Wanted: a 'true voice'

Man, I am getting really frustrated with the Stanford essays. This is my last application, which I'm not unhappy about because they say your last application is your best, and I really really really want to go to Stanford.

I never expected this process to be so arduous. You need to write in an upbeat fashion, but because Stanford is especially sensitive about hearing your true voice, you cannot spin your experiences too much around the admission criteria. Yet if I remain utterly humble, how on earth am I going to be competitive? Reading sample Stanford essays of successful past applicants sometimes just makes me want to curl up in a corner and cry.

In my HBS, Wharton and Kellogg essays I have certainly tried to squeeze every last drop of leadership out of my experiences (and I'll tell you how effective that was when the decisions are in...), but with Stanford I am really trying to 'be myself', whatever that is.

Since I find it hard to convince myself that I have done 'ordinary things extraordinarily well', my only hope of Stanford admission is to tell my true story, lay bare my soul, and hope they will like me for my background and ambitions and will consider me to add 'breadth of perspective to class'.

You never know....