How to start a Why Us essay with a college's history

RReaders in Stanford's admissions office knew that every Why Us essay hides the same question, whether this applicant really wants this particular place, and that declarations almost never answer it. Students write that a college is their first choice, list programs from the website and praise the community, and the reader, who has seen the same moves all week, ends the essay no more convinced than she began. One reader there described an opening that settles the question in a few sentences. It borrows a move from biography, it teaches the reader something, and it leaves her holding a detail she is likely to repeat. Here is what it looks like on the page.