<p>Stanford is the university I admire most because of its unmatched contribution to modern technology. Just being curious, did any of you choose Stanford over Harvard, or Yale, or Princeton, or MIT this year?</p>
<p>First, that survey is such a small sample size. Second, that survey is on CC, which means all those high-achievers that idolize ivies are probably posting, which might be a reason why the three ivies average 30 admits while Stanford and MIT average 20 admits albeit comparable admit rates. Which also kind of fits with your reason. The Stanford boards are less and less active, so there aren’t many admitted students on CC (see the RD Decision board for a good example).</p>
<p>personally, i didn’t get into any of those schools, but one of my friends got into all five (harvard, yale, princeton, stanford, and mit) and ended up choosing stanford, where he got in early action.</p>
<p>I met four kids at Stanford admit weekend who got into Harvard, Princeton, and Stanford, and all four chose/were choosing Stanford. I also met another kid who got into Harvard, Princeton, Chicago, Caltech, and Stanford, and was choosing Stanford. There were also a few more kids who all chose/were choosing Stanford over Harvard. I did meet one kid, however, who got into Princeton and Stanford and was waitlisted at MIT, who was still deciding.
So, the long and short of all of that is that CC isn’t a very good representation of the cross-admit data. (And, I’m sure neither is Stanford’s admit weekend. But you get the point.)</p>
<p>Thanks for the response from all of you. To me, Stanford and Harvard are THE 2 best universities in the whole world. But my impression is that Stanford may have room to improve in terms of attracting the top notched undergraduates, especially when competing with Harvard, and other main competitors like Yale, Princeton, and MIT. I guess Stanford might have done a better job in faculty recruiting and graduate student recruiting.</p>
<p>I’m choosing Stanford over Harvard and Princeton. And t the Harvard admit weekend, I found three other people who did as well.
But I met A LOT of people at Harvard who either didn’t apply to Stanford or were rejected (mostly early action)…</p>
<p>I chose Stanford over Harvard. I went to both admit weekends and almost everyone I talked to at Stanford who was between HPY and Stanford was choosing Stanford. I met alot of kids at Harvard who either didnt apply or were rejected. Both H and S are incredible schools but I think the admissions department looks for different kinds of students at each school. Overall the weather, the atmosphere, the focus on science and the student body were all reasons why I chose Stanford. But the only way to know is to visit each school and get a feel for it, they are basically equal as far as academics and such, so it’s just a matter of figuring out where you want to spend 4 years of your life :)</p>
<p>Normally, Nobel prize winners went to their college more than 30 years ago. If a university has many undergraduate alumni winning Nobel prizes, it was definitely great 30 years ago. In terms of the quality of that university as of today, we don’t know for sure. It may or may not be great as of today.</p>
<p>Stanford, as a young super star, rose to a world class university in last 20 to 30 years. It has already lots of Nobel connections. For example, it has 16 Nobel prize winners in its current staff, perhaps more than any other university in the world. Besides,</p>
<p>Stanford is #1 in winning US national medal of sciences, the nation’s highest honor in science (with 34 winners, exceeding Harvard and MIT, more than Princeton and Yale combined). </p>
<p>Stanford has won most Turing awards, the ‘Nobel’ prize in computing (far exceeding HYPM). </p>
<p>Stanford has more national academy of science members than YPM, more national academy of engineering members than HYP, and more institute of medicine members than YPM.</p>
<p>Under “graduate” column, 7 names appear for Stanford, 2 obtained their Bachelor degrees from Stanford.</p>
<p>Stanford is great in securing (stealing) great scientists from other institutes to boost its academic rank. There is no question about its academic reputation. It is its graduates who underperform.</p>
<p>Lots of Stanford graduates may have contributed more to the world than some Nobel prize winners, even though they have not won or may never win the Nobel prize. For example, Vinton Cerf (the father of the internet), Ted Hoff (the inventor of microprocessor), Theodor Maiman (the inventor of first working laser), Brad Parkinson (inventor of GPS), John Cioffi (the father of DSL), Larry Page and Sergey Brin (the inventors of GOOGLE Search engine). All these are Stanford graduates. Nobody dare to say they are underperformers.</p>
<p>Most of those people you listed obtained their undergraduate degree somewhere else (except Cerf), not Stanford. Don’t get me wrong, I am an admirer of Stanford academics. However, its graduates from undergraduate college do underperform, not quite compatible with its status. By the way, only 7 Nobelists are still active in Stanford.</p>
