The Pros and Cons of Stanford

What is Stanford’s reputation?

“Olympic athletes” “tech entrepreneurs” “world-class STEM research” “everyone’s majoring in CS or engineering” “everyone’s trying to develop an app” “amazing Bay Area weather” “beautiful campus” “the heart of Silicon Valley” “Spanish-style architecture” “hustle culture” “the Stanford bubble” “safer than Berkeley” “Palo Alto is super-expensive” “Ivy of the west”

Stanford is arguably the most prestigious university on the West Coast, rivaled only by the best programs at UC Berkeley and UCLA. Compared to those juggernaut public universities (which each have more than 30,000 undergraduates), Stanford is a relatively small, private university with only 8,000 undergraduates, and it’s extremely difficult to get into with a 4% acceptance rate, putting it on par with Princeton and MIT. The school runs on a quarter system, which allows students to sample more courses, but covers material at an accelerated pace.

You can think of Stanford as “MIT with athletes,” meaning that, on the one hand, it’s a world-class STEM university, located in the heart of Silicon Valley, which is the world epicenter for tech investment and innovation. But it also boasts arguably the best athletic program in the nation; Stanford has won more NCAA team championships than any other school in history. So if you’re an elite athlete, or a STEM prodigy, Stanford might be the perfect place for you.

The pervasive hustle culture.

You can’t talk about life at Stanford without talking about its infamous “hustle culture.” Just like at UPenn, everyone at Stanford seems to be insanely busy all the time, mostly working on some kind of new app or tech start-up venture. And students frequently drop out early to pursue their billion-dollar ideas full-time, often with the encouragement, mentorship, and financial investment of their professors.

This can be either good or bad. On the one hand, it creates a stimulating entrepreneurial environment — the perfect venue to create and launch your dream company. On the other hand, it can be toxic and exhausting because you never feel like you’re doing enough. While UPenn has a condition called “Penn Face,” where everyone acts like everything’s going great, Stanford has something called “Duck Syndrome,” where everyone looks calm and cool on the surface — like they’re just gliding along — but in reality they’re frantically paddling under the surface. 

The Pros of Stanford…

#1: Prestige — These days, graduating with a degree from Stanford is equivalent to telling people you went to Harvard or Princeton. It won’t guarantee you success in life, but in today’s hyper-competitive world, it gives you an extraordinary advantage in everything you do.

#2: World-class CS and engineering — Stanford’s computer science and engineer programs rival MIT and Berkeley as the best in the nation. And just like with MIT, you don’t have to apply to a specific major or college straight out of high school. Instead, you have the luxury of applying to the university in general, and then choosing a major towards the end of sophomore year, which gives students tremendous freedom and flexibility.

#3: Beautiful campus — Stanford’s renowned campus features Spanish mission-style architecture set against a pleasant, temperate Northern California climate. It’s never too warm nor too cold, and many students get away with shorts and t-shirts for much of the year. Though Stanford is located in Silicon Valley, conveniently close to top tech companies, the campus itself is fairly remote and isolated, which creates the feeling of “the Stanford bubble,” which can be good or bad.

#4: Not just STEM — Though STEM subjects get all the glory, Stanford also has top-ranked programs in psychology, economics, English, anthropology, environmental science, and more. But the most popular majors, by far, are core STEM subjects: CS, engineering and biology. Stanford has lots of pre-med students, and lots of future tech billionaires.

#5: IntroSems (Introductory Seminars) — Stanford offers a wide-variety of extremely popular, super-small seminars to freshmen and sophomores who are looking to explore an academic field and build a close working relationship with professors. These classes provide the perfect gateway to research opportunities, internships and glowing letters of recommendation.

The Cons of Stanford…

#1: Poor social life — Despite its dreamy location, many Stanford students complain about the lack of a quality social scene. Everyone’s seemingly too busy to do anything, and when they do make plans, they frequently flake out on you. This creates a kind of superficial social environment that leaves many students feeling empty and unfulfilled.

#2: Hit-or-miss professors — Stanford is first and foremost a major research university that specifically attracts professors who are leaders in their field or who are doing cutting-edge research. Many times, those professors don’t make the best teachers. Compare this with a small liberal arts college like Williams or Amherst (or even Princeton) where undergraduate teaching is the top priority.

#3: Hyper-competitive clubs — Just like at UPenn or Harvard, it’s often very difficult to get into the most popular extracurricular clubs, like investment clubs or entrepreneurial groups. It can be extremely frustrating when you’re trying to learn some new hobby or skill, only to be shutout by students who are far more advanced than you.

#4: The neighborhood system — In 2021, Stanford created a highly unpopular residential system where freshmen would be randomly assigned to live in 1 of 8 “neighborhoods,” and then stuck living with that same group of people for all four years. Fortunately, the administration has recently started giving students more flexibility in their living arrangements.

How to get into Stanford…

Overwhelmingly, Stanford is looking for students who are either 1) elite athletes, or 2) STEM prodigies. If you excel in either one of these areas, then you fit the mold that they’re looking for. There are many students who get into other top schools like Harvard, Yale and Princeton who don’t get into Stanford because maybe they excel in the humanities, or in the arts, or they’re more of a community leader or a social activist, and those types of standout candidates don’t quite fit the Stanford mold.

Should you apply Early Action?

You can apply to Stanford through Regular Decision (RD) in January or Restrictive Early Action (REA) in November. From a purely numerical standpoint, you have about a 4% chance of admission with RD, and a 9% chance of admission with REA. But consider that many recruited athletes and other “VIP” candidates apply through REA, which artificially inflates that number. In other words, there’s probably no real statistical advantage to applying early. And by applying early, you’re not allowed to apply Early Decision (binding commitment) anywhere else, and you can’t apply Early Action to any other private schools (such as MIT), so it’s not a great deal.

You should also know that when you apply to Stanford, the admissions committee recalculates your high school GPA using just your sophomore and junior year grades, and by eliminating any courses that aren’t strictly academic (like gym or band). So if you really blew it your freshman year, it might not hurt you at all. (UCLA, UC Berkeley and all of the other UC schools do the same thing, by the way.)

Should you submit your ACT/SAT scores?

Starting in the Fall of 2025, Stanford will be test-required for first-year applicants. But the for Fall of 2024, Stanford is still test optional. Roughly 50% of applicants to Stanford don’t submit their test scores. However, for the 2022-2023 admission cycle, 72% of admitted students submitted their scores. This suggests that, like most Ivy-caliber schools, Stanford strongly favors candidates who do submit their scores.

What if I’m waitlisted?

For the 2022-2023 admission cycle, 457 students were put on Stanford’s waitlist, but only 8 of them (less than 2%) were ever admitted. While there’s no real downside to accepting a spot on Stanford’s waitlist, it’s statistically very unlikely that you will ultimately be admitted, and there’s absolutely no way of knowing “where you stand” relative to other students on that list.