<p>Ok, as a research university, stanford has a lot of grad students. I have a few questions. </p>
<p>1) Stanford's webpage contracts itself a lot on the number of grad students it has. I've seen numbers range from around 8000 to around 12000 or more, which is a pretty wide margin. This page puts the number at 8328 Graduate</a> Program: Stanford University Facts While this page puts it at 11,301 Stanford</a> University: Common Data Set 2008-2009 . Each page seems to put forth a different numer (one even was as low as 7900, another as high as almost 13,000, but I can't find them at the moment). This might seem like a stupid thing to be curious about, but the difference of several thousand grad students running about could affect undergraduate students. I figure a 6700/8000 undergrad to grad ratio is almost pretty even, while 6700/12000 seems like quite a large gap. </p>
<p>2) So that segways into my next question. How big of a presence do graduate students make on a day to day basis from the perspective of undergraduates? Do they take up a lot of professors' time? What percentage of classes would you guestimate are taught exclusively by faculty and what percentage primarily by graduate students? When walking/biking around campus are you more likely to see a bunch of older grad students around than your fellow undergrads or is Stanford's campus more of a place where the majority of people you'll run into are undergrads while the grad students are off in grad-land doing their own thing away from everyone else? </p>
<p>I really love Stanford, but every so often I get concerned that I won't be "special" being an undergrad at Stanford, like I might be at Dartmouth, Princeton, Brown, etc. Is Stanford really a school that is a good, rewarding and valuable place to spend your undergrad years, or is it one of those universities that is best saved for grad school? How does stanford's undergraduate focus/strength/etc fare in comparison to its peer schools (not just HYPM, but also the other ivies + top schools)?</p>
<p>I feel like my fellow CCers would be knowledgable about this. I don't think the prodding questions I'm asking would be unbiasedly answered on Stanford's webpage. </p>
<p>Thank you all so much.</p>
<p>Your post really wandered. What are your specific questions? (List them 1, 2, 3…etc)</p>
<p>To answer some of your questions:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>I don’t know how many grad students Stanford has, but I don’t think it matters. The number of grad students has pretty much no effect on undergrad life, at least in my experience. In general, the undergrad population is much more cohesive/visible than the grad student population (i.e. all the major campus events that you’ll experience are run by undergrads; most grad students don’t have any clue about them). From talking to multiple grad students here, it seems that most of them feel that the undergrads have much more fun since there are so many things going on for them, while the grad students are kind of removed from everything. (Many of them live off campus, or are isolated in Escondido Village, which is very far from the center of campus. Plus, they’re usually only connected with their own department/school.) </p></li>
<li><p>When I’m walking/biking around, I see a lot of undergrads (I often run into familiar faces), but there are a lot of grad students too (sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between them). I also notice a lot of tourists/random people who clearly aren’t students. There are all sorts of different people all around campus, it’s not like there are just tons of grad students everywhere. </p></li>
<li><p>As far as I know, classes are all taught by faculty (professors or hired lecturers). Grad students are only TAs. (Also, just to point out, having grad students for TAs is not always a bad thing. I’ve had a number of grad student TAs who were really good; some who were actually far better than the lecturer for a class.) </p></li>
<li><p>I’ve been in several classes with both undergrads and grad students, and the number of grad students hasn’t negatively affected my experience in those classes. If you’re assertive, most professors will be glad to talk to undergrads as much as grad students. Also, there are a number of classes that are only for undergrads, such as the introductory seminars (only for freshmen and sophomores), many of which are taught by very prominent/renown faculty.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Overall, I don’t think you should let the number of grad students at Stanford affect your decision on whether or not to attend. Stanford does indeed have more grad students than Princeton, Brown, etc, but Stanford has a vibrant undergrad life that I’m sure is comparable to those at peer institutions.</p>