There’s an assumption underlying these comparisons of course hours and numbers for a STEM student that needs to be examined. It is this: that larger numbers equate directly to better ultimate accomplishment in the field.
As a cautionary tale arguing against such an assumption consider the case of Paul Alivisatos, who took a chemistry BS at Chicago in 1981, a time when the Core was even more rigidly prescribed and of longer duration than it is today (and incidentally a time when student life was at its most austere). Alivisatos took the absolute minimum number of required courses for a major in chemistry. He has said that he considered several other majors and was attracted to several other fields, including ones in the humanities and social sciences, before settling on chemistry. It was really on the basis of a single course in physical chemistry, one he was urged to take by a friend, that he experienced the revelation of what was to be his destiny. He has gone on to scale the heights in his field, to have had a long professorial career at UCBerkeley, to have authored a multitude of publications, created twenty or more patents, won the highest prizes the chemical world has to offer, been shortlisted for the Nobel, and become Berkeley’s Provost - oh, and a couple of days ago he was appointed the next President of the University of Chicago. In his statement on the announcement of his appointment he pays tribute to the unique culture of his alma mater, where it all started for him and which he says he intends to perpetuate for the benefit of others like himself.
@Data10, that’s a sample of one, a single life of an extraordinary figure. I put it out there as another paradigm of how a life of accomplishment in STEM can begin. Let me put it this way: One youngster may have made a final decision about his or her course in life before ever coming to college. All else is either an adornment or even an irritation for that student, whose focus on the essential thing narrowed early. I do not argue here that that student has not thriven or may not be destined for a life of high accomplishment in the chosen field and for happiness and fulfilment generally. It’s one model in a pluralistic universe. Another sort of youngster, however, will come to college with eclectic interests and a restless mind, wanting more than casual exposure to the “best that has been thought and said” in many fields, a way of looking at the world through many lenses. That student too has a path to a life of accomplishment and happiness, but it will be a different one.
Either of my paradigmatical college students could thrive at either of Chicago or Stanford, but can there be any doubt about the magnetic pulls differently exerted on them by those different institutions? @Mumfromca wonderfully describes Stanford’s appeal. Others on this board have described Chicago’s. There’s room in my world for both those excellent institutions.
Life is very long and one’s college years are very short. The essential thing, as Aristotle would put it, is to make the right choice of a beginning and to do it for the right reason. Thereby we maximize in the ultimate course of our lives our unique human potentials, whatever they may be.