<p>I am very interested in attending stanford. As ignorant as this may sound i am led to believe that the majority of kids at stanford are nerdy, weird kids and i was just wondering if there alot of down to earth kids, alot of parties and greek life, and fine titays</p>
<p>I don't go to Stanford, but I live not too far away and I know quite a bit of people who got in from my school and other schools. Trust me, they're most definitely not the geeks you picture them as. :] They're all incredibly human (in a spectacular type of way).</p>
<p>Not true. There are a few geeky, eccentric types. I guess on average, most people are slightly less socially apt here, but it's not that noticable, and there are plenty of very social, outgoing people.</p>
<p>I think it's possible that the average level of social skills is lower here than in other places, but I also think people tend to underestimate their social skills (just look at how many people are in some kind of "I'm awkward" group on Facebook).</p>
<p>Everyone at Stanford is a little nerdy, but like chillaxin said, it's not in the way you probably imagine.</p>
<p>As for parties, there are some big frat-party-type things. And there are always small gatherings in dorms. As for "fine titays", grow up. Seriously.</p>
<p>Why must one grow up? Enjoy your childhood.</p>
<p>OK, I live in Palo Alto and I have to clear this up...</p>
<p>Our highschool parties are better than StanfordsI know because I have a fake stanford ID and I used to go to frat parties. In fact, some of the people from our school who went to Stanford come back often to party with us, because they can't find a place to party.</p>
<p>Stanford is too big, spread out, and geeky to be a good party school.</p>
<p>it's really not that spread out, at least most freshmen are concentrated in stern/wilbur and will be even more so in the next few years. when i visited colleges i generally went to a few frat parties, and i can say that stanford's are basically like everywhere else i went (which admittedly were mostly ivies and small liberal arts colleges in the northeast). there's generally always somewhere to go and party on the weekends, i don't know anyone who has gone to a high school party because there was nothing going on here (although i don't doubt that someone has). also, stanford has a very lax drinking policy, if that matters to you. there is a mix of a lot of different people that you could classify as nerds, jocks, popular kids, preps, etc. just like everywhere else, there's a lot of diversity here so you can find what you want.</p>
<p>do the different types of classified people (ooo, that sounds bad) get along and mingle? i mean, is there at least one major uniting force among all stanford students?</p>
<p>haha yeah, classifying people always sounds bad...well it sort of is bad, but it's hard not to do it, not to see someone with a double popped collar, lilli pulitzer belt, and think "prep." but, i think that like everywhere people make friends with people that they identify with- which are often people that might be in the same "classification" as them (oh gosh why did i start this whole classification thing...) however, i've been really impressed with how it doesn't work out along the jock/prep/nerd etc. lines as you might think- looking around the dinner table of my dorm the other day, the prospective student i was hosting thought it was almost comical the people you see talking with each other: huge football player with computer science major and skinny emo guy, for example. i had stopped noticing things like that, since i knew these kids enough to know that their personalities are actually very similar and it makes complete sense that they are friends. i would say that friendships i see fall along a few lines:</p>
<p>-proximity (many people find their best friends in their freshman year dorm, often on the same floor, and shift their groups of friends based on housing from year to year)</p>
<p>-what they like to do in their free time (if you don't like to go to frats on friday nights, it's unlikely that you're best friends with a group of people who think it's the funnest thing ever. similarly, people who love camping might find their best friends in the camping club. fairly obvious)</p>
<p>-extrovertedness/social skills/confidence (this might be completely out of line for me to say, but i think that people who are very social tend to be friends with other very social people, and somewhat socially awkward people or those that think they are socially awkward hang out with other people who don't perceive themselves as popular types. )</p>
<p>so, basically, if you look at groups of friends here, they seem mostly to be friends because they do live near each other, like doing the same things together, and perceive their social worlds to be about the same, NOT because they all wear the same clothes, talk the same way, have the same cultural backgrounds, or are in the same major. it's not like high school, there are so many people here that you know in so many different capacities that friends and the groups you would classify them in change every week. a lot of people go to college to change and meet new people, they don't want to be stuck as the person they were in high school, so they search out people who are different from their old friends. plus, you change residences every year so you live with an entirely different bunch people (not to mention the people you meet as you change classes each quarter).</p>