As a Bio major who went into medicine, I think that is pretty relaxed. Granted it is only first quarter, but in general I always took 4 classes, 2-3 of which were hard and 1 relatively easy one. I had a couple quarters with 5 classes but then I was really careful about how much demand each one had on my time. I don’t think it’s a big deal first quarter but by Winter he will need to step it up, IMHO.
@NosyCaliparent Congratulations to your son for starting his four years at the best undergrad institution in the world 
And good for him for pursuing medicine! I just hope he knows exactly what he’s getting himself into…but I’ll leave the trials and tribulations of getting into “The Club” for another thread…:))
Re: Your Fall Quarter Qs:
Just want to second @MomTwo2 's opinion that this is a completely fine schedule for Frosh Fall Quarter. I would actually argue based on my experience as a Frosh and a Frosh dorm RA that 1st quarter is actually a 5 unit course equivalent:
-1 unit for learning your way around campus + learning how to be independent
-1 unit for any adjusting to college academics & any extracurriculars
-3 units for navigating and finding a place within the social scene, and very likely finding a lifelong best friend or 5
90% of my Frosh who didn’t listen to us and took heavy Fall Quarters told us they wished they’d listened to us. I personally took too many units in Fall Quarter, and have always regretted it, so good for him for listening to the administration and his dorm staff and taking a light intro quarter.
I do understand the mentality of worrying that taking one fewer class in 1st quarter could set him back–really, I do, having been through it myself and see a dorm-full of Frosh wrestle with the same feeling–but it’s actually quite irrational when you do the math. He has an entire 11 more quarters to “make up” for taking a lighter 1st quarter, and he only needs to average 15 units/quarter to graduate. All of my friends, pre-med or not, who took lighter Fall Quarters graduated right on time, and some even finished their bachelor’s coursework early and started on their master’s (Stanford co-term) coursework in senior year. I can 100% guarantee you that, as long as he plans things out well, he can very very easily graduate within four years, and still have extra elective credits leftover even after accounting for WAYS, HumBio reqs, pre-med prereqs.
I never understood the whole “light fall, heavy winter, light spring” mentality. No one was ever really able to satisfactorily explain the logic behind that during all my time there, despite how widely accepted that tradition is. Light Frosh Fall Quarter, sure, but for the other 11 quarters he should take however many units works out for the pre-med scheduling. He shouldn’t feel bad if he has a light winter or heavy fall/spring, regardless of what his friends’ schedules are like.
And yes, CHEM 31X is a very hard nut to crack. I disagree, though, about the amount of work compared to 31A/B; in both my year and my staffing year, 31A/B had a comparable amount of work in terms of time, even though the pacing and difficulty was more reasonable. Some weeks the 31A/B kids actually had significantly more busywork than 31X. Either way, I imagine he’ll tell you that chem is keeping him plenty busy and intellectually stimulated this quarter.
Also, lucky guy for having Tuesdays off in his very first quarter! I loved scheduling quarters with 1-2 days completely free; those are great days for getting work done, studying for tests, and–later in his undergrad–doing research.
Overall, it’s an excellent thing that he’s taking it easy this quarter. Medicine is a long road–I’m sure he and you know that, if he entered Stanford at age 18, he won’t make attending physician until age 29 at the earliest. That’s assuming he doesn’t take any gap years, doesn’t pursue a dual degree program that extends med school beyond 4 years, and goes into a specialty that only has a 3 year residency (instead of, say, neurosurgery with it’s infamous 7 year long haul). So it’s the right call for him to, as you say, not “feel overwhelmed.” Because he definitely wouldn’t want to start burning out in the first 100 yards of the marathon.
Re: Your Pre-Med Q:
Almost all pre-meds finish their bachelor’s in four years. Some then may take one or multiple gap years. Others may need to take a post-bacc program, if they did not fulfill all med school prereqs during their undergrad coursework. But as I said, I wouldn’t worry about finishing in four years at all. His best resource for figuring out pre-med is his upperclassmen. If any of his dorm staff are pre-meds, that’s likely one of his best resources. If not, then HumBio has a peer advisor program, so he can go to office hours to see one of them. One of my friends is actually a peer advisor right now there.
He should ask them for their own schedules as examples of four-year plans that work and will let them graduate on time. Furthermore, his upperclassmen pre-meds will just in general be some of the most helpful resources for everything, period–something that will continue to be true at all stages of his life in medicine.
This is a controversial suggestion and I’m well aware that it is, but I would suggest he eventually sit down and plan out a very tentative four-year plan. Perhaps over Winter Break when he’s at home with free time and can bounce ideas off of you if need be. He would of course do this fully acknowledging that it will surely change many times over the course of the next four years, but it’s still useful to fill in the “must take in this quarter pre-med prereq classes,” just so he has a big picture view in mind. It’ll also probably put your mind at ease to see such a four-year plan, since you’ll see concretely just how many extra units he’ll have to spare. Throw in pre-med activities as well into that timeline, e.g., study for MCAT, take MCAT, apply for med schools, interview for med schools, research, volunteer, shadow, etc.
One little particular thing about the Physics, even though you didn’t ask: Not all med schools accept AP credit as a way to fulfill their requirements. He will need to look more into whether or not he wants/needs to take the PHYSICS 20/40/60 series, depending on which schools he thinks he will want to apply for. It’ll be good review for the MCAT anyway, as well as 15 units of easy As.
@Era991 on Chem, I agree with you. my S took 31X and said his friends in 31 had more busy work, but the sheer volume and depth of information covered and 31X made it a a demanding course. My comment was only intended to emphasize that course load is not as simple as number of hours. Never meant to imply one was less or more busy or even easier for that matter than the other.
@NosyCaliparent you may find that soon his challenge instead will be trying to not take too many hours: for my S, he still finds so many courses so interesting he keeps carrying too many. Congrats to you both!!!
@Era991 and @MomTwo2 Thank you both for the great input. My mind is much more at ease. I don’t know which chem class he has but you are right; it’s keeping him busy. He had a mid-term yesterday even though it’s like he just started classes.
I agree that talking to an upperclassman premed major is a fantastic idea. I am also fully aware that he will probably switch majors and that’s okay because Stanford has incredible programs all around.
@Era991 A couple more questions if you don’t mind. Do you think he should take at least a CS course or a Engineering course to test the waters in these fields? Is it easy to switch from one to the other? And I know it’s too early but for curiosity sake, what is your opinion of going from Stanford undergrad to Stanford Medical School or is it so uniform in what is taught that is doesn’t really matter where you go to Medical school?
@NosyCaliparent There’s so much I could say about all of these, I could write a whole book on each question. Indeed, there are whole forums dedicated to the med school selection question in particular. I have strong feelings about a lot of these, but I’ll try to present it as objectively as I can for as general an audience as I can. I’ll try to keep it shorter to avoid writing a novel, but I can expand on any of the points if you have a specific question.
-Re: CS/Engineering
There are a lot of reasons to take CS/engineering, there are a lot of reasons to major in CS/engineering, and there are a lot of reasons to do neither.
If he’s like 90% of Frosh pre-meds who aren’t completely sure they want to go into medicine, then maybe he is also considering a career in these techie fields as an alternative. Even if he’s set on pre-med, maybe he really enjoys these classes. Or maybe he’s just curious and wants to take a single intro class to see if it jives with him or not. Or maybe he even is set on going into industry with his MD, or doing academic research involving high-tech devices. All of these are valid reasons to take classes in and potentially major in these fields.
But if none of those are true, then there’s quite little reason for him to bother taking a class. “My upperclassmen told me everyone should take CS 106A because I’m at Stanford for undergrad,” is like saying “Everyone who goes on vacation to Italy has to visit Rome.” Yeah, sure, it’s a great city, and you can’t cough anywhere without accidentally managing to leave your sputum on one historically significant landmark or another. And indeed, that would be the right call for any history buffs who take away meaning from being in il Colosseo. But–sorry to any Romans on CC–I’d personally much much much rather spend my limited vacation time in a city that I really enjoy, like Florence, San Gimignano, any of the smaller places in Tuscany, or even tourist-filled Venice. Similarly, he should only spend his limited units at Stanford on classes that either interest him or are required, and not on classes that somebody told him is a “must-take.”
An even worse reason to take CS 106A: “My upperclassmen told me that I should take it because CS is useful for everything, and I’ll even find it useful when I’m a doctor.” Yeah, no. The skills you learn in CS 106A–like how to code brick breaker–are not even close to applicable in being a doctor. In all my hundreds and thousands of hours at clinic, on the wards, and in the OR, not once have I seen a physician pull up the code behind Epic Hyperspace. It’s laughable to assume that even the entirety of CS core is enough training for a physician to ever be able to troubleshoot a malfunctioning computer program in the medical setting. There are many reasons to take CS 106A; this is not one of them.
Furthermore, being both pre-med and CS or engineering is VERY difficult. It’s not impossible, and I know several who’ve made it work, but it is not fun unless you really love your major. Upper div CS, upper div engineering, and upper div math are widely agreed to be the hardest offerings at Stanford. So, as a measuring stick, he should simply ask himself whether he really wants to take a class or major in one of these fields. Don’t let anyone else or anything else influence him to do it.
-Re: Switching majors
CS and the engineering majors tend to be a tad harder to switch into, as unit-heavier majors with tracked sequences and lots of prereqs, so it’s best to start these in Frosh year wherever possible. HumBio declaration is rather work-intensive and paperwork-heavy, compared to just about every other major, and requires a four-year major plan for the build-your-own-concentration option. Bio is incredibly relaxed and user-friendly to declare, and I always found Bio student services to be very helpful and incredibly responsive (<1 day turnaround). For a pre-med, I would strongly recommend declaring by October/November of sophomore year, and sticking with it; for students who aren’t pre-med and don’t have our unique scheduling restrictions, this is less of an issue. That said, I do know a pre-med who didn’t declare until junior year, and it worked out (but also quite stressed this person out).
*Apparently I have to split my post because it got too long, despite my promise to try to keep it shorter.
Part II @NosyCaliparent
-Re: Stanford Med and Med school selection in general
Where do I even start with this one…one thing you’ll hear often repeated is that “The Loop of Henle is the Loop of Henle, no matter where you go to medical school.” And it’s true that you will learn pretty much the same material no matter where you go, although the presentation and organization of the curricula can and do differ significantly from school to school. It’s hard to ascertain this as an applicant, so this is one of the points where he will especially want to ask the current students, when it comes time for him to make his final decision…but that’s not for at least 3 years’ time for your son. Overall though, it is my impression that the “quality” of instruction between US MD-granting institutions is much less variable than undergrad institutions, so I did base my final decision very heavily on non-academic and more personal considerations.
I don’t really know what you’re asking about Stanford Med. I know people who are currently at Stanford Med–including former Stanford undergrads–and we compare notes. You obviously can’t go wrong with Stanford Med. It’s an excellent school–I mean really, Stanford doesn’t have any programs that aren’t. One of the unique things about Stanford Med among med schools is how many resources he has to pursue dual degrees; many other med schools make this possible, but pretty much all of Stanford’s graduate and professional programs are world-renowned. It’s also perfectly situated for any MDs who are also entrepreneurs or are interested in the tech/biotech side of medicine. Finally, it is a med school that very highly values student research, offering many incentives such that ~70-80% of the students will take a 5th research year before completing med school; combined with the brand name and connections made here, that obviously makes Stanford Med graduates very competitive for academic positions. I’m not sure what you’re looking for about Stanford Med beyond that. He will probably want to apply there when the time comes regardless of whether it’s his top choice, because why not.
I’ll briefly list some considerations that factored into my own decision, roughly in descending order of importance to me. It’s a very personal list, and will be markedly different for every applicant, so by no means should you take my list as an exhaustive or even prototypical list. Again, I can talk more about any individual item, but I don’t know what you or your son are most interested in hearing about:
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Geographical location–Some people want to stay in a particular area for various reasons. Maybe they have lots of family there, and might need to take care of an ailing relative. Maybe they’re married, and their spouse cannot more too far. In general, it is best to go to med school in the same geographic region as where you would want to do your residency, for many reasons that have been enumerated elsewhere on the internet.
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Pass/Fail preclinical years AND no internal ranking–Most, but not all, US MD schools are now on P/F grading only for the first two years. A very small number of schools have only P/F grading for all four years, whereas most will have 3-, 4-, or 5-tiered grading for the clinical years (honors/high pass/pass/fail or some variation thereof). However, many of the P/F preclin schools still have internal ranking, in which each applicant’s percentile bracket relative to their class is reported on the MSPE to residency programs. A minority of schools don’t internally rank. Some schools also don’t have AOA chapters, which is a med student honor society. All three of these factors–grading system, internal ranking, AOA–can have a strong influence on the culture of the student body. I very strongly wanted to go to a school whose environment fostered as collaborative an environment as possible, so this was a critical consideration for me, second only to geographical location.
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Financial–There’s a pretty wide variation in total cost of attendance, especially for in-state vs private tuition. It’s also pretty common to be offered very different aid packages or merit scholarships from different schools. All told, it’s not uncommon to be looking at schools where the total cost of attendance differs by $100,000-$200,000+ over all four years. Trying to weigh financial reasons against non-financial reasons for deciding which med school to attend can be one of the hardest decisions applicants have to make.
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“Prestige”–This is that same nebulous concept that you’re familiar from choosing which undergrad to apply to and matriculate at, which particular websites attempt to make concrete by numerically ranking all institutions and either do a wonderful job or fail at it, depending on whom you ask. For med schools, the short of it is that some institutions do have better match rates for particular specialties. I don’t know if your son has any specialties in mind, but the old proxy was how many students successfully matched into a ROAD specialty. Then it became ROAD-E. Right now, it’s probably better to look at rates for ortho, nSx, and plastics in addition to rads, ophtho, and derm. It can obviously be a skewed measure–especially for mission-focused schools whose primarily objective is to train PCPs for underserved communities–so probably shouldn’t be too strong of an influence in anyone’s final decision. But it is a very real and very valid consideration, even though it often is the elephant in the room.
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Surrounding area–Umbrella for many different considerations, including safety, expense of living, nightlife, proximity to beach/outdoors, urban vs rural environment, etc.
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Other programs at the institution–Do you want to be at an institution that is only a medical school, or only has graduate programs, or is attached to an undergrad university? There are pros and cons to all three types.
But of course, you don’t need to worry about any of this until he gets accepted into medical school. I always chuckle a bit when I see people on this forum post about how hard it is to get into Stanford, and how it should be said that the Stanford picks you and not the other way around. When it comes to med school admissions, there is no such thing as a “safety,” and even the concept of a “likely” is debatable for most applicants. E.g., Mayo Med: 1.8% admission rate. And before even making it to application season, he first needs to stick with pre-med for all four years–the pre-med attrition rate at Stanford is pretty consistently 50% per class. 99% of pre-meds really have no idea how much they’re sacrificing by going into medicine, unless they have physician parents.
It might be helpful to hear @kath00 's opinion on especially this last question of med schools, as an attending who has the benefit of many more years of experience and time to reflect on this issue. Again, I also highly recommend that your son befriend pre-med upperclassmen, and watch how their own application cycles and final decisions go. He can learn from any mistakes they later realize they made, as well as from actions that they’re later really glad they did.
Oops, I didn’t really keep my response that short. Good thing I’m not on a surgery rotation right now :))
Thank you for your response. I especially liked point #2 in terms of a collaborative environment. After I shared your insight with my son he agreed and said that’s what he loves about Stanford now.
Yeah, I was very pleasantly surprised to find how collaborative and not at all competitive the pre-med culture was at Stanford. Just the other day, I was discussing with another Tree how really remarkable we both found it, even though so many pre-med prereq classes were graded on a curve. I think it says a lot about the Farm culture. I’ve often heard it’s not the case everywhere from my current med school classmates who come from elsewhere.
Anyways, moving swiftly along, this thread doesn’t have to be all about pre-med and medicine, if anyone has other questions! Although I’m always happy to talk about med if there’s more interest in that
Hello again! Wow I sound like Adele! You have been a great resource and I wanted to ask ta question if you aren’t too busy. My son would like to do the study abroad program in some way but he has heard that it’s next to impossible to be a part of this and stay on course to graduate pre-med. Is that your take on it? I read that HumBio program in Australia might be a possibility? Any thoughts?
@NosyCaliparent It’s definitely NOT impossible. It does require EXTENSIVE planning though, starting now.
This is one of those cases where it is 100% necessary to have a tentative 4-year plan fleshed out before committing to going abroad, in order to know that it’s possible (schedulable) to finish both his pre-med and his major requirements in his 11 quarters non-abroad. I told this to all of my Frosh who wanted to go abroad or multiple major + pre-med. Again, I know the 4-year plan recommendation is controversial, and you’ll easily find other Stanford alumni, staff members, and upperclassmen who will disagree with me. But quite frankly, any other med student and physician familiar with the current med school application requirements–especially with the new biochem, psych, and soc requirements for the new MCAT and many med schools’ updated prerequisites–will tell you the same thing as me: Either hammer out that 4-year plan, or risk either not being able to go abroad or not graduate pre-med in 4 years.
Did you learn if any his dorm staff are pre-meds? Or if he’s befriended any other pre-med upperclassmen there? They’ll also be able to walk him through the specific scheduling logistics of the whole pre-med process in-person. Another place to go is the HumBio student advisors, who hold regular office hours. One of my pre-med friends still at Stanford is currently one, and she’d be a great source of information (plus lovely to talk to).
This Thanksgiving break will be a great time for him to sit down with you and think it through together. Winter break will be another good chance. Spring break would be cutting it close, and I really wouldn’t wait any longer than that to figure a tentative 4-year plan that can accommodate pre-med + major reqs + WAYS + abroad + language req if applicable. The plan will not be final, and will doubtless change multiple times, but he will need to prove to himself on paper that at least his first draft of the plan has a permutation that will hit all the points and allow him to graduate in four years.
If he wants to study abroad during a non-summer quarter, this is a very compelling reason to pick a major that overlaps as much with the pre-med requirements, since this will “buy” him more elective room, which can be spent doing those electives abroad. (Although there are a handful of abroad programs with a class or two that fulfill a pre-med requirement, but I can’t remember off the top of my head if the Aussies have one.) In practical terms, this means he should really consider majoring in bio or humbio for logistical reasons, if nothing else–this is not a former bio major trying to put in a subtle plug for his major, just a med student stating a simple fact. It would be exceedingly hard to schedule a workable schedule if majoring in, say, electrical engineering + pre-med + abroad in the land of kangaroos and poisonous fauna. I’m sure some person somewhere has managed to do it, but I don’t envy their schedule, which would have been loaded up on work-heavy engineering + pre-med classes for most non-abroad quarters.
I would encourage him to look at doing abroad during a summer quarter, as a potentially easier option. It’s simpler for scheduling purposes, if there are any summer abroad programs that interest him. Summer after Frosh year is simplest for traditional applicants (those who go straight to med school without taking a gap year after undergrad); this is because summer after sophomore year is a often taken up studying to take the MCAT in mid-September just before junior year starts, and summer after junior year is spent applying and doing the first few interviews. For nontraditional applicants who take gap years, this can open up some more summers since it will push the MCAT and application back by one summer per gap year they take.
Hope he and you enjoy your Thanksgiving together! Let me know if you have any further questions–I’m always happy to find productive ways to occasionally procrastinate on studying renal pathophysiology. 
Thank you. will discuss over Thanksgiving. he is doing well. he has a A in chemistry and math. He taking a whopping 12 units. playing club volleyball and quidditch!! loves Stanford!! winter quarter is next math and chemistry and 3 psychology classes which will put him at 20 units??. he is a humbio major. So to be clear the 4yr plan should be with him and his advisor with input from the Humbio advisors?
He should start first with a Humbio advisor who is also pre-med, since most major advisors are less familiar with the intricacies of the med school app. After that, he can run it by his advisor. (Did he already declare? If so, that’s quite early!)
It sounds like your/his main concern right now is just figuring out if going abroad is schedulable with his requirements, so don’t sweat all the details.
Former Stanford undergrad (class of '78!) and MD here. Reading this thread brings back a lot of memories. Good ones. My best friends are still, to this day, my friends from Stanford. Actually, my friends from my freshman dormitory are my closest confidants. It was significantly easier to get admitted in my day, but I am quite aware of the current admissions issues. My daughter attends one of the most highly ranked colleges in the USA (not Stanford), for what the rankings are worth, and I watched her go through the process.
My greatest regret from my Stanford days is that I did not study abroad. My advice to NosyCaliparent is to advise your child to do the travel and also to advise him to work it out with his advisor without your help. If he got into Stanford he should be able to do this, and he needs to be independent.
I can tell you with certainty that the “big name” medical schools do not care what he majors in. In fact, interviewing yet another Bio major is not something any of us would consider a plus. I would rather see a candidate who has “stretched” in an intellectual sense. Maybe a Philosophy major or a Music major. It’s a given that he is good enough in science classes if he gets to the interview. One of my pediatric patients went to Stanford Medical School. She went to a mid-level all women’s college and majored in English Literature. Aced the MCAT and got a Fulbright Scholarship. I acted as her pre-med advisor since she was already out of college when she applied. My advice was: be different, stand out from the crowd, follow your passions.
As far as attending Stanford Medical School after going through Stanford as an undergraduate, very few have that opportunity. There are only 90 students per Stanford medical school class. Almost 8,000 apply. No sense even worrying about that. Good medical schools across the country love Stanford undergraduates. Becoming a good doctor has little to do with where a student goes to medical school, but everything to do with internal motivation.
From the result threads I’ve seen, it’s seems that at Stanford, essays are king over ECs and, to a certain extent, grades. Would you find this to be true in your experience, and will an exceptional essay put a student over the edge/can a student with a mediocre essay be considered?
^^ I really don’t think you can make that blanket statement at all. The results threads really don’t give you an accurate picture of the real world. For instance, in the RD round the acceptance rate is just north of 3%. That means if the results thread mirrored reality, on average for every acceptance you see posted, you would have to read through 32 rejections before you came to another acceptance. I’m sure many, if not most, of those kids who were rejected would self-assess their essays as terrific. (Btw, you’re basing your bellief on essays that you haven’t even read so how do you know if the accepted students really had better essays?)
Also, essays may be heavily “edited” or polished by others. They can even be outright ghost written as recent articles have described about what’s happening in some foreign countries. There’s nothing to stop this from happening here in the US too. So why should a possibly ghost written collection of words mean more to an admissions staff than tangible accomplishments that were hard earned over a four year period?
Grades, academic rigor, test scores and ECs are “king” over essays. Possibly, recs are too. Finally, yes you can get in with a mediocre essay. I once heard an admissions officer say that 90% of essays are not memorable - 5% are memorable in a positive way and 5% are memorable in a negative way. Most kids who think they’ve written a masterpiece are just trudging on familiar ground and their essays are fraught with cliched themes.
That doesn’t mean you should strive to write a standout essay though. The more you can reveal of your true self to AOs and build a cohesive narrative around your HS career the better. Just don’t operate under the assumption that your essay will cause AOs to ignore the other more important aspects of you application.
I can only speak for myself and even this is conjecture on my part. I am convinced my essay discussing my ECs made the difference. My SAT I test scores overall were below the average applicant.
Some years ago I read an article that essays submitted by all applicants are read by at least two readers. I don’t know if it is true or not today.
Yes, there are multiple readers at most schools. Of course, your essay may have made the difference. I was responding to the assertion that essays trump ECs and possibly grades which I still maintain is not the case. There are always exceptions where an essay may shed some light on an applicant’s situation such has having overcome a lot of adversity that will move the needle but, in general, essays will not make up for a subpar gpa or weak (or even mediocre) ECs.
@googledrone Your SAT I scores may have been below average but there must have been a lot of very compelling offsetting factors beyond just your essays.
@Multiverse7 is right in that there are no valid blanket statements that can be made. If it were true that essays mattered most in admissions, then we’d expect to see a large proportion of humanities majors, or at least everyone breezing through PWR1 and getting A+'s on their RBA’s. In actuality, humanities majors are in the VERY small minority even after the recent push to expand humanities programs and themed housing, and the PWR1 was one of the classes my Frosh griped about most.
Anecdotally, I knew many friends who had similar or dissimilar opinions to @googledrone. Some felt that, although they felt like they struggled academically compared to their friends and their numbers were below the class average, they poured their heart into their essay and told a very personal and quite likely poignant and unique story about themselves; I know several friends who are convinced this is why they got in. And then some felt that their essays were just so-so, and it was something in the everything else on the app that got them in.
A little while back, I reread my own essay that I had written all those years ago, and thought, “meh.” I did have some fun with the roommate essay though, and my regional AO commented to me on that after acceptance.
It’s all just anecdotes on this forum. And even in the anecdotes, the takeaway is no big revelation: There is no single successful archetypal application. Clearly not surprising for a institution that embraces and so highly values diversity.
I’ve posted this article from our Alumni magazine a few times elsewhere, but here it is again. This is as close to demystifying Stanford admissions as outsiders–i.e., anyone who hasn’t worked in Montag Hall, which includes everyone on this forum–will get, plus it’s a good read. https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/magazine/article/?article_id=66225
How much does being the relative of an employee matter? Obviously this is different from legacy, and children of teachers are given the “golden halo,” but what about for example the granddaughter or niece of a Stanford Health Care executive? This is my poor attempt to be vague to make the question applicable to more people than just myself, but there is a section on the app for relatives that work at Stanford.
I’m curious about how Stanford deals with sibling legacies and twins/triplets in the admission process. Is there special consideration?