What is Stanford like?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DS is thinking about applying to Stanford REA. We know it’s a long shot as an unhooked candidate (full-pay white male from W school), but it’s excellent for CS and he’s allured by the laid back CA culture and weather. Anyone have a recent grad?

Duck Syndrome is real. Don’t let the weather and expansive campus fool you that many students are stressed.

Different from HYP as it includes world class athletes along with very nerdy types and others in between.

Nevertheless, Stanford is very alluring with the opportunity to collaborate with brilliant minds.

HYP has some world-class athletes.

Princeton has a recent Norwegian-American graduate who won a gold medal in pole vault at the 2023 European Indoor Championships. Another guy won an NCAA championship in wrestling this past year. And Bella Alarie was the 5th overall pick in the 2020 WNBA draft.

HYP has very few athletes who were offered by Stanford though (Bella was not recruited hard by Stanford) and very few who are at that power 5 level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the campus is objectively beautiful but somewhat soulless. Just feels very corporate and overly manicured. I don’t get the Taco Bell complaints though.

I went to grad school there 20+ years ago (so zero knowledge about the current undergrad experience) but I'd say that's an accurate descriptor of the space. Honestly I was totally wowed by it when I first arrive - lemon trees out my window! blue sky every day!! mission-ish style architecture! But I rather despised Palo Alto and looking back on the campus I remember it as feeling rather sterile even then.

Pretty representative of the Bay Area as a whole…. Gorgeous but sterile

Where is this "sterile" sh!t coming from? I was out there a couple of weeks ago and it didn't seem sterile to me. Lots of diversity, lots of very fine restaurants, booming tech economy. It's certainly less sterile than the DMV, which is endless colonial homes and strip malls sprawling out for miles and miles.

It's probably a perception that the Bay Area has become less creative and more corporate over time, and that the young adults who make a point of going to a school like Stanford aren't all that different from kids gravitating towards Penn with the hope of going to Wharton and landing a job with a hedge fund.

Plus the real estate is expensive so some people take out their anger at how little money buys there to call the area sterile.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the campus is objectively beautiful but somewhat soulless. Just feels very corporate and overly manicured. I don’t get the Taco Bell complaints though.

I went to grad school there 20+ years ago (so zero knowledge about the current undergrad experience) but I'd say that's an accurate descriptor of the space. Honestly I was totally wowed by it when I first arrive - lemon trees out my window! blue sky every day!! mission-ish style architecture! But I rather despised Palo Alto and looking back on the campus I remember it as feeling rather sterile even then.

Pretty representative of the Bay Area as a whole…. Gorgeous but sterile

The Bay Area isn't sterile and to say that during Pride month is especially laughable.
SF, Oakland, Berkeley, the peninsula, and San Jose all have distinct feels and very different populations.
I loved living in Palo Alto, especially once I was in my upper 20s. The wealth was a little hard to get used to though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the campus is objectively beautiful but somewhat soulless. Just feels very corporate and overly manicured. I don’t get the Taco Bell complaints though.

I went to grad school there 20+ years ago (so zero knowledge about the current undergrad experience) but I'd say that's an accurate descriptor of the space. Honestly I was totally wowed by it when I first arrive - lemon trees out my window! blue sky every day!! mission-ish style architecture! But I rather despised Palo Alto and looking back on the campus I remember it as feeling rather sterile even then.

Pretty representative of the Bay Area as a whole…. Gorgeous but sterile

The Bay Area isn't sterile and to say that during Pride month is especially laughable.
SF, Oakland, Berkeley, the peninsula, and San Jose all have distinct feels and very different populations.
I loved living in Palo Alto, especially once I was in my upper 20s. The wealth was a little hard to get used to though.

Berkeley is not sterile. The area around Stanford is for the most part, and Pride Month is hardly a huge event here. Stanford has a nice campus but it’s really a bubble - not very integrated into the very expensive outside community.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the campus is objectively beautiful but somewhat soulless. Just feels very corporate and overly manicured. I don’t get the Taco Bell complaints though.

I went to grad school there 20+ years ago (so zero knowledge about the current undergrad experience) but I'd say that's an accurate descriptor of the space. Honestly I was totally wowed by it when I first arrive - lemon trees out my window! blue sky every day!! mission-ish style architecture! But I rather despised Palo Alto and looking back on the campus I remember it as feeling rather sterile even then.

Pretty representative of the Bay Area as a whole…. Gorgeous but sterile

Where is this "sterile" sh!t coming from? I was out there a couple of weeks ago and it didn't seem sterile to me. Lots of diversity, lots of very fine restaurants, booming tech economy. It's certainly less sterile than the DMV, which is endless colonial homes and strip malls sprawling out for miles and miles.

I guess Palo Alto is not “sterile” considering their $4-5 million aging (literally ancient floor heating) Eichler homes. The tech sector is not exactly booming right now, with even some Stanford CS grads having trouble finding employment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the campus is objectively beautiful but somewhat soulless. Just feels very corporate and overly manicured. I don’t get the Taco Bell complaints though.

I went to grad school there 20+ years ago (so zero knowledge about the current undergrad experience) but I'd say that's an accurate descriptor of the space. Honestly I was totally wowed by it when I first arrive - lemon trees out my window! blue sky every day!! mission-ish style architecture! But I rather despised Palo Alto and looking back on the campus I remember it as feeling rather sterile even then.

Pretty representative of the Bay Area as a whole…. Gorgeous but sterile

Where is this "sterile" sh!t coming from? I was out there a couple of weeks ago and it didn't seem sterile to me. Lots of diversity, lots of very fine restaurants, booming tech economy. It's certainly less sterile than the DMV, which is endless colonial homes and strip malls sprawling out for miles and miles.

I guess Palo Alto is not “sterile” considering their $4-5 million aging (literally ancient floor heating) Eichler homes. The tech sector is not exactly booming right now, with even some Stanford CS grads having trouble finding employment.

Literally every Stanford CS grad I know can find employment. Unfortunately job prospects are bleaker at the schools a couple of tiers down like Wash U, Columbia, and NYU.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DS is thinking about applying to Stanford REA. We know it’s a long shot as an unhooked candidate (full-pay white male from W school), but it’s excellent for CS and he’s allured by the laid back CA culture and weather. Anyone have a recent grad?

Duck Syndrome is real. Don’t let the weather and expansive campus fool you that many students are stressed.

Different from HYP as it includes world class athletes along with very nerdy types and others in between.

Nevertheless, Stanford is very alluring with the opportunity to collaborate with brilliant minds.

HYP has some world-class athletes.

Princeton has a recent Norwegian-American graduate who won a gold medal in pole vault at the 2023 European Indoor Championships. Another guy won an NCAA championship in wrestling this past year. And Bella Alarie was the 5th overall pick in the 2020 WNBA draft.

Suuure they do

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the campus is objectively beautiful but somewhat soulless. Just feels very corporate and overly manicured. I don’t get the Taco Bell complaints though.

I went to grad school there 20+ years ago (so zero knowledge about the current undergrad experience) but I'd say that's an accurate descriptor of the space. Honestly I was totally wowed by it when I first arrive - lemon trees out my window! blue sky every day!! mission-ish style architecture! But I rather despised Palo Alto and looking back on the campus I remember it as feeling rather sterile even then.

Pretty representative of the Bay Area as a whole…. Gorgeous but sterile

Where is this "sterile" sh!t coming from? I was out there a couple of weeks ago and it didn't seem sterile to me. Lots of diversity, lots of very fine restaurants, booming tech economy. It's certainly less sterile than the DMV, which is endless colonial homes and strip malls sprawling out for miles and miles.

It's probably a perception that the Bay Area has become less creative and more corporate over time, and that the young adults who make a point of going to a school like Stanford aren't all that different from kids gravitating towards Penn with the hope of going to Wharton and landing a job with a hedge fund.

Plus the real estate is expensive so some people take out their anger at how little money buys there to call the area sterile.

This is about as ignorant as it comes.