Evaluating Several English Extracts

Evaluating Several English Extracts Introduction Today, more than ever before, the art of evaluating materials, extracts or textbooks is increasingly gaining currency as an important strategy in the teaching and learning process. Teachers are often required to evaluate, select, and adapt teaching materials to not only meet their teaching and students’ learning requirements, but also to optimise learning potentials (Allwright1981; Sheldon 1988).Advertising We will write a custom critical writing sample on Evaluating Several English Extracts specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More In this light, the present paper evaluates several English extracts with the view to synthesising the positives and negatives. The main components to be evaluated include vocabulary, reading, speaking and writing, listening, as well as pronunciation. Vocabulary The activity on vocabulary discusses options by attempting to find and pair two sentences containing similar meanings with a sentence in the boxed section. The utilisation of boxed sentences attracts the students’ attention to the vocabulary exercise and directs their input to the activity under study. The requirement to identify two sentences containing similar meanings with one of the boxed sentences can be termed as a form of deliberate learning which can readily transfer to communicative erudition (Nation 2003). The pairing of the sentences is quite involving to learners as they must understand the meanings of the two sentences to be able to pair them with a sentence in the boxed section. As such, the activity is effective in assisting students to learn and internalise vocabularies owing to the fact that learners remain active participants in the learning process. Additionally, the exercise is effective as it assumes a planned approach to vocabulary development in terms of understanding which words and vocabularies can be used to replace others in a sentence and still get the same meaning. The activity is likely to make a strong contribution to the learning of various vocabularies as students rely on matching and generative use of sentences to pair them in order to achieve similar meaning. Although no incidental learning is likely to occur, the students will nevertheless benefit from information transfer through answering questions that extend the meaning or use of words in the text and also through deliberate attention to vocabulary (Nation 2003). The form of matching words with definitions is also likely to be of immense benefit to students undertaking this activity. Furthermore, this exercise is bound to assist students in finding common meanings of sentences, choosing the right meaning, as well as undertaking semantic feature analysis.Advertising Looking for critical writing on education? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More However, although the exercise exemplifies a student-centred approach to learning vocabulary, it nevertheless encourages the propensity to concentrate on individual words rather than on overall meanings of the sentences in question. The process of pairing students and requiring them to remember two expressions with similar meanings reinforces the belief that social interaction is the basis of learning and development as demonstrated in the sociocultural theory. It also underscores the importance of internalisation as a vehicle for transforming learning from the social to the cognitive plane (Lavadenzi 2010). The exercise provides students with an enabling environment to transit from word-level learning to phrase-level learning. A good understanding of phrase-level learning will assist learners to graduate to intermediate-level learning by exposing them to new vocabulary definitions and uses. However care needs to be taken to ensure that learners using this approach develop the capacity to use the context of the sentences to decode meaning (Larsen-Freeman 2000). Reading The r eading extract titled â€Å"Hello, Class, I am the 16-Year-Old Head† and the ensuing questions are instrumental in developing students’ creative and critical thinking skills. For example, the question requiring students to use the title of the extract and the picture to tell a partner what they would like to find out in the rest of the extract is instrumental in assisting students to develop innovative and critical thinking capabilities. In the words of Masuhara (2003), such a question is important as it facilitates the development of high-level cognitive skills during reading activities. The use of visualisations during the reading activity activates the students’ schema and encourages them to form mental representations of the text for ease of understanding (Bress 2008). However, although the title of the extract demonstrates simplification and contrivance, the pictures are not labelled and hence students may end up having a different interpretation than what is intended.  The question requiring students to provide a guess about the contents of the extract is useful in assisting them to develop reading skills such as skimming and scanning. Such a question, according to Masuhara (2003), can be used to develop the students’ capacity to discover the main ideas and concepts of a reading/text by looking at the title and reading the first paragraph. This is what experts refer to as skimming. Additionally, such a question can be used to develop the students’ capacity to scan in terms of looking down and around a page quickly and efficiently with the view to searching for significant words, facts or phrases.Advertising We will write a custom critical writing sample on Evaluating Several English Extracts specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More These words or phrases can then be utilised to find context-specific information (Bress 2008). However, the first question of the extract may ignit e problems of grammar, syntax, as well as discourse structures.  The questions immediately after the extract are designed to assist students to develop a deeper understanding about the contents of the reading. The extract is instrumental in assisting students to yield to important teaching points, including vocabulary and syntax development, structure memorisation, and identification of signposts to demonstrate the structural arrangement of the text (Masuhara 2003). Overall, it is evident that reading the extract can assist students to develop critical awareness (looking at the text objectively to find out what the author is actually trying to say) and comprehension (understanding the purpose and function of the text, and also the core topic and how this is developed from one paragraph to another). It can also help students to develop flexibility (reading the text in different ways and at different speeds with the view to fulfilling a number of purposes) and context (selecting rel evant information and weighing up evidence and arguments with the view to picking out the major points from the mass of detail and evaluating their importance). Speaking and Writing The extract on speaking (Don and Carrie, and also Alex and Liz) shows that the participants are able to achieve a communicative objective through speaking. This is because they are able to demonstrate a fair knowledge of the English language as well as the skill needed to use this knowledge (Carter McCarthy 1997; Dat 2003). Indeed, both speaking activities that form the extract are designed to be communicative as they are conducted in pairs and are deeply personalised. However, there is an overuse of the filler sounds â€Å"Erm† and â€Å"Er†. Although these filler sounds demonstrate that speaking activities are highly personalised, they may be misconstrued to mean or symbolise other things when exposed to non-native speakers. On a lighter note, however, these filler sounds and hesitation devices have been credited for facilitating oral production and also for enabling speakers to take time to reflect on the words they employ in a conversational setup (Vilimec 2006).  It is worth mentioning that the speaking activity between Don and Carrie is initiated upon reading a brochure on Portuguese culture. Research is consistent that students can develop their speaking skills through reading (Mart 2012), and that nurturing improvements in word knowledge and vocabulary development through broad reading has the potential for nurturing improvement in speaking skills (Carter McCarthy 1997; Dat 2003).Advertising Looking for critical writing on education? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More However, although the fluency of the speaking activities can be termed as standard, there appears to be a lack of clarity of thought and inaccuracy of structural discourse. The speakers also seem to overuse filler sounds as a strategy of communication. The possible role of the teacher in this context is to direct the speakers on the proper use of filler sounds and on creating conversations with proper structural discourses. The exercise on writing may appear difficult for weaker students, who may only be able to answer a few questions. It is evident that more advanced students will definitely demonstrate the capacity to display more language when writing down the answers, while less-endowed students can respond to the items in shorter formats and still be able to attain a sense of achievement. While writing in shorter formats may indicate a shortcoming, it is worth mentioning that repeat exercises in reading, speaking, and writing are essential in the development of a wide range of vocabulary as well as internalisation of common English idioms (Harmer 2004). Furthermore, although the write-down extract appears quite complex for foreign students, it nevertheless provides them with the opportunity to expand their creative and critical thinking skills. Listening The extract on listening to Carrie and Don’s conversation is provided in simple language which ensures that learners are able to speculate about the topic of conversation (choosing a course). However, the listening activity does not have a warming up section which is credited for improving understanding by giving students an introduction to the topic (Sharma 2011). For example, a good warm up activity within the context of the conversation would be to ask students if they consider themselves to be having difficulties in choosing courses. Students should then be requested to explain the reasons for their answers.  Students are requested to listen again, which underscores the importance of repetiti on in improving listening skills and enhancing comprehension of language and grammar (Wilson 2008). However, such repetition may not necessarily serve the interests of non-native speakers or listeners as they may not understand, interpret, and evaluate what they hear. The question on describing the reasons behind Carrie and Don’s decision to take the course together demonstrates that listening can be used to foster understanding, increase cooperation, and identify the main idea or concept (Sharma 2011). The intonation patterns (pitch level, pitch range, speech rate) demonstrate a conversation that is full of emotions and attitudes regarding the best course to take in the college. Such intonations enhance the understanding of the listening activity and facilitate learners to predict the conversation discourse (Sharma 2011). Although the listening activity does not demonstrate rhythm and assimilation in terms of features of connected speech, it nevertheless demonstrates authent icity in the teaching and learning of English language. The arrangement of words, sound, and grammar in the conversation creates meaning in terms of listening for specific information, recognising cognates, and identifying word-order patterns (Wilson 2008). However, responding to the listening activity with short answers may serve to indicate a lack of understanding of the main idea behind the conversation. Teachers should therefore stress a top-down approach to listening to ensure that students use the background knowledge to understand the meaning of the conversation. Pronunciation The extract on pronunciation focuses on the use of certain contractions (e.g., wouldn’t, doesn’t, cant, isn’t) and how learners can practice saying sentences with those words while leaving out the â€Å"t† sound. The â€Å"t† can be silent if it is at the beginning/end of the word or if it is between two consonant/vowel sounds. The activity not only enhances smartness and smoothness in spoken English, but also demonstrates how pronunciation can be taught through imitation and repetition (Howlader 2011). Although the activity demonstrates the importance of phonology in speaking, it nevertheless fails to demonstrate how students can practice vowel and stress shifts for better pronunciation and understanding of meaning (Littlewood 1984). The intonation patterns of the sentences provided in the extract are also not clear, though more guidance has been offered to students through the use of different colour schemes. Intonation patterns are needed in such an activity as they assist learners to pay attention to the overall communicative objective of the pronounced sentences rather than accuracy at the phoneme level. It would have been beneficial if the activity indicates how the voice rises and falls when dealing with mentioned contractions. It can be argued that the sentences are designed to reinforce mechanical production of speech. However, the activ ity is silent on how it is supposed to achieve acceptability and intelligibility in pronunciation learning, teaching, as well as understanding (Howlader 2011). Affixation and tactile reinforcement are all important, though the activity is quiet on how these are to be achieved. While it is suggested that students should practice saying the sentences (recitation), there is need for tactile reinforcement and kinaesthetic enforcement to ensure learners are able to pronounce the contractions correctly (Littlewood 1984). Consequently, the need for personalisation and memorisation of the activity cannot be underestimated. The requirement to develop visual and auditory reinforcement to assist in the proper pronunciation of the contractions is also predominant. It is important for students to learn the pronunciation in small groups as this would enhance cooperation and minimise problems. Such a set up would also reduce student anxiety, facilitate feedback, and encourage a sense of collective responsibility. However, social and cultural considerations need to be addressed when using group dynamics as they may impede successful learning and teaching. Conclusion This paper has been successful in evaluating several English extracts in order to discuss and analyse their positive and negative points. The central components that have been evaluated include vocabulary, reading, speaking and writing, listening, and pronunciation. Overall, the extracts have been found to posses many benefits when it comes to the teaching and learning of English. Teachers need to make use of these benefits to ensure that non-native learners are able to develop an adequate understanding of the English language. The negatives highlighted need to be addressed by all stakeholders to ensure that the discussed components are delivered to, and internalised by, students with much ease than is presently the case. Reference List Allwright, RL 1981, ‘What do you want teaching materials for’, EL T Journal, vol. 36 no. 1, pp. 5-18. Bress, P 2008, ‘Reading skills: What are they and how do you teach them?’, Modern English Teacher, vol. 17 no. 3, pp. 28-29. Carter, R McCarthy, M 1997, Exploring spoken English, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Dat, B 2003, ‘Materials for developing speaking skills’, in B Tomlinson (ed.), Developing materials for language teaching, Cromwell Press, London, pp. 394-405. Harmer, J 2004, How to teach writing, Longman Publishing Group, Harlow. Howlader, MR 2011, ‘Approaches to developing pronunciation in a second language: A study in Bangladesh’, ASA University Review, vol. 5 no. 2, pp. 273-281. Larsen-Freeman, D 2000, Techniques and practice in language teaching, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Lavadenzi, M 2010, ‘From theory to practice for teachers of English learners’, CATESOL Journal, vol. 22 no. 1, pp. 18-47. Littlewood, W 1984, Foreign and second language learning, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Mart, CT 2012, ‘Developing speaking skills through reading’, International Journal of English Linguistics, vol. 2 no. 6, pp. 91-96. Masuhara, H 2003, ‘Materials for developing reading skills’, In B Tomlinson (ed.), Developing materials for language teaching, Cromwell Press, London, pp. 340-353. Nation, P 2003, ‘Materials for teaching vocabulary’, In B Tomlinson (ed.), Developing materials for language teaching, Cromwell Press, London, pp. 394-405. Sharma, N 2011, Strategies for developing listening skills. Web. Sheldon, LE 1988, ‘Evaluating ELT textbooks and materials’, ELT Journal, vol. 42 no. 4, pp. 237-246. Vilimec, E 2006, Developing speaking skills, https://dk.upce.cz/bitstream/handle/10195/21610/D16159.pdf;jsessionid=958E3FDB60105DF41B5788D82C50086A?sequence=1. Wilson, J 2008, How to teach listening, Longman Publishing Group, Harlow.

How to Get Into Stanford (by an Accepted Student)

How to Get Into Stanford (by an Accepted Student) SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips Many students want to get into Stanford, one of the most prestigious undergraduate institutions in the United States. While getting into Stanford is very tough, there are definite rules to Stanford admissions. Using these rules to your advantage will greatly increase your chances of getting in. Note: the following advice also works for admissions to UC Berkeley and Cornell. While Cornell University and the University of California at Berkeley are not the same as Stanford, they are both very highly ranked colleges with a slight engineering tilt. Stanford University is one of the most difficult colleges to get into, with a current acceptance rate of only 5.1%. It is consistently ranked in the US News’ top five universities. Stanford is the top choice of many students whose focuses coincide with what Stanford offers (e.g. a West Coast life or a large research institution with a slight engineer tilt). Stanford is also, by far, the top US-News-ranked school west of the Mississippi (the second is Caltech, which attracts a completely different crowd). Stanford follows certain rules when it comes to admissions. And no, these rules are not as simple as â€Å"focus all your time on academics† or â€Å"be as well-rounded as possible.† (In fact, those two phrases are the two biggest myths for admissions to Stanford!) Knowing the rules won’t guarantee you admission, but you’ll have a heck of a better chance than if you’re applying in the dark. I'll go over everything you need to know to get into Stanford, whether you're a humanities or STEM student, and I'll explain which admissions strategies are false and could seriously impact your chances of getting accepted if you follow them. Why Listen to Me? There are lots of writers out there giving admissions advice without any personal experience. Most journalists writing articles on Stanford admissions do a few hours of research on the school (or a few days at most) to meet their article quota. However, I have personally spent weeks, if not months, thinking about Stanford admissions. I must have spent over 100 hours explicitly on Stanford admissions, and I got in: A letter from my admissions officer to me after I was accepted to Stanford discussing the admitted-student weekend details. This letter has been modified to summarize meaning and protect privacy. More than just getting accepted, I actually spent a substantial amount of time thinking about what Stanford was looking for and crafting an application specifically for Stanford. To me, Stanford was one of the top two schools I was interested in, so I took the application very seriously. I actually visited the campus twice before even applying, attended admissions sessions where I asked dozens of questions about what they were looking for, searched online and in bookstores, wrote an entirely separate essay, and had a separate admissions strategy for Stanford alone. I’m not saying this to brag; I’m letting you know that I have some unique qualifications that allow me to help you the most. That I was accepted, and that I spent tremendous energy thinking about Stanford, means that my advice can hopefully help you substantially as you prep for the SAT/ACT and apply to Stanford. Truths and Myths of Stanford Acceptance In this section, I’m going to tell you the critical three truths and two myths you absolutely need to know to get into Stanford.The first ones will be well-known, but the final ones will be uncommon knowledge and will help you get that extra boost! Note: if you’ve readour article on Harvard admissions, I will cover some similar material here. You may want to skim this section, but definitely pay attention to the differences between the application processes ofHarvard and Stanford. Also, pay attention after this section because I will talk about Stanford-specific aspects then! Truth #1: You'll Need Strong Academics The first truth is that Stanford is, first and foremost, an academic institution, so you need to have spectacular academics to get in. The 25th percentile score of admitted students is as high as a 1400 (SAT) or 31 (ACT). This means that the vast majority (75%) of Stanford students get above these scores, and those attending with scores lower than these are superstars who make up for their scores in other ways. If your scores are below those numbers, the most effective thing you can do to raise your chances of admission is studying more for the SAT/ACT sincethe primary reason Stanford will reject you is based on scores alone. The 75th percentile of Stanford scores is 1560 (SAT) or 34 (ACT), so if you are above this, you can presume your test scores are sufficient. Myth #1: All You Need Is Good Grades The first and most naive myth is that Stanford only cares about grades. Like most myths, this one results from taking the truth too far. Many people think that, since Stanford is an academic institution, shouldn’t they just care about academics? After all, if you’re trying out for the football team, they wouldn’t measure your skills in baseball, right? The truth is that Stanford, of course, cares about academics as its core, but it also cares about qualities beyond academics. Stanford is not just taking the people with the highest GPA scores and the highest SAT scores. Truth #2: You Should Excel in Multiple Areas Why isn’t Stanford just looking for students with the highest scores? The first reason is simple numbers - there are just too many students with stellar academics. The average ACT score for a Stanford student is 34 - thus Stanford considers this score or higher stellar. Yet a 34 still puts about 1% of the high school population above you. With 3.3 million high school seniors a year, this is about 33,000 students, many times larger than the roughly 2,100 students Stanford accepts each year. Therefore, top colleges like Stanford need to look beyond academic scores to distinguish between these students. The second reason starts with the understanding that many top colleges, including Stanford, are looking for students who can have a significant and positive impact on the world. Stanford believes that non-academic factors, in addition to top academics, help predict who will have a positive impact in the future. These non-academic factors (known under the umbrella term "extracurriculars") include participation in clubs or sports and dedication to helping others. Therefore, we can replace the first myth with our second truth: top colleges care about more than academics and want to see strengths in many areas, from GPA and SAT/ACT scores to extracurriculars and community service. In reality, the above truth of multi-area admissions is actually well-known to people who have done even a minimal amount of college admissions research. The myth of pure academics is more of a non-myth: it’s a myth that lots of people love to bash, but not many people believe. In fact, over-bashing this first myth leads to the second myth, which is more insidious. Myth #2: You Should Be Well-Rounded This second myth, the biggest and most harmful myth, is that Stanford cares about students being well-rounded in the sense that they should be equally excellent in all areas. This second myth is the most pernicious because so many people believe it, unlike the first myth. From many personal surveys, I have found that even well-researched students and parents fall prey to this myth. In fact, I myself, during my early years of high school, believed in this horrible myth, even though I had already done hundreds of hours of research at that point. Because so many educated people believe it, and because it has the potential to steer you wrong, I personally think this myth is the most damaging. The well-rounded myth goes like this: because Stanford wants you to be well-rounded, it’s best to perform excellently in all areas. You should aim for a high seat in your school orchestra. You should be number one or two in your school debate team. Run for student council and become the treasurer. Get a score in the 95 percentile or higher on your SAT/ACT. Get an A- or higher in all your classes. The mythical implication is that the "Stanford Scorecard" grades you based on your weakest area, so you want to eliminate all weaknesses. Under this myth, you should focus all your time on your weakest area to eliminate it and become as well-rounded as possible. At the end of the day, you end up with a mythical optimal application, one where you’re (nearly) equally great at everything. Unfortunately, college admissions is much like an unstable boat: being too well-rounded will sink you. The truth is that Stanford sees being very well-rounded as too boring. Everyone who is well-rounded looks the same: they’re great (but not earth-shattering) in everything. There is nothing to set you apart. Also, dilly-dallying in a large number of areas will make you look like a dilettante. Truth #3: You Should Have a "Spike" in One Area The third and final truth is that Stanford would much rather see a candidate who is OK at most things but really great in one specific area. That specific area is called your spike, and it can be in almost anything: conducting microbiology research, publishing short stories, starting a small business, etc. Your spike makes you a strong candidate because it's unlikely many other students will have the same spike as you, so it helps set you apart and makes you unique. Admitting lots of students with different spikes allows Stanford to create the diverse campus they desire. Furthermore, Stanford is looking for students who will succeed in the future. In our modern world, specialization is the key to success. Think about it, if you break a bone, you want to see a doctor who's great at resetting bones, right? Not a doctor who's pretty good at setting bones and also pretty good at diagnosing the type of flu you have and pretty good at recommending a diet to keep you healthy. It’s okay to be lopsided- in fact, it’s even desirable! You should aim to develop one area that you’re super strong in. In your spike area, you should definitely aim to be nationally or state ranked, or accomplish a goal that’s rare for a high school student. Think top 100 football player in California or top 1000 math competition student in the USA. Think getting a pilot’s license at age 12. In all other areas it suffices to be 99th or even 90th percentile. A moderately good score in your English class will do. A few dozen hours of volunteering will do. Recap The most naive and prevalent myth is that admissions is all about academics. In reality, selecting only for academics leads to an uninteresting community. Stanford cares about extracurriculars too, and doing well in just one area of school (or even all of school) isn’t enough. Unfortunately, an overly-reactionary response to the above generates the worst myth. Myth #2 is that you should be well-rounded and great (but not necessarily excellent) in every field. In reality, being too well-rounded makes you look exactly the same as others who are well-rounded, and it makes you look like someone without direction. The truth is that you want to be OK in every field but especially stellar in one field in particular. Want to build the best possible college application? We can help. PrepScholar Admissions is the world's best admissions consulting service. We combine world-class admissions counselors with our data-driven, proprietary admissions strategies. We've overseen thousands of students get into their top choice schools, from state colleges to the Ivy League. We know what kinds of students colleges want to admit. We want to get you admitted to your dream schools. Learn more about PrepScholar Admissions to maximize your chance of getting in. Hierarchy: Truth #1: Have great academics (including stellar SAT/ACT scores) Myth #1: It’s all about academics Truth #2: Be good at a diverse set of extracurriculars Myth #2: You should be as well-rounded as possible Truth #3: Focus on one area to be extraordinary Truths and Myths of Stanford Admissions How to Apply This Information to You Based on the above information, your first goal is to ensure you are good at academics. Get good grades in school, and make sure you’re at least at the 50th percentile of the SAT/ACT cutoff for the school you are applying to. Even if you are above the 50th percentile, if you haven’t prepped at least few dozen hours yet, you should aim for the 75th percentile to strengthen your application. SAT/ACT prep is always one of the most time efficient ways to raise your chances of admission. After you’re above the 50th percentile cutoff, the next step is to overcome the first myth. Stanford cares about more than academics, and you’ll want to get good extracurriculars and volunteer experience. Once you have a sufficient set of baseline activities, it’s time to overcome the second myth. Stanford is not all about being diversified and well-rounded. You want one area to stand out above and beyond others. Stanford’s Tilt Towards STEM One difference between Stanford (and Cornell and UC Berkeley) and some of the other top 10 colleges is that Stanfordis not a pure liberal arts college. Instead, Stanford is a liberal arts college with a significant STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) tilt. What does that mean? It means that, all else being equal, if your interests are a bit more towards engineering, that will slightly help your admissions chances. For your base diversity of extracurriculars, it helps to leantowards engineering/math. It also helps if yourspike is in engineering/math. All else being equal, if you were a top 100 young writer or a top 100 math competitor, it's somewhat more helpful for admissions to be the latter. Don’t take my word for it. You can Google this yourself. Note how Stanford is in the US News’ top-ranked engineering schools, whereas Harvard and Yale are nowhere near the top 10. Stanford's strength is not just in graduate engineering, but also undergraduate engineering, making it truly stand out. (Most other stellar graduate programs, like my own Harvard Statistics program, have questionable undergrad programs). At Stanford, better professors mean more cutting-edge grad students and teaching assistants for your undergrad courses. Part of it is also a self-fulfilling prophecy: because good engineering-type undergrads come here, it becomes a good place for similarly interested students. Note, however, that I said Stanford has a STEM tilt. It is, by far, not a STEM-only school, which places like MIT, Caltech, and Carnegie Mellon are a lot more like. This means that, unlike pure engineering schools, math and math extracurriculars are NOT the only things that matter. These next two sections will give you advice based on which subjects you plan to study in college. If you're less into STEM, read the next section, but if you're already focusing on a STEM area and plan on continuing to do so, skip down two sections for guidelines for your situation. Guide for Students Less Interested in STEM Areas Do you plan on majoring in a humanities or similar subject? Then this section is for you! Just because Stanford tilts toward engineering does not mean that the only way to get into Stanford is to be an engineer. You don't even need to be interested in engineering in general. Stanford is not MIT or Caltech. Stanford is incredibly strong in say, economics and literature, as well. Your application can be completely bereft of engineering aspirations, and you can still do well.In fact, I am quite sure that any humanities-heavy application that would have done well at Harvard, Yale or Princeton will do equally well, if not better, at Stanford. However, you should not forget the fact that Stanford still likes baseline diversity. Your spike doesn't need to be related to STEM, but you should still be strong in quantitative subjects. Even if your subject of interest is Prussian history, you should be cautious about getting a B in AP Calculus AB, taking the easiest math classes, or getting as â€Å"low† as a 650 on the Math SAT section. Since Stanford has a very large number of applicants, they have enough humanities-spike applicants who can, at least, get the basic A or A- in the hardest math and science classes. You should take care to put enough effort into these subjects that you don’t drop into the middle of the pack. Stanford doesn’t take the excuse â€Å"I’m just not a math person† (and, in fact, they’re probably against the culture that makes such a phrase commonly acceptable in the first place). What’s a good enough baseline in math? I’d say something in the 720-800 range in the SAT Math section or 32-36 on ACT Math will do. The SAT/ACT is not competitive math - doing well on it doesn’t signal you’re nationally ranked in math. In fact, the SAT/ACT Math sections are only designed to test the most basic common denominator areas covered in high school math classes across the United States. Thus, scoring substantially below a perfect score on the SAT/ACT does actually signal to Stanford a lack of understanding of some rather standard areas of math. Once you get below a 700 (SAT Math) or 30 (ACT Math), Stanford will realize that you don’t have a full command of standard concepts like factorizing variables or applying the Pythagorean theorem. The good news is that you can actually improve quickly and consistently to the 700+ level on the SAT. All it requires is mastering baseline content of math and understanding the highest-gain SAT math strategies (like a slight amount of question skipping and practice). You can study on your ownby reviewing and mastering math content first while focusing lightly on math strategy. If you are studying with PrepScholar, we will automatically detect your situation and give you the right study material for this improvement. Students whose forte isn’t engineering should realize that Stanford is very welcoming of interdisciplinary study. Stanford would love to see an applicant talk, not just about the humanities, but how your expertise in the humanities uses areas like computer science or math to help refine your analysis. If you are truly interested, it will help your application if you mention an aspiration to use some amount of engineering in your future studies. For example, if you are into religious studies, with a focus on the Old Testament, you mighttalk about how you’re interested in using statistical analysis to refine the documentary hypothesis. As for your spike, since your natural strength is outside of STEM, I would not go for a STEM-type spike. Usually, spikes are much easier if done in a field with natural talent, that you naturally enjoy. A STEM spike wouldmake much less sense for you, not to mention it would be a lot less pleasant to accomplish. You should consider competitions for speech, debate, writing, essays, and so forth.For example, for enthusiasts in debate-type activities, there’s Model UN, Junior State of America, governor’s school, mock-trial, and nationwide debate. Competitions provide a direct way for admissions officers to see how good you are, but you can also do other tasks that qualitatively seem similarly accomplished. For example, if you start a theaterclub that has a huge number of audience members, or do journal-quality academic research into Victorian English literature, you will be well positioned for your spike. To find out more, you can see this article on spikes (search for â€Å"Step 1† to get directly to brainstorming!) Guide for Students Strong in STEM If your strong point is actually quantitative, then that’s a great advantage. After all, Stanford is engineering tilted. Even more to your advantage, I personally got into Stanford using this path, so I will have much more refined strategies for you than usual, including naming specific programs to try. Ensure Academic Excellence in STEM Fields Since you consider yourself a strong STEM candidate, at your core, it’s important to be absolutely stellar in the STEM fields - that means all A/A+ on your courses, with only the very occasional A- sprinkled in. Make sure you are taking the most difficult STEM courses offered by your school. That means taking APs when they are available and, within APs, choosing the harder option (Calculus BC instead of AB). For the AP exams, make sure you get a 5 as much as possible in these fields. If you’re naturally talented at STEM and take the hardest courses, there’s a high probability you’ll get great grades. However, you want to turn that high probability into a certainty. The biggest reason for naturally talented STEM students to do mediocre in STEM courses is lack of diligence. Many students naturally talented at STEM want to focus on only what they’re interested in at the moment. It’s important to see the benefits to your STEM education that would be possible if you got into Stanford and convince yourself it is worthwhile to put in the grind that sometimes is necessary to get good grades in school. To illustrate, let me tell you the real story of a high school classmate of mine. Let's call him Kevin. Kevin was intensely bright, would score at the top of intelligence tests, and was into battle bots. He would literally put all his time into building these robots, skipping English classes, Physics classes, and even sleep to spendtime onhis intense interest. Inthe end, he earned D’s in English and C’s in Physics (which he was otherwise great in). Sadly, when it came to admissions time, Kevin wasn’t able to get into any college ranked top 50. With his intelligence, he could have easily swept the US News top 50 if he had put even a modicum of diligence into schoolwork. Okay, so now you’ve got your 5 in AP Calc BC and your A’s in math, science, and technology classes. What’s next? Ensure a Good Academic Baseline Outside of STEM The next step is to make sure that your academics outside of STEM meet at least some baseline of quality. This doesn’t mean that you have to be great in the humanities, but it does mean that you’ll want to keep the B’s in the humanities to a minimum. You don’t need to take any AP humanities classes (after all, I didn’t), but taking them and getting a 4 or 5 on the AP tests and an A/A- in the class will benefit you. Standardized tests like the ACT/SAT are a great way to show well-roundedness. They are difficult enough that getting a sufficiently high score signals you’re in the 95% percentile or above in all the US - certainly enough to qualify as well-rounded. However, the ACT/SAT isn’t specialized enough to be your spike. If you’re a little weaker on the humanities side, again, shoring up your SAT/ACT score is the fastest, most effective way to improve. You’ll want to target an SAT score of above 650 (higher is better) or an ACT score of 28 or above. I firmly believe that being great quantitatively correlates with being smart in general. You can definitely get this score if you put your mind to it. (The only caveat is that you need to be reasonably fluent in English; if you are not a native speaker and aren’t fluent, I suggest you make this a priority, probably through immersion in an English-speaking culture.) Your test prep strategy will be centered around the fact that the SAT/ACT is an analytical test. The same skills you used to become good in quantitative subjects will be useful in mastering these tests. Since you’re only targeting a 650 (or 28) or above on these sections, you don’t need to stress as much about the last few problems and being careless. You do need to memorize all the most common grammar rules and learn how to identify and skip the most difficult problems. You can do this yourself, or you can use our program, PrepScholar Online Prep, to automatically identify these weaknesses and fix them. Include Well-Rounded Extracurriculars Round out your application with some lower-hanging fruit if possible. Get to a leadership position in some club that requires public speaking - whether that be debate, Model UN, Junior Statesmen of America (JSA), or something else. Many areas of politics and law are surprisingly close to the logical systems that you’re used to in STEM. Consider joining a sport - many JV teams are not incredibly competitive. Also, play to your strengths - if you’re more dexterous than strong, choose squash, for example. If you’re fast and have good hand-eye coordination, consider baseball. Sports teams will take up a ton of time though, so make sure you’re well positioned and can handle the time commitment. We have a guide that lists hundreds of extracurriculars, and you can use this list to brainstorm how you’ll build a well-diversified base. Remember, for your diverse activities, you don’t need to be great at them. Participation matters, getting small prizes like being treasurer or best debater matters. Focus On Your Spike Now that you’ve achieved good SAT/ACT scores and have a well-rounded base of activities, it’s time to build up that final factor that will get you in - your spike! This is where you really get to show off your STEM skills. When it comes to spikes, the name of the game is to be highly-ranked in recognized fields. One of the most natural environments to be ranked in is a competition. Now, naturally, the more recognized the competition, the better. As you might imagine, the most well-known, difficult, and participant-heavy competitions are the most prestigious. It’s better to rank in the top 1000 of one of the most prestigious competitions than it is to rank in the top 100 of a competition of middling prestige. Therefore, you should aim for the highest prestige competition you can do well in. You should consider competitions from highest prestige down in that order whenever possible. Here’s how to start. Want to build the best possible college application? We can help. PrepScholar Admissions is the world's best admissions consulting service. We combine world-class admissions counselors with our data-driven, proprietary admissions strategies. We've overseen thousands of students get into their top choice schools, from state colleges to the Ivy League. We know what kinds of students colleges want to admit. We want to get you admitted to your dream schools. Learn more about PrepScholar Admissions to maximize your chance of getting in. The Two Biggest STEM Spikes When it comes to prestigious STEM competitions, two of them take the day: the US Math Olympiad (I’ll call it the USAMO series here), and the Intel Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF). These are two competitions everyone should consider. The USAMO Series The USAMO series is much more centered around pure math and solving problems relatively quickly (think a few minutes to an hour in a timed environment). If you want to get a taste of what an easy problem looks like in the USAMO series, just look at the hardest problems in the SAT/ACT Math section, or the hardest problems on the SAT Math II Subject test. (The hardest problems are usually the last ones.) The ISEF is more about tinkering around, spending days and months doing research similar to university academics, and then presenting your results.ISEF is closer to working on a hobby or personal project for a long time. Here's a sample AMC 12 Problem. If you can get this, you may be a good candidate for a math competition. Three real numbers in the interval [0,1] are chosen independently and at random. What is the probability that the chosen numbers are the side lengths of a triangle with positive area? A)â…™ B) â…“ C)  ½ D) â…” E) â…š To see the answer and a full explanation, go here. If you consider yourself good at math, you should seriously consider the USAMO series (more unofficial info here)- it can really be your spike. The USAMO series is so prestigious that I have known Stanford students whose main spike was placing just within the top 1000 or 2000 in the USAMO series. Why is the USAMO so prestigious? It’s the oldest of the high school subject Olympiads, and it was the subject of Cold War tensions between the US and USSR in the old days. Most importantly, hundreds of thousands of the most mathematically strong students take it, making a top ranking really matter. The best way to sign up is to ask your high school math teacher, and if your high school doesn’t do it, you should aggressively petition them to do it or search for a neighboring high school who will accept you as a guest. A good rule of thumb for whether this spike is for you is ifyour SAT Math score is 760 or above (or your ACT Math score is 35 or above) and your SAT Math II Subject Score is 720 or above. If you don’t meet these thresholds, I would think very hard before making the USAMO series your spike - the USAMO series, after all, is just a much harder version of these tests, in nearly the exact same format. Further, a college applicant who has competitive USAMO series scores but questionable standardized test math scores sends very mixed signals that will diminish the USAMO series accomplishments. Conversely, if you are above the SAT/ACT threshold, you definitely will benefit from taking the USAMO series, even if it isn’t your spike. This is because, if you're above the stated SAT/ACT thresholds, your exam score is not showing your true skill. Your true skill is literally off the SAT/ACT charts; you need to upgrade to the USAMO series to show off all your math skills, even if you don’t perform amazingly. To recap, go into the USAMO series if you do well on math tests like the SAT Math. The USAMO series will be a definite spike for you if you make it into the top 1000-2000 rankings. The best resource to train for the USAMO series is The Art of Problem Solving. If you’re good at tests and competitions, but not math, the rest of this section is for you. Intel ISEF There are also many students who are strong in STEM but aren't at their best when solving timed problems. Some students get anxious from the pressure while others just don’t do well on tests, even if they’re brilliant at STEM. These students might be found writing their own computer program for months at a time or working on a science experiment for weeks. If this sounds like you, the prestigious competition you should consider is the Intel ISEF. Like most science fairs, the ISEF requires you to do research and then present it in a competition. Unlike most science fairs though, the ISEF is the premier science fair across the entire United States. While winning your high school’s local science fair is like winning a 100-meter dash in your town, winning the ISEF is like winning the 100-meter dash in the Olympics. You can’t apply directly to the ISEF. Instead, you have to start out first in a regional science fair, and, if you do well at that, you can advance into the next ISEF rounds. You can read about their judging criteria hereand about a real winner’s experiences here. Some of the key factors to winning include being innovative and original. You have to be rigorous, but not nearly to the degree of professional science research. Being interesting is the name of the ISEF game. What does awinning ISEF project look like?Here’s an excerpt from a press release ona recent winner: Raymond Wang, 17, of Canada, was awarded first place for engineering a new air inlet system for airplane cabins to improve air quality and curb disease transmission at this year’s Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, a program of Society for Science the Public. Wang’s system improves the availability of fresh air in the cabin by more than 190 percent while reducing pathogen inhalation concentrations by up to 55 times compared to conventional designs, and can be easily and economically incorporated in existing airplanes. Wang received the Gordon E. Moore Award of US$75,000, named in honor of the Intel co-founder and fellow scientist. Watch the incredible video here! To showoriginality for the ISEF, it matters that you tackle a problem that is interesting to the scientific community. Since few high school students have a good overview of the academic science literature, it is important for any student to have a professional academic scientist or engineer be their mentor. This will ensure that you work on a problem the field considers important. Also, good mentors with previous experience will know which problems can be done by students and which would be too complicated or time-consuming. After you choose your field and mentor, having the tenacity and focus to put your creative thinking towards the problem is key. Students who have historically had a lot of trouble stayingfocused or finishing projects should be wary. To get started, you can sign up for the ISEF here. With the USAMO, doing well on SAT Math is a good predictor of performance; being fast and being good on tests is important. With the ISEF, tenacity and the ability to stick with a project for hundreds or even thousands of hours from start to finish is important. Ranking in the top hundred for ISEF qualifies that as a spike for you. Other Options for Spikes Beyond the top two STEM competitions above, the number of competitions begins to increase dramatically. In the sciences, you have the Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and Informatics (Computer Science) Olympiads. These competitions require you to work with logic very intelligently, and all require memorizing and being familiar with some facts. I’ll eventually have another article on these series (I personally participated in each one while in high school), but for now here’s a quick overview. Math Olympiad is special because it’s the most competitive, with the highest number of people taking the first round. Because so many people prep for the Math Olympiad, the field has changed so that a good part of doing well on it is having tons of practice, so you know immediately which equations you need to pull out when you see a particular mathematical expression. Biology requires the most memorization. In fact, most of the beginning rounds are all about recalling the text of Campbell Biology in a timed fashion. Chemistry is a happy mixture ofusing logic to solve problems and memorizing a moderate list of information to help solve those problems. The hands-on portion of Chemistry and Biology require you to be good at following memorized procedures. On the other hand, Physics and Informatics have a lot of hands-on sections that really require resourcefulness and novel problem solving. In these other competitions, I would say qualifying for the top 20-40 makes the competitio n a spike for you in the eyes of Stanford. Further, not all spikes need to be in explicitly ranked fields. You could discover a new protein with significance to medical research. There wouldn’t necessarily be a competition for the discovery, but if the discovery is qualitatively stunning enough, it can count. For Stanford’s spike, you can brainstorm an amazing discovery: perhaps a biological process, an electrical engineering discovery, or something else. You can also build something new: whether it’s an awesome computer program, a cool robot, or a fun electronics project. You should make sure that the project is impressive though. For example, make sure that qualitatively the project would feel â€Å"as good or better† as ranking 1000 or better on the Math Olympiad. Stanford is all about engineering, and they would love to see you build something of your own. There are many other competitions and ways to show off your special skill within the STEM fields. Generally, beyond the top few listed above, you can also brainstorm your own fields. Once you have a competition or field in mind, it’s useful to evaluate how prestigious it is. Remember, the less prestigious a field, the higher you have to rank to be afforded the same credit. To estimate prestige, first look at how many people participate - the more people who participate, the more prestigious. Second, look at the skills of the average participant: the more skilled people coming in, the more prestigious it is. Using this method, you can find spikes outside of the set ones above. Conclusion Stanford is one of the most difficult universities to get into, as are UC Berkeley and Cornell. However, all of them follow the same pattern of being a highly-ranked school with a slight engineering tilt, and all have a common admissions pattern. Because these schools are highly-ranked, it’s critical to keep in mind the three truths: 1) you need high baseline academics, SATs above 600 and ideally 750 in each section; 2) you need to have a diverse set of extracurriculars that you’re decent at; and 3) you need to have one â€Å"spike† area where you’re ranked top 100-1000. Dispel these two myths: 1) Stanford admissions is all about academics; and 2) Stanford wants you to be as evenly well-rounded as possible. Keep in mind that Stanford has a STEM (engineering) tilt. This means that, if your focus is outside STEM, you should be the best you can be in that area and, if appropriate, tie your work into potential interdisciplinary work with STEM. If you are in STEM, you’ll want to strongly consider pursuing success in a competition to show off the degree of your skill. What's Next? Strong standardized test scores are an important part of your Stanford application. Want more tips for test prep?We have lots of guides for SAT prep and ACT prep! Aiming for a top score?Learn how to perfect your score on the SAT or ACT! Do you already have great extracurriculars?Check out ourcollege admissions and test prepguide designed specially for students like you!