Why NOT Stanford?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Stanford University
41

<p>I’m not inclined to dissing other schools, but truthfully, USC is not in Stanford’s league in any way, except in the sports sense. USC is definitely coming up in the world and alumni are donating a lot of money and they building a lot of new buildings, etc. but academically it does not compare to Stanford at this point.</p>

<p>Caltech is amazing and everyone here respects the hell out of it, but I agree that comparisons between an institute of technology and a full-scale liberal arts university don’t really work.</p>

42

<p>okay 23. so stanford is top 5 and USC is top 25. its still a top-tier school and it is not overrated. its in the same league as johns hopkins, wake forest, and duke</p>

43

<p>The only reason not to attend Stanford would be to go to a prestigious east coast school (HPY, MIT, Columbia, Dartmouth), or to take advantage of a substantial merit scholarship at another institution. UC Berkeley is close academically, and (for California residents) less expensive. Caltech attracts a different type of student. There’s plenty of great Asian food on and off campus…</p>

44

<p>Speaking of Asian food, anyone been to Tamarine in Palo Alto?</p>

45

<p>My daughter is admitted to Stanford for the class of 2016 and a slew of other schools including USC which offered her a trustee merit award (full tuition) and invited her to apply to the Thematic Honors Program. She took a class at Stanford, each of the past two summers. I often drove up and toured the campus.</p>

<p>Like many of you, acceptance to Stanford, Harvard, Yale is viewed as a remarkable achievement. To be one of the 6% or so invited to attend is a clear, rewarding marker of where you stand in life relative to your peers at this point in time. By comparison, USC had 46000 applicants and accepted 2650. Of those 2650, 100 were awarded trustee merit scholarships, or about 4%. 4% USC trustee merit vs. 6% Stanford admit. Hm. Something to consider. I don’t have the GPA or SAT’s of the 375 Finalists in front of me and don’t have that information for the 100 who were awarded the Trustee Merit Scholarship, but I recall the Finalists’ stats met or exceeded those I have seen published for Stanford.</p>

<p>University rankings are just that–University wide. Often having little bearing on the undergraduate classroom experience or campus wide social/intellectual learning experience.
I visited USC with my daughter for her Trustee Merit interview holding the same preconceptions as many posting here. I was truly shocked to find such an engaged, articulate and happy student body–everywhere. The place seemed alive and vibrant.</p>

<p>I spent 3-6 hours 3/week for 8 weeks the past two summers at Stanford. Granted, summer is not regular session. I agree the atmosphere is a lovely office park setting and a very peaceful one. But, it did not feel like a vibrant campus. Students seemed self-absorbed, few made eye contact, it was just weird. I plan to spend more time on campus this month, as will my daughter. I don’t know if having 44% science and engineering majors provides a distinct campus vibe. I am curious to go back soon to see.</p>

<p>No doubt Stanford has world class engineering programs, medical school and information science programs which serve well as an incubator for the fine tech and biotech industries in Silicon Valley. But, what does it offer to the humanities undergraduate major in comparison? How much of Stanford’s ranking is based on science/engineering/medicine graduate programs as opposed to the day-to-day experience for an undergraduate?</p>

<p>I have heard and read the classes can be large at Stanford, especially in undergraduate required courses. By comparison, the Thematic Options honors program at USC is offered to those accepted in lieu of all required core courses. The goal is to create a small liberal arts college within a larger college. Faculty apply and are unique to the program, classes are small with an emphasis on writing skills. Courses are interdisciplinary and emphasize critical thinking. </p>

<p>My daughter may well decide to attend Stanford. My purpose in writing is to share my experience and invite feedback since I am trying to weigh options from my perspective as a parent and PhD who has taught PhD candidates. Also, to move beyond the generalities of reputation and ranking to specific experiences. At this point, the decision for my daughter is Stanford or USC. We are each in our own way comparing two exceptional options we are very grateful she has. Bottom line–which will provide the richest, most intellectually stimulating and enjoyable undergraduate experience?</p>

46

<p>@docfreedaddy:</p>

<p>I’m going to make the assumption that when you say “Something to consider,” you’re implying that the Trustee Merit recipients are a more select group than those admitted to Stanford, which simply isn’t the case; the applicant pools for each school are fundamentally different. I’d venture to say that there are fewer cross-applicants between Stanford and USC than you’d expect; Stanford is a world-class school, whereas USC is still known in the US as a largely regional school. </p>

<p>Also, while we’re on USC – they admitted 8400 of their 46000 applicants, yielding an initial acceptance rate of 18%. </p>

<p>I’m not sure that anyone mentioned university rankings; I do know that Stanford doesn’t particularly care about its rankings, because it – and other top schools – will continue to maintain the high academic standards and excellent classroom experiences that define their undergraduate education. I can’t speak about USC’s undergraduate experience, though. I suppose if you were really concerned about the undergraduate/classroom experience, you would choose a liberal arts college. </p>

<p>Summer is the worst time to make any impressions of a school, because there are very few actual undergrads on campus; naturally, any impression you would receive about their undergraduate population would be misguided. These are mostly summer school students during the summer, and aren’t at all reflective of Stanford’s usual vibrancy and joie de vivre.</p>

<p>Subrankings consistently rank Stanford’s undergraduate teaching in the top 5 (not that I, or you, should/do care about rankings). The humanities programs at Stanford are incredibly strong, and are on par with, if not better than, those of HYP. The number of majors is smaller, which in my opinion is a good thing - more money for grants and projects per student, as well as more individual attention. See: Major Grants, Chappell Lougee grants, their Creative Writing Program, other opportunities for research, etc. Really, Stanford spoils their humanities majors and departments, relative to their moneymaking capacity at the university. For more, see humanexperience.stanford.edu</p>

<p>Naturally, introductory classes will be large; there’s no need to have small groups to teach basic concepts of disciplines. All lecture classes do feature sections, though, which are smaller groups of students that meet to discuss the content of the lecture. If you’re looking to create a small liberal arts college inside a university (again, raising the point – why not go to a LAC?), consider the Structured Liberal Education program at Stanford. I won’t go too deep into it here, but it fulfills many of Stanford’s distribution requirements while maintaining the “feel” of a LAC. Google for more detailed info.</p>

<p>You’ll find – I promise you this – no university where interdisciplinarity is prioritized more than Stanford. From interdisciplinary majors – Human Biology, Symbolic Systems, International Relations – to faculty interdisciplinary research, Stanford is committed to interdisciplinary thought.</p>

<p>If you’re looking for a bottom line, it’s this: Go to Stanford. There are clear differences in campus culture at Stanford and USC. Though there may be pockets of Stanford-caliber students in programs like Thematic Honors and scholarships like the Trustee Merit, they cannot overcome the benefits of being on a campus with students whom you KNOW are academically, athletically, and artistically gifted, the best of the best in the entire world. There are no limits at Stanford, not during your time as a student, because of the University’s unflagging support of undergraduates, and not afterwards, because of the great number of doors Stanford opens up for its graduates.</p>

47

<p>There are various problems with Stanford, but in most cases it’s a double-edged sword, and Stanford isn’t sitting on its laurels and ignoring the problem, but trying to fix it. Often its peers are no better or Stanford is only marginally worse.</p>

<ul>
<li><p>socioeconomic diversity - Stanford lags behind top public schools, and on-campus discussion of socioeconomic differences in the student body is limited. There is an abundance of rich students, but thankfully it’s hard to tell because they aren’t snobs. At least a third of the students come from families that make over $200k/year. This is the same or worse at Ivies. Stanford also has a sizable low-income student population (about 20%), higher than its peers. Stanford also just hired a director of first-gen/low-income/diversity programs, in order to stimulate activity/discussion of these socioeconomic differences.</p></li>
<li><p>bikes - students really don’t seem to understand that road rules apply to bikes, so you need to signal turns, follow arrows, stay in the right lane, etc. Campus police are cracking down more on bike safety.</p></li>
<li><p>administration - while it isn’t like the “war-on-fun” administrations at Yale/Princeton (which have gone so far as to ban freshman rush to Greek organizations), it does have its problems. The office of student activities/leadership (SAL) can be a bureaucratic mess, though it’s supposedly improving. Recently there’s been controversy over revoking a student house’s independence, unhousing one of the fraternities (though they did violate their probation, and have recently been given back their house), prohibiting the use of house funds on alcohol, etc. The latter two are part of an initiative to crack down on alcohol, which is understandable since that’s a liability. In reality, Stanford still has an extremely lax policy on alcohol (some have said “Stanford’s policy is that it has no policy”). Campus parties are rated on a scale of 1-5, and level-2s (invite-only) and above have to register with the student activities office. Level-3s (all-campus) and above must end by 1AM and there are stringent requirements on party security, which has caused some all-campus party traditions to end because it’s pricey to hire security.</p></li>
<li><p>campus size - it’s large, no doubt. But contrary to popular belief, it is not sparse in the slightest. The buildings are generally close together, and the population density is equal to that of New York. The reason it’s large is that Stanford has tons of strong departments/centers/institutes, and that requires space. The alternative would be to build the buildings higher, but they’re already high and Palo Alto does not allow buildings to go higher. Regardless, the campus is large, which means walking one edge of the campus to another can take 15-20 minutes.</p></li>
<li><p>freshman housing - most freshman live in Wilbur and Stern, which I don’t like very much. The housing is nice (rooms with decent space, nice common facilities like lounges and computer clusters and free laundry, small communities of 60-80 students, decent food options), but it’s not nearly as nice as most Stanford housing. The benefit of living in Wilbur/Stern is that you’re around mostly freshman, the houses are either 2 or 3 stories high, and you’re never put into a triple or a quad as at other schools.</p></li>
<li><p>the Draw - many complain about this more than they should. Yeah, it’s complicated, but it’s the most fair way of assigning housing. I’d rather it be complicated than unfair.</p></li>
<li><p>techie/fuzzy - many complain about the techie/fuzzy divide, but they don’t often note that it’s an academic divide, as in some techie students view fuzzy subjects as not useful, while some fuzzy students view techie subjects as not intellectual. No generalizations can be made, and I think the above is more often not true of students. Both kinds of students get along just fine (living together, socializing, etc.), and a great many students are techie-fuzzies. But there’s no doubt that there’s a distinction between techie-fuzzy on campus, which is inevitable when a university has strength across a broad set of disciplines (e.g. if Harvard had a strong representation of engineering students, the techie-fuzzy divide would be more pronounced).</p></li>
<li><p>location - Palo Alto is boring compared to big cities. The bubble exists partly because there’s tons of things to do on campus that you can never be bored, and partly because Palo Alto is mainly a tech industry area so it’s not the sort of thing you will care to go into a lot. San Francisco is farther away than students would like, and you tend not to get more off campus until after freshman year. At the same time, downtown Palo Alto may not be a San Francisco, but it’s decent, with lots of people around (busier than the SF streets, actually), bars, ethnic restaurants (so under-appreciated by the student body), etc. Local areas, from Redwood City to San Jose, are also under-appreciated. Students don’t seem to care about the amazing natural landscape just nearby - the Santa Cruz mountains, innumerable preserves and forests just off campus, etc. That’s a shame.</p></li>
<li><p>24-hour library - Meyer is the only library open 24-hours, but only the bottom floor (Green is much nicer and closes at 2AM). The lighting in there is weird. Students from local areas, like Palo Alto High students, study in there, which is really annoying. Meyer is going to be demolished, so I’m not sure what they plan to do about 24-hour study room access.</p></li>
<li><p>the quarter system - while I prefer quarters, they are not for everybody. They are unforgiving in terms of getting behind, midterms start before you know it, and there’s no “reading week” as at other schools (you go from Friday classes to Monday finals). That said, quarters keep you focused, they’re intense (and IMO somewhat legitimize grade inflation), and they let you take more classes. Regardless some students prefer semesters.</p></li>
<li><p>parking - it’s a real pain if you have a car. Permits are pricey.</p></li>
<li><p>class size variance - while the majority of Stanford’s classes are small, some departments struggle with class sizes. For example, CS is currently experiencing a frenzy of students declaring it as their major, and class sizes have grown much larger. But all are supplemented with small sections, and CS students are free to take grad-level classes, most of which are small seminars. The CS department has been authorized to hire several more faculty members and have already done so. The same is true of every other department that is experiencing problems with class size.</p></li>
</ul>

48

<p>Solemn,</p>

<p>You raise the expected, valid points regarding Stanford and in no way am I detracting from Stanford’s reputation. Your comment regarding “a campus with students whom you KNOW are academically, athletically, and artistically gifted, the best of the best in the entire world” seems to strike a chord. My point in citing the relative statistics is simply admit rates are viewed as indications of exclusivity, which is not limited to Stanford or Harvard. Most trustes award students at USC have been admitted to one or more Ivy’s or Stanford, but choose not to attend. What I can say is that something quite incredible is happening at USC presently that I would not believe without seeing it with my own eyes. The vibrancy and dynamism is infectious, the programs for the “best of the best” are engaging and innovative. I hope I do see the same level of vibrancy when i soon visit Stanford again and hopefully not students simply basking in the glory of seeing themselves the “best of the best”. As an aside, being intellectually superior in intelligence does not equate to superiority in emotional intelligence. My daughter was accepted to Stanford and is extremely bright, likely the brightest in her private school. To her credit, however, her friends may be somewhat bright, but have superior personal qualities, including superior emotional intelligence. Maybe personal qualities, not quantified on SAT scores and GPA’s, or excelling in a sport or art form, account for what I saw at USC, but not Stanford. Hopefully, I will be struck by the vibrancy and happiness exuding from Stanford undergrads on my upcoming visit.</p>

49

<p>I’m going to post my reply on the other thread where you copied your initial post, docfreedaddy.</p>

50

<p>Thought I’d revive this thread, so that prospective students can compare it against the ‘101 reasons why Stanford is awesome’ thread.</p>

<ul>
<li><p>the arts - while Stanford has made huge gains in the arts (see [Arts</a> at Stanford University, Presented by SiCa](<a href=“http://sica.stanford.edu%5DArts”>http://sica.stanford.edu)), it’s still Stanford’s weakest area</p></li>
<li><p>grading - as at most schools, it can be hard to know where you stand, since it depends on curves, and even when you know the breakdown of your grade (this % in assignments, etc.), it’s hard to know how you’re doing in each area. On the other hand, I think this uncertainty pushes students to work harder, as they’d rather err on the safe side, which in a way legitimizes grade inflation.</p></li>
<li><p>international students - I wish Stanford had a more international student body. Currently, it’s <10% among undergrads, though much higher in grad students. I also think Stanford could become need-blind for internationals. </p></li>
<li><p>professional schools - they could involve undergrads more, esp. the business and law schools. Students can take classes at them, but within a restricted set. It’d be neat to see some joint degree programs for undergrads.</p></li>
<li><p>interdisciplinary majors - Stanford has lots of interesting interdisciplinary majors, but that can be a bad thing, since no other school has them. For example, it has Mathematical and Computational Science instead of statistics, Symbolic Systems instead of cognitive science, etc. Employers and grad schools might raise their eyebrows at them.</p></li>
<li><p>alcohol drinking - many students have complained about the focus on alcohol. IMO that’s the nature of college, but it’s still easy to stay away from. A new office on alcohol policy has been created and promotes non-alcoholic events.</p></li>
<li><p>duck syndrome - this has nothing to do with students not complaining about their work (students do this plentifully), and everything to do with an unwillingness to show how that work is affecting you. Students may be feeling like they’re genuinely struggling, but won’t show how it’s getting to them. That’s what the duck syndrome is. Part of this is the nature of high-achieving students, who likely haven’t had to own up to personal failure before. Part of it has to do with a self-perpetuating student culture, which is one of happiness - you’re expected to love Stanford, and most do. But it’s different from other schools like MIT, where it’s expected that you will hate it at times, or Harvard, which has a reputation for students who are displeased with the status quo. So at these schools, it’s okay to show your displeasure, which may be why the duck syndrome, while present at these (again it’s a problem with high-achieving student), isn’t as pronounced.</p></li>
<li><p>advising - some complain about this, but I call BS. For one, students at every school complain about advising, which to me says that advising can never really live up to student expectations. More importantly, you have so many advisers at your fingertips – premajor adviser, residence dean, academic director, departmental adviser, a major adviser, faculty advisers, full-time advisers at the UAR, people at the Career Development Center, etc. There are tons of people to advise you, and you can generally walk in - students who complain about it aren’t seeking them out. Stanford now has required meetings with advisers for those who haven’t declared their major.</p></li>
<li><p>diversity of ideologies - if you’re liberal, you’ll be in heaven. If you aren’t, the liberal environment may grate you.</p></li>
<li><p>Palm Drive - too long! It’s like a mile long.</p></li>
<li><p>bike racks - there were never enough, and there would be tons of stand-alone bikes locked only to themselves. I heard the administration has been fixing this.</p></li>
<li><p>preprofessionalism - many students do have a preprofessional outlook - that they’re in college to get a degree and go into business or medicine or whathaveyou. It’s annoying, but thankfully they’re in the minority.</p></li>
<li><p>on-campus music events - Stanford has been getting better at this, but you generally won’t see big-time bands or rappers on campus. But there are other big names that come to campus, like Joseph Gordon Levitt or the Dalai Lama.</p></li>
<li><p>IDs for entry into dorms - seriously, what’s the point of having card-readers on the entry doors but not to students’ doors? That means you have to take out your key anyway. I have friends at UCs who said that both doors have card-readers, so why can’t Stanford?</p></li>
<li><p>distribution requirements - their current implementation is kinda pointless IMO, but apparently the SUES report recommends some pretty big changes (you can read about it in the Daily)</p></li>
<li><p>Admit Weekend - ‘Camp Stanford’ is the most commonly used phrase for it. It doesn’t really give an accurate portrayal of Stanford life, although this is a problem at most admit weekends. The dorm cheering is stupid - you won’t be dealing with that past NSO. ;)</p></li>
<li><p>Lake Lagunita - I wish they would start filling Lake Lagunita again, but the city of Palo Alto / county of Santa Clara have used the California tiger salamander for political gain, to stop Stanford from developing in the area. It’s meant that one of Stanford’s oldest traditions - Spring Follies - can’t occur.</p></li>
<li><p>Greek - I think the Greek scene is great and provides a social venue for students, but it does worry me that Stanford has gone from being 13% Greek to ~24% Greek.</p></li>
</ul>

51

<p>In the grand scheme of things, students should consider themselves pretty damn lucky if these are the main complaints. Stanford students don’t have to deal with libraries and majors being cut (as at UC schools), impacted majors (UCs), classes being huge and difficult to get into (UCs), extreme stress and sometimes poor hygiene (MIT), lack of adequate social spaces (Harvard), isolation (Cornell, Dartmouth), a limited/stifling social scene (Caltech or LACs), an elitist social scene (Princeton), etc.</p>

<p>And IMO the positives of Stanford make most of the complaints pretty insignificant anyway.</p>

52

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<p>Thank you very much, but I don’t want four more years of high school.</p>

53

<p>I was at Stanford this weekend and now I agree with many people that if you have a scholarship at USC, you would be better off going there. This school is big and I think they care more about their graduate students. Admit weekend was boring especially the opening ceremony. I remember the opening ceremony at USC being very dramatic and interesting and I liked the way they treated the parents. My son decided he will go to the east coast and then apply to Stanford to graduate school. USC is great and many other schools also. Stanford is getting to be too big and I really realized they care more about their graduate school. I am not trashing Stanford— I love it but this weekend, I felt like some thing was missing. I did not see that community!!.</p>

54

<p>Everyone is certainly entitled to his own opinion, but as a current undergraduate, I can assure you that Stanford doesn’t “care more” about its graduate students. The undergraduate education is superb and opportunities are limitless for us. There’s not even a clear line of distinction, since as undergrads we have access to many grad school classes and symposia, and are welcomed into labs in all disciplines. </p>

<p>Deciding that a college cares more about grad students based on an opening ceremony you found insufficiently “dramatic” ranks among the more curious things I"ve seen posted in this forum, and I’ve seen some real doozies. It sounds like a pretty attenuated rationalization to choose a school that offered merit aid, to be honest. But again, to each his (or her) own, and best of luck to all, wherever they may enroll. : )</p>

55

<p>I don’t think it’s possible to “realize” that Stanford cares more about grad students than undergrads during Admit Weekend. For one, the entire weekend is an undergraduate celebration. And for another, neither I nor anyone else could ascertain that even after attending. So what “indicators” did you find that Stanford cares more for grad students? Concrete things, please.</p>

<p>Agreed with zenkoan that there isn’t a clear line of distinction. There are man undergrads that are more advanced than MS or PhD students, and the professors treat them that way.</p>

<p>FWIW, USC has 2x the # of grad students as Stanford, and a great many more professional schools. ;)</p>

56

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<p>Since this is a thread about the negatives, students should know what are actually negatives, and not rumors.</p>

<p>Stanford doesn’t have a big sports following. Believe it or not, students are generally apathetic toward sports. Only recently have students been interested in football. But even then, not even half the undergrad student body goes to a football game (there are Daily articles on this if you don’t believe me).</p>

<p>The anti-intellectual bit has been discussed ad nauseum. It isn’t true. Here’s something zenkoan and I posted recently about this:</p>

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57

<p>I’ll add a quick comment regarding the “big sports following”. My D is a freshman at Stanford this year and has been surprised about the LACK of a large sports following at the school. D has always been a big sports fan but has difficulty at Stanford always being able to find a fellow student to go to the occassional sports event that she’s interested in. So while Stanford consistently has the best overall sports program in the country, athletics certainly are not at the top of students lists of things today. And I totally understand that as Stanford students have SO much else going on. However for the student that enjoys athletics, there’s not a better university in the country to watch the number of highly ranks teams that Stanford consistently fields.</p>

58

<p>I think the lack of sports following is really a California thing more than anything else. Californians, compared to Midwesterners (where I grew up), have a relatively weak passion for sports. I think this is especially true in norcal. </p>

<p>It doesn’t help that at Stanford you have to pay for cable and most people don’t have time anyways to watch that many sports, myself included.</p>

59

<p>Surprised to hear about the lack of sports following. I wonder if it is because the students are all from the top of their class and they study a lot :wink: Where I went to college (back then ), we would just watch sports in the student center cable tv. Again it was days before IPads and facebook and iphone… No one has cable in their dorm room really.</p>

60

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<p>I don’t understand why Stanford students feel pressured to love their school and constantly live up to that expectation. I attend Harvard and don’t hesitate to criticize it when appropriate. I think Harvard and MIT students are more secure about the reputation of their schools and don’t fear criticizing them because they know their reputations will stand. Stanford students, on the other hand, are very sensitive about criticizing their school because they fear it will ruin the Stanford name–Stanford’s only advantage to HYP (and its unceasing mantra) is that its students are supposedly happier so if that’s not true, how else can they attract HYP cross-admits? Unfortunately, it doesn’t have as much prestige to fall back on. Something that has weirded me out about Stanford students is this constant insecurity lingering among them, as though they themselves believe they are inferior to HYPM. It’s prevalent in how DEFENSIVE Stanford students on this board are as well as in person. </p>

<p>I also believe the constant need to prove themselves stems from their realization that they have to live up to the ultra-smart image students expected of HYP students even though they got into Stanford with a 28 ACT. They are so in-your-face about how their ECs and essays got them in and how that shows how special and unique they are…pfft. They know Harvard requires all of that PLUS more. Most Stanford students just didn’t make the cut. Stanford manages to maintain its yield by implementing a different strategy-- admitting students who do not have a prayer at HYP (though I realize many are so exceptional they will be admitted to all 4) and for whom Stanford will be the highest ranked school they get into.</p>

<p>Stanford is constantly playing catch-up, trying to come up with new buzz words like “future-orientation” to differentiate itself…as if Harvard or MIT don’t care as much about their future status? They just launched a new online education initiative. Btw, they TURNED DOWN Stanford’s invitation to join its online venture.</p>

<p>On the plus side, I loved Stanford’s Greek system as the brothers I met were very nice to me (even as the rest of the students I met were stand-offish)…they were so nice I actually thought they were gay! Unfortunately, the LGBT students I met at Stanford were mean and insecure compared to the LGBT students I met at Harvard and Princeton…</p>