<p>I was wondering if Stanford would consider a supplemental essay - apart from the CommonApp essay and all the supplement answers. I personally would like to explain how my choice of major ties into my future aspirations. </p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>I wanted to do exactly the same thing (look at my topic history for more informations). I ended up thinking about what essay was the most important — which one conveyed my personality most. Although my original CommonApp essay showed important aspects of myself, they were already popping out from the other optional essays and from the letters of recommendation (in my country, Morocco, students always read them).</p>
<p>Moreover, I*figured out that the second essay was going to be one that all the other schools were going to read, because its place was planned in the supplements (it’s the “why engineering” one), which was not the case only for Stanford. So I switched them: I turned my engineering essay into the main one, just threw out the original essay for Stanford, and tried to convey my personality in the best way in the Stanford supplemental essays (which was originally the “personality” essay’s job).</p>
<p>So, in the end, don’t send a supplemental essay. You have four great opportunities to show who you are, use them wisely. If you send a supplemental essay, admission officers may consider you haven’t been thorough enough to successfully fit yourself into the prompts they give you. Just use the combination that is the best representation of your character, and if you still aren’t quite satisfied with what you have written, use the optional recommendation letter. If you use it as a way to give more insights into your personality, you may end up giving even more tools to the admission officers than if you had written an unexpected essay. Choose your referee carefully and tell him/her everything s/he needs to know to write what you think is missing in your application.</p>
<p>I hope my answer will be useful to you, and to other readers, and, hopefully, we’ll meet at Stanford next year.</p>
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I agree, and even if you send in a supplemental essay, it’s not guaranteed that adcoms will read it.</p>
<p>Thank you very much for your answers! :)</p>
<p>Best of luck to you all.</p>