<p>Ok, I have to deliberate between these two amazing universities.</p>
<p>Major: Journalism or Undecided
Background: So Cal since birth</p>
<p>Can anyone on this board give a candid explanation of their experience at Stanford? I would like to know of all the good and all the bad. What you expected and what actually happened.</p>
<p>May you also talk about some of the campus culture? Thank you so much!</p>
<p>Edit: Yes, I haven't been accepted to Yale. This is all preemptive</p>
<p>I am the parent of a lucky kid who got into Stanford and Yale. Majoring in Molecular Biology and going the pre-med path. We sincerely appreciate inputs that will help us make a decision.</p>
<p>of all the colleges i was accepted to i thought about yale the most in addition to stanford. I think they attract similar types of people. You’ll need to decided if you want to be on the west or east coast. Stanford is probably stronger in applied sciences (engineering) if there is an interest there. You won’t be limited doing pre-med at either place, but its worth keeping in mind that the vast vast vast majority of people that start out premed don’t finish that way (everyone thinks they are the exception to the rule until they start). </p>
<p>Stanford is almost certainly more laid back than yale, to the point of not really caring about anything. Outside of a smallish group of students, basically no one here is politically motivated. It’s easy to lose track of what happens off this campus (the “Stanford bubble”).</p>
<p>Another negative (probably the most significant one in my experience) is that there is quite a bit of tension between the technical departments and the humanities here. This comes about for all kinds of reasons. The most common reason for undergrads is that the humanities (and social science) programs are half the size of any of the engineering degrees here, which is frustrating to a lot of really busy engineers. Also, there seems to be a difference just in expectations between the two groups, i.e. if you have a sociology paper due, one of 2 assignments for a class the whole quarter, and you somehow manage to not finish it on time, you can ask for an extension and will likely get it. My friend that graduated last year with an English honors degree here referred to the humanities programs (in the absence of an honors thesis) as just “high school plus”. Meanwhile, the engineering/science programs here are essentially professional school, and they treat you accordingly.</p>
<p>It might also be worth thinking about if you plan on getting a job on the east or west coast. It might not be relevant for the two people posting in this thread already, but probably will for others reading it. It will be easier getting a job on the west coast from Stanford (duh) and easier to get one on the east coast from yale (duh).</p>
<p>A random note, we haven’t had any of that crazy stuff happen that yale seems to have had recently. :P</p>
<p>hopefully that is helpful</p>
<p>BigMike, I wonder if there is a similar kind of “techie vs. fuzzy” tension at a lot of schools, due to inherent differences in the demands of the majors? Majoring in engineering is, well, more demanding than majoring in most fuzzy areas. Of course, engineering is much more prominent at Stanford than at Yale, so the discrepancies in workloads and intensity between these types of majors could be less apparent at Yale.</p>
<p>I think you’re right, zenkoan. There was definitely a tension like this at my alma mater too. The engineers were a little bitter about the “weed-out” nature of their classes, but the benefits were being able to work with study groups on problem sets, and that once an assignment like that was completed, it was cut-and-dry done. The liberal arts folks were jealous of the latter aspect, since research papers can always consume as much time as you let them. The feeling was probably that the engineers had tougher work to do, but the fuzzy majors had more time-consuming work.</p>