an honest portrait of stanford, please

Colleges and Universities A-Z Stanford University
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<p>hi, everyone. i'm a senior right now trying to narrow down my college choices to the ones i really honestly think i could see myself attending.</p>

<p>so while i am interested in stanford, i was wondering you guys could give me a completely honest portrait of what it's like to be a student there.</p>

<p>maybe you could answer the following questions?</p>

<p>1.) what are the classes like? extremely hard? fairly easy? interesting? lectures? small, discussion-based? etc.
2.) i want to be a movie editor/producer/filmmaker. i know brown is not well-known for film. i am applying to schools known for film (usc, chapman, nyu, etc) but i like stanford as a school anyway. if i were to go to stanford instead of a film-centric school, would i pretty much kiss my chances of being a filmmaker goodbye?
3.) i'm a bi guy, and i know stanford is gay-friendly, but are there plenty of bi guys/girls too? i want to make sure i fit in and everything. also, i generally get along better friend-wise with straight or bi guys than gay guys. i do have gay friends though, but i want to be able to have all different kinds of friends, gay, straight, bi. are all orientations well-represented at stanford?
4.) does it get boring at stanford? i hear a lot of kids spend almost all their time studying, and while i'm not a big partier, i would like college to be more fun and active than my dorky high schools years. :-P
5.) what do people generally do for fun at stanford? i'm interested in joining a lot of student clubs. but i don't like drinking or doing drugs. are clubs big ways of socializing? how prevalent is drinking/drugs?
6.) how is financial aid? i'd need a ton to go there.
7.) i haven't taken pre-cal or calculus. took honors algebra II, honors geometry, and stats though. would i be automatically rejected from stanford?
8.) what's the environment/people like? really focused, academic? </p>

<p>and any other info about what it's REALLY like to be at stanford would be really helpful. </p>

<p>like is there any certain criteria i NEED to fit to be happy at stanford? (for instance, it's a lot better to be liberal at brown than republican.) does anything like this apply to stanford? thanks a lot guys!</p>

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<p>1) all across the board. there are a lot of small classes (75% are 20 or less students), some big classes. some classes are interesting for some people and not for others. same thing with difficulty. generally though, unless you are brilliant there’s a level of course you can take that is challenging, especially in technical subjects.
2) i dont know about film, but i have a friend who majored in film studies and is down in LA working now (just graduated last year)
3) there are lots of gay/bi/etc people yes. you’ll be fine.
4)impossible to generalize enough to say anything. there’s always stuff going on if you want to get involved, but no, there isn’t anyone thats going to come knock on your door whenever you get bored and want to party
5)umm there are 650 student groups you can choose from. lots of people spend a lot of time with them. lots of others spend a lot of time drinking, although i think drinking is generally tamer here in comparison to other schools. we do have really flexible alcohol rules on campus though (no open container laws, so people walk around with alcohol and its fine…not that it happens all that much, mostly at night when people move from party to party
6. financial aid here is better than you’ll get most anywhere else. it was cheaper for me to go to stanford that my state university
7. stanford doesn’t make admissions decisions based on the highest level of math you’ve taken.
8. there are all kinds of people at stanford. some are really focused academically, others drink every tuesday night.</p>

<p>really these questions are way to general to be useful. people find their niche here and they are fine. a lot of guys like to join frats, I personally think frats are gross…so i don’t join them or go to their parties. but I do like to go to some of the co-op parties/room parties with friends/etc. it all works out :P</p>

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<p>thanks a lot, mike! :smiley: that helps clear some things up for me.</p>

<p>but i’d be happy to hear from anyone else who might have anything to add too. :)</p>