan cookies?

D oesn’t ask you to go for a walk on campus?

F idgets when you need help?

U proots a spider they cross without asking you for help?

N ot ready to sing with you if you play Beyonce’s songs?

Don’t fret if you said no to all of the above. That just means we are the perfect match because I am the opposite of everything I described above! It would be my great pleasure to introduce you to the person with whom you will not just share a room, but also have unforgettable moments. Be ready to spend nights laughing–it is not my fault if I keep you up all night with my jokes. Words cannot express how excited I am to find out what makes you, you! I’ve cleverly hidden our theme within my note. In case you didn’t notice, reread the first letter of each line.

P.S: It may be difficult for you to say the “kh” in my name, especially if you don’t speak Arabic or Spanish. So feel free to call me Yara.

This is a charming way to introduce yourself to a future roommate. Not only did they spell out all the ways they will be a loyal and dependable roommate, but they literally spelled out a secret message! Accomplishing this shows this student took extra time and care into crafting statements to add an extra layer of creativity.

This student also imbued aspects of their personality in these statements—once you flip it around. We see how important their Moroccan heritage is, as they look forward to sharing “ Moroccan fairytales each night ” and “ Moroccan cookies ” with their roommate. We see how caring they are when it comes to  “lending you clothes”  and not fidgeting “ when you need help. ” They also include some humor in some lines: “Yowls while sleeping.” Each sentence helps piece together different aspects of this student’s personality to help us put together a full picture.

Although the idea of presenting a bunch of contradictory statements puts a nice spin on the structure, be cautious about going this route if it gets too confusing for your reader. Certain lines create double negatives—” doesn’t tell Moroccan fairytales ,” “ never nibbles on snacks ,” “ not ready to sing with you “—that take the reader an extra second to wrap their head around what the student is actually trying to say. Admissions officers spend a very limited amount of time on each essay, so you don’t want to include any language that requires additional brain power to digest.

This essay is also missing the closing to the letter. The author includes “ Dear stranger ” and “ P.S. “, indicating they are writing the essay in the format of a letter. Their letter requires a closing statement and a sign-off of their name. Without them signing their name at the end of the essay, the P.S. they include doesn’t make as much sense. If the reader doesn’t know what their name is, how would they understand their nickname? 

Hey, future roommate!

As an INFJ personality type, I value my relationships and genuinely want to know you better:

How do you feel about music? I. Love. Music. My favorite genre is kpop, and since I am an avid kpop lover, I follow many groups (TXT and Twice being my favorites). I apologize in advance if you hear me blasting songs. Admittedly, getting lost in my own little world happens a lot. You can just ask me to tone it down. Or join in!

I am also a sucker for dramas. We could watch sweet heart aching love stories or historical ones together! Both are also my cup of tea.

Speaking of tea, what is your favorite drink to order? I tend to prefer sweet, bitter coffee and teas. I also like trying out new foods and making them. You know…you could be my taste tester. I like to consider myself an amateur cook. If we somehow miss the dining hours, no need to worry. With my portable bunsen stove, we can make hot pot in the dorm or quickly whip something up suitable to both our tastes.

As much as I love all food, Burmese food holds a special place in my heart. I would like to share with you my favorite foods: lahpet thoke (tea leaf salad) and ohn no khao swè (coconut noodle soup). Food is my love language, and I hope that we can share that same connection through exchanging and trying out new foods!

This essay packs a ton of information into just a few paragraphs. We learn about the author’s food and drink preferences, music taste, and favorite TV shows. The vivid language about food, drink, and cooking in particular makes the images of this student’s potential life at Stanford that much clearer and more compelling. 

Another especially strong element of this essay is the author’s personality and voice, which come through loud and clear in this essay. Through varied sentence structure and the way they phrase their stories, we get a great sense of this applicant’s friendliness and happy, enthusiastic style of engaging with their peers. 

Finally, college applications are by their nature typically quite dry affairs, and this kind of prompt is one of the few chances you might have to share certain parts of your personality that are truly essential to understanding who you are, but don’t come across in a transcript or activities list. This student does a great job taking advantage of this opportunity to showcase a truly new side of them that wouldn’t come across anywhere else in their application.

You wouldn’t, for example, want to just rehash all the APs you took or talk about being captain of your sports team. Firstly, because those probably aren’t the first things you’d talk about with your new roommate, and secondly, because that information doesn’t tell admissions officers anything they don’t already know. Instead, approach this prompt like this student did, and discuss aspects of who you are that help them understand who you are on a day to day basis—as the prompt itself hints at, the residential college experience is about much more than just class.

This is a great letter to a future roommate, but it’s important to remember that while the prompt is officially for future roommates, the essay is actually going to admissions committees. So, you want to  think carefully about what kinds of practices you mention in your essays. In most college dorms, students aren’t even supposed to light candles because it’s a fire hazard. So, while your dorm cooking skills might be very impressive, it’s probably not a good idea to advertise a plan to bring a portable stove to campus, as these kinds of things are often against dorm rules.

This may seem like nitpicking, but at a school as competitive as Stanford, you want to be extra careful to avoid saying anything that admissions officers might find off-putting, even subconsciously. For a more extreme example, you obviously wouldn’t want to talk about all the parties you plan on hosting. While this slip-up is much more minor, and the student was clearly well-intentioned, the overall genre of disregard for the rules is the same, and obviously not something you want to highlight in any college application.

Prompt: Tell us about something that is meaningful to you and why. (100-250 words)

I am an avid anti-annotationist; the mere idea of tainting the crisp white pages of any novel with dark imprints of my own thoughts is simply repulsive. However, I have one exception — my copy of George Orwell’s 1984, weathered and annotated in two languages. While victimized by uneven handwriting eating away at the margins, it is the only novel I still hold beloved despite its flaws. 

Two years before reading 1984, I was indulging in the novels of Dr. Seuss, not because of my preferences, but because my reading level was deemed an “A” — the reading level of a toddler. I was certainly anything but that; I was a fresh-off-the-plane immigrant and rising middle schooler who could barely name colors in English. 

After reading the likes of A Very Hungry Caterpillar like a madman, my next step was purchasing more advanced books in both English and Korean, so I could understand the nuance and missing details of novels after I initially read them in English. This crutch worked perfectly until George Orwell’s 1984 — the first novel I purchased and read without the training wheels of a translated copy. It took me weeks to finish the book; it was painfully slow, like a snail inching toward an arbitrary finish line. 

I read the novel twenty-seven times, each reading becoming faster and revealing more information. When I look at my copy of 1984, I still cringe at its weathered and tainted pages, but I can’t help admiring that initial portal between two literary worlds. 

This is undoubtedly an excellent writer who produced an exceptionally strong essay. Right from describing themself as an “ avid anti-annotationist, ” we can tell this is going to be different than you typical essay. While many students will choose something related to their academic or extracurricular passion, this essay choose a specific book. Although 1984 is so much more to them than simply a novel, as they reveal through the essay, the focus on an individual object as something meaningful is such a powerful image.

This student does a beautiful job conveying their journey through the symbol of 1984. They measure time using the book (“ Two years before reading 1984 “), and use well-known children’s novels like A Very Hungry Caterpillar and Dr. Seuss to convey just how far they came without explicitly needing to describe how behind they were. Describing reading 1984 without a translated copy as ditching “training wheels” further emphasizes their growth.

The meaningfulness of 1984 is reinforced through the focus on its “ weathered and tainted pages .” Admitting to the reader at the beginning that they hate marking up books, yet their favorite book is annotated from cover to cover, highlights how 1984 is so much more than a book to them. It is a symbol of their resilience, of their growth, and of a pivotal turning point in their lives. Although the student doesn’t say any of this in their essay, their skilled writing reveals all of it to the reader.

One of Stanford’s deepest values is intellectual vitality (in fact, there’s a whole separate prompt dedicated to the topic!). This student demonstrates this value through establishing a willingness to learn and a love of cross-cultural literature.  All the while, this student is authentic. There’s little posturing here intended to impress the admissions officers with the student’s resilience and deep love for the written word; instead, he is genuine in sharing a small but authentic part of his life.

This essay has very little that needs to be improved on, but there is one crucial question that would have been nice to have answered: why 1984? Out of all the books in the world, why was this the one this student decided to commit to as the first all-English novel? Was it just by chance, did a teacher encourage them to pick it up, or did the premise of the book speak to them? Whatever the reason, it would have been nice to know to further understand its significance.

While most people argue that the best invention is something mechanical or conceptual, I believe it’s the creation of instant ramen. There’s little time involvement, deliciousness, and convenience all included in one package. What more could one ask for? The nostalgia packed within instant ramen makes it a guilty pleasure I can’t live without. 

During a road trip to Yellowstone, this miracle meal followed my family as we took turns sharing an umbrella under the pouring rain and indulging it in its instant delicacy: we were shivering in the cold, but the heat of the spicy soup and the huge portion of springy noodles warmed our souls instantly. It was an unforgettable experience, and eating ramen has since then followed us to Disneyland, Crater Lake, and Space Needle, being incorporated in our frequent road trips. 

It has also come in handy during our wushu competition trips. Often, competitions ended at midnight, making it inconvenient to eat out. In these situations, the only essentials we needed were hot water and instant ramen packages, enough to satiate our spirits and hunger.

Instant ramen is also a way my mom and grandma express their care for me. On late nights of doing homework after wushu practice, I usually ate something—sometimes instant ramen—to have a smoother recovery. My mom and grandma usually paired instant ramen with extra toppings like homemade wontons or fish balls—their motto being “instant ramen always tastes better when someone makes it for you.

By picking such an unusual topic, this applicant grabs the attention and interest of readers straightaway. Picking something as commonplace and commercial as instant ramen and transforming it into a thoughtful story about family is a testament to this student’s ability to think outside the box and surprise admissions officers. It makes for an essay that’s both meaningful and memorable! 

Another great aspect of this response is how information-dense it is. We learn not just about the writer’s fondness for instant ramen, but about their family road trips, their participation in wushu, their close-knit extended family, and their culture. Even though some of these details come in the form of brief, almost throwaway lines, like briefly mentioning fishballs and wontons, they are clearly thoughtfully placed and designed to add depth and texture to the essay. 

While walking the line between maximizing every word available to you and having your essay be cohesive and easy to follow is tricky, this writer does a fantastic job of it. The details they include are all clearly relevant to their main theme of instant ramen, but also distinct enough that we get a comprehensive sense of who they are in just 250 words. Remember, even quick details can go a long way in enriching your overall description of your topic or theme.

This is a very strong essay, but there’s always room for improvement. The first paragraph of this essay, though a good general introduction that you might find in an academic essay, doesn’t actually say much about this applicant’s potential as a Stanford student. Remember, since your space is so limited in the college essay, you want every sentence, and really every word, to be teaching admissions officers something new about you.

Starting a story in media res, or in the middle of the action, can get the reader immersed in your story more quickly, and save you some words that you can then use to add details later on. Avoiding a broad overview in your first paragraph also allows you to get into the meat of your writing more quickly, which admissions officers will appreciate—remember, they’re reading dozens if not hundreds of applications a day, so the more efficient you can be in getting to your point, the better.

Everybody talks. The Neon Trees were right, everybody does indeed talk but in our society no one listens. Understandably, the inclination to be heard and understood jades our respect for others, resulting in us speaking over people to overpower them with our greatest tools, being our voices.

What The Response Did Well

This prompt is a textbook example of the “Global Issues” essay , but with an obvious catch: you have only 50 words to get your point across. With such limited space, this Stanford short answer supplement demands that applicants get their point across quickly and efficiently. This essay does a great job of grabbing one’s attention with an unusual hook that segues smoothly into the main topic. Along with that, the student demonstrates that they have a great vocabulary and sophisticated writing style in just a few sentences. 

While failing to communicate effectively indeed causes a great many problems, failure to listen is an incredibly broad challenge, and therefore, not the strongest choice for this short response. Remember, like with any other supplement, you want your response to teach Stanford admissions officers something about you. So, you ideally want to choose a specific subject that reflects both your knowledge of the world and your personal passions.

Again, your space is limited, but if this student had been even slightly more specific, we would have learned much more about their personality. For example, the sentence that starts with “understandably” could have instead read:

““Understandably, the inclination to be heard and understood jades our respect for others, which causes shortsightedness that, if nothing changes, will soon enough leave our air unbreathable and our water undrinkable.”

This version goes a step further, by not just speaking vaguely about nobody listening, but also pointing out a tangible consequence of this problem, which in turn demonstrates the student’s passion for environmentalism.

Do you want feedback on your Stanford essays? After rereading your essays countless times, it can be difficult to evaluate your writing objectively. That’s why we created our free Peer Essay Review tool , where you can get a free review of your essay from another student. You can also improve your own writing skills by reviewing other students’ essays. 

If you want a college admissions expert to review your essay, advisors on CollegeVine have helped students refine their writing and submit successful applications to top schools. Find the right advisor for you to improve your chances of getting into your dream school!

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“What Matters To You, and Why?” Stanford Supplemental Essay Examples

• college application essays
• essay topic

College supplemental essays are designed for applicants to demonstrate their personality and passion, but applicants are often stumped when they look the essay prompt.

Applicants tend to overthink the supplemental essay topic, often spending too much time trying to figure out what admission officers want to read. While it’s important to understand what the question is being asked, your efforts should be focused on what about personality or achievements you want to highlight.

Take one of Stanford University’s supplemental essay topic for example. Here’s the prompt:

What matters to you, and why? (250 word limit)

Instead of thinking about appealing to a university, think about this question as if your best friend just asked you at your usual hang out spot. What would you respond with? What’s the first thing that comes to mind? Don’t eliminate those ideas because you think they are too childish or not intriguing enough. These ideas and your reasoning behind is what makes you unique and different.

Here are 5 examples from students who were accepted to Stanford:

Stanford2020

Stanford university ‘20.

I have always been envious of characters in musicals: imagine jiving on the streets to Dancing Queen, or saying goodnight with So Long, Farewell! I, unfortunately, don’t quite have the skills to spontaneously set my feelings to music. I am privileged, however, to have music in my life. Keep reading.

Why do we humans even exist? For what purpose do we to continue to strive day after day, knowing our inevitable end? As quickly as I have come into this world, I will soon be out of it; I am but a second on an ever-ticking geological clock. Yet, I carry with me an innate longing for greatness, the wish to be immortalized for what I will achieve for mankind. Read on.  

I am six. Pools of mudfish swim by my ankles, now slick and red with rashes, and when I scoop up the water with a hut! — The pink basket convulses with life, ready to burst. Eyes fixated on the muffled pop-pop of fish breaths, floating about like round balloons and splintering the shimmer of my reflection, I walk home with it. Continue reading.

Stanford University ‘18

I once stayed up all night with a twelve year old because no one else did.

I cried when my bunny cut her foot; but looked like stone the morning

I found that bunny stiff and cold.

I would rather lose my life than live without the chance to spend another hour in a hallway with a pair of somersaulting angels nothing like the stereotypical eighth grader.

When you ask me what matters,

when you wonder what’s wrong,

when you fail to catch my attention as I stare into space,

when the sky looks like a prayer but I act like it’s crumbling down,

pretty much every answer is true.

View full essay.

JCStanford20

When my brother was diagnosed with leukemia for the first time over five years ago and when he relapsed last April, I saw firsthand how proper medical treatment, access to mental health resources, availability of marrow donors, and an insurance policy that didn’t set a lifetime cap or discriminate against preexisting conditions could help deliver my brother through a painful cancer journey. But he is only one of many, one child fortunate enough to have these resources. Continue reading.

———

Interested in reading these students full personal statements, and the What Matters to You, and Why supplemental essay? Unlock all of them in one go with our curated package

Our  premium plans  offer different level of profile access and data insights that can help you get into your dream school. Unlock any of our  packages  or search our  undergraduate profile database  to find specific profiles that can help you make an informed choice about where to apply! 

About The Author

Frances was born in Hong Kong and received her bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University. She loves super sad drama television, cooking, and reading. Her favorite person on Earth isn’t actually a member of the AdmitSee team - it’s her dog Cooper.

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