Stanford Regular Decision

Stanford University was established in 1885 as a co-ed, non-denominational school. It is a private institution that is frequently mistaken for an Ivy League university. It’s imperative that you know more about Stanford regular decision.

Stanford has developed into one of the most prestigious universities in the world, in part because of its proximity to Silicon Valley, the center of the tech industry. The truth is that Stanford has a renowned beautiful campus, despite the fact that for some that might conjure images of rows of servers and chilly computer labs. Stanford’s campus design garnered praise from a number of prestigious publications thanks to its distinctive appearance of sand-colored buildings with red tile roofs.

Some of the most significant figures in world history have emerged from this stunning campus, including businessmen like Peter Theil, President Herbert Hoover, Senator Cory Booker, and Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. The school has worked with nearly every major award winner, including 29 Turing Award winners, 296 Olympic medalists, and 85 Nobel Laureates.

As you might expect, Stanford has made most of its significant contributions in the STEM fields. Stanford’s computer science program has produced ground-breaking research, and companies like Google, Sun Microsystems, and even the foundation of the internet itself were all born there. The most popular major at Stanford is still computer science, as many students want to carry on the illustrious tradition started by those who came before them.

Due to the Stanford School of Medicine consistently being ranked among the best in the world, both the medical and pre-med programs are highly regarded.

While science and technology may be associated with Stanford, those are far from the only fields in which the university excels. Stanford has a long history of excellence in the humanities and soft sciences and was initially founded as a liberal arts college with a focus on these subjects. For instance, Stanford Law School consistently ranks among the top five law schools in the United States, making it a top choice for aspiring judges and attorneys.

When Is Stanford’s Regular Decision Due?

The Stanford Regular Decision deadlines listed by the school for the regular decision application process are as follows:

• Dec. 1 is the deadline for applications that include a portfolio of art.
• On January 1st, the Stanford regular decision applications must be submitted
• OnDecember, cut off for the valid SAT or ACT test date

You will be informed of Stanford’s decision if you submit an application through the restrictive action process by December 6. You will learn the results of your application if you use the regular decision process by April 1st.

To answer when is Stanford’s regular decision due for students who were given admission, you will have until May 1 to decide whether or not to enroll.

How Selective Is Stanford?

When your dream school (perhaps Stanford) is ranked among the top colleges with the lowest acceptance rates nationwide, this is hardly cause for celebration. So, how selective is Stanford?

With an acceptance rate of 3.95 percent, Stanford University is considerably more selective than MIT, Caltech, and Yale while also resembling Harvard, Columbia, and Princeton.

This means that figuring out how to get into Stanford requires surviving a brutal admissions process that will result in the rejection of a large number of valedictorians, geniuses, and extraordinarily gifted young people.

Only 2,190 of the 55,471 applications for a place in the Class of 2025 were accepted by Stanford. The university’s acceptance rate of 3.95 percent was a record low. The last time the school had an acceptance rate in the double digits was with the Class of 2011, which had a 31 percent acceptance rate in the class of 1978.

SAT, GPA, and Class Rank for Admission

For the Class of 2025, the mid-50 percent SAT range was 1420-1570, while the ACT range was 32-35. On the SAT’s math section last year, an astounding 83 percent achieved a score above 700; on the reading section, 77 percent did so. The average GPA was 3.96, and 96% of the graduating high school class had earned a spot in the top 10%. Amazingly, 96% of freshmen had a cumulative unweighted GPA of 3.75 or higher throughout their high school careers.

It’s important to remember that Stanford’s last two admissions cycles were test-optional due to COVID-19.

Notes & Trends in Admissions (Class of 2025)

• First-generation students make up 18 percent of the Class of 2025, down from 20 percent in the previous cycle.
• Following their admission into the Class of 2024, 369 members of the Class of 2025 took a year off.
• With 2,126 students, the Class of 2025 was the largest in school history (including gap year students).
• From 9.9 percent (Class of 2024) to 12 percent, there were more international students.
• Between the 2019–20 and 2020–21 admissions cycles, the acceptance rate decreased from 5.19 to 3.95 percent.

Be the Best at One Thing; Being “Well-Rounded” Is Different

In a number of fields, Stanford is looking for the future greats.

The next generation of Supreme Court Justices (Breyer, Kennedy, O’Conner, Rehnquist), business leaders (Sergey Brin, Reed Hastings, Phil Knight), writers, politicians, athletes, actors/actresses, and Nobel Prize-winning scientists are just a few of the notable Stanford alumni listed on the university’s website.

Even if all ten of your extracurricular activities are excellent, you still won’t impress the Stanford admissions committee if you’re spread thin. The key is to excel in one or two areas.

How Applicants Are Judged by Stanford

The application essay, letters of recommendation, extracurricular activities, level of rigor in secondary school, class rank, GPA, results on standardized tests, talent/ability, and character/personal qualities are among the nine factors that Stanford cites as being “very important” to the admissions process. They rank seven factors as “considered,” while zero are deemed “important.” These include the following: an interview, first-generation status, legacy status, place of residence, race or ethnicity, volunteer work, and previous paid employment.

When applying to Stanford, it is crucial to have some sort of “hook” in your extracurricular activities. For instance, with 36 varsity sports teams, Stanford has the best athletic program in the nation. Over 350 of the 900 students playing intercollegiate sports have athletic scholarships.

Your chances of being admitted increase dramatically if you are a star athlete who is being actively recruited by a coach at Stanford, especially if your academic performance is “in range.” If you don’t like sports, you might be a great speaker and a future member of the Stanford Debate Society, or you might be a talented ethnographer, playwright, cellist, poet, scientist, robotics engineer, app designer, or community activist.

What Is Stanford’s Acceptance Rate for Regular Admission?

The deadline for regular decision admissions is January 1st. However, Stanford University’s policy of withholding its complete admissions data now applies to the regular decision.

The quantity of applicants accepted through Stanford’s Restrictive Early Action program in December of last year was withheld from the public by Stanford. Stanford only revealed the total number of accepted applicants this year, 2,057 students but you might wonder “what is Stanford’s acceptance rate for regular admission?”

To estimate your chances, data from previous classes are shown below:

What Are the Odds of Getting Off the Waitlist?

A spot on their waitlist was offered to about 1% of applicants who submitted an application for admission. Stanford anticipates that more than half of the students will accept their waitlist offer.

Until they know how many admitted students have accepted a place in their class, they won’t know how many, if any, students will be offered admission from the waitlist. If there are fewer students enrolled than expected, Stanford will reevaluate waitlist applicants.

By July 1, all applicants who have a spot on the waitlist will be informed of their final admission status.

Think about how your top college choices have previously handled their waitlists to have an idea of what are the odds of getting off the waitlist.

In 2020, Stanford offered 850 applicants waitlist spots; 707 accepted the offer, but only 259 were ultimately given admission which approximately resulted to 38 percent admission. After 2 years, Stanford waitlisted 652 applicants for the Class of 2025, 535 of whom accepted a spot on the waitlist, and 61 of whom were admitted, yielding an admission rate of 11.6 percent.

How Do You Increase Your Chances Of Getting Into Stanford?

These pointers ought to help on how do you increase your chances of getting into Stanford, the university of your dreams.

Passing the interview is optional. Although not every applicant needs to be interviewed, we advise moving forward with the process and succeeding in the interview. Typically, volunteers will email applicants an invitation. There are two ways to get through the interview: in-person or via video chat.

To be accepted in Stanford, you must have high SAT and ACT scores; as one of the common requirements for admission to other prestigious colleges. High rates won’t guarantee you admission, of course, but they might give you an advantage over other applicants. Keep in mind that if you are applying to Stanford, your academic performance is not the only factor. To impress the admissions committee and persuade them to accept your application, you must still showcase your abilities.

When writing your admissions essay, you might look for and read examples of effective Stanford essays, but keep in mind that the final product must only reflect your own thoughts and ideas. Don’t copy ideas from other essays; it won’t be helpful. Here are short response questions from last year’s admission:

Short Response Questions 2021-2022 (50 words)

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

Be sincere in what you write, but also give careful consideration to the various facets of your personality that each response highlights. Make an effort to spread out the responses so that they don’t all revolve around a small number of activities or themes.

Your application won’t be made by these answers, but if you use any offensive language, they might be enough to ruin it. Consider your audience when selecting your answers.

3 Tips for Getting into Stanford if You’re Good in STEM

If math is one of your strengths, that is definitely to your advantage. Stanford is after all skewed toward engineering! The fact that I personally used this route to get into Stanford is to your advantage because I will have much more honed advice for you here, including suggestions for specific programs to apply to.

Make sure you have outstanding academic performance in STEM fields

You must excel in all areas of STEM if you want to be taken seriously as a STEM candidate. That entails receiving an A or A+ in every STEM course you take, with just the sporadic A-.

Additionally, you ought to enroll in the most challenging STEM classes your school has to offer. Take APs when they are offered, in other words, and try to select the more difficult option when APs are presented (Calculus BC instead of AB, for example). Aim for a 5 in each of these categories on the AP exams. There’s a good chance you’ll get good grades if you’re naturally talented in STEM and are enrolling in the toughest courses, but you want to make that good chance a certainty.

Strong STEM students frequently prefer to concentrate solely on whatever interests them at the time. In order to persuade yourself that it’s worthwhile to put in the effort that is frequently required to get good grades in school, it’s important to see the benefits to your STEM education that are possible if you get into Stanford.

Establish a Strong Academic Foundation outside of STEM

The following step is to make sure that your academics outside of STEM meet at least a minimal standard of excellence. This doesn’t mean you need to excel in the humanities, but you will want to limit the number of Bs you receive in those classes. Although you are not required to take any AP classes in the humanities, doing so and earning an A or A- in the course will undoubtedly be beneficial to you in the long run.

Standardized tests like the ACT and SAT are excellent ways to demonstrate your breadth of knowledge. They are challenging enough that achieving a high enough score indicates that you are in the top 95 percent of Americans overall, which is definitely enough to be considered well-rounded. The ACT/SAT isn’t specialized enough to serve as your spike, despite this.

The quickest and most efficient way to improve if you lack a little in the humanities is to raise your SAT/ACT score. A minimum SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing score of 650 or an ACT Reading and English score of 28 should be your goal.

Your test-prep strategy will be based on the SAT/analytical ACT’s nature. You can succeed on these standardized tests by using the same techniques you used to become proficient in quantitative subjects. You don’t need to worry as much about the final few issues and being careless because you’re only aiming for a 650 (or 28) or higher on these sections.

The most important SAT grammar rules must be committed to memory, and you must understand how many questions you can afford to get wrong without jeopardizing your score targets.

Concentrate On Your Spike

It’s time to develop the last element that will get you in—your spike—now that you have good SAT/ACT scores and a diverse base of extracurriculars. Here is where you can really put your STEM knowledge to use. Being highly ranked in reputable fields is the name of the game when it comes to spikes

A competition is one of the most natural settings for ranking. Obviously, the competition will be better the more well-known it is. The most prestigious competitions are, as you might expect, the most well-known, challenging, and participant-heavy ones.

Ranking in the top 1,000 of one of the most prestigious competitions is preferable to ranking in the top 100 of a competition with mediocre prestige for your Stanford application. This means that you should try to target the most prestigious competition in which you can succeed. When possible, you should take into account competitions in the order of highest prestige down.

The tricky part is that there are more factors involved than just numbers in getting into Stanford.  You can see from their past that many of the applicants they received in the last five years had SAT scores of at least 2400. That was the SAT’s highest score prior to its remodeling. What is most shocking? Of those applicants with perfect SAT scores, 69% were rejected. Academic preparation is crucial, but it won’t ensure that you receive an acceptance letter.

Every year, Stanford looks for students who can make a difference in their community, and what that looks like changes. But one thing is certain: the admissions committee is always on the lookout for someone who is passionate. The evaluation procedure is comprehensive, which means it considers every piece of information you give them. They consider where you will fit within your incoming class as well as how you will fit into the campus community as a whole.

Fit and community are key factors. All you can do is your best with the available information, and the rest of the time, just be yourself.

It’s not always simple to write an effective admissions essay for Stanford, especially if your writing abilities are average. However, you still have a great chance to create a fantastic manuscript, so do not give up!

Knowing everything there is to know about Stanford is crucial if you plan to apply. You can take a look at their website to determine whether Stanford is truly the best option for you. We are also available to help you with your Stanford admissions preparation, either for early admission or for the Stanford Regular Decision. At AdmissionSight, we have over 10 years of experience guiding students through the competitive admissions process to get accepted to the top universities in the world. On average, 75% of our students are admitted to an Ivy League university, Stanford, MIT, UChicago, and Caltech, one of the highest track records in the industry. Feel free to set up an appointment today to book your initial consultation.