<p>SATII's: English writing 730, English Lit 780, Japanese 800
AP's: (only one! read: homeschooler) English Lit: 4</p>
<p>Classes in high school:
Typical 4 years English
4 years math through calculus
LOTS of languages...japanese, russian, french, greek and latin
Lots of science: Bio, Chem, Physics, and microbio
World history, Euro history, logic
2nd semester senior year I enrolled at tyhe local college and took 13 credits of psychology, expository writing, Econ, and Japanese (7th semester). A's in everything but Econ, i got a B+.</p>
<p>My main ECs were acting. Over 250 plays and 2 films in 5 years. I did that teaching stint in japan, and i have alot of tutoring hours. I'm a black belt in tae kwon do and aikido. Played piano for 13 years.</p>
<p>yeah but those two are really all about the numbers, i know two people who got into yale, and they were your standard overacheivers, heavy on academics.</p>
<p>stanford's cool...alot of people i know who haven't expected to get in have gotten in...stanford's alot more of a liberal college when it comes to admitting ppl. must be that laid back cali atmosphere. :)</p>
<p>this may be a good thing to some ppl on this board, but...</p>
<p>DISLIKES:
stanford is EXTREMELY liberal. i happen to be a republican, and especially at a time like this (w/ the election) people aren't very tolerant of, shall we say...conservative ideologies.
Also, the workload. If you go here, you will WORK. WORK WORK WORK.
There's no handholding here. I wish that there were more people around to help out with the typical freshman stuff.</p>
<p>LIKES:
"work work work"-ing with the caliber of people that are here. Definately a plus.
Another plus: the weather.
Being able to be in a class with a nobel laurate with only 25 other students. DEFINATE plus.
THE PEOPLE!! SO awesome.</p>
<p>Well it's alot different from homeschooling aint it? I wanna be homeschooled! lol then I get just stay home all day and get up when ever I want!</p>
<p>hannerz1785--
I was actually wondering about the political atmosphere. I'm a Republican too (and actually wrote one of my essays about being a Republican in such a liberal setting--hope I don't get a flaming liberal adcom, haha). ANY school I'm applying to (UC's, Stanford, Harvard, and Princeton) is gonna be really liberal, and I honestly love debating with all of my liberal friends and teachers, but I WOULD like it if my fellow students would at least respect that Republicans aren't necessarily evil and/or stupid. So anyway, is Stanford any better/worse than any other school in terms of political tolerance? Do people listen to you? Do they just dismiss your views or attack you personally? Basically...what's it like?</p>
<p>What's it like...good question. ;)
I would like to say that I've found Stanford this wonderful, ideologically open place where people intellectually and tolerantly, albeit heatedly, hash their views out and do as much talking as listening.</p>
<p>However.</p>
<p>I've found that people's idea of political "tolerance" here is to be tolerant as long as your idea of tolerance goes hand in hand with THEIR idea of tolerance. Sure there are a few republicans here, but they're either few and far between or incredibly silent types. Just an example, I have (um, HAD) a Bush/Cheney sticker on my dorm door, and just a few hours ago it was ripped off and replaced by a note that said "bush is an idiot you stupid redneck hick. go to texas." So as far as political tolerance goes, I've found it not so good. However as other forms of tolerence, ie. gay tolerance, women's rights tolerance, ect. goes, you can debate and argue all you want, people here are suprisingly open and eager to banter about those types of stuff. For some reason, politics is just...eh...</p>
<p>i understand that most top univ are surrounded by more liberal atmospheres (dont read into that by thinking that i said that only dumb people vote for bush) but i would think that people smart enough to get into stanford would be smart enough to TRY to understand other peoples views - but only in a perfect world.</p>
<p>Nah, I don't take offense. I've seen some numbers on education. Both the most and least educated people tend to be more Democratic than the rest (most educated meaning grad school, but not med/business/engineering grad school so much; least educated meaning high-school dropouts). Top universities are liberal because professors fall into the most educated but NOT 'professionally educated' category (though why that category tends to be liberal is...er...open to debate) AND because young people, especially in the areas of the country that have most of the "top universities," are more liberal (again, for reasons that are open to debate). So it's just a fact of life.</p>
<p>Here's the thing. Today a friend and I were talking about gay marriage, and as soon as she said the word 'religion' (conservative view alert!)--in an undertone, to me, as a part of a conversation that nobody but the two of us had participated in since it started ten minutes before--people started jumping on her, saying that only incredibly STUPID people believe xyz, before she even managed to make her point, which was that marriage should be a religious and not a governmental term for EVERYBODY, but that she supported civil unions for gay people who loved one another and religions could deal with it as they saw fit (which isn't even a particularly conservative view). Now, you may not agree with that, but it's a position that requires a certain amount of thought and tolerance on her part for something that her religion condemns; plus, it was definitely not what the person who started yelling at her expected her to say (not that it made a difference, because my friend stopped talking until the two of us had left the room, because she just didn't want to say anything if people were going to attack her).</p>
<p>I'm no longer intimidated--I debate politics with my incredibly liberal teachers all the time, and actually feel more safe doing that than with my friends, which is incredibly sad--but I'm sickened that anyone who has thought hard about a difficult issue is silenced. So I was just hoping to hear that it was better at Stanford. Oh well...such is life.</p>
<p>i am still deciding on my political views, and i really dont want a college that is going to shape them for me. does it makes sense that im looking for a politically active but politically neutral school? maybe the word im looking for is balanced... or just as confused as i am about me... haha i dunno</p>
<p>well entropicgirl, also keep in mind that this is Cali we're talking about. ;)</p>
<p>If you want a place to sharply hone your debate skills though, this is an awesome place. Stanford's not as bad as Berkeley...if you're a conservative, that's going from spit to fire, there. I have wonderful, intellegent debates with my professors on controversial topics such as the ones you mentioned. It's really the students I've met there that don't seem to want to listen to another point of view. </p>
<p>Stanford really hasn't shaped my political mindset any. It's mainly helped me become stronger set in what I believe, because I've really had to learn how to intellegently and logically defend my beliefs. Quite an invaluable thing, really...</p>
<p>hannerz1785,
for the workload at stanford, how tough are they compared to the workload at schools such as MIT and Caltech? Also, how hard would it be to transfer from a school like MIT and Caltech as a sophmore?</p>