What is Stanford like?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My daughter is graduating from Stanford in the next few weeks (well, technically she graduated last year but she stayed on campus for another year for a coterm — more on that later) and we all really regret the decision.

She was a Black woman in CS — the amount of racist, sexist comments and actions that have been thrown at her have really demoralized her. Stanford’s undergraduate student body is ~6% Black (already lower than peer schools), and the percent plummets in CS. She was the only African-American woman in her graduating CS class (there are a few more Black girls who majored in CS in her year, but she told me that they were all international students), and her CS classes were overwhelmingly white and Asian (the few non-Asian minorities in her CS classes were almost all men).

The summer after her sophomore year at Stanford, DD had an internship at a FAANG. Many of her white/Asian classmates commented that she was “unqualified” for such an internship (because someone with a 3.8 as a CS major at Stanford is definitely not qualified) and was a “diversity hire.” Students are VERY competitive about internships/med school admissions; CS is by far the most popular major on campus (something like ~20% of undergrads major in it), and Bio is the next most popular.

It’s not a particularly creative campus. Not a ton of emphasis on the arts. DD majored in film studies but is co-terming (basically taking a fifth year to complete a double major) in CS. She told me that the arts community at Stanford is not particularly active with the exception of a few student acapella and theatre groups. Many of her CS classmates looked down on her for also majoring in film studies, saying that she should instead double major in something useful like Math or Economics… Um, she’s already co-terming in CS! It’s a very sterile, soulless, and risk-averse place.


It’s also a pretty socially dead campus, with much of the social life happening in Greek life (which only 20% of the school is in). The non-Greeks at the school have a much more tame social life, with a lot of studying, grinding, and striving. It’s not a laid back place at all.

I also think that DD was a poor fit for Stanford culturally.

We live in a pretty racially diverse neighborhood in Brooklyn where a lot of parents work in creative fields. DH and I aren’t in creative fields (we work pretty straight-laced corporate jobs), but most of our friends have an artistic or creative career (or at least a serious hobby in the arts). For high school, DD went to a performing arts magnet high school in NYC — she was really happy in an environment where being quirky, creative, inclusive, artistic, and most importantly, encouraged to fail were all valued traits. Yes, she spent her high school years academically focused and playing a sport. But she also was very active in student theatre, goofed off with her friends making short films, visited sketchy artist studios in Brooklyn (I was not thrilled about this), and spent a lot of weekend nights in terrible DIY basement shows. Stanford students couldn’t relate to this at all — their idea of fun is going to football games, frat parties, building robots, or catching up on problem sets in the library on a Friday night.

She was not happy about how over scheduled and perpetually stressed her classmates were — despite the advertising, the “laid back” California vibes aren’t there at all. It’s a super intense, careerist, and fast-paced (due to the quarter system) pressure cooker of a school. I’ll never forget when DD called me her freshman fall asking if it was normal for college students to have to schedule meals with their classmates nearly a week in advance, with a few kids even asking her to “send me a Google Calendar invite for lunch together for next Tuesday!”


She was relieved when COVID hit in the middle of her sophomore year and she was sent home. Her junior year was all online, and she was thrilled that she didn’t have to step foot in Palo Alto that year. She ended up living with her best friend from high school for her entire junior year at college (2020-2021). Her best friend went to Bard, so my daughter and her friend rented a group house in the Hudson Valley for that year with a couple of my daughter’s bestie’s friends from college. She was really happy to be in a more laid-back and artistic environment where there was a lot of creative energy, spontaneity, and warmth (and no talk of Leetcode or FAANG internships).

It wasn’t all bad though. She has a very nice job lined up for her after graduation (Product Manager at a unicorn tech company with a lot of Stanford alumni and ex-FAANG workers) that she mainly got through networking with Stanford alums.

Sounds like a terrible fit, but not surprising whatsoever. I guess she wanted the name more than a good fit.

Not at all, just an honest assessment. In the end, degree completed, job attained, and a matured perspective on industry and personalities that's hard to glean from the outside.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My daughter, who's white, quit CS during her first year to do political instead. She got great grades but found the culture and department to be stressful and alienating as a woman from a low-income Midwestern background. Her best friend, Asian American from CA, stuck with CS but took 6 years to graduate and enjoyed her English and Classics classes a lot more. Of course, it all worked out; DD got into a T14 law school and best friend is a Product Manager at FAANG but neither enjoyed college very much.

PP with the unhappy Black daughter here. Yes, “neither enjoyed college very much” really resonates — the happiest students at Stanford tend to be either the Greeks or the ones who are happy with the competitive, fast-paced, and achievement-oriented culture.

And the athletes! My son and his teammates had a blast at Stanford and have gone on to do well in a variety of fields, as have their friends from other teams. Both the general alumni network and the athlete one are very strong.

PP here. Yes, the athletes are quite happy too — they’re a tight knit group.

Stanford is one of the places where the recent athletes don't seem to do quite as well professionally though. There are wonderful exceptions but it was too bad when I was on campus how concentrated athletes, especially in sports like football and basketball, were in certain majors. What is Science, Technology & Society anyway?

I am an alum and I disagree with this. Their alumni athletes do very, very well, probably because they tend to be excellent students too. In some ways they fit the current Stanford mold well: exceptionally competitive and exceptionally project management oriented.

The academic profiles of Stanford's revenue-generating or close to revenue-generating sport athletes also don't stack up well with the Ivy League athletes in those sports, so it isn't shocking they might not do quite as well. Science, Technology & Society has been big in football for a while. The athletes have a lot of academic support though, which Stanford doubled down on after some trouble with the Lopez twins.
Guys like Andrew Luck and Christian McCaffrey have done better than just about anyone in their years too

Why would the academic profiles of Stanford's revenue-generating athletes "stack up well" against the Ivy Leagues? Stanford is recruiting to win a national championship in football, basketball and baseball...while Ivy Leagues have absolutely no illusion they will ever win a national championship in those sports (even Princeton was surprised they were in the Sweet 16...Penn made it to the Final 4 in 1979).

Duke historically for men's basketball...well let's be honest, there really were no academic standards other than the absolute minimum. Up until the NBA changed their rules, nearly the entire starting 5 only attended Duke for 1 year and then jumped to the NBA...and that was understood and tolerated even when they were recruited.

I bet if you compare the stats of say Ivy League lacrosse teams, you might find them reversed compared to Stanford.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My daughter, who's white, quit CS during her first year to do political instead. She got great grades but found the culture and department to be stressful and alienating as a woman from a low-income Midwestern background. Her best friend, Asian American from CA, stuck with CS but took 6 years to graduate and enjoyed her English and Classics classes a lot more. Of course, it all worked out; DD got into a T14 law school and best friend is a Product Manager at FAANG but neither enjoyed college very much.

PP with the unhappy Black daughter here. Yes, “neither enjoyed college very much” really resonates — the happiest students at Stanford tend to be either the Greeks or the ones who are happy with the competitive, fast-paced, and achievement-oriented culture.

And the athletes! My son and his teammates had a blast at Stanford and have gone on to do well in a variety of fields, as have their friends from other teams. Both the general alumni network and the athlete one are very strong.

PP here. Yes, the athletes are quite happy too — they’re a tight knit group.

Stanford is one of the places where the recent athletes don't seem to do quite as well professionally though. There are wonderful exceptions but it was too bad when I was on campus how concentrated athletes, especially in sports like football and basketball, were in certain majors. What is Science, Technology & Society anyway?

I am an alum and I disagree with this. Their alumni athletes do very, very well, probably because they tend to be excellent students too. In some ways they fit the current Stanford mold well: exceptionally competitive and exceptionally project management oriented.

The academic profiles of Stanford's revenue-generating or close to revenue-generating sport athletes also don't stack up well with the Ivy League athletes in those sports, so it isn't shocking they might not do quite as well. Science, Technology & Society has been big in football for a while. The athletes have a lot of academic support though, which Stanford doubled down on after some trouble with the Lopez twins.
Guys like Andrew Luck and Christian McCaffrey have done better than just about anyone in their years too

Why would the academic profiles of Stanford's revenue-generating athletes "stack up well" against the Ivy Leagues? Stanford is recruiting to win a national championship in football, basketball and baseball...while Ivy Leagues have absolutely no illusion they will ever win a national championship in those sports (even Princeton was surprised they were in the Sweet 16...Penn made it to the Final 4 in 1979).

Duke historically for men's basketball...well let's be honest, there really were no academic standards other than the absolute minimum. Up until the NBA changed their rules, nearly the entire starting 5 only attended Duke for 1 year and then jumped to the NBA...and that was understood and tolerated even when they were recruited.

I bet if you compare the stats of say Ivy League lacrosse teams, you might find them reversed compared to Stanford.

Why does it matter that much? Everyone knows Stanford is a D-1 school and no one really thinks its recruited athletes are, on average, as smart as Ivy League athletes. But they still stand to benefit from a Stanford education and capitalize on the connections they've made and the alumni network.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My daughter, who's white, quit CS during her first year to do political instead. She got great grades but found the culture and department to be stressful and alienating as a woman from a low-income Midwestern background. Her best friend, Asian American from CA, stuck with CS but took 6 years to graduate and enjoyed her English and Classics classes a lot more. Of course, it all worked out; DD got into a T14 law school and best friend is a Product Manager at FAANG but neither enjoyed college very much.

PP with the unhappy Black daughter here. Yes, “neither enjoyed college very much” really resonates — the happiest students at Stanford tend to be either the Greeks or the ones who are happy with the competitive, fast-paced, and achievement-oriented culture.

And the athletes! My son and his teammates had a blast at Stanford and have gone on to do well in a variety of fields, as have their friends from other teams. Both the general alumni network and the athlete one are very strong.

PP here. Yes, the athletes are quite happy too — they’re a tight knit group.

Stanford is one of the places where the recent athletes don't seem to do quite as well professionally though. There are wonderful exceptions but it was too bad when I was on campus how concentrated athletes, especially in sports like football and basketball, were in certain majors. What is Science, Technology & Society anyway?

I am an alum and I disagree with this. Their alumni athletes do very, very well, probably because they tend to be excellent students too. In some ways they fit the current Stanford mold well: exceptionally competitive and exceptionally project management oriented.

The academic profiles of Stanford's revenue-generating or close to revenue-generating sport athletes also don't stack up well with the Ivy League athletes in those sports, so it isn't shocking they might not do quite as well. Science, Technology & Society has been big in football for a while. The athletes have a lot of academic support though, which Stanford doubled down on after some trouble with the Lopez twins.
Guys like Andrew Luck and Christian McCaffrey have done better than just about anyone in their years too

Their academic profiles might not match the Ivies, but you are flat-out wrong about their outcomes. They do exceptionally well and also as a group are some of the wealthiest and most regular donors to the school.

Maybe you don’t have visibility into the alumni? You said you were “on campus” — what does that mean? Because I don’t know any alumni that would say what you did about the outcomes of the athletes.

+1 many of Stanford’s athletes go on to successful careers. The closest comparison is Duke and many of their athletes go on to success in business and other endeavors (as we saw in recent news with the group of Duke athlete alumni making that $7B bid for the Washington Commanders), Stanford is likely the same. It shouldn’t be too surprising as first and foremost Stanford and Duke are crème-de-la-crème universities, with athletics second.

+1 The education at the top non-ivies means even elite athletes there tend to be pretty smart. Even if you look across Stanford's and Duke's NCAA championship-competing athletes many of them will go on to have successful careers, and in large part they would've chose those specific schools for that reason. The main exceptions would be Duke basketball and Stanford football. But either way Stanford and Duke are outliers since they're really in a class of their own being at the top of both athletics and academics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My daughter is graduating from Stanford in the next few weeks (well, technically she graduated last year but she stayed on campus for another year for a coterm — more on that later) and we all really regret the decision.

She was a Black woman in CS — the amount of racist, sexist comments and actions that have been thrown at her have really demoralized her. Stanford’s undergraduate student body is ~6% Black (already lower than peer schools), and the percent plummets in CS. She was the only African-American woman in her graduating CS class (there are a few more Black girls who majored in CS in her year, but she told me that they were all international students), and her CS classes were overwhelmingly white and Asian (the few non-Asian minorities in her CS classes were almost all men).

The summer after her sophomore year at Stanford, DD had an internship at a FAANG. Many of her white/Asian classmates commented that she was “unqualified” for such an internship (because someone with a 3.8 as a CS major at Stanford is definitely not qualified) and was a “diversity hire.” Students are VERY competitive about internships/med school admissions; CS is by far the most popular major on campus (something like ~20% of undergrads major in it), and Bio is the next most popular.

It’s not a particularly creative campus. Not a ton of emphasis on the arts. DD majored in film studies but is co-terming (basically taking a fifth year to complete a double major) in CS. She told me that the arts community at Stanford is not particularly active with the exception of a few student acapella and theatre groups. Many of her CS classmates looked down on her for also majoring in film studies, saying that she should instead double major in something useful like Math or Economics… Um, she’s already co-terming in CS! It’s a very sterile, soulless, and risk-averse place.


It’s also a pretty socially dead campus, with much of the social life happening in Greek life (which only 20% of the school is in). The non-Greeks at the school have a much more tame social life, with a lot of studying, grinding, and striving. It’s not a laid back place at all.

I also think that DD was a poor fit for Stanford culturally.

We live in a pretty racially diverse neighborhood in Brooklyn where a lot of parents work in creative fields. DH and I aren’t in creative fields (we work pretty straight-laced corporate jobs), but most of our friends have an artistic or creative career (or at least a serious hobby in the arts). For high school, DD went to a performing arts magnet high school in NYC — she was really happy in an environment where being quirky, creative, inclusive, artistic, and most importantly, encouraged to fail were all valued traits. Yes, she spent her high school years academically focused and playing a sport. But she also was very active in student theatre, goofed off with her friends making short films, visited sketchy artist studios in Brooklyn (I was not thrilled about this), and spent a lot of weekend nights in terrible DIY basement shows. Stanford students couldn’t relate to this at all — their idea of fun is going to football games, frat parties, building robots, or catching up on problem sets in the library on a Friday night.

She was not happy about how over scheduled and perpetually stressed her classmates were — despite the advertising, the “laid back” California vibes aren’t there at all. It’s a super intense, careerist, and fast-paced (due to the quarter system) pressure cooker of a school. I’ll never forget when DD called me her freshman fall asking if it was normal for college students to have to schedule meals with their classmates nearly a week in advance, with a few kids even asking her to “send me a Google Calendar invite for lunch together for next Tuesday!”


She was relieved when COVID hit in the middle of her sophomore year and she was sent home. Her junior year was all online, and she was thrilled that she didn’t have to step foot in Palo Alto that year. She ended up living with her best friend from high school for her entire junior year at college (2020-2021). Her best friend went to Bard, so my daughter and her friend rented a group house in the Hudson Valley for that year with a couple of my daughter’s bestie’s friends from college. She was really happy to be in a more laid-back and artistic environment where there was a lot of creative energy, spontaneity, and warmth (and no talk of Leetcode or FAANG internships).

It wasn’t all bad though. She has a very nice job lined up for her after graduation (Product Manager at a unicorn tech company with a lot of Stanford alumni and ex-FAANG workers) that she mainly got through networking with Stanford alums.

Sounds like a terrible fit, but not surprising whatsoever. I guess she wanted the name more than a good fit.

Not at all, just an honest assessment. In the end, degree completed, job attained, and a matured perspective on industry and personalities that's hard to glean from the outside.

Of course an honest assessment – but still not surprising and predictable. Your daughter chose the name rather than the fit. That’s fine but I hope she doesn’t carry around a chip on her shoulder about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My daughter is graduating from Stanford in the next few weeks (well, technically she graduated last year but she stayed on campus for another year for a coterm — more on that later) and we all really regret the decision.

She was a Black woman in CS — the amount of racist, sexist comments and actions that have been thrown at her have really demoralized her. Stanford’s undergraduate student body is ~6% Black (already lower than peer schools), and the percent plummets in CS. She was the only African-American woman in her graduating CS class (there are a few more Black girls who majored in CS in her year, but she told me that they were all international students), and her CS classes were overwhelmingly white and Asian (the few non-Asian minorities in her CS classes were almost all men).

The summer after her sophomore year at Stanford, DD had an internship at a FAANG. Many of her white/Asian classmates commented that she was “unqualified” for such an internship (because someone with a 3.8 as a CS major at Stanford is definitely not qualified) and was a “diversity hire.” Students are VERY competitive about internships/med school admissions; CS is by far the most popular major on campus (something like ~20% of undergrads major in it), and Bio is the next most popular.

It’s not a particularly creative campus. Not a ton of emphasis on the arts. DD majored in film studies but is co-terming (basically taking a fifth year to complete a double major) in CS. She told me that the arts community at Stanford is not particularly active with the exception of a few student acapella and theatre groups. Many of her CS classmates looked down on her for also majoring in film studies, saying that she should instead double major in something useful like Math or Economics… Um, she’s already co-terming in CS! It’s a very sterile, soulless, and risk-averse place.


It’s also a pretty socially dead campus, with much of the social life happening in Greek life (which only 20% of the school is in). The non-Greeks at the school have a much more tame social life, with a lot of studying, grinding, and striving. It’s not a laid back place at all.

I also think that DD was a poor fit for Stanford culturally.

We live in a pretty racially diverse neighborhood in Brooklyn where a lot of parents work in creative fields. DH and I aren’t in creative fields (we work pretty straight-laced corporate jobs), but most of our friends have an artistic or creative career (or at least a serious hobby in the arts). For high school, DD went to a performing arts magnet high school in NYC — she was really happy in an environment where being quirky, creative, inclusive, artistic, and most importantly, encouraged to fail were all valued traits. Yes, she spent her high school years academically focused and playing a sport. But she also was very active in student theatre, goofed off with her friends making short films, visited sketchy artist studios in Brooklyn (I was not thrilled about this), and spent a lot of weekend nights in terrible DIY basement shows. Stanford students couldn’t relate to this at all — their idea of fun is going to football games, frat parties, building robots, or catching up on problem sets in the library on a Friday night.

She was not happy about how over scheduled and perpetually stressed her classmates were — despite the advertising, the “laid back” California vibes aren’t there at all. It’s a super intense, careerist, and fast-paced (due to the quarter system) pressure cooker of a school. I’ll never forget when DD called me her freshman fall asking if it was normal for college students to have to schedule meals with their classmates nearly a week in advance, with a few kids even asking her to “send me a Google Calendar invite for lunch together for next Tuesday!”


She was relieved when COVID hit in the middle of her sophomore year and she was sent home. Her junior year was all online, and she was thrilled that she didn’t have to step foot in Palo Alto that year. She ended up living with her best friend from high school for her entire junior year at college (2020-2021). Her best friend went to Bard, so my daughter and her friend rented a group house in the Hudson Valley for that year with a couple of my daughter’s bestie’s friends from college. She was really happy to be in a more laid-back and artistic environment where there was a lot of creative energy, spontaneity, and warmth (and no talk of Leetcode or FAANG internships).

It wasn’t all bad though. She has a very nice job lined up for her after graduation (Product Manager at a unicorn tech company with a lot of Stanford alumni and ex-FAANG workers) that she mainly got through networking with Stanford alums.

Sounds like a terrible fit, but not surprising whatsoever. I guess she wanted the name more than a good fit.

Not at all, just an honest assessment. In the end, degree completed, job attained, and a matured perspective on industry and personalities that's hard to glean from the outside.

Of course an honest assessment – but still not surprising and predictable. Your daughter chose the name rather than the fit. That’s fine but I hope she doesn’t carry around a chip on her shoulder about it.

I'm a DP, not the parent, yikes!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My daughter is graduating from Stanford in the next few weeks (well, technically she graduated last year but she stayed on campus for another year for a coterm — more on that later) and we all really regret the decision.

She was a Black woman in CS — the amount of racist, sexist comments and actions that have been thrown at her have really demoralized her. Stanford’s undergraduate student body is ~6% Black (already lower than peer schools), and the percent plummets in CS. She was the only African-American woman in her graduating CS class (there are a few more Black girls who majored in CS in her year, but she told me that they were all international students), and her CS classes were overwhelmingly white and Asian (the few non-Asian minorities in her CS classes were almost all men).

The summer after her sophomore year at Stanford, DD had an internship at a FAANG. Many of her white/Asian classmates commented that she was “unqualified” for such an internship (because someone with a 3.8 as a CS major at Stanford is definitely not qualified) and was a “diversity hire.” Students are VERY competitive about internships/med school admissions; CS is by far the most popular major on campus (something like ~20% of undergrads major in it), and Bio is the next most popular.

It’s not a particularly creative campus. Not a ton of emphasis on the arts. DD majored in film studies but is co-terming (basically taking a fifth year to complete a double major) in CS. She told me that the arts community at Stanford is not particularly active with the exception of a few student acapella and theatre groups. Many of her CS classmates looked down on her for also majoring in film studies, saying that she should instead double major in something useful like Math or Economics… Um, she’s already co-terming in CS! It’s a very sterile, soulless, and risk-averse place.


It’s also a pretty socially dead campus, with much of the social life happening in Greek life (which only 20% of the school is in). The non-Greeks at the school have a much more tame social life, with a lot of studying, grinding, and striving. It’s not a laid back place at all.

I also think that DD was a poor fit for Stanford culturally.

We live in a pretty racially diverse neighborhood in Brooklyn where a lot of parents work in creative fields. DH and I aren’t in creative fields (we work pretty straight-laced corporate jobs), but most of our friends have an artistic or creative career (or at least a serious hobby in the arts). For high school, DD went to a performing arts magnet high school in NYC — she was really happy in an environment where being quirky, creative, inclusive, artistic, and most importantly, encouraged to fail were all valued traits. Yes, she spent her high school years academically focused and playing a sport. But she also was very active in student theatre, goofed off with her friends making short films, visited sketchy artist studios in Brooklyn (I was not thrilled about this), and spent a lot of weekend nights in terrible DIY basement shows. Stanford students couldn’t relate to this at all — their idea of fun is going to football games, frat parties, building robots, or catching up on problem sets in the library on a Friday night.

She was not happy about how over scheduled and perpetually stressed her classmates were — despite the advertising, the “laid back” California vibes aren’t there at all. It’s a super intense, careerist, and fast-paced (due to the quarter system) pressure cooker of a school. I’ll never forget when DD called me her freshman fall asking if it was normal for college students to have to schedule meals with their classmates nearly a week in advance, with a few kids even asking her to “send me a Google Calendar invite for lunch together for next Tuesday!”


She was relieved when COVID hit in the middle of her sophomore year and she was sent home. Her junior year was all online, and she was thrilled that she didn’t have to step foot in Palo Alto that year. She ended up living with her best friend from high school for her entire junior year at college (2020-2021). Her best friend went to Bard, so my daughter and her friend rented a group house in the Hudson Valley for that year with a couple of my daughter’s bestie’s friends from college. She was really happy to be in a more laid-back and artistic environment where there was a lot of creative energy, spontaneity, and warmth (and no talk of Leetcode or FAANG internships).

It wasn’t all bad though. She has a very nice job lined up for her after graduation (Product Manager at a unicorn tech company with a lot of Stanford alumni and ex-FAANG workers) that she mainly got through networking with Stanford alums.

Sounds like a terrible fit, but not surprising whatsoever. I guess she wanted the name more than a good fit.

Not at all, just an honest assessment. In the end, degree completed, job attained, and a matured perspective on industry and personalities that's hard to glean from the outside.

Of course an honest assessment – but still not surprising and predictable. Your daughter chose the name rather than the fit. That’s fine but I hope she doesn’t carry around a chip on her shoulder about it.

DP. How was she supposed to know about the fit? It's hard to guess.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My daughter is graduating from Stanford in the next few weeks (well, technically she graduated last year but she stayed on campus for another year for a coterm — more on that later) and we all really regret the decision.

She was a Black woman in CS — the amount of racist, sexist comments and actions that have been thrown at her have really demoralized her. Stanford’s undergraduate student body is ~6% Black (already lower than peer schools), and the percent plummets in CS. She was the only African-American woman in her graduating CS class (there are a few more Black girls who majored in CS in her year, but she told me that they were all international students), and her CS classes were overwhelmingly white and Asian (the few non-Asian minorities in her CS classes were almost all men).

The summer after her sophomore year at Stanford, DD had an internship at a FAANG. Many of her white/Asian classmates commented that she was “unqualified” for such an internship (because someone with a 3.8 as a CS major at Stanford is definitely not qualified) and was a “diversity hire.” Students are VERY competitive about internships/med school admissions; CS is by far the most popular major on campus (something like ~20% of undergrads major in it), and Bio is the next most popular.

It’s not a particularly creative campus. Not a ton of emphasis on the arts. DD majored in film studies but is co-terming (basically taking a fifth year to complete a double major) in CS. She told me that the arts community at Stanford is not particularly active with the exception of a few student acapella and theatre groups. Many of her CS classmates looked down on her for also majoring in film studies, saying that she should instead double major in something useful like Math or Economics… Um, she’s already co-terming in CS! It’s a very sterile, soulless, and risk-averse place.


It’s also a pretty socially dead campus, with much of the social life happening in Greek life (which only 20% of the school is in). The non-Greeks at the school have a much more tame social life, with a lot of studying, grinding, and striving. It’s not a laid back place at all.

I also think that DD was a poor fit for Stanford culturally.

We live in a pretty racially diverse neighborhood in Brooklyn where a lot of parents work in creative fields. DH and I aren’t in creative fields (we work pretty straight-laced corporate jobs), but most of our friends have an artistic or creative career (or at least a serious hobby in the arts). For high school, DD went to a performing arts magnet high school in NYC — she was really happy in an environment where being quirky, creative, inclusive, artistic, and most importantly, encouraged to fail were all valued traits. Yes, she spent her high school years academically focused and playing a sport. But she also was very active in student theatre, goofed off with her friends making short films, visited sketchy artist studios in Brooklyn (I was not thrilled about this), and spent a lot of weekend nights in terrible DIY basement shows. Stanford students couldn’t relate to this at all — their idea of fun is going to football games, frat parties, building robots, or catching up on problem sets in the library on a Friday night.

She was not happy about how over scheduled and perpetually stressed her classmates were — despite the advertising, the “laid back” California vibes aren’t there at all. It’s a super intense, careerist, and fast-paced (due to the quarter system) pressure cooker of a school. I’ll never forget when DD called me her freshman fall asking if it was normal for college students to have to schedule meals with their classmates nearly a week in advance, with a few kids even asking her to “send me a Google Calendar invite for lunch together for next Tuesday!”


She was relieved when COVID hit in the middle of her sophomore year and she was sent home. Her junior year was all online, and she was thrilled that she didn’t have to step foot in Palo Alto that year. She ended up living with her best friend from high school for her entire junior year at college (2020-2021). Her best friend went to Bard, so my daughter and her friend rented a group house in the Hudson Valley for that year with a couple of my daughter’s bestie’s friends from college. She was really happy to be in a more laid-back and artistic environment where there was a lot of creative energy, spontaneity, and warmth (and no talk of Leetcode or FAANG internships).

It wasn’t all bad though. She has a very nice job lined up for her after graduation (Product Manager at a unicorn tech company with a lot of Stanford alumni and ex-FAANG workers) that she mainly got through networking with Stanford alums.

Sounds like a terrible fit, but not surprising whatsoever. I guess she wanted the name more than a good fit.

Not at all, just an honest assessment. In the end, degree completed, job attained, and a matured perspective on industry and personalities that's hard to glean from the outside.

Of course an honest assessment – but still not surprising and predictable. Your daughter chose the name rather than the fit. That’s fine but I hope she doesn’t carry around a chip on her shoulder about it.

DP. How was she supposed to know about the fit? It's hard to guess.

I'm the other DP again, and I agree. There's just a mean spirited smugness about the people saying it should have been obvious. Anyway, my point is although it was unpleasant, what she got out of the experience is valuable, and actually what many people go to Stanford seeking. Perhaps they are more eyes-wide-open going in, but once the degree is granted, that's moot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My daughter is graduating from Stanford in the next few weeks (well, technically she graduated last year but she stayed on campus for another year for a coterm — more on that later) and we all really regret the decision.

She was a Black woman in CS — the amount of racist, sexist comments and actions that have been thrown at her have really demoralized her. Stanford’s undergraduate student body is ~6% Black (already lower than peer schools), and the percent plummets in CS. She was the only African-American woman in her graduating CS class (there are a few more Black girls who majored in CS in her year, but she told me that they were all international students), and her CS classes were overwhelmingly white and Asian (the few non-Asian minorities in her CS classes were almost all men).

The summer after her sophomore year at Stanford, DD had an internship at a FAANG. Many of her white/Asian classmates commented that she was “unqualified” for such an internship (because someone with a 3.8 as a CS major at Stanford is definitely not qualified) and was a “diversity hire.” Students are VERY competitive about internships/med school admissions; CS is by far the most popular major on campus (something like ~20% of undergrads major in it), and Bio is the next most popular.

It’s not a particularly creative campus. Not a ton of emphasis on the arts. DD majored in film studies but is co-terming (basically taking a fifth year to complete a double major) in CS. She told me that the arts community at Stanford is not particularly active with the exception of a few student acapella and theatre groups. Many of her CS classmates looked down on her for also majoring in film studies, saying that she should instead double major in something useful like Math or Economics… Um, she’s already co-terming in CS! It’s a very sterile, soulless, and risk-averse place.


It’s also a pretty socially dead campus, with much of the social life happening in Greek life (which only 20% of the school is in). The non-Greeks at the school have a much more tame social life, with a lot of studying, grinding, and striving. It’s not a laid back place at all.

I also think that DD was a poor fit for Stanford culturally.

We live in a pretty racially diverse neighborhood in Brooklyn where a lot of parents work in creative fields. DH and I aren’t in creative fields (we work pretty straight-laced corporate jobs), but most of our friends have an artistic or creative career (or at least a serious hobby in the arts). For high school, DD went to a performing arts magnet high school in NYC — she was really happy in an environment where being quirky, creative, inclusive, artistic, and most importantly, encouraged to fail were all valued traits. Yes, she spent her high school years academically focused and playing a sport. But she also was very active in student theatre, goofed off with her friends making short films, visited sketchy artist studios in Brooklyn (I was not thrilled about this), and spent a lot of weekend nights in terrible DIY basement shows. Stanford students couldn’t relate to this at all — their idea of fun is going to football games, frat parties, building robots, or catching up on problem sets in the library on a Friday night.

She was not happy about how over scheduled and perpetually stressed her classmates were — despite the advertising, the “laid back” California vibes aren’t there at all. It’s a super intense, careerist, and fast-paced (due to the quarter system) pressure cooker of a school. I’ll never forget when DD called me her freshman fall asking if it was normal for college students to have to schedule meals with their classmates nearly a week in advance, with a few kids even asking her to “send me a Google Calendar invite for lunch together for next Tuesday!”


She was relieved when COVID hit in the middle of her sophomore year and she was sent home. Her junior year was all online, and she was thrilled that she didn’t have to step foot in Palo Alto that year. She ended up living with her best friend from high school for her entire junior year at college (2020-2021). Her best friend went to Bard, so my daughter and her friend rented a group house in the Hudson Valley for that year with a couple of my daughter’s bestie’s friends from college. She was really happy to be in a more laid-back and artistic environment where there was a lot of creative energy, spontaneity, and warmth (and no talk of Leetcode or FAANG internships).

It wasn’t all bad though. She has a very nice job lined up for her after graduation (Product Manager at a unicorn tech company with a lot of Stanford alumni and ex-FAANG workers) that she mainly got through networking with Stanford alums.

Sounds like a terrible fit, but not surprising whatsoever. I guess she wanted the name more than a good fit.

Not at all, just an honest assessment. In the end, degree completed, job attained, and a matured perspective on industry and personalities that's hard to glean from the outside.

Of course an honest assessment – but still not surprising and predictable. Your daughter chose the name rather than the fit. That’s fine but I hope she doesn’t carry around a chip on her shoulder about it.

DP. How was she supposed to know about the fit? It's hard to guess.

I'm the other DP again, and I agree. There's just a mean spirited smugness about the people saying it should have been obvious. Anyway, my point is although it was unpleasant, what she got out of the experience is valuable, and actually what many people go to Stanford seeking. Perhaps they are more eyes-wide-open going in, but once the degree is granted, that's moot.

I don't disagree that it is hard to know if a school will be a good fit, considering spending 1/2 a day someplace won't really give you a full picture.

However, PP specifically mentioned that the school is only ~6% AA and even less in CS...and it turns out it was a bad experience for her AA daughter. In this instance, PP had hard data on the demographics, but plowed ahead...and guess what, seems like she had the exact experience she might expect based on these demographics.

FWIW...not sure the experience is significantly different at any of the Top 10 schools.

[Anonymous]

Think it's pretty clear at this point that one goes to Stanford undergrad for the connections and not the experience. The fun nerd vibe of the 90s is a long time ago. Stanford and Palo Alto are extremely transactional. If a student doesn't vibe with that, they will be miserable.

Multi-generational Stanford family here. I don't personally care, but Stanford is not interesting presently. They made some poor choices. Stanford has the resources to be an intellectual hub for everything. But they went all in with tech corporate groupthink and as a consequence Stanford undergrad is walk-on-eggshells boring. Students suck it up for four years. Get the resume boost. And get their little jobs in private equity or venture capital

Lame

Avarice is what defines Stanford these days

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Think it's pretty clear at this point that one goes to Stanford undergrad for the connections and not the experience. The fun nerd vibe of the 90s is a long time ago. Stanford and Palo Alto are extremely transactional. If a student doesn't vibe with that, they will be miserable.

Multi-generational Stanford family here. I don't personally care, but Stanford is not interesting presently. They made some poor choices. Stanford has the resources to be an intellectual hub for everything. But they went all in with tech corporate groupthink and as a consequence Stanford undergrad is walk-on-eggshells boring. Students suck it up for four years. Get the resume boost. And get their little jobs in private equity or venture capital

Lame

Avarice is what defines Stanford these days

Not just Stanford, but the trend at all major US universities is toward more tech/STEM. These students tend to be more entrepreneurial and goal focused than the typical liberal arts/intellectual types.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Think it's pretty clear at this point that one goes to Stanford undergrad for the connections and not the experience. The fun nerd vibe of the 90s is a long time ago. Stanford and Palo Alto are extremely transactional. If a student doesn't vibe with that, they will be miserable.

Multi-generational Stanford family here. I don't personally care, but Stanford is not interesting presently. They made some poor choices. Stanford has the resources to be an intellectual hub for everything. But they went all in with tech corporate groupthink and as a consequence Stanford undergrad is walk-on-eggshells boring. Students suck it up for four years. Get the resume boost. And get their little jobs in private equity or venture capital

Lame

Avarice is what defines Stanford these days

Not just Stanford, but the trend at all major US universities is toward more tech/STEM. These students tend to be more entrepreneurial and goal focused than the typical liberal arts/intellectual types.

So a tech/STEM major is not an intellectual type.

(In fact, STEM majors are more intellectual than "the typical liberal arts/intellectual types".)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Think it's pretty clear at this point that one goes to Stanford undergrad for the connections and not the experience. The fun nerd vibe of the 90s is a long time ago. Stanford and Palo Alto are extremely transactional. If a student doesn't vibe with that, they will be miserable.

Multi-generational Stanford family here. I don't personally care, but Stanford is not interesting presently. They made some poor choices. Stanford has the resources to be an intellectual hub for everything. But they went all in with tech corporate groupthink and as a consequence Stanford undergrad is walk-on-eggshells boring. Students suck it up for four years. Get the resume boost. And get their little jobs in private equity or venture capital

Lame

Avarice is what defines Stanford these days

Not just Stanford, but the trend at all major US universities is toward more tech/STEM. These students tend to be more entrepreneurial and goal focused than the typical liberal arts/intellectual types.

So a tech/STEM major is not an intellectual type.

(In fact, STEM majors are more intellectual than "the typical liberal arts/intellectual types".)

No they’re not. All they care about is the almighty dollar.

[Anonymous]

[mastodon]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Think it's pretty clear at this point that one goes to Stanford undergrad for the connections and not the experience. The fun nerd vibe of the 90s is a long time ago. Stanford and Palo Alto are extremely transactional. If a student doesn't vibe with that, they will be miserable.

Multi-generational Stanford family here. I don't personally care, but Stanford is not interesting presently. They made some poor choices. Stanford has the resources to be an intellectual hub for everything. But they went all in with tech corporate groupthink and as a consequence Stanford undergrad is walk-on-eggshells boring. Students suck it up for four years. Get the resume boost. And get their little jobs in private equity or venture capital

Lame

Avarice is what defines Stanford these days

Not just Stanford, but the trend at all major US universities is toward more tech/STEM. These students tend to be more entrepreneurial and goal focused than the typical liberal arts/intellectual types.

So a tech/STEM major is not an intellectual type.

(In fact, STEM majors are more intellectual than "the typical liberal arts/intellectual types".)

No they’re not. All they care about is the almighty dollar.

Oh come on. The average CS major is far more intellectual than the average English major.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My daughter is graduating from Stanford in the next few weeks (well, technically she graduated last year but she stayed on campus for another year for a coterm — more on that later) and we all really regret the decision.

She was a Black woman in CS — the amount of racist, sexist comments and actions that have been thrown at her have really demoralized her. Stanford’s undergraduate student body is ~6% Black (already lower than peer schools), and the percent plummets in CS. She was the only African-American woman in her graduating CS class (there are a few more Black girls who majored in CS in her year, but she told me that they were all international students), and her CS classes were overwhelmingly white and Asian (the few non-Asian minorities in her CS classes were almost all men).

The summer after her sophomore year at Stanford, DD had an internship at a FAANG. Many of her white/Asian classmates commented that she was “unqualified” for such an internship (because someone with a 3.8 as a CS major at Stanford is definitely not qualified) and was a “diversity hire.” Students are VERY competitive about internships/med school admissions; CS is by far the most popular major on campus (something like ~20% of undergrads major in it), and Bio is the next most popular.

It’s not a particularly creative campus. Not a ton of emphasis on the arts. DD majored in film studies but is co-terming (basically taking a fifth year to complete a double major) in CS. She told me that the arts community at Stanford is not particularly active with the exception of a few student acapella and theatre groups. Many of her CS classmates looked down on her for also majoring in film studies, saying that she should instead double major in something useful like Math or Economics… Um, she’s already co-terming in CS! It’s a very sterile, soulless, and risk-averse place.


It’s also a pretty socially dead campus, with much of the social life happening in Greek life (which only 20% of the school is in). The non-Greeks at the school have a much more tame social life, with a lot of studying, grinding, and striving. It’s not a laid back place at all.

I also think that DD was a poor fit for Stanford culturally.

We live in a pretty racially diverse neighborhood in Brooklyn where a lot of parents work in creative fields. DH and I aren’t in creative fields (we work pretty straight-laced corporate jobs), but most of our friends have an artistic or creative career (or at least a serious hobby in the arts). For high school, DD went to a performing arts magnet high school in NYC — she was really happy in an environment where being quirky, creative, inclusive, artistic, and most importantly, encouraged to fail were all valued traits. Yes, she spent her high school years academically focused and playing a sport. But she also was very active in student theatre, goofed off with her friends making short films, visited sketchy artist studios in Brooklyn (I was not thrilled about this), and spent a lot of weekend nights in terrible DIY basement shows. Stanford students couldn’t relate to this at all — their idea of fun is going to football games, frat parties, building robots, or catching up on problem sets in the library on a Friday night.

She was not happy about how over scheduled and perpetually stressed her classmates were — despite the advertising, the “laid back” California vibes aren’t there at all. It’s a super intense, careerist, and fast-paced (due to the quarter system) pressure cooker of a school. I’ll never forget when DD called me her freshman fall asking if it was normal for college students to have to schedule meals with their classmates nearly a week in advance, with a few kids even asking her to “send me a Google Calendar invite for lunch together for next Tuesday!”


She was relieved when COVID hit in the middle of her sophomore year and she was sent home. Her junior year was all online, and she was thrilled that she didn’t have to step foot in Palo Alto that year. She ended up living with her best friend from high school for her entire junior year at college (2020-2021). Her best friend went to Bard, so my daughter and her friend rented a group house in the Hudson Valley for that year with a couple of my daughter’s bestie’s friends from college. She was really happy to be in a more laid-back and artistic environment where there was a lot of creative energy, spontaneity, and warmth (and no talk of Leetcode or FAANG internships).

It wasn’t all bad though. She has a very nice job lined up for her after graduation (Product Manager at a unicorn tech company with a lot of Stanford alumni and ex-FAANG workers) that she mainly got through networking with Stanford alums.

Sounds like a terrible fit, but not surprising whatsoever. I guess she wanted the name more than a good fit.

Not at all, just an honest assessment. In the end, degree completed, job attained, and a matured perspective on industry and personalities that's hard to glean from the outside.

Of course an honest assessment – but still not surprising and predictable. Your daughter chose the name rather than the fit. That’s fine but I hope she doesn’t carry around a chip on her shoulder about it.

DP. How was she supposed to know about the fit? It's hard to guess.

I'm the other DP again, and I agree. There's just a mean spirited smugness about the people saying it should have been obvious. Anyway, my point is although it was unpleasant, what she got out of the experience is valuable, and actually what many people go to Stanford seeking. Perhaps they are more eyes-wide-open going in, but once the degree is granted, that's moot.

I agree, there’s a mean spirited smugness. They seem jealous.