Give me a complete guide on everything to increase my chances the MAX as a mediocre. I am willing to sacrifice a lot. I would like to major in cs and math for college.
Stanford is a high reach for EVERY applicant. The college gets way more extremely well qualified applicants than they can admit.
So…just do your personal best and see where you are at the end of your junior year of high school. That’s really all you can do.
And in the meantime…make a list of the criteria you think you might like in a college. Then start researching for colleges that meet those criteria…and develop a list that is varied in terms of how competitive for admission.
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The successful applicant would have done their own research beyond “Tell me everything you know.”
But start here, which applies to many universities
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I already did but I want to know more which is why I’m on this thread researching.
I want to improve my chances to the MAX and feel I might be missing something even though my research. Since it probably is not the MAX.
Donate $10 million to build a new library. Win an Olympic gold medal in the sport of your choice. A sliver is also good. Be the top high school football quarterback in the country. Win a Nobel Prize in the field of your choice. Those are the top four ways to maximize your chances as a mediocre student.
Otherwise, you just have to do your best in your classes, on the SAT/ACT, and do show depth and commitment in your ECs. Then realize your chance of success is probably around 3% and make sure you apply to several other colleges where you have a higher likelihood of acceptance. Shoot your shot and move on. You may get lucky, but you must have a back up plan or two or three or four.
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Essays - Stanford’s supplemental essays - make them the best you can. Intellectual curiosity in each. Present yourself in the most interesting and likable way you can.
Good luck.
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I do not think that Stanford will care about your grades from freshman year of high school. However you will want to get very high grades from now on. Finishing your freshman year strong will help you do better next year, which will matter. As a potential CS / mathematics student, you will particularly want to get very, very solid grades in your math classes, and in CS classes if any are available to you.
Getting solid A+ grades is more important than jumping ahead. In mathematics in particular what you are learning now tends to depend upon what you learned last year, and what you are going to learn next year and the year after will depend upon what you are learning now and what you learned last year. Thus being solid all the way along is important.
In terms of extracurricular activities, do what is right for you. Whatever you do, do it well. You do not need a long list of ECs. You should show commitment and good performance in whatever you do (as one extreme example, I think that when John McEnroe went to Stanford his main ECs were tennis, and also tennis, and some more tennis, although I am pretty sure that he also plays guitar).
If you get into a leadership position, then listen to other students and try to make the activity better for everyone.
Read the “applying sideways” blog on the MIT admissions web site (which @skieurope already pointed to). The same approach is useful for other schools such as Stanford.
I got my master’s degree at Stanford in a subfield of applied mathematics. I loved it. It was a lot of work. Classes go fast and with the quarter system the end of the quarter comes up faster than you expect. If you are already ahead in all of your classes this is fine. I saw some very tough exams with problems that stumped the vast majority of Stanford graduate students (and I loved this also). You need to be driven to do this. The other students in the same graduate program had gotten their bachelor’s degrees at a very, very wide range of universities. With one exception I never found two students who had gotten their degree at the same university. The one exception was probably just a coincidence, and it was NOT ranked in the top 50 in the US. You can get a bachelor’s degree at any of a very wide range of universities and still have a chance to get a master’s degree or some other graduate degree at Stanford. There are also a lot of universities that are very good for CS and mathematics.
Do what is right for you, do it very well. When the time comes to apply to universities keep an open mind, look for schools that are a good fit for you, keep your budget in mind, and apply to a range of schools including at least one and preferably two safeties.
And yes, Stanford is a high reach for the strongest students, and probably out of reach for everyone else. Admissions today is almost certainly significantly more difficult than it was when I was there.
And that is my complete guide for a student dreaming of attending Stanford.
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You may want to share more specifics about your stats and the research you’ve already done so that our contributors can provide more specific guidance. However, you’re a freshman so expect your stats and college preferences to change over the next 2-3 years. Use this time to explore colleges of different sizes and locations to figure out what type school you’d like to attend. Work on self-advocacy and building relationships with your teachers.
But with the limited information you’ve shared (and the fact you’re a freshman),you’ve received valuable feedback.
When the time comes be prepared to evaluate your application honestly as it stands and find schools that are safeties and matches for that profile. Once you’ve identified those, move on to the reach schools like Stanford. Then return your junior year for a Chance/Match post for more specifics feedback.
Enjoy your high school years to the fullest! It will go by quickly. 
Edits: typos and clarifications (having tech issues on my phone)
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Stanford’s acceptance rate is well under 5%. It is a reach for every one of the extremely qualified unhooked applicants.
My advice is:
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Do not get caught up with any one hyper-competitive dream school. There are many universities where you can have a great four year experience and get where you want to go in life.
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To maximize your chances at any college, focus on being the best “you” possible. Work hard on academics, find ECs you care about and can make a meaningful contribution to, enjoy being with friends and family, etc.
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Recognize that HS is not a four year college prep class. Keeping the emphasis on learning and personal growth will serve you best in the long run.
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My two cents is that among these three things described in that article from MIT . . .
- Do well in school. Take tough classes. Interrogate your beliefs and presumptions. Pursue knowledge with dogged precision. Because it is better to be educated and intelligent than not.
- Be nice. This cannot be overstated. Don’t be wanton or careless or cruel. Treat those around you with kindness. Help people. Contribute to your community.
- Pursue your passion. Find what you love, and do it. Maybe it’s a sport. Maybe it’s an instrument. Maybe it’s research. Maybe it’s being a leader in your community. Math. Baking. Napping. Hopscotch. Whatever it is, spend time on it. Immerse yourself in it. Enjoy it.
. . . the one I think is most neglected among the kids I see online gunning for colleges like Stanford is the middle one, “be nice”.
Lots of kids are getting perfect or near perfect grades in challenging classes with high test scores. Lots of those kids are doing some sort of interesting and valued activities.
But not so many of those kids with both the academics and the activities are also coming across as really nice kids. They are not bad kids either, but they are very wrapped up in their personal (or sometimes parental) ambitions. To the extent they do anything for others, that often strikes me as essentially being done to serve those ambitions. Like, they “found a non-profit” so they can add that to their activities. But they don’t necessarily come across as the sort of kid who is constantly treating others around them with kindness even when there will not be any sort of resume line to come out of it.
I note one thing we learned from the Harvard litigation is they had a personal rating, and even if you had good enough scores for academics and activities, you usually needed a 2 rating for personal to actually get admitted as an unhooked applicant. Almost everyone got at least a 3, “generally positive”. So there were very few actually negative ratings. But essentially 0% got a 1. And then among those with good enough academic and activity ratings, only around 25% got a 2, “very strong”, versus about 75% who got that “generally positive” 3.
Then anecdotally, periodically people will ask to see their admissions file from the college that enrolled them, and it has struck me how much of what they see is consistent with this sort of personal assessment being critical. Including when I have seen students at Stanford share what they found in their admissions file.
So my feeling is if you really want to stand out from all those other smart and ambitious kids gunning for colleges like Stanford, you should take this personal factor just as seriously as your academics or your activities. This means you should truly be a nice person. Practice kindness in all your interactions, not just a select few that will benefit your resume. Become the sort of kid that teachers and fellow students and other people in your local community sincerely say they will particularly miss once you are gone. Don’t just try to fake that with an activity or in essays, actually try to be that sort of person.
And as that MIT article suggests, even that will not guarantee anything. But it will make you a better person (actually more likely to find happiness and fulfilment).
And also, as a side effect, actually becoming that sort of person will maximize your competitiveness for holistic review colleges. Including because it appears to me that many smart and ambitious kids just don’t take this as seriously as everything else, and so you can potentially stand out by taking it that seriously.
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Yes, very true. Also, for the student who follows these guidelines, even if they do not get accepted to MIT or Stanford, the combination of doing well in school, being nice, and doing well in whatever ECs make sense for them, combined with being genuine and honest, will help them get accepted to some good universities or colleges that are a good fit for them.
Some students might have the experience that I had applying to graduate schools, where I was rejected from my “dream school”, accepted by my second choice (which was Stanford), loved it, and years later realized that the school that accepted me was always a way better fit for me. Both schools got it right in my case. Top schools are looking for students who will be a good fit for them, and they get it right quite often. Thus keeping an open mind in applying to universities is an important part of the process.
This whole process is complex and hard to predict. However in my experience it tends to work out well in the end for a lot of students.
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Absolutely.
Recently I have been thinking about the famous Sun Tzu quote, “Every battle is won before it is ever fought.” That is subject to a lot of possible interpretations, but as applied to college admissions, I really think this is true of kids who: (a) focus on the fundamentals of having a HS education and experience that will develop them in all the important ways, intellectually, socially, physically, emotionally, ethically, and so on; and then (b) do the work to come up with a college application list that really makes sense for them as an individual (including affordability), and is not just driven by some rankings list, peer competition, or so on.
If you do those things, you have already “won the battle” before you even submit an application. There will often be uncertainty about exactly what offers you will get, but whatever offers you do get will all make sense for you to consider, and you get to pick your favorite. And then you will also be truly prepared to make the most of your college experience, just like you did in HS.
And that is winning in every way that actually matters.
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