<p>I've been to Stanfurd parties. It was held in some dorm, and the punch was spiked (or so that was the rumor)</p>
<p>LOL!!!!!! Omg, it was the worst party I've been to. BTW, I graduated from Berkeley. I'm so glad I spent the most impressionable, care free years of my life at Berkeley. Berkeley is one big vibrant community/town with so many things to do. I was in a fraternity at Berkeley, and we had the reputation of having the biggest parties at school. There were about 4 hot girls for each fraternity bro at every single party we threw. They came from all over the Bay Area too. Yes, one of our biggest worries was that we had too many girls around, and partying like a rock star, raves, drinking, etc... would make us never want to graduate. LOL! Its almost unfair, because now I'm at a macro hedge fund, while the Stanfurd colleagues I have from my investment banking days are doing lower tier finance work. Finance puts an extremely high priority on SAT scores, so I will be better off in finance than every Stanford grad I know, and I had more fun at Berkeley too. Its almost unfair, oh well, thats the way life is! =)</p>
<p>I'm sorry, but your portrayal of undergraduate education at Stanford is grossly oversimplified. "Big name" professors do not hate teaching undergradutes -- indeed, for many of them it is one of their favorite things to do (see Nobel laureate Douglas Osheroff, who received the Nobel Prize in physics in 1996 and currently teaches a Freshman Introductory Seminar).</p>
<p>I don't see how the faculty/student relationships are "much more close and personal" at Swarthmore. All of my classes have been extremely small and intimate (between 10-15 people, sections being sometimes smaller), and I have been on a first name basis with all of my teachers. My IHUM Teaching Fellow, Allison Katsev, always stayed after class to hold discussions with us, often staying until her next class started (an hour later). </p>
<p>The resources are all there at Stanford -- it's simply what you make of them. And I don't think anyone is arguing that Stanford has a lot of resources at our disposal.</p>
<p>kupolu,
My son is a sophomore at Stanford, and is very happy there. I have no doubt that it is a great school, and for many kids it offers everything they need/want, and more. That said, his "small" classes (with the exception of seminars that are capped at 15 and have the issue of applying/getting into) have been 40-50 people, and many other classes more like 100-200 (not that it ever bothered him in any way.) The sections are small, but they are taught by TAs/TFs; many of them are great, but some are not so great, as I am sure you know.
My son took honors math class during his first quarter freshmen year. (He is very much a math/science person.) He did not do great on his first midterm, and when I asked him, why didn't he get some help, his answer was "The prof is very good, but during the lecture he has to cover a lot of material, so he goes really fast. The TF is a nice guy, and is very smart, but hardly speaks any English, so the sections don't help much, and the textbook feels like it is written in a foreign language, so just reading it does not help either." He ended up doing OK in the class, btw, and didn't think there was anything wrong with it, but I was surprised that there was no resources easily available, especially during the first quarter freshmen year.</p>
<p>You can have personal relationship with professors at Stanford, but it requires some effort on your part, especially in math/science/cs classes, where introductory classes tend to be pretty big. Depending on your personality, it may or may not be a problem. There is no doubt that you can get a great education and have a great experience there.</p>
<p>Those professors DO have officers and they WILL help you. It just says that your son didn't feel like taking the initiative to go and talk to the professor. </p>
<p>Personally it sounds like marlgirl is more of a humanities person if she's considering Swarthmore, you seem to imply that yourself. Therefore your generalities about large sizes when you only have experience with math/science classes don't really apply.</p>
<p>I haven't had a class with more than 15 except for my IHUM lecture. My classes first quarter were 5, 10 and 15, and none of them were classes I had to apply for. Therefore, it depends on what you want to do.</p>
<p>Actually I will probably be a math/physics major. I like Swarthmore because of its overall environment, it just seems to match my personality well. But maybe Stanford would match my personality well too? The admissions info sessions try to make it all things to all people, so I have no clue what Stanford is really like... I feel that all I know is their marketing pitch.</p>
<p>efilsiertaeht,
As far as I know, marlgirl is interested in math and physics, so, if anything, your academic experience, that has to do exclusively with theater so far, would be somewhat less relevant for her.</p>
<p>marlgirl,
The good news is that generally you can't go wrong choosing between those two. You might be happier in one of them, but you will get a great education either way.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I disagree, but then again you went to berkeley, so there's no point in arguing.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I wouldn't say anything except for people who went to undergrad at Stanfurd and Graduate school at Berkeley all like their experience at Berkeley better. </p>
<p>This is startling when you take into account that most people are naturally biased towards their undergraduate institution. </p>
<p>You may leave now, you of inferior intelligence. <em>kick</em></p>
<p>I have a friend who did undergrad at Stanford and is currently a graduate at Berkeley and really doesn't like Berkeley/wishes he was back at Stanford.</p>
<p>paulhomework, all Berkeley students will spell it F-U-R-D. That's why they're Leland Stanford Junior Junior University. I don't care at all about football (left halfway through Big Game, it's all about basketball and waterpolo) but we had awesome shirts, one of them being:
Front: Cal
Back: Stanford was too hard to spell.
;-)</p>
<p>The Stanford-Berkeley fights are kind of useless. Pick whichever college fits you better, and don't bore the rest of us with your petty fighting about which one is better.</p>
<p>N.B.... as for West Side's attack on Stanford... why is a person at "a macro hedge fund" who had such a great experience, apparently, at berkeley, wasting his time posting so many times on a board for prospective Stanford students?</p>
<p>Yeah, West side, is it that important to you to spend your time bashing Stanford? Who cares which school is better (it all depends on that person's individual fit). So waste your efforts elsewhere.</p>
<p>Actually, don't blame me, it was rooster who came on and Bashed Berkeley so much. </p>
<p>Its called retribution. Did you know that a superconductor, flashes back at a magnet, more energy than the magnet put on the superconductor? Its the same concept. </p>
<p>Anyways, Stanfurd should be happy for the existence of Berkeley. It gives you guys this image to want to be like us. If it wasn't for us, where would you guys be today? Still milking cows? </p>
<p>Sure, Silicon Valley was pretty cool, I'll give you guys that. But we still built San Francisco. And Masayoshi Son (Berkeley Grad) made Jerry Yang (Stanfurd grad) his personal slave. So becareful what you say or else we shall find slaves at some other school!! muhahahaha</p>