<p>Okay.. preferably I'm asking these questions to current/past/going to be stanford students.</p>
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<li><p>How great is the financial aid at Stanford? I heard people who are accepted with low incomes receive full scholarships.. is that true??</p></li>
<li><p>How is the social life at Stanford?</p></li>
<li><p>How often do average Stanford students go home during breaks?</p></li>
<li><p>Is there anything to do besides what's on the campus?</p></li>
<li><p>Do most students travel around the campus by bike or if they don't what do they do??</p></li>
<li><p>Are most Stanford students the typical type A- hardworking/ play hard kind of people?</p></li>
<li><p>What classes do most all incoming freshmen take?</p></li>
<li><p>How many students participate in study abroad/ internships/ programs during school or on breaks? </p></li>
<li><p>How is the food at Stanford?</p></li>
<li><p>What should a person's main reason be to apply to Stanford.. besides the fact that it's a top school?</p></li>
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<li><p>Financial aid is amazing. If you come from a family making under 60k/yr you get a full tuition, room and board scholarship. This means you’re only responsible for a minimal student contribution which can be taken care of by outside scholarships or a job. If you come from a family making under 100k/yr you get all the tuition waived. Families making up to 150k/yr typically find their cost to attend Stanford is similar to the cost of attending their state schools. Stanford’s financial aid also has no loans which is amazing. All in all Stanford’s financial aid program is amongst the most generous in the nation.</p></li>
<li><p>Social life is what you make it. Freshman year one’s social life tends to be centered around the dorm. There are lots of dorm activities, like ski trip, SF scanvenger hunt, etc. Also there are usually parties on the weekend held by frats (but frats do not dominate the social scene at all at Stanford). If you like sports there’s free admission to all football games and you can watch all the men’s basketball games by becoming part of the 6th man club for just 60 bucks. It’s a good deal since you get a t-shirt and I think free food too.</p></li>
<li><p>Most go home at least twice since there are three breaks: Thanksgiving, Winter, and Spring. The best thing about breaks (with the exception of Thanksgiving) is that they signal the end of the quarters. Winter break signals the end of fall quarter, Spring break signals the end of winter quarter. This way when you go on breaks you’re not worrying about finals!</p></li>
<li><p>This may be the only real drawback. You can go into San Francisco for the weekend but Palo Alto is sort of expensive for a college student. But with so many activities and stuff going on at Stanford it’s hard to be bored.</p></li>
<li><p>You get a bike. You can walk, but the campus is huge. Since most places are within a 3-4 minutes bike ride it’s well worth the investment.</p></li>
<li><p>It wouldn’t be fair to just paint Stanford students with a broad brush. But kids here do tend to work hard play hard. But when I think of Type A I think of a bit annoying and over the top competitiveness, which is not what you’ll find at Stanford-for the most part.</p></li>
<li><p>All kids take either IHUM+PWR or SLE. These are humanities courses that are supposed (read:don’t really) to help you hone your writing skills and gain a greater appreciation for the humanities. Also most freshman take an introseminar at least one quarter. Intro classes like: econ 1a, chem 31a, math 51, etc are not required but most kids take some combination of them during their freshman year.</p></li>
<li><p>I don’t have the exact stats but lots of kids do study abroad programs and almost all do internships during the summer. I do not think many people do internships during the school year though. If you want to study abroad during the school year or summer Stanford has an excellent study abroad program to help you do that. Basically, it’s all at your fingertips.</p></li>
<li><p>Sort of variable to be honest. Stern is not good at all and Wilbur is mediocre. The other dining halls are better with IMO, Lag being extremely good. But after awhile the food becomes boring since it’s the same thing day in day out. So, no it’s not Cornell dining but nor is it jail mush ;)</p></li>
<li><p>I know it sounds cliche: but if you want to be surrounded by smart motivated students who have diverse interests and experiences. I know that most top schools have that, but Stanford students tend to rate their experience really highly-especially compared to a school like Harvard. Very few people regret coming to Stanford- the same can’t be said for many of Stanford’s peers. You’ll note that the application tries to get to know the applicant by asking you many personal questions. Stanford selects for certain personality traits more than most of it’s peers which really helps build a great community. Obviously this is a short answer, since I could probably write a whole essay on it, but I just wanted to put it in a nutshell.</p></li>
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<p>Financial aid at Stanford is fantastic. My finaid package was like a dream…I don’t have to pay anywhere close to full tuition thanks to Stanford’s scholarships and grants and i have federal work study on campus. Stanford is one of the best schools in the country for financial aid, as it guarantees help for people in certain economic brackets, and up to 70% of students have at least some financial aid. It’s different for international students, however, but it’s still possible. Stanford is wonderful for finaid.</p>
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<p>As the poster above said, the social life is what you make of it. As a freshmen, your dorm is a family. You’ll be doing a scavenger hunt in SF, ski trip, and boat dance together, and during NSO you will be “competing”/demonstrating your pride by marching with your dorm flag, chanting and cheering and generally having a great time. There are frat parties every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, usually, or dorm parties going on and there are certain events going on throughout the rest of the week (especially every Wednesday), and crazy campus-wide parties like Full Moon on the Quad, Mausoleum Party and Exotic Erotic. Unfortunately, frat parties are generally shut down at 1 AM. The Stanford band is amazing and completely crazy, and even non-football fans will come out for the season and Big Game. There are people who party all the time and there are people who spend all their time in the library/rooms studying and there are an endless amount of clubs/student organizations to get involved in too.</p>
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<p>Thanksgiving, Winter, and Spring Breaks are the general big breaks. Some go home on random weekends (it helps if you don’t have class Friday) and if you live in the area, chances are you’re going home often (especially to do laundry). Some people who live far away from Stanford (like me) sometimes stay with friends/travel on small breaks and go home for winter and summer.</p>
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<p>Well, campus is pretty much a big city in itself. You get plenty of diversity on campus and plenty of activities to do. In palo alto there is nothing too exciting besides some good restaurants (Thai, Indian, Cheesecake Factory), Red Mango, and a great Apple Store (of course). However, the Caltrain is right there, and it is easy to go to San Francisco (great city) and other areas such as Mountainview (for movies, etc). As someone who comes from NYC, I never get bored at Stanford.</p>
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<p>Most everyone has a bike, though longboards/skateboards are popular alternatives. However, people walk, and a few drive (though this is impractical). But biking isn’t hard to learn and there are bike racks all over.</p>
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<p>Stanford students are hard to classify. Most work hard, a lot also play hard, but it is still a relaxed atmosphere. While some people are competitive, it is more of a supportive competitiveness (helping each other ) rather than a mean atmosphere (people just don’t steal each others notes before tests like other schools) and everyone supports each other. The duck analogy is pretty accurate.</p>
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<p>All freshmen take IHUM/PWR or SLE. These are required, and depending on which class you take, can be really interesting and useful. A lot take introductory classes in areas that they are thinking of majoring in (however, because there are many majors, most freshmen do not take one specific class). </p>
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<p>Many students take at least one quarter abroad. In fact, International Relations majors are required to study abroad. Stanford has great programs around the world, so a lot of options are available. Check out what Bing Overseas Programs have to offer. Stanford campuses were just opened in Santiago and Cape town.</p>
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<p>It’s healthier than most schools, and there are a lot of options to choose from. Still, it can get boring…it is cafeteria food after all. Freshmen year, you will be eating in a dining hall (and have the option of going to any of the dining halls including wilbur, stern, flomo, lag and frosoco). Each has a different theme and has some specialty, depending on the theme dorm. For example, Wilbur has the Asian theme dorm so it has asian food (and it is the biggest dining hall on that side of campus). In later years, it depends on housing, where you could be in a residence with a personal chef (in-house), a co-op (one grows its own food), an eating club or a dining hall. There are additional options on campus, like a little Thai cafe in the basement of the Psych building, restaurants, Jamba Juice and Fraiche (froyo) in the student union.</p>
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<p>It’s an amazing school that has it all. It has one of the happiest student bodies for good reason. There is something for everyone and it’s a wonderful experience. Great academics, great community, good social life, and a big city nearby.</p>
<p>My son is a student at Stanford. I agree with the above comments. I would like to add that the financial aid is exceptionally good for those who need it. My son’s roommate his freshman year got everything paid for except textbooks and miscellaneous expenses. Even so, his family was having financial troubles. He went into the financial aid office and asked for money to cover textbooks. They rearranged aid to even cover his books. </p>
<p>I actually thought that was going too far, but it seems like the financial aid office will work with any student who has a need. </p>
<p>I would also caution you that all of us affiliated with Stanford are obviously bias so you should also check out things independently of what you hear on CC.</p>
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<li><p>Yes, if you make below $60,000, it’s essentially a full scholarship. If you make even lower, Stanford will pay for books, travel, etc. No loans, only work-study (the requirement for which is reduced for low-income students).</p></li>
<li><p>Social life is great–search the forum for a discussion of it.</p></li>
<li><p>Almost everyone goes home for Christmas, and probably the majority of students go home for Thanksgiving too. Some go home for spring break, though comparatively fewer.</p></li>
<li><p>Yes. If you want to go off campus, downtown PA is pretty good. Downtown Mountain View also offers a lot. And of course, you can always go to San Francisco or San Jose.</p></li>
<li><p>Bike is most common. Many students longboard if they don’t have a bike. Some students just walk.</p></li>
<li><p>I’d say work-hard/play-hard is a pretty good characterization of Stanford’s student body (I don’t know about “A-”).</p></li>
<li><p>Not surprisingly, freshmen mostly take introductory classes, as well as more advanced ones. The majority take an introductory seminar at some point, though that’s completely by choice.</p></li>
<li><p>About half the student body studies abroad. I’d say a hefty portion do internships. </p></li>
<li><p>In comparison to other college foods (my only experience is the various visits to other schools back in HS), I’d say Stanford’s the best (this compared to Harvard, Berkeley, UCLA, Yale, and Princeton). It’s not gourmet by any stretch of the imagination, but the dining halls will often surprise you with the quality. Even then, dorm food gets old.</p></li>
<li><p>Agreed with the above.</p></li>
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<p>thanks for your answers guys! I know this isn’t going to be my only source of opinion, but I have gleaned alot to what kind of school stanford would be like.</p>