<p>Hi, I was recently matched with Stanford through Questbridge and was wondering how like a "university" it felt. I know, obviously, it doesn't have much in common with a school such as Yale or Princeton in the looks department, I'm sure there are smart kids there who have intellectual discussions and everything. But from anyone who has been there, does it still feel like a school? Pictures I've seen remind me more of a small city.</p>
<p>This school is so amazing and I can't wait to go! I was just wondering anyone else's opinion.</p>
<p>Not as intellectual as I would like sometimes. Many of the people appear to purposefully downplay the qualities that most likely got them in. Most people seen around campus are often out with a distinct purpose. This, coupled with a large campus, dilutes the amount and level of interaction with other people. In contrast, a friend of mine who visited Yale (not during bulldog days), sat down at a table on campus, and was promptly joined by a random group of students (not staff) who then proceeded to chat with him and help him out. This will never happen at Stanford. Also, the formation of new social connections within the residences (I’m in an all-frosh dorm) sharply drops off after NSO when most adopt a certain complacency after having acquired a group of friends. People who before you would enthusiastically engage during NSO now fade into the background. Oh and DUCK SYNDROME is real. Prepare to be confused by how everyone is managing to maintain their academics while all you see is the opposite.</p>
<p>That said, the expansive campus gives students a lot of room to “stretch their legs” so to speak. It’s very temperate here and I simply love biking everywhere (though this is probably one of the contributing factors to the minimal interaction with people outside the dorm environment). The people here are generally (obviously) accomplished and often have great stories to tell, but don’t expect to hear them unless you ask. </p>
<p>This is a haphazard bunch of thoughts. Sorry if they are not following any sort of logical progression. And yes, I probably need to get out more at this point.</p>
<p>^Yeah but the opposite of you having to ask someone about their accomplishments is people who just blabber on and on about themselves. I’d prefer the former, although Stanford is not without the latter (though fairly close). </p>
<p>I was on the other side of campus freshman year (the not all-frosh side) and there were many times my friends and I would sit down with one or two random people sitting alone and interact with them. There was a specific section of the dining hall where by sitting there you made it clear you didn’t want company, because everywhere else you’d probably be joined unless the dining hall was empty. </p>
<p>I’d agree that one has to be proactive to interact with others outside their dorm, although this is less of a problem in later years when you have friends (some close) all over campus. I don’t know what it’s like at all other schools, although my friends at public schools basically have 1-2 core groups of friends with little interaction outside of that.</p>
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Yeah, talking about your classes and stuff is tolerated. No one will get upset or anything if you talk about that cool thing you learned in lecture, but honestly a lot of the time I just don’t care, and if I do I’ll make it clear. I could tell someone about the cool things I’m learning in my thermo class but honestly like half of Stanford it seems doesn’t even know what a 747 is. It’s not the most well-rounded school out there (in terms of individual students being well-rounded).</p>
<p>In general I don’t post but occasionally look at the threads on here. All I have to say is: if you’re in the class of 2014, you really don’t have much to go on. You’ve been here a whopping quarter, so you can’t possibly be able to make those judgments. And after having been here for a few years, I can say I disagree with pretty much everything said above. (I’m not the only one, either; upperclassmen, from what I’ve seen, tend to have very different views on Stanford than they did as freshmen.) Sometimes I wonder whether freshmen perceive things the way they do because they *want *to see them that way.</p>
<p>Just give it time. You’ll be pleasantly surprised.</p>
<p>Amen to the above poste (I also literally never post). As a Stanford junior, I also disagree with much of what the other posters have said. </p>
<p>I don’t really understand the question “Does Stanford feel like a University?” at all. That said (and as countless other threads will probably attest) Stanford is a campus. Don’t let anybody feed you garbage about it being too geographically large (the word diffuse came into play); the campus may be large, but all buildings you actually use are extremely concentrated. I have never understood how people who actually go to Stanford could make that claim. Furthermore, they recently centralized all Freshman housing (nearly all Freshman now live in the same area) to ensure that a Freshman community develops.</p>
<p>I am a parent of a Stanford freshman (I am back here for old time’s sake, having spent hours here last year). My son’s experience at Stanford has been nothing like the earlier posts. He can’t find a single negative and seems to be surrounded by equally happy students. He is involved in tons of activities in which he interacts with both freshmen as well as upper classmen. He feels like there is a perfect balance between intellectual classroom discussions and the freedom to be crazy, immature freshmen.
Remember to take all opinions on cc with a grain of salt. Every opinion reflects the bias of the person giving it. If you go to a party, the guy sitting in the corner will feel very differently about the party than the guy on the dance floor. Most college kids are way too busy to spend their days on cc, so you are not going necessarily get an accurate picture of a campus here.</p>
<p>If you are a social, happy person, you will find Stanford (and life) to be full of sociable, happy people, and vice versa.</p>
<p>Mind you, the prevailing attitude towards Stanford is by and large unqualified joy and love of their school. I’m not invalidating those per se, but I would like to also add what might be another perspective. Yes, I am a freshman and I have inherently less experience with Stanford, but I was under the impression that freshman year is supposed to be a whirlwind of positivism followed by what is called the “sophomore slump”. My concern is that there is little contribution from those who aren’t extremely satisfied. And finally, I realize that more often than not, happiness is a skill, not necessarily dependent on your situation. That said, I think it’s important to not set expectations of incoming students sky high because it is very unlikely that this is paradise for everyone.</p>
Yeah the people that love this place so much really get on my nerves. I fear they’re being sincere. Then I think, ‘What are they doing that I’m not?’ Maybe I’m just too critical.</p>
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Yeah probably. I’m not going to make excuses, but I’m only on here because I’m procrastinating.</p>
<p>From my two years experience at Stanford, I would say about half of the people there are full of themselves. HOWEVER, I guess to some extent they have the right to act that way because most of these people are truly amazing.</p>
<p>Duck syndrome is certainly something that you experience.</p>
<p>To l337toast, yes, people are generally chill their freshman year, but it gets worse through later years as stress piles up and GPAs dip.</p>
<p>This is only about undergraduate kids though. Don’t even start on the med school kids.</p>
<p>hey, im 2014 and i still agree with the upperclassmen who posted previously…i definitely disagree with pretty much everything the two other freshmen said. </p>
<p>i haven’t met a single kid who’s full of himself. in fact, i’ve found, pretty consistently, that people AREN’T willing to divulge their hooks…personally, my roommate is the only person i’ve told what i consider to be my hook that ‘got me in’ i don’t know, maybe you just got screwed with a bad dorm</p>
<p>’ i haven’t met a single kid who’s full of himself’ Might that be because you’re full of yourself? Sounds like you acknowledge everyone’s gotten in via some kind of “hook.” As recently reported, Stanford leads the pack in legacy admits so there’s probably a commonality that quickly leads to disinterest in learning about your classmates.</p>
<p>To be honest, I’ve always been rather wary of the people who say they’ve “never seen” something at a school, as if that somehow invalidates the claims of others. Your experience may be overwhelmingly positive, stanu14, but take some time to consider that something as complex as the social framework of a university cannot be so easily generalized. As for the bad dorm comment, I don’t see how my dorm, which is all-frosh, is any worse than any other. Most seem just as happy here too. </p>
<p>Referring to the whole hooks thing, I personally don’t want to know about accomplishments at all. My concern was with the intellectual atmosphere and the personalities.</p>
Funny coming from you. I seem to recall you saying: “[random group of people sitting down to eat with lonely kid] will never happen at Stanford.”</p>
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Who’s the second freshman? I couldn’t find him. I hope it’s not me, although besides 1337Toast I’m like the only other person who didn’t explicitly state that they were not a freshman. I’m not a freshman. You are though; Have fun in IHUM! haha just messing with you. </p>
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You haven’t met enough people then. They’re out there alright. I seem to recognize it more than other people, maybe because they’re all caught up in it. Although now I sound kinda full of myself. Darn. </p>
<p>Sometimes it’s subtle. If you’re in a dorm therapy session later this year and the leader asks who in the room has saved someone’s life, just look at whose hands shoot up first to volunteer their story. A humble person will not want to tell a room full of people how he saved someone’s life. </p>
<p>Like one guy I know told a group of us “Everyone at Stanford has like that one thing that no one else knows about until you tell them. What are your guys’?” We all went around and told him about our “things” (that sounds weird). Naturally we asked the question back at him, which it was clear he wanted. He then proceeded to tell us about some great feat he pulled off, a story he had been wanting to get out there for ages it seemed. Did he really care about what our moments were? Not likely. He didn’t fool me for one second.</p>
<p>I’ve noticed it’s generally the not so great students. Extends beyond school stuff too. Like honestly, sometimes I wish I had the balls to tell these people that no one cares. Except if I went to the lengths of calling them out on that then it seems that I at least care.</p>
<p>this isn’t necessarily on topic, but I also don’t think the Stanford students active on CC are an accurate cross-section of undergrad population</p>
<p>From what I know as an observer, it’s best to visit the school primarily for this type of question. When I visited previously, I was able to buy lunch at Tresidder or wherever and ask students sitting nearby how they liked the school. Or when I was waiting for CS106 to begin in October (when I visited last) so that I could sit in on it, I happened to ask someone for directions to the theater and we got into a long conversation about Stanford. I believe that the conversation lasted almost half an hour. Or in various other moments. Like when I ate lunch that day (the lunch I referred to earlier was from the first time I ever visited campus), I happened to have a chance to eat with a friend from my school who graduated last year along with her roommate and a few other students. It was the best time to ask why they liked Stanford, etc. In my honest opinion, that approach was much better in comparison to doing so in an environment like this. Just my two cents.</p>
<p>^Right you are, Sleeet–there’s no substitute for a campus visit to get the real sense of a place. During campus visits you can meet a representative sampling of the student body, ask lots of questions, and truly visualize yourself in that setting.</p>
<p>l337toast, I’m a pretty intellectual type myself, and I haven’t had any trouble finding people who enjoy discussing (debating, often) ideas, literature, theory, philosophy,politics, the arts, etc. here at Stanford. And I’m not even in SLE! But often you’ll find that the kind of people who enjoy these conversations can seem kind of quiet when you first meet them. One good way I’ve found to identify them is to see who responds to certain types of humor. A lot of times the references in the humor give a window into how people think and what they’ve been exposed to. You can also try striking up conversations with people in the lounge, library, etc. who are reading interesting-looking books and ask them what they think about them. But remember it sometimes takes more than one quarter of school to find your “people”, so hang in there.</p>
thanks!</p>