Here is Stanford University's classic supplemental "Roommate essay": "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.)" This may seem like a fun and easy essay to write, but it's not as straightforward as it appears.

What not to do: Solely be interesting 

The trap with this essay is to take the question too literally. Come room-assignment time, nobody is going to be reading this essay to help them match you with the perfect BFF. That’s why you should steer clear of solely saying something interesting about yourself. 

Here are some real no-no examples we've seen from the over 35,000+ students we've coached:

• A student's love of bongo-playing and how they look forward to playing bongos with their roommate.
• A student's background in Boy Scouts, backpacking, and bringing interesting artifacts into their room.
• A student's experience in karate and how they hope to spar with their future roommate.

Aren’t these interesting stories from unique students? It might be cool to live with someone who could play a solo music piece for you late at night, right? Or someone to take you exploring the local woods. Or someone who’s ready to spar with you at any moment like Steve Martin's character in the 2006 The Pink Panther.

The problem is that the person reading this essay won’t actually be your future roommate. None of these kinds of topics — unless handled the right way (see below) — is liable to move your application from the “maybe” pile and onto “admit them now!”

Still being graded: Keep the essay basics in mind

Stanford wants to know whether you’ll be successful at their school and within their particular campus community. Every question they ask on their application is about sussing this out — whether it’s your personal statement or a 100-word note to a future roommate. 

Asking a playful question is a way to get to these answers about your potential in a playful way. 

Therefore, you want your answer here to reflect 1 or more of the 5 traits, just like any other essay would. In fact, talking to a future roommate is a great place to showcase 3 of the 5 traits:

• Intellectual curiosity — things you’re interested in and like to explore.
• Contribution — how you give back and create community.
• Diversity of experiences — your unique background and life story that will expand the horizons of those you interact with. 

This essay could probably also reflect Drive (aka grit or perseverance) and Initiative (unwilling to accept the status quo), but the other three are a more natural fit.

Finally, as with everything else college essay-related, make sure the topic you talk about is recent to your experience. If you saved the world while you were in middle school, skip it, and write about something less spectacular that you did more recently. 

Have fun, too: Brainstorm answers that would show yourself off to a future roommate

With those basics in mind, let’s have fun with this, because the Stanford admissions team definitely would like this one to be on the lighter side. 

Begin by brainstorming a whole bunch of outside-of-the-box, off-the-beaten-track, off-the-wall topics about yourself that would answer this prompt. Allow yourself a good 15-20 minutes here. 

Give yourself a little break — creativity flourishes in a little break — and then come back to it again (maybe 5-10 minutes). This time, use the 3 of the 5 traits above (intellectual curiosity, contribution, and diversity of experiences) to expand on your brainstorming (another 10-15 minutes). Do any other interesting facets of your personality or experience spring to mind?

Once you’ve put in about 30 minutes of brainstorming, you should have some great topics that are authentic and fun from which to choose the very best one that will also strengthen your application. 

The whole picture: How will this answer reflect on your entire application? 

As you may know, Prompt recommends working on each application college by college (not essay by essay). Admissions teams read each application as a whole, so that’s how you should write them. With small, creative essays, you want to think about using them smartly as little pieces that bolster your overall application. 

Take a look at what else you’re telling Stanford about yourself. Which of the 5 traits are you really focusing on? Do you have any weaknesses you might want this essay to compensate for? How have you “branded” yourself?

For example, if you’ve written a lot about contribution, perhaps writing a personal statement about your community service work, this essay could be a way to show how deep that trait goes with you. You could talk about informal ways that you bring groups of friends together and help nurture strong friendships, and how you hope to do that at Stanford, too. In this scenario, you’re using this “fun” question to show a more light-hearted, but equally valuable aspect of one of your “serious” traits. This essay will help amplify your brand as a contributor. 

Or, using the same example, perhaps this contribution person might worry that their community service essay leaves out other exciting things about themselves. You want to make sure that you showcase all the impressive, unique things that you might bring to the table (i.e.: Stanford’s campus), and this little essay could be a great way to highlight one of them. So, if you have a deep interest in film, you could use this essay to showcase your intellectual curiosity in a fun way. You could talk about your love of horror movies, how you pursue that interest with friends today, and how you hope to join the Stanford Film Society and plan horror movie marathons for your roommates. In this scenario, you add to a serious trait of yours with a more off-beat interest that nonetheless also showcases intellectual curiosity. 

BTW, hopefully by now you see that the three examples of “what not to do” above all could be great essay topics. But only if they showcase college potential and fit with the rest of the application. 

How to write it: Straight-forward, action-driven, concrete

Now to the writing. Stick to these 3 precepts, and you’ll knock it out of the park: 

• Straight-forward. College essays do not call for “beautiful” writing. They call for simple, clear sentences that an admission officer can understand while reading quickly. 
• Action-driven. Since the point is to show off your college potential, you need to talk about things that you’ve done, whether that’s reading Wes Craven’s autobiography, planning an excursion to a screening of The Exorcist with your friends, or writing up your horror review on LetterBoxd.
• Concrete. Relatedly, point to things you’ve done, and things you’d like to do at Stanford. Philosophical musings are great, but they take up valuable space and don’t contribute much to your application. 

For example:

Our bongo-playing student might write an essay here that stays away from waxing effusively about how “alive” they feel when they play. Instead, they can focus on:

• What they do to keep bongo playing in their life on top of a busy high school schedule — ex: practice 15-minutes every morning, no matter what; and sign themselves up for orchestras and musical groups so they can showcase their talent with like-minded peers;
• What they plan to do to keep bongo playing going in college — ex: planning to bring their bongos to their dorm; will be auditioning for Stanford musical groups; and 
• It will all tend to demonstrate intellectual curiosity and contribution. 

Our backpacking Boy Scout student should stay away from talking about the woods themselves, and instead focus on:

• What it takes to backpack every Tuesday and lead their fellow Boy Scouts on a new hike;
• A note on their engagement on a trails app like AllTrails, ensuring that unsafe trails are noted for other hikers
• What they plan to do to keep backpacking and staying in shape once they get to campus — ex: have a goal of hiking all of the top trails around campus during freshman year or joining the campus outdoor activities group; and 
• It will all tend to demonstrate contribution and intellectual curiosity. 

Our karate student should refrain from writing too much about Japanese culture itself, but instead focus on their particular relationship to it:

• How they practice karate because it gives them a feeling of connection to their culture — and can also be light-hearted and fun, helping them to destress;
• How they convinced others at their school to join in, making stressful days more fun for many of their classmates; 
• How their grandmother loves that they’ve brought this traditional aspect forward in their lives, and it serves as a point of connection between generations; 
• How they plan to continue this tradition at Stanford; and 
• It will all tend to demonstrate diversity of experience as well as contribution. 

Our students successfully transformed their interesting and unique experiences into compelling Stanford roommate essays. Now it's your turn! And, now that you know what really matters, be sure you also have an absolute blast while doing it. 

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