<p>How diverse is it? Are the students significantly different from people from flagship state universities?</p>
<p>What does “nerdiness” have to do w/ “diversity”?</p>
<p>As far as nerdiness, it’s hard to describe because I don’t know what your standard of nerdiness. Stanford overall is nerdier than my HS, but who cares? It’s more about finding a crowd of people that you like to hang and party with. I found my crowd and it’s all good. The crowds at Stanford vary so much. You’ll find some ppl that party in SF clubs every weekend, some that party at SJ State, some that go to Stanford parties (which are all unique in there own way), and some that don’t do the party scene. </p>
<p>Don’t get me wrong, partying isn’t the only thing to do. I’ve gone bowling, to the movies, malls, and even random fast-food runs in the middle of the night. Those things aren’t that inherently fun, it’s the people that make the situations fun. I know ppl who have gone sky-diving (not my cup of tea), played paintball, skiing/snowboarding, major concerts, laser tag…I could go on forever. Again, it’s the people you choose to hang with.</p>
<p>Stanford is very diverse. I think 51% of the student body is some kind of minority. As far as Stanford students being significantly different than flagship state university…Yeah, I’m not really getting what your trying to hint at. Are you trying to take shots at us or what?</p>
<p>Trust me, the word “nerd” will be out of the picture when you go to college. Life is so much more individualized in college, and people honestly don’t care about “social status” anymore. Plus, most college students are more mature and open-minded to recognize that every individual is unique in his/her way, and that the word “nerd” is a naive and arrogant way to express distaste.</p>
<p>Sorry, basically what I guess I’m asking is… are there a lot of charismatic and socially mature kids at Stanford? This goes beyond nerds, preps, jocks, etc etc…</p>
<p>Well, of course. Stanford has this reputation for attracting the students who were really smart but also social. Whether or not that’s true is debatable; but I’d say in general students are not the awkward nerd type. There’s definitely nerdiness–you’ll find plenty of Harry Potter fans, or discussions at the dinner table about chemistry, but students are not generally the antisocial kind of nerds.</p>
<p>I see. Thanks, phantasmagoric.</p>
<p>For some reason, I thought that all the students who go to Stanford, Upenn, etc, were the “nerds” in high school.</p>
<p>How naive of me to think that.</p>
<p>well, student 01, in response to your last post; its actually quite the contrary to what you previously thought: schools like Upenn and Stanford and Duke are less “nerdier” schools than say MIT, Caltech, UofChicago, or even Princeton.</p>
<p>^^ definitely true, Caltech+UChicago (and, nowadays, to a lesser extent MIT) are definitely known for their gigantic nerd population.</p>
<p>A friend described the average Stanford student as a “well-adjusted nerd”. So yes, studious and very intelligent, but also has a life and a personality.</p>
<p>^ are there other schools comparable to the “well-adjusted nerd” image of stanford?</p>
<p>Rice. WashU. Pomona. Yale always seems pretty chill. Brown? In my book, pretty much any school that has a around 50% female population, has many non-tech students, has a minority of introverts, and where students are willing to go outside and play ultimate pretty frequently. Also no really weird things like UofC’s scavenger hunt or Caltech’s ditch day. </p>
<p>You’d be surprised. There aren’t that many schools that have flat-out nerds. Caltech and Harvey Mudd are probably in that category. MIT, to a lesser extent, is another (likely, imo, due to the existent female population, affirmative action, halfway decent athletics, the movie 21, and being next to Harvard). GaTech possibly?</p>
<p>^ in the schools you’ve mentioned, do most guys/girls look after their appearances? like, how easy is it to get a hookup?</p>
<p>Mudd has a 60/40 male/female ratio now, as apparently the new president has been pushing to make sure all incoming classes have that as a minimum.
I can’t speak for Caltech, can’t speak for MIT. I’m incoming at Mudd and that question has been asked, and the answer is pretty much it’s there if you’re looking for it, but this evidently largely due to the fact that Mudd is not confined to its own student body, there are four other liberal arts colleges that are all adjacent. And not, as I gather, as “nerdy”.</p>
<p>There was a similar discussion on some other thread and some even referred to Stanford as sexy.</p>
<p>It’s not nerdy, interpreting nerdy to be socially awkward and constantly studying. Students are in general friendly and defiantly not socially awkward, especially since it’s not a complete techie school. There are a lot of smart people there, who you wouldn’t automatically think so when you meet them because they are sociable, outgoing and dress very well. =) It’s very different atmosphere from MIT or Caltech, but still offers first rate science/engineering education if that is what you are looking for. The humanities is also very strong at Stanford.</p>
<p>I think the majority of Stanford students are not any “nerdier” than the top universities in the US and the world (awkward sentence). What I mean is that Stanford students are bright and smart but they are still social and have time for fun. It’s not like they do work all day, they have time to have fun. Just my thought.</p>
<p>Nerdom capitals- MIT, CalTech, GaTech, maybe University of Chicago</p>
<p>nerd - socially awkward, plays dungeons and dragons in mom’s basement, has memorized every episode of star trek, attends comic-con in a tron suit.</p>
<p>geek - loves to build and hack things, research and find out how things work, watches mythbusters, loves math and science and learning for the fun of it, attends defcon.</p>
<p>Stanford is not nerdy. Stanford is geeky. Nerds don’t get in to schools like Stanford and the other top research institutions, geeks do.</p>
<p>^
Actually geeks eat chicken heads. ;)</p>
<p>But more seriously I certainly wouldn’t say Stanford is geeky either by your definition. Except for mythbusters. Maybe MIT and some Stanford engineers, but definitely not a great subsection of Stanford. Most kids are interested in the liberal arts here so you aren’t going to have that huge “nerdy, geeky, or whatever else you want to call it” presence on campus. Most kids despite their achievements, even the math and science kids, are surprisingly normal. If there’s any off-putting character trait to be afraid of here it’s arrogance, which all the top research institutions seem to have a surplus of.</p>