What is Stanford like?

[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.

Why on Earth would she want a soulless tech job after dealing with those types at Stanford? Sounds like jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire.

3 common reasons:

1. $$$
2. Marriage.
3. $$$

PP here with the unhappy Stanford daughter. I don’t understand why you’d fit marriage into this, but yes, money was the main factor. DH and I make enough to cover DD’s Stanford tuition, but we can’t give major financial support beyond that — no money for grad school, no downpayment on a house, etc.

DD wants to be doing film in the long run, so she took our advice and will be working in tech for most of her twenties to build a nest egg (downpayment on property, kickstarting retirement funds, saving up for daycare if she chooses to have kids) until she hits her thirties.

BTW, there’s a big difference between going to college with these tech types and just working with them. DD had to live with these soulless people for four years, which is a lot more intense than just seeing them at work (and her company is letting her work entirely remotely, so she won’t even have to see her coworkers in person).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just like Harvard and the other top 20 schools with the exception of MIT and Princeton, admissions picks the perfect cast from a huge casting call. Once selected the average student graduates with a 3.85, with those above and below average have GPAs a little higher and a little lower and then everyone works really hard to keep the reputation going.

Chicago is no longer the king of where fun goes to die.

Why are MIT and Princeton excepted here? (genuine question)

MIT and Princeton not considered to have substantial grade inflation

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just like Harvard and the other top 20 schools with the exception of MIT and Princeton, admissions picks the perfect cast from a huge casting call. Once selected the average student graduates with a 3.85, with those above and below average have GPAs a little higher and a little lower and then everyone works really hard to keep the reputation going.

Chicago is no longer the king of where fun goes to die.

Why are MIT and Princeton excepted here? (genuine question)

MIT and Princeton not considered to have substantial grade inflation

Stanford won't let a student fail. They will let the student withdraw a week before finals and retake the class more than once to get a passing grade.

[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.

Why on Earth would she want a soulless tech job after dealing with those types at Stanford? Sounds like jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire.

3 common reasons:

1. $$$
2. Marriage.
3. $$$

PP here with the unhappy Stanford daughter. I don’t understand why you’d fit marriage into this, but yes, money was the main factor. DH and I make enough to cover DD’s Stanford tuition, but we can’t give major financial support beyond that — no money for grad school, no downpayment on a house, etc.

DD wants to be doing film in the long run, so she took our advice and will be working in tech for most of her twenties to build a nest egg (downpayment on property, kickstarting retirement funds, saving up for daycare if she chooses to have kids) until she hits her thirties.

BTW, there’s a big difference between going to college with these tech types and just working with them. DD had to live with these soulless people for four years, which is a lot more intense than just seeing them at work (and her company is letting her work entirely remotely, so she won’t even have to see her coworkers in person).

Soulless people? 🙄 geez. My DC is a student there - CS major - and is definitely not “soulless” or intense. Very laidback actually. Has really great friends who I’d say are very interesting and brilliant. While I think he would’ve been fine at HYP where he was also admitted, he doesn’t regret his choice one bit and doesn’t think he would’ve been happier anywhere else.

[Anonymous]

My child is also a CS undergrad there. Happy there, except for the food (I've eaten there many times and I actually like it. Esp Wilbur and the pho). I think the good weather is a big contributor to happynez plus the fact that everyone dresses super casual. Very laidback vibe.

[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.

Why on Earth would she want a soulless tech job after dealing with those types at Stanford? Sounds like jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire.

3 common reasons:

1. $$$
2. Marriage.
3. $$$

PP here with the unhappy Stanford daughter. I don’t understand why you’d fit marriage into this, but yes, money was the main factor. DH and I make enough to cover DD’s Stanford tuition, but we can’t give major financial support beyond that — no money for grad school, no downpayment on a house, etc.

DD wants to be doing film in the long run, so she took our advice and will be working in tech for most of her twenties to build a nest egg (downpayment on property, kickstarting retirement funds, saving up for daycare if she chooses to have kids) until she hits her thirties.

BTW, there’s a big difference between going to college with these tech types and just working with them. DD had to live with these soulless people for four years, which is a lot more intense than just seeing them at work (and her company is letting her work entirely remotely, so she won’t even have to see her coworkers in person).

This is crazy talk. If she wanted to do film she could have easily done it with her elite pedigree and comparative privilege to most “normal folks.” There is not a chance in hell that she will leave her corporate salary, Silicon Valley life to do film in 10 years. Ultimately, you are what you do. By her and your own terms — not mine — she is already a “soulless” sellout. You can’t have your cake and eat it too, that is, be corporate and have condescending disdain for it both. You pick one, and be happy with it: her choice has already been made, whether you and she have the insight to recognize that or not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So much cope here

How does a multi-paragraph comment discussing racism/misogyny at Stanford as well as its overall careerist and competitive culture read as “cope” to you?

Sounds like dumb ungrateful whining not cope.

Does anyone really believe these posters' kids got into Stanford?

[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.

This is a thoughtful post and I’m sorry that your DD did not have a better experience there. She sounds like someone who has held onto the ability to know herself well, and may she have a wonderful next chapter.

I'm sorry PP's kid had a bad experience. It sounds like she would have had a bad experience at HYP as well. Bard is a better fit for super-nonconformist kids.

[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.

Why on Earth would she want a soulless tech job after dealing with those types at Stanford? Sounds like jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire.

3 common reasons:

1. $$$
2. Marriage.
3. $$$

PP here with the unhappy Stanford daughter. I don’t understand why you’d fit marriage into this, but yes, money was the main factor. DH and I make enough to cover DD’s Stanford tuition, but we can’t give major financial support beyond that — no money for grad school, no downpayment on a house, etc.

DD wants to be doing film in the long run, so she took our advice and will be working in tech for most of her twenties to build a nest egg (downpayment on property, kickstarting retirement funds, saving up for daycare if she chooses to have kids) until she hits her thirties.

BTW, there’s a big difference between going to college with these tech types and just working with them. DD had to live with these soulless people for four years, which is a lot more intense than just seeing them at work (and her company is letting her work entirely remotely, so she won’t even have to see her coworkers in person).

This is crazy talk. If she wanted to do film she could have easily done it with her elite pedigree and comparative privilege to most “normal folks.” There is not a chance in hell that she will leave her corporate salary, Silicon Valley life to do film in 10 years. Ultimately, you are what you do. By her and your own terms — not mine — she is already a “soulless” sellout. You can’t have your cake and eat it too, that is, be corporate and have condescending disdain for it both. You pick one, and be happy with it: her choice has already been made, whether you and she have the insight to recognize that or not.

PP here. You are unnecessarily hostile and defensive. Which, actually, is pretty unsurprising given the competitive nature of many of the Silicon Valley types DD had to endure for the past four years.

There are many people who work high paying jobs in tech/finance throughout their twenties and then pivot later on in life once they’ve built a substantial financial nest egg. A good chunk of the people working at NPOs in NYC and DC fit this description (especially women).

[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.

This is a thoughtful post and I’m sorry that your DD did not have a better experience there. She sounds like someone who has held onto the ability to know herself well, and may she have a wonderful next chapter.

I'm sorry PP's kid had a bad experience. It sounds like she would have had a bad experience at HYP as well. Bard is a better fit for super-nonconformist kids.

Mom of the unhappy daughter here. I think you’re right in that DD would’ve been unhappy at any elite college (except for maybe Brown). Yes, she is an intense non-conformist type, which is always a difficult line to walk with these sorts of high-powered academic and corporate environments.

[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.

Why on Earth would she want a soulless tech job after dealing with those types at Stanford? Sounds like jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire.

3 common reasons:

1. $$$
2. Marriage.
3. $$$

PP here with the unhappy Stanford daughter. I don’t understand why you’d fit marriage into this, but yes, money was the main factor. DH and I make enough to cover DD’s Stanford tuition, but we can’t give major financial support beyond that — no money for grad school, no downpayment on a house, etc.

DD wants to be doing film in the long run, so she took our advice and will be working in tech for most of her twenties to build a nest egg (downpayment on property, kickstarting retirement funds, saving up for daycare if she chooses to have kids) until she hits her thirties.

BTW, there’s a big difference between going to college with these tech types and just working with them. DD had to live with these soulless people for four years, which is a lot more intense than just seeing them at work (and her company is letting her work entirely remotely, so she won’t even have to see her coworkers in person).

This is crazy talk. If she wanted to do film she could have easily done it with her elite pedigree and comparative privilege to most “normal folks.” There is not a chance in hell that she will leave her corporate salary, Silicon Valley life to do film in 10 years. Ultimately, you are what you do. By her and your own terms — not mine — she is already a “soulless” sellout. You can’t have your cake and eat it too, that is, be corporate and have condescending disdain for it both. You pick one, and be happy with it: her choice has already been made, whether you and she have the insight to recognize that or not.

PP here. You are unnecessarily hostile and defensive. Which, actually, is pretty unsurprising given the competitive nature of many of the Silicon Valley types DD had to endure for the past four years.

There are many people who work high paying jobs in tech/finance throughout their twenties and then pivot later on in life once they’ve built a substantial financial nest egg. A good chunk of the people working at NPOs in NYC and DC fit this description (especially women).

I’ve never heard of that. If she really wants to work in film, she should move to LA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So much cope here

How does a multi-paragraph comment discussing racism/misogyny at Stanford as well as its overall careerist and competitive culture read as “cope” to you?

Sounds like dumb ungrateful whining not cope.

Does anyone really believe these posters' kids got into Stanford?

Well sure the URM did

[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.

This is a thoughtful post and I’m sorry that your DD did not have a better experience there. She sounds like someone who has held onto the ability to know herself well, and may she have a wonderful next chapter.

I'm sorry PP's kid had a bad experience. It sounds like she would have had a bad experience at HYP as well. Bard is a better fit for super-nonconformist kids.

Disagree. Stanford has had fewer black American students for years. Guessing it’s easier to be frozen out of the social fabric there. Not intentionally, but through unfamiliarity/ignorance in the form of comments less likely to be said aloud at Yale etc.

Not that they wouldn’t be said elsewhere, but Stanford is likely worse. It a different experience for different people. Don’t assume the “problem” lies with the poster’s DD.

[Anonymous]

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.

She should try to work for one of the film tech companies.

[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.

Why on Earth would she want a soulless tech job after dealing with those types at Stanford? Sounds like jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire.

3 common reasons:

1. $$$
2. Marriage.
3. $$$

PP here with the unhappy Stanford daughter. I don’t understand why you’d fit marriage into this, but yes, money was the main factor. DH and I make enough to cover DD’s Stanford tuition, but we can’t give major financial support beyond that — no money for grad school, no downpayment on a house, etc.

DD wants to be doing film in the long run, so she took our advice and will be working in tech for most of her twenties to build a nest egg (downpayment on property, kickstarting retirement funds, saving up for daycare if she chooses to have kids) until she hits her thirties.

BTW, there’s a big difference between going to college with these tech types and just working with them. DD had to live with these soulless people for four years, which is a lot more intense than just seeing them at work (and her company is letting her work entirely remotely, so she won’t even have to see her coworkers in person).

May I ask if she decided to stay in CA or move back to the East Coast? I imagine that plenty of students stay out West but can of course utilize the impressive alumni network worldwide. Has she found that her fellow classmates who have graduated have calmed down a bit and are nicer to interact with from her perspective or are they still stressed and constantly striving? Thanks! I was a grad student in the '90s and the vibes among grad students were very different from the undergrads but probably less pronounced than today.