<p>I heard Stanford's on a different schedule than most schools in terms of vacation, when school starts/ends...Is this true?</p>
<p>Stanford is on a quarter system whereas most other schools are on a semester system. As a result, vacation dates usually don't match up.</p>
<p>We start roughly the last week in September. Fall quarter goes until mid-December, with a weeklong break for Thanksgiving about 2/3 of the way through. Winter quarter starts in January and goes until spring break, which is this week (usually around the last week in March). Spring quarter starts at the beginning of April and goes until the second week in June.</p>
<p><a href="http://registrar.stanford.edu/academic_calendar/index.htm%5B/url%5D">http://registrar.stanford.edu/academic_calendar/index.htm</a> You can click there to see our calendar.</p>