Everyone has been beyond helpful. My daughter’s room host is such a sweet heart… she went over her pre-med schedule with my daughter, who has been fretting about whether she can balance SLE with pre-med and possibly explore a minor during freshmen year. Her room host sketched out the chem and math tracks that my daughter could do and answered questions about many different things.
As a parent, I felt assured that Stanford will provide a safe, collaborative and supportive environment for my daughter. Of course, taking personal responsibility is a given. The dorm rooms are nicer than most of the ones we’ve visited on other campuses. They do allow lofting so more space can be created and it seems fairly easy to do. Bicycle traffic safety came up a couple of times during Q&A as almost all students ride bikes to get anywhere on campus and there are certain accident hot spots. A few parents brought up the issue of not being able to mandate students to wear helmets but problem is if students don’t want to because nobody on campus does (image problem) it’s a tough culture to change.
I really like the “Home Sweet Home” and student activities fairs. The booth setup against the backdrop of gorgeous weather makes it easy to linger, chat and ask questions. There are students and staff on hand to answer questions, get your student’s contact information if they’re interested in joining a club’s mailing list and useful tips on how to get more resources to address issues specific to you.
I’m local so I have been popping in and out of the events the last two days as my schedule allows. Wish I have been able to attend some of the academic expos… they added even more as of yesterday with fascinating topics such as “Is Your Laptop Racist? The Politics of Technological Objects,” “Economic Case for Caring about Climate Change,” and “Do Books and Reading Matter?” etc. I also liked the overview of the freshmen living options given by the three program directors in charge of SLE, ITALIC, and FroSoCo. It seems these are increasing in popularity (about 25% of freshmen are in these residential programs) and while they don’t like to use the word “apply,” if one of these is your first or second choice, you have to state why you’re interested and they do pick and choose who they accept into the program, with some consideration also given to your SAT and AP scores.