Emily Wang — Stanford University
August 6, 2019
Prompt: Imagine you had an extra hour in the day — how would you spend that time? (50-word limit).
My 49-word response: Although I’m versed in Chinese poetry, I have yet to explore Japanese
haikus. I would devour as many haikus as I could and savor the colorful individuality of each
character by handwriting them using a brush from my untouched calligraphy set. After all, poetry
is simply painting with words.
Tips for Writing:
Be authentic as you can – for this prompt in particular, don’t worry about fitting in your
most impressive extracurricular, but be genuine about what you want to do
With short word limits, it’s important to maximize the utility of each word. To convey a
more casual tone, for example, you could form more contractions, thereby saving space
as well
Describe in detail one activity you would like to do – in this case, depth is better than
breadth
Make sure your response links back to the general theme of your application, showing
that you have focus
Some people also like to take a more humorous approach to this prompt (ex: if given
another hour, sleep more); the style doesn’t really matter as long as the idea is well-
thought out and clearly conveyed