How to write an interdisciplinary college essay

RReaders in Stanford's admissions office relished one kind of thinking above almost any other, and most applicants never show it. A group of medical students at the University of Pennsylvania spent several sessions at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, learning to look at paintings the way art historians do, and afterward they were measurably better at the close observation that diagnosis depends on. Taking future doctors out of the hospital and into a gallery made them better doctors. That result surprises nearly everyone who hears it, and the surprise is the point. An applicant whose essay produces the same reaction has shown the reader something no list of honors can, and the reason it works is worth understanding before you draft.