About the STAND framework
When thinking about standing out, it's easy to picture something big and flashy, like giving a particularly clever answer in class, delivering a solo in choir, or scoring the final points in a close game. It’s no surprise, then, that many students approach the college essay the same way, assuming they need to showcase their most impressive achievement or the hardest challenge they’ve overcome.
While those subjects can work, other students who are also trying to stand out will likely have similar experiences, such as starting a club or non-profit, overcoming a sickness or injury, or volunteering in an underserved community. So, how do you stand out in a sea of other people who are also pulling out all the stops?
That’s where the STAND framework comes in. Writing a college essay that stands out starts with finding your Story, Transformation, Advanced Theme, Narrative Balance, and Distinctive Details. Each element works together to help you move beyond broad topics and into meaningful, memorable writing. This guide will walk you through how to use the STAND framework to craft an essay that feels compelling and uniquely yours.
S: Story
What makes your experience unique is not a topic, but the smaller story of your personal experience. While others might write about the same topic as you, your story will always be uniquely yours.
Stories can be found in the subtle moments that make up our larger experiences. What matters most is how you tell your story and what it reveals about you.
For example, playing in an orchestra is a topic; describing how you found an old, out-of-tune violin in your grandma’s attic is a story.
Hopefully, you see the difference here. A topic can be unique or completely generic. What breathes life into it, either way, is the small moments that make up your larger experience.
Brainstorm: Make a list of 10 small, memorable moments in your life that could act as the beginnings of a story.
T: Transformation
Identifying a memorable and meaningful story is only the starting point to crafting a standout essay. Once you have yours, you’ll have to take some extra steps to turn it into a compelling narrative. Think about your favorite novel, TV show, or movie. What makes it compelling? The answer probably has something to do with conflict (which we’ll get to later) or growth and change.
The one constant in narratives (and in life) is change. As readers and viewers, we want to see the main character undergo transformations, make realizations, and experience growth over time. This is even more important in the college essay, as you’re trying to show your readers that you’re capable of the growth and self-reflection you’ll need to tackle college life.
To locate your transformation, you should think about your potential topics and the stories within them. Try to identify a moment where you made a significant realization or had an experience that changed who you are as a person. When working with students, I often call this the “aha moment,” the moment when you realized you had changed your viewpoint or approach.
As an example of what an “aha moment” could look like, perhaps, when you first discovered the violin in your grandma’s attic, you saw yourself as someone who gives up easily. However, playing helped you realize that you can stay motivated and see things through. This confidence might have transferred to other areas of your life.
Transformations are all about personal growth, and they are usually manifest in other areas of our lives. Highlighting a transformation that reframed your thinking or made you a better person can help make your essay feel like it's about you as an individual, as opposed to just about a topic like playing a sport or doing a hobby. Your transformation will likely also tie in closely with your advanced theme.
Brainstorm: Look at the 10 mini stories you came up with. For at least five, can you think of how it led to a shift in perspective or an “aha moment”?
A: Advanced Theme
The advanced theme of your paper is where the tension in your narrative emerges from. Remember the question of “what makes a narrative interesting” from earlier? If you think of the opening to one of your favorite novels, the beginning of a movie you like, or the pilot of a good TV show, I’m willing to bet one of the first things the narrative introduces is a conflict or tension.
Without conflict, there’s no transformation and, ultimately, no story. Some classic advanced themes include man vs nature, good vs evil, the inevitability of death or loss, and control vs letting go. In each of these, you can see either a tension between two things (like man versus nature) or a proposition that might be difficult to accept, such as the inevitability of loss.
For a more comprehensive list of advanced themes, you can sign up to use our idea generating tool.
Your advanced theme will likely emerge naturally from the core conflict of your story and be closely tied to how you show your own transformation, as a transformation typically occurs when the conflict, internal or external, is resolved.
Here’s how that might look in our example. In the violin example, we could explore advanced themes such as embracing failure, beauty in imperfection, or the search for identity. Since we centered the transformative moment around learning to stay motivated, the best advanced theme might be the search for identity.
Though your transformation and your advanced theme work hand in hand, they are not the exact same thing. Advanced themes are universal, while transformations are specific. Advanced themes help your transformation feel more significant to the reader, as they exist out in the world and not just in your life. But the two should work hand in hand as you craft your narrative.
Brainstorm: Read through your list of “aha moments.” Jot down any potential advanced themes that you see emerging.
N: Narrative Balance
Now that you have a story, transformation, and advanced theme, you’ll want to test your essay for narrative balance. Like tasting a recipe to see if it needs a little more salt, sugar, or spice, narrative balance is all about getting the right ratios in your story.
For a full article on this topic, see our blog post on the “sweet and sour” balance.
The ratio we suggest at Essay Cafe is 20% “sour” (setting up a tension, conflict, or problem) and 80% “sweet” (showing what you learned, how you grew, and how you overcame the challenge).
An essay will be “sour” if it focuses too much on the difficulty or challenge. Essays that detail loss or extreme hardship run the risk of being too sour. While you want to show your reader the difficulty of the situation, you don’t want to lose sight of showcasing your strength and growth in overcoming it.
On the other hand, the essay will be too “sweet” if it focuses too much on the author's successes without showing the human struggle behind them. Essays about starting a non-profit or business or winning an award or competition might run the risk of being too “sweet.”
Brainstorm: Choose one of your favorites from the list of stories you jotted down. Where do you see the “sour” in this story? Where do you see the “sweet”?
D: Distinctive Details
Distinctive details are the finishing touch on your essay. They make it feel alive, human, and uniquely yours. On almost every essay I edit, I ask the student for more narrative detail. Some of the best places to add distinctive details are in your hook, conclusion, and at key turning points in your narrative, such as the transformative moment.
Distinctive details will often tap into the five senses and give your reader a clear sense of a specific moment in time. While it’s important not to get bogged down in flowery prose, clear details about a significant moment in the narrative can help ground your reader and add an extra layer of dimension to your essay.
Here is an example of employing narrative detail at a key point in the narrative:
The attic was dark, musty, and covered in cob webs. I edged forward on two narrow planks, careful not to slip into the pink insulation on either side. I knew that one misstep could send me crashing through the roof and landing unceremoniously on my grandma’s dining table. For a moment, I considered giving up. No one in my family would have accused me of being especially hardworking. But my grandma needed me to sift through the junk, so I pressed on toward the cardboard boxes and disintegrating garbage bags.
Notice how in this example, the details and description create a sense of place and setting, and, in some instances, tell us something about the student's character or desires. These details are what make your writing feel textured, alive, and human.
Brainstorm: Select one of your “story” moments and write down a list of sensory details you recall. Use these to craft a passage about that moment in time.
Conclusion
A college essay that stands out is, paradoxically, not about grandiose moments or over-the-top actions, but about assembling the smaller building blocks that make up the narrative you want to tell. Start with a small but vivid story, track the way it changed you, connect it to a universal theme, balance struggle with growth, and layer in details that make your writing tangible.
Using the STAND framework not only helps you write a standout essay, but also helps you identify what truly makes you special. If you include each element of STAND in your writing process, your essay will leave an unforgettable mark on admissions committees.
At Essay Cafe, we offer comprehensive essay help to make sure your essays are your biggest advocates in the admissions office. If you’re unsure about your essay strategy or need a trusted second opinion, you can request a review or book a 1:1 session by creating an account here.
About Kelsey
Kelsey Wang is an essay consultant at Essay Cafe with a B.S. in Data Science and a minor in Creative Writing from Stanford University. She approaches essay editing from both a data perspective (applying successful patterns from hundreds of essays read) and a creative perspective (making each individual student stand out) and has personally helped students get into top schools like Princeton, Yale, Brown, UCLA, Duke, Stanford, Columbia and many more.