Thanks, @ewho—I definitely understand how difficult a decision this must have been! Yale does a very good, and very consistent, job of communicating what it has to offer—in my opinion, the best job of all the schools my son is considering. That doesn’t mean that Yale is a better school than any of the others—just that it’s marketing is exceptionally persuasive. It’s good to hear that things ended up working out well for your son at Stanford—for a potential CS student to choose anywhere else (other than, say, places like MIT or Carnegie Mellon) is very hard. Did your son ever regret not attending Yale, and if so, why?
@aleaiactaest Thanks, too—though my son isn’t planning to major in political science, the additional information about the tech scene and atmosphere at Stanford is very helpful.
First of all, congrats (please post stats and ECs somewhere???) In my perspective, Stanford (but it’s ultimately up to your preferences, they are ALL amazing schools), I could see myself the happiest at Stanford. The weather is impeccable at CA and their students culture is a bit more free-spirited and laid back compare to the prestigious Ivy schools. Again, visit each campus if you can and stay for two or three days to really grasp the culture. Remember to forget about ranks at this point, follow your heart and you can do no wrong.
@AppAnxiety Stanford in Government offers several summer policy-related fellowships, not just in DC but also throughout the United States and world:
https://sig.stanford.edu/fellowships/
The Haas Center for Public Service also has several government-related fellowships:
https://studentaffairs.stanford.edu/haas/students/ugrad-fellowships
Also, if you’ve secured an unpaid government internship and need money for housing, transportation, etc., Stanford in Government will give you a fairly generous stipend:
https://sig.stanford.edu/sig-stipends-program/
As a general rule, finding money won’t be a problem at Harvard or Stanford.
@Planner You should read these if you haven’t already:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-06/want-a-job-in-silicon-valley-after-yale-good-luck-with-that
http://www.infoworld.com/article/2895102/cringely/tech-startups-to-yale-grads-go-to-a-real-school.html
Know that if your son comes to Stanford, he will have an unparalleled direct pipeline to Silicon Valley.
Freshman year, I took CS106A, which is Stanford’s famous intro CS course. The professor, Mehran Sahami, was among the first employees at Google (originally google.stanford.edu; as I type this, I am sitting next to the Lego box that Larry Page and Sergey Bring used to store one of Google’s initial servers) and is responsible for Gmail’s spam filter. The last class of the quarter was taught by Mark Zuckerberg. Eric Roberts, my professor for CS106B, helped Bill Gates and Paul Allen start Microsoft when he was a PhD student in Applied Math at Harvard and was the primary mentor for Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer. Julie Zelenski, my CS107 lecturer, worked very closely with Steve Jobs first at NEXT and later at Apple. Jerry Cain, my CS110 lecturer, invented Facebook’s “Like” button. Don Knuth, the father of modern computer science, is an emeritus professor in the Stanford CS department. You could name almost anyone who helped establish the field of modern computer science, and I could likely stand up from my current seat and take a short walk to that person’s office. Being a CS student at Stanford is like being a geometer living in the time of Euclid: you can go talk to the people who invented major portions of your field.
One of my primary non-academic engagements is being a section leader for the CS106s (A, B, and X). All undergrads can apply to do this once they’ve completed CS106B. There are numerous companies that hire interns and full-timers directly off of the list of section leaders. My CS106B section leader guaranteed that my resume would be closely reviewed by a recruiter at Twitter (instead of being thrown in a pile of emails with all the other resumes), where he worked the summer prior to having me in section. In short, connections like these that a person makes at Stanford are invaluable. As a Stanford CS student at a career fair, many companies are actually competing for you.
Sorry, that was a bit disjointed. Please let me know if you have any questions or if i can clarify anything.
Wow—thanks, @aleaiactaest! I’d seen the first article but not the second. And your experience at Stanford is very, very compelling. It sounds like even with a new $20 million donation, Yale won’t be able to come close to providing this sort of experience (nor will Harvard, with its $60 million donation, though perhaps it will somewhat because of the tech scene in Boston?). I’ll pass all this along to my son—thanks again!
…and don’t forget the other CS professor who actively supports students and startups…especially after making over $2.5B by writing google one of their first checks.
Yep. David Cheriton, who wrote Google a check for $100,000 in 1998, is now worth $3.3 bill:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Cheriton
My son now says there’s a 60% chance he’ll choose Stanford. He’s been leaning that way pretty consistently since getting in, though I’m still partial to Yale, even though it can’t compare in CS. It will be interesting to see if he feels any differently after the local student receptions and on-campus admitted students events at the three schools.
In terms of Harvard vs. Stanford. The founders of Microsoft came from Harvard. Facebook came from Harvard. Harvard has the largest college endowment in the world, Harvard ranks number 2 in the number of billionaires produced. Stanford is below USC and Cornell. Most Supreme Court Justices went to Harvard. The POTUS went to Harvard. Harvard has produced the most congressmen and the second most senators. If you want to be surrounded by a bunch of engineers go to Stanford. If you want to be surrounded by a diverse group of people go to Harvard. It is often said that in terms of the work life balance in Silicon valley there is no life
Addressing a couple of points from @florida26 's post:
-
Google, Hewlett-Packard, Nike, Yahoo, Sun Microsystems, Instagram, and Snapchat, among others, were started by Stanford faculty and graduates.
-
Shortly after starting Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg moved to Palo Alto (adjacent to Stanford). Facebook headquarters is about a 10-minute drive from Stanford, and some of the most noteworthy venture capital firms (i.e., Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield, and Byers; Khosla Ventures; Andreesen Horowitz; etc.) are located literally right next to Stanford’s campus on Sand Hill Road.
-
Bill Gates’s daughter and Steve Ballmer’s son are currently at Stanford, which they (presumably) chose over Harvard. Bill Gates said in last year’s commencement address that “Stanford is rapidly becoming the favorite university for members of our family”:
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2014/june/gates-commencement-remarks-061514.html
-
The annual revenue generated by companies started by Stanford graduates makes these companies collectively comparable to the world’s tenth largest economy.
-
Stanford is actually the second most common undergraduate institution on the Supreme Court, with the first being Princeton. Harvard COLLEGE (not Harvard Law School) only has one representative on the Court: Chief Justice Roberts. Former Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justice Sandra Day O’Connor attended both Stanford undergrad and Stanford Law.
-
Barack Obama did not go to Harvard College. He went to Harvard Law School.
@aleaiactaest you didnt comment about the non existent life work balance in Silicon Valley or how they blatantly discriminate against women and minorities. As people have pointed out Stanford is great if you are a male wannabe engineer as long as you dont mind working 80 hours a week You do further realize that google makes most of their money selling ads 
^^agree strongly with @aleaiactaest. I always find it amusing whenever I see unsophisticated individuals with only superficial/biased knowledge of Stanford’s prowess trying to make Stanford out to be MIT (only an “engineering” school) when in truth Stanford provides the top academic programs in humanities and social sciences (on par with Yale or Harvard) plus the top academic programs in engineering/CS/STEM (on par with MIT or Caltech) plus top athletic programs (have been NCAA director’s cup champ for 19 years in a row) plus the beautiful backdrop of San Francisco/Bay area laid back cool…no other school has this combination of top notch programs in the world. And this is why it consistently remains the TOP DREAM school for students and their parents!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/18/princeton-review-dream-colleges-2015_n_6886526.html
@gravitas so anyone who disagrees with you is unsophisticated??? You never addressed the work life balance issues or the blatant discrimination that goes on in the workplace in Silicon Valley You wanna take a crack at it???
What does Stanford have to do with “work life balance issues or the blatant discrimination that goes on in the workplace in Silicon Valley”?
Really @gravitas2!!! Everybody keeps sayiing Stanford is so great because you can step into a high paying job in Silicon Valley Look at posts 23 , 26, and 29. I think Stanford is a great school You just need to put it into the proper perspective
Once again…if you can understand simple language…what does Stanford have to do with “blatant discrimination that goes on in Silicon Valley”? Since you brought it up…why do you keep harping on “blatant discrimination”? Against whom? URMs? Many believe in “meritocracy” in Silicon Valley…that the jobs should go to the smartest worker…is that wrong?
Once again you seem to be unable to answer simple questions Against women hispanics and blacks for starers.
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-gardner-women-in-tech-20141207-story.html I thought maybe you knew a lot about the tech industry considering post 31 many people are against sexual harassment!!!
http://fortune.com/2014/06/19/tech-job-ads-discrimination/ Lets not forget age discrimination
http://www.diversityinc.com/news/tech-industry-fights-keep-eeo-data-secret-companies-hiding/ It is blatant discrimination so stop with the meritocracy argument. Nobody is buying it anymore
@florida26 I’m pretty sure that if the entire Silicon Valley had no concept of a work-life balance then there wouldn’t be a Silicon Valley in the first place. And most of the software engineers I’ve spoken to seem to have a pretty good balance between life and work, or else they wouldn’t be working at that place anyway.
And yes, Stanford’s Lea Coligado has even pointed out the blatant sexism she’s experienced (look at her Facebook page, Women of Silicon Valley) but that’s just one of the reasons to join the CS field; to change it, to make it better. I’m a female CS major and I’m determined to make the tech industry more friendly for minorities. WiCS is a common group of campus that advocates for women in CS, and there’s groups on campus that focus on engineers in minority groups. A majority of section leaders I know for one of the most popular CS classes here are actually women.
It seems like you’re saying…Don’t go to Stanford because Silicon Valley has people working insane hours?
@thehaakun I am not saying dont go to Stanford. I am not saying Stanford is not a great school. I am saying dont drink the cool aid. Dont make your choices all about money. Of 55 CS faculty how many are women?? How many tenured women faculty? I could only find one. It doesnt seem like your group has been very successful with the faculty
Interesting new article in today’s Yale Daily News on Yale CS grads—much more positive than other recent pieces:
http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2015/04/10/up-close-tech-life-after-yale/