This is the official thread for those applying REA to Stanford University.
List your unweighted GPA, any SAT /ACT scores, and ECs. What majors are you going into?
Ask your questions, the CC community is here to help!
Hi! I had a question about self-reporting ACT scores. To my understanding, the highest composite score means the highest score from one sitting however on the Stanford website they urge you to “report the calculated ACT super score in addition to your highest section scores.” This made me think that they wanted us to report our super score for our highest composite score. Would I report my super score of 35 there or my highest result from one single test (34 as I did on the common app section where we were asked this). Thank you!
Highest Composite Score: << I am referring to this section.
Highest English Score
Highest Math Score
Highest Reading Score
Highest Science Reasoning Score
Has anybody got a Stanford interview invitation yet? If yes, please share when you submitted your REA application. After how many days did you get the interview invitation? Thanks!
not yet! maybe in a few days…
I think that just means they superscore automatically (based on the selfreported highest from each section), that field Highest Composite Score in the Common App is supposed to be for a single test date. But yeah I agree that wording is really confusing since there is no place to report the composite of the superscore.
Have they sent out interview invites now?
just got mine today!
Oh congratulations! Do you mind sharing which state are you in? When did you submitted?
1 Like
my son just got his interview invite… he’s an international student
From Minnesota, submitted one day before REA deadline (Oct 31st)
1 Like
How do they decide who gets interviews who doesn’t? How did they decide so quickly? Do they have some pre-filtering?
Every applicant located in an area where Stanford has interviewers gets the opportunity to partake in an optional interview. There is no pre-screening.
1 Like
My daughter received an invite for an interview last week. We live in Colorado. From what I read, invites are heavily based on alumni availability in the prospective student’s general area.
But I heard that at one of our local schools, there are several students rea Stanford. Only one of them gets an interview invitation so far. If there’s no pre-screening, why not all of them get interviews?
Have the students checked spam folders? Alternate email addresses?
My daughter and her friend applied to MIT (another school that tries to interview as many as possible without prescreening). My D received an interview invite, but her friend did not see an invite until she checked her spam folder. Apparently this happens a lot.
Good question. AFAIK there’s no pre-screening for interviews. Stanford doesn’t review or evaluate an application before deciding whether to offer an interview. The interview invitation is only generated if an Alumni volunteer is available in the applicant’s area. It’s a purely logistical matching process, not a selective one 
1 Like
In addition to the comments about spam folders (which happens a fair bit) it is also possible that Stanford doesn’t have a sufficient number of volunteer interviewers in that particular geography so they can only offer interviews to a random selection of applicants. But, again, they are very clear that there is no pre-screening.
In general, does Stanford provide any merit-scholarships for admitted students?
Unfortunately, no. Similar to Cornell, they meet 100% of need-based aid. But, we know the federal need-based formula is deeply flawed against the middle class and typically pushes families with W2 earnings to a ridiculously high expected contribution level. Not sure how much they use this formula though.
One thing I did not know is, if accepted, you can go back to the financial aid office and appeal that expected contribution level. If you have extenuating circumstances, that is an option to pursue. Should my daughter be granted admission, we plan to do so.
Here is a helpful link to see what this could look like for you and your family: