Curiosity; Stanford Supp/ Intellectual vitality

What did you learn about me after reading this essay and what was it's overall theme? Does it appropriately answer the prompt? Do any segments seem unnecesary or fail to add to the message of the essay? Thanks for reading this!

Stanford Supplemental

1. Stanford students possess intellectual vitality. Reflect on an idea or experience that has been important to your intellectual development.

I had expected a dry presentation from the docent at the Salk institute for Biological Studies so I was amazed when Dr. Crenshaw showed us that the most prized possessions in her laboratory office were a jar of peanut butter and a pair of Beats headphones. It was guilty spoonfuls and the music of less accredited Dr. Dre which helped break the monotony of the research papers and documents she read and wrote. Astonished, we were next allowed to toy with containers of liquid nitrogen, but not before being ambushed by interns shooting pipette caps from pressurized air cans.

I was astounded. Wasn't this academia? I had assumed that the institution, whose boring concrete walls had molded Nobel laureates of a myriad of uninterestingly titled works, would be, well, boring. Instead we met lively people who were genuinely glad to come to work to write lab reports and spin centrifuges. Even the diagram-filled lecture Dr. Crenshaw later gave was just as engaging as the morning before. She spoke ardently of her graduate work on Sickle-cell anemia, a disease that had claimed the life of her childhood friend and mused her ever since. Her passion was contagious, and it certainly affected me.

I owe Dr. Crenshaw most for reinvigorating my interest in science. I had the premonition that my curiosity would surely die in the large, impersonal halls and didactic lectures of college. I could hardly believe that I, the naive high school student, could share such similarities with this doctor. In some ways, the tour helped me realize that we should never truly grow up. That is to say, we should cling tight to our childlike curiosities about the world which are so crucial in science and research. The vivaciousness of the scientists and researchers at the Salk Institute was not unprofessional, but instead essential to their profession itself.

do you mean vivacity :)

the essay fits ok with the prompt because it's talking about how you learned something new and how your interest in science was reinvigorated.

it provides a good look into your interests and qualities, but i feel like you almost are writing an essay about an influential person (that doesn't really matter though because Dr. Crenshaw conributed to your intellectual vitality i guess).


maybe you could take out the blue part because it doesn't have anything meaningful about you. and then comine those two sentences: "... work on sickle cell anemia, and her passion was contagious." or "...and her passion certainly affected me."

please take a look at my kpop essay if you have time!

Thank you for you taking a look at this nairbear68!

After I reread this essay a few days later, I totally realized how terrible it was. I'm scuttling the essay, but using the subject to answer the Influencial Person essay for the common app and finding a different subject for the Intelectual Vitality piece. Thank you!

good choice, I was gonna suggest that but wasn't sure how you'd take it haha