<p>as a senior considering applying to Stanford this year I was wondering if any current students or grads could share some things that they wish they had known about Stanford before applying. thanxs in advance</p>
<p>this may seem obvious, but: Stanford is on the West Coast...it is like 3000 miles away from the East Coast in other words. As all my friends are preparing to leave for college, I wish I was closer to them so it would be easier to visit. Also, Stanford works on a weird trimester system and starts really late (September 26th this year) meaning you dont get out until mid-June...which plain old sucks. Some of my friends get out in late April...its slightly depressing.</p>
<p>Interesting article from Stanford newspaper about how mind-numbingly boring Palo Alto is.</p>
<p>Oh, good lord. Palo Alto isn't "mind numbingly boring" compared to most of the towns across the US. It <em>is</em> the suburbs, but there are tons of schools in the suburbs -- if you don't want to go to school in the 'burbs, send off apps to Columbia and the Boston cluster. </p>
<p>Stanford sits astride a number of transit options that make it easy to go to San Francisco or other places any time you want. It's not that Palo Alto is sitting in the middle of nowhere -- it's part of an extended suburban band stretching from San Francisco down to San Jose, with all sorts of things in between. There's nothing you could say negatively about Stanford's location that wouldn't be true of almost ANY suburban campus, though quite honestly, I don't know that many midwestern schools that offer both world-class skiing <em>and</em> the ocean so close. <em>grin</em></p>
<p>Palo Alto is kinda boring in the sense that it's kinda upscale and there aren't many good hangout places for college kids. The campus has a pretty cool coffee shop however. If you like sports, Stanford has kickass facilities and nice trails to run/bike. Having a car would open a lot of options. You can easily drive to San Francisco/Monterey/Half Moon Bay..etc with friends. I sometime went to Cupertino (few miles away) and Mountain View (2 miles away) for decent Asian resaturants.</p>
<p>Palo Alto is boring - I live there. However, within 45 minutes you can be in San Francisco and there is a ton to do there.</p>
<p>To answer the OP's question:
I wish I knew that...
1. That I actually had a chance at admission! I thought I didn't and got in RD, quite a feat these days.
2. That the Stanford application was so neat and easy, compared to say, Penn's or Brown's.
3. That the Admit Weekend isn't a good representation of how Stanford is. It was overdone and wasn't Stanford-style laid-back at all.
4. That more than one kid from a large public can be admitted to Stanford, which I didn't think happened unless they were REALLY qualified. And maybe I was, I don't know.</p>
<p>aww zephyr, you're so modest =)</p>
<p>Well I did predicate my entire college application process based on the assumption I would get in nowhere.</p>
<p>I like the Stanford admissions people. My application lacked certain documents when I first applied. They told me to furnish them with those documents and very kindly extended the application deadline for me. I did so, and eventually, I was accepted into the grad school at Stanford. </p>
<p>But in my packing and excitement, I absent mindedly forgot the date for my department's orientation day. So I missed it. I wish that I could have been more careful. But I made up for it somewhat by having a Stanford PHD student (who had been at Stanford for a long time) explained some things to me such as course requirements, how to apply etc. </p>
<p>Raymond</p>
<p>Palo Alto sucks, but the bay area has just as many things as any major city excluding NY and LA.</p>
<p>i wish i had known that stanford is such a freaking huge campus, and getting around is going to take an effort.</p>
<p>Stanford is a HUGE campus. Very low population density. So you may need a bicycle or a pair of skates. Most choose bicycles.</p>
<p>hmmph. If I knew I'd get in RD, then I wouldn't have spent 7 months of sleepless nights and lip-biting (an unfortunate habit of mine). </p>
<p>"I thought I didn't and got in RD, quite a feat these days."</p>
<p>keep talking. I got in RD and it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy to hear that. :)</p>
<p>Maybe the trimester system is strange for someone from the East, but it seems like most of the colleges in California use it, excluding UC Berkeley, which runs on a a semester system. It's supposedly a lot more fast paced, and I hear you always have a midterm or a final coming up. So if your friends are going to schools in the East, it could cause a slight difference in what days you're off school, but if they're in California, it shouldn't be too much of a problem. :)</p>
<p>I wish I had known that I hated J.S. Mill and John Locke. I wouldn't have taken the IHUM i took in the fall. =P Oh well. </p>
<p>They're actually called quarters out here... because the summer counts as a quarter. It's a great system because you get to take 1.5 times as many classes as any Berkeley (or non-CA US college besides Dartmouth) student. More if you take classes over the summer. It gives your schedule a whole lot more flexibility, even if you have to work hard from beginning of quarter to midterm to final. But given that I still have time to hang out with my friends, party, and even get a few As in the meantime, I think my college experience is that much richer. Plus, there's less time to forget the material from the beginning to when you're tested on it.</p>
<p>The quarter system has a lot of advantages. You can do a quarter (or 2) abroad without falling behind in your requirements. If you don't like a particular class, it'll be over in 10 weeks instead of 15.</p>