Leading causes of why applications cannot be considered

You already know that competition for acceptance to Stanford is great. Every year candidates who otherwise might well have been accepted missed their opportunity because they didn’t understand a deadline or their application was incomplete.

The most common reasons why applicants find that their applications cannot be considered are:

• Missed deadlines
• Incomplete applications (required materials not submitted in a timely manner)

How to Avoid the Common Pitfalls

The review process for your application is rigorous and involves a number of people. The deadlines that are posted here and on the department web sites are established so that each application can receive the consideration it deserves.

The first important thing you can do to protect your application is: understand and meet the deadline for the department you are applying to. Understand that departments establish their own application deadlines, which will vary from department to department.

Second, carefully review the documents that are required to accompany your application. Most of them have variable lead-time in preparation or requests that you have to make to obtain them and under-estimating how long it will take to get them can jeopardize your application’s success.

If you do these two things, your chances of succeeding with your application are greatly improved. We wish you much success.