How to answer a college reading list supplement

SSome selective colleges ask applicants directly what they read, and readers in Stanford's admissions office, the office we learned from, considered the usual answer the weakest one possible. Columbia has long been the best-known example, asking for favorite books, required texts you enjoyed or the works that shaped your thinking, though the wording and word limits change from cycle to cycle, so read the current prompt on the college's own page.

Whatever the format, the question is a gift: the college is telling you plainly that it wants evidence of a reading life. Most applicants answer with inventory, eight titles separated by commas and chosen to look well-rounded, a list that could be produced without opening a single book. What a reader wants instead is more modest than families expect.