101 Reasons Why Stanford is Awesome

Colleges & Universities Stanford University
41

<p>Wow, completely forgot about this! Since the reply deadline is a few days away, let’s keep it going. We don’t have to stop at 101 either. :slight_smile: Thanks everyone for contributing!
(edited out the off-topic ones and fixed a few) </p>

<ol>
<li>The campus</li>
<li>The Stanford name value (prestige)</li>
<li>SLE</li>
<li>Excellence across every academic discipline</li>
<li>A strong orientation toward the future: Stanford is all about “What’s Next”!</li>
<li>A great climate that supports fitness (and allows students to sunbathe while studying in March and April)</li>
<li>Course selection: 1,500 undergrad courses, countless more grad-level ones to take</li>
<li>Interdisciplinary majors: only Stanford has symbolic systems, MCS, humbio, etc.</li>
<li>Proximity to San Francisco, San Jose, the Bay, the ocean, and a drive from Tahoe, Yosemite, etc.</li>
<li>The happiness of the students</li>
<li>Excellent sports programs that produce Olympians</li>
<li>Huge variety of research opportunities available to undergraduates, and professors that reach out to students to let them know about those opportunities</li>
<li>Superb, accessible faculty across the board</li>
<li>Talented, motivated peers from all over the world</li>
<li>Lake Lagunita - it’s actually filled this year!</li>
<li>Introductory Seminars (introsems, <15 students, average size of 10), small classes in general</li>
<li>Athletic facilities</li>
<li>Superb return on investment</li>
<li>Generous Financial Aid</li>
<li>Free Admission for Students to Football Games.</li>
<li>An undergrad experience so rewarding that even the prospect of being the NFL’s top draft pick didn’t entice Andrew Luck to leave Stanford a year early</li>
<li>Quality undergrad housing (with a huge variety), guaranteed for 4 years</li>
<li>SLAC - the longest linear particle accelerator in the world</li>
<li>Video lectures, i.e. having coffee with a friend during CS lecture or not having to get up at 9am, instead watching the lecture that evening on your computer (1.5x speed)</li>
<li>Subs with “dirty sauce” at Ike’s Place in the engineering quad</li>
<li>Tasty veggie eats at Ricker</li>
<li>Research funding: $5 million per year, more than any other school</li>
<li>the LSJUMB!</li>
<li>Very effective freshman roommate-matching system, utilizing extensive input from incoming students, that integrates well-designed algorithms with human evaluation. Result: lots of happy freshmen with compatible roommates.</li>
<li>Getting to take classes at the business/law/med/education schools</li>
<li>Study abroad (so many interesting campuses)</li>
<li>Hopkins Marine Station</li>
<li>Studying (okay, checking out sun-bathers) in the Oval</li>
<li>Dance Expos, featuring (often very attractive) students showcasing their, um, cultural heritage</li>
<li>The fruits on trees</li>
<li>The multitude of student organizations spanning just about everything imaginable</li>
<li>The collaborative working environment</li>
<li>The fact that famous people show up regularly (Joseph Gordon-Levitt came yesterday!)</li>
<li>The fact that everything is in central campus (no separate campuses for the med school, law school etc)</li>
<li>Complete array of academic and tutorial support services always available in any subject (freshmen have academic and writing tutors living in their dorms as well)</li>
<li>Jazz nights at the CoHo.</li>
<li>People don’t get an attitude or assume snobbery when someone says s/he attends Stanford, unlike for HYP</li>
<li>More socially egalitarian</li>
<li>Watching lots of excited ProFros logging in to accept their offers of admission during Admit Weekend.</li>
<li>The Stanford Chaparral (the second-oldest continuously-published college humor magazine in the country) and the Stanford Flipside</li>
<li>Incredible internship opportunities during summer and the school year</li>
<li>Career fairs throughout the year with loads of companies from everywhere looking for Stanford students</li>
<li>Overseas seminars during the summer</li>
<li>The Dollies</li>
<li>BEAUTIFUL Spanish architecture</li>
<li>An awesome common app supplement</li>
<li>Splendid nature, especially in the eucalyptus groves and the Arizona Cactus Garden.</li>
<li>Fountain hopping</li>
<li>Tahoe Ski Trip</li>
<li>Great weather year- round</li>
<li>The Bender Room in the Green Library</li>
<li>Free stadium food on the meal plans</li>
<li>Lots of dining options through the campus</li>
<li>Lots of school Pride</li>
<li>The Marching Band</li>
<li>Late night snacks at the Axe and Palm</li>
<li>No tax and 10% discount when you purchase Cardinal dollars</li>
<li>Full Moon on the Quad</li>
<li>Frat parties</li>
<li>Pizza My Heart in Palo Alto</li>
<li>Getting thrown in the shower at midnight on your birthday</li>
<li>Great RA’s</li>
<li>Great Resident Faculty (RFs)</li>
<li>Very friendly, attentive and always trying to please dining staff</li>
<li>Palm Drive</li>
<li>Stanford Football games and tailgating parties</li>
<li>The Big Game against Berkeley</li>
<li>Living amongst so many high achievers, and not just academically</li>
<li>The great sense of balance on the campus. A real work hard, play hard mentality</li>
</ol>

42

<ol>
<li>The campus</li>
<li>The Stanford name value (prestige)</li>
<li>SLE</li>
<li>Excellence across every academic discipline</li>
<li>A strong orientation toward the future: Stanford is all about “What’s Next”!</li>
<li>A great climate that supports fitness (and allows students to sunbathe while studying in March and April)</li>
<li>Course selection: 1,500 undergrad courses, countless more grad-level ones to take</li>
<li>Interdisciplinary majors: only Stanford has symbolic systems, MCS, humbio, etc.</li>
<li>Proximity to San Francisco, San Jose, the Bay, the ocean, and a drive from Tahoe, Yosemite, etc.</li>
<li>The happiness of the students</li>
<li>Excellent sports programs that produce Olympians</li>
<li>Huge variety of research opportunities available to undergraduates, and professors that reach out to students to let them know about those opportunities</li>
<li>Superb, accessible faculty across the board</li>
<li>Talented, motivated peers from all over the world</li>
<li>Lake Lagunita - it’s actually filled this year!</li>
<li>Introductory Seminars (introsems, <15 students, average size of 10), small classes in general</li>
<li>Athletic facilities</li>
<li>Superb return on investment</li>
<li>Generous Financial Aid</li>
<li>Free Admission for Students to Football Games.</li>
<li>An undergrad experience so rewarding that even the prospect of being the NFL’s top draft pick didn’t entice Andrew Luck to leave Stanford a year early</li>
<li>Quality undergrad housing (with a huge variety), guaranteed for 4 years</li>
<li>SLAC - the longest linear particle accelerator in the world</li>
<li>Video lectures, i.e. having coffee with a friend during CS lecture or not having to get up at 9am, instead watching the lecture that evening on your computer (1.5x speed)</li>
<li>Subs with “dirty sauce” at Ike’s Place in the engineering quad</li>
<li>Tasty veggie eats at Ricker</li>
<li>Research funding: $5 million per year, more than any other school</li>
<li>the LSJUMB!</li>
<li>Very effective freshman roommate-matching system, utilizing extensive input from incoming students, that integrates well-designed algorithms with human evaluation. Result: lots of happy freshmen with compatible roommates.</li>
<li>Getting to take classes at the business/law/med/education schools</li>
<li>Study abroad (so many interesting campuses)</li>
<li>Hopkins Marine Station</li>
<li>Studying (okay, checking out sun-bathers) in the Oval</li>
<li>Dance Expos, featuring (often very attractive) students showcasing their, um, cultural heritage</li>
<li>The fruits on trees</li>
<li>The multitude of student organizations spanning just about everything imaginable</li>
<li>The collaborative working environment</li>
<li>The fact that famous people show up regularly (Joseph Gordon-Levitt came yesterday!)</li>
<li>The fact that everything is in central campus (no separate campuses for the med school, law school etc)</li>
<li>Complete array of academic and tutorial support services always available in any subject (freshmen have academic and writing tutors living in their dorms as well)</li>
<li>Jazz nights at the CoHo.</li>
<li>People don’t get an attitude or assume snobbery when someone says s/he attends Stanford, unlike for HYP</li>
<li>More socially egalitarian</li>
<li>Watching lots of excited ProFros logging in to accept their offers of admission during Admit Weekend.</li>
<li>The Stanford Chaparral (the second-oldest continuously-published college humor magazine in the country) and the Stanford Flipside</li>
<li>Incredible internship opportunities during summer and the school year</li>
<li>Career fairs throughout the year with loads of companies from everywhere looking for Stanford students</li>
<li>Overseas seminars during the summer</li>
<li>The Dollies</li>
<li>BEAUTIFUL Spanish architecture</li>
<li>An awesome common app supplement</li>
<li>Splendid nature, especially in the eucalyptus groves and the Arizona Cactus Garden.</li>
<li>Fountain hopping</li>
<li>Tahoe Ski Trip</li>
<li>Great weather year- round</li>
<li>The Bender Room in the Green Library</li>
<li>Free stadium food on the meal plans</li>
<li>Lots of dining options through the campus</li>
<li>Lots of school Pride</li>
<li>The Marching Band</li>
<li>Late night snacks at the Axe and Palm</li>
<li>No tax and 10% discount when you purchase Cardinal dollars</li>
<li>Full Moon on the Quad</li>
<li>Frat parties</li>
<li>Pizza My Heart in Palo Alto</li>
<li>Getting thrown in the shower at midnight on your birthday</li>
<li>Great RA’s</li>
<li>Great Resident Faculty (RFs)</li>
<li>Very friendly, attentive and always trying to please dining staff</li>
<li>Palm Drive</li>
<li>Stanford Football games and tailgating parties</li>
<li>The Big Game against Berkeley</li>
<li>Living amongst so many high achievers, and not just academically</li>
<li>The great sense of balance on the campus. A real work hard, play hard mentality</li>
<li>Distinguished faculty, with 2nd most membership at U.S. national academies, only behind Harvard</li>
<li>The only university in U.S.A with all professional schools (business, law, education, medicine, and engineering) ranked in top 5</li>
<li>Arguably the most innovative university in the world</li>
<li>The mega of information technology, most connections to Turing award, the ‘Nobel prize’ in computing</li>
<li>Arguably the most well rounded university, with top 5 departments across the board </li>
<li>Current staff has most Nobel prize winners in the world</li>
<li>most national medal of science winners by faculty members, #1 in USA</li>
<li>Super start-up culture: GOOGLE, YAHOO, H-P, CISCO, SUN, and NETSCAPE were all founded by Stanford people</li>
<li>Stanford has changed the world through technology inventions, such as RADAR, LASER, internet protocol, DSL, microprocessor, GPS, satelite dish, and gene cloning</li>
</ol>

43

<ol>
<li>The campus</li>
<li>The Stanford name value (prestige)</li>
<li>SLE</li>
<li>Excellence across every academic discipline</li>
<li>A strong orientation toward the future: Stanford is all about “What’s Next”!</li>
<li>A great climate that supports fitness (and allows students to sunbathe while studying in March and April)</li>
<li>Course selection: 1,500 undergrad courses, countless more grad-level ones to take</li>
<li>Interdisciplinary majors: only Stanford has symbolic systems, MCS, humbio, etc.</li>
<li>Proximity to San Francisco, San Jose, the Bay, the ocean, and a drive from Tahoe, Yosemite, etc.</li>
<li>The happiness of the students</li>
<li>Excellent sports programs that produce Olympians</li>
<li>Huge variety of research opportunities available to undergraduates, and professors that reach out to students to let them know about those opportunities</li>
<li>Superb, accessible faculty across the board</li>
<li>Talented, motivated peers from all over the world</li>
<li>Lake Lagunita - it’s actually filled this year!</li>
<li>Introductory Seminars (introsems, <15 students, average size of 10), small classes in general</li>
<li>Athletic facilities</li>
<li>Superb return on investment</li>
<li>Generous Financial Aid</li>
<li>Free Admission for Students to Football Games.</li>
<li>An undergrad experience so rewarding that even the prospect of being the NFL’s top draft pick didn’t entice Andrew Luck to leave Stanford a year early</li>
<li>Quality undergrad housing (with a huge variety), guaranteed for 4 years</li>
<li>SLAC - the longest linear particle accelerator in the world</li>
<li>Video lectures, i.e. having coffee with a friend during CS lecture or not having to get up at 9am, instead watching the lecture that evening on your computer (1.5x speed)</li>
<li>Subs with “dirty sauce” at Ike’s Place in the engineering quad</li>
<li>Tasty veggie eats at Ricker</li>
<li>Research funding: $5 million per year, more than any other school</li>
<li>the LSJUMB!</li>
<li>Very effective freshman roommate-matching system, utilizing extensive input from incoming students, that integrates well-designed algorithms with human evaluation. Result: lots of happy freshmen with compatible roommates.</li>
<li>Getting to take classes at the business/law/med/education schools</li>
<li>Study abroad (so many interesting campuses)</li>
<li>Hopkins Marine Station</li>
<li>Studying (okay, checking out sun-bathers) in the Oval</li>
<li>Dance Expos, featuring (often very attractive) students showcasing their, um, cultural heritage</li>
<li>The fruits on trees</li>
<li>The multitude of student organizations spanning just about everything imaginable</li>
<li>The collaborative working environment</li>
<li>The fact that famous people show up regularly (Joseph Gordon-Levitt came yesterday!)</li>
<li>The fact that everything is in central campus (no separate campuses for the med school, law school etc)</li>
<li>Complete array of academic and tutorial support services always available in any subject (freshmen have academic and writing tutors living in their dorms as well)</li>
<li>Jazz nights at the CoHo.</li>
<li>People don’t get an attitude or assume snobbery when someone says s/he attends Stanford, unlike for HYP</li>
<li>More socially egalitarian</li>
<li>Watching lots of excited ProFros logging in to accept their offers of admission during Admit Weekend.</li>
<li>The Stanford Chaparral (the second-oldest continuously-published college humor magazine in the country) and the Stanford Flipside</li>
<li>Incredible internship opportunities during summer and the school year</li>
<li>Career fairs throughout the year with loads of companies from everywhere looking for Stanford students</li>
<li>Overseas seminars during the summer</li>
<li>The Dollies</li>
<li>BEAUTIFUL Spanish architecture</li>
<li>An awesome common app supplement</li>
<li>Splendid nature, especially in the eucalyptus groves and the Arizona Cactus Garden.</li>
<li>Fountain hopping</li>
<li>Tahoe Ski Trip</li>
<li>Great weather year- round</li>
<li>The Bender Room in the Green Library</li>
<li>Free stadium food on the meal plans</li>
<li>Lots of dining options through the campus</li>
<li>Lots of school Pride</li>
<li>The Marching Band</li>
<li>Late night snacks at the Axe and Palm</li>
<li>No tax and 10% discount when you purchase Cardinal dollars</li>
<li>Full Moon on the Quad</li>
<li>Frat parties</li>
<li>Pizza My Heart in Palo Alto</li>
<li>Getting thrown in the shower at midnight on your birthday</li>
<li>Great RA’s</li>
<li>Great Resident Faculty (RFs)</li>
<li>Very friendly, attentive and always trying to please dining staff</li>
<li>Palm Drive</li>
<li>Stanford Football games and tailgating parties</li>
<li>The Big Game against Berkeley</li>
<li>Living amongst so many high achievers, and not just academically</li>
<li>The great sense of balance on the campus. A real work hard, play hard mentality</li>
<li>Distinguished faculty, with 2nd most membership at U.S. national academies, only behind Harvard</li>
<li>The only university in U.S.A with all professional schools (business, law, education, medicine, and engineering) ranked in top 5</li>
<li>Arguably the most innovative university in the world</li>
<li>The mega of information technology, most connections to Turing award, the ‘Nobel prize’ in computing</li>
<li>Arguably the most well rounded university, with top 5 departments across the board</li>
<li>Current staff has most Nobel prize winners in the world</li>
<li>most national medal of science winners by faculty members, #1 in USA</li>
<li>Super start-up culture: GOOGLE, YAHOO, H-P, CISCO, SUN, and NETSCAPE were all founded by Stanford people</li>
<li>Stanford has changed the world through technology inventions, such as RADAR, LASER, internet protocol, DSL, microprocessor, GPS, satelite dish, and gene cloning </li>
<li>the Mayfield Fellows program and the Stanford Technology Ventures Program</li>
<li>Placing first in the Director’s Cup for overall athletic excellence 17 times in a row (this year it’s on track to win it again), the most individual championships (465), the second-most team championships (102) and the most in the past 25 years, 35 varsity sports, tons of club and IM sports, and great year-round weather to enjoy them</li>
</ol>

44

<ol>
<li>The campus

<ol>
<li>The Stanford name value (prestige)</li>
<li>SLE</li>
<li>Excellence across every academic discipline</li>
<li>A strong orientation toward the future: Stanford is all about “What’s Next”!</li>
<li>A great climate that supports fitness (and allows students to sunbathe while studying in March and April)</li>
<li>Course selection: 1,500 undergrad courses, countless more grad-level ones to take</li>
<li>Interdisciplinary majors: only Stanford has symbolic systems, MCS, humbio, etc.</li>
<li>Proximity to San Francisco, San Jose, the Bay, the ocean, and a drive from Tahoe, Yosemite, etc.</li>
<li>The happiness of the students</li>
<li>Excellent sports programs that produce Olympians</li>
<li>Huge variety of research opportunities available to undergraduates, and professors that reach out to students to let them know about those opportunities</li>
<li>Superb, accessible faculty across the board</li>
<li>Talented, motivated peers from all over the world</li>
<li>Lake Lagunita - it’s actually filled this year!</li>
<li>Introductory Seminars (introsems, <15 students, average size of 10), small classes in general</li>
<li>Athletic facilities</li>
<li>Superb return on investment</li>
<li>Generous Financial Aid</li>
<li>Free Admission for Students to Football Games.</li>
<li>An undergrad experience so rewarding that even the prospect of being the NFL’s top draft pick didn’t entice Andrew Luck to leave Stanford a year early</li>
<li>Quality undergrad housing (with a huge variety), guaranteed for 4 years</li>
<li>SLAC - the longest linear particle accelerator in the world</li>
<li>Video lectures, i.e. having coffee with a friend during CS lecture or not having to get up at 9am, instead watching the lecture that evening on your computer (1.5x speed)</li>
<li>Subs with “dirty sauce” at Ike’s Place in the engineering quad</li>
<li>Tasty veggie eats at Ricker</li>
<li>Research funding: $5 million per year, more than any other school</li>
<li>the LSJUMB!</li>
<li>Very effective freshman roommate-matching system, utilizing extensive input from incoming students, that integrates well-designed algorithms with human evaluation. Result: lots of happy freshmen with compatible roommates.</li>
<li>Getting to take classes at the business/law/med/education schools</li>
<li>Study abroad (so many interesting campuses)</li>
<li>Hopkins Marine Station</li>
<li>Studying (okay, checking out sun-bathers) in the Oval</li>
<li>Dance Expos, featuring (often very attractive) students showcasing their, um, cultural heritage</li>
<li>The fruits on trees</li>
<li>The multitude of student organizations spanning just about everything imaginable</li>
<li>The collaborative working environment</li>
<li>The fact that famous people show up regularly (Joseph Gordon-Levitt came yesterday!)</li>
<li>The fact that everything is in central campus (no separate campuses for the med school, law school etc)</li>
<li>Complete array of academic and tutorial support services always available in any subject (freshmen have academic and writing tutors living in their dorms as well)</li>
<li>Jazz nights at the CoHo.</li>
<li>People don’t get an attitude or assume snobbery when someone says s/he attends Stanford, unlike for HYP</li>
<li>More socially egalitarian</li>
<li>Watching lots of excited ProFros logging in to accept their offers of admission during Admit Weekend.</li>
<li>The Stanford Chaparral (the second-oldest continuously-published college humor magazine in the country) and the Stanford Flipside</li>
<li>Incredible internship opportunities during summer and the school year</li>
<li>Career fairs throughout the year with loads of companies from everywhere looking for Stanford students</li>
<li>Overseas seminars during the summer</li>
<li>The Dollies</li>
<li>BEAUTIFUL Spanish architecture</li>
<li>An awesome common app supplement</li>
<li>Splendid nature, especially in the eucalyptus groves and the Arizona Cactus Garden.</li>
<li>Fountain hopping</li>
<li>Tahoe Ski Trip</li>
<li>Great weather year- round</li>
<li>The Bender Room in the Green Library</li>
<li>Free stadium food on the meal plans</li>
<li>Lots of dining options through the campus</li>
<li>Lots of school Pride</li>
<li>The Marching Band</li>
<li>Late night snacks at the Axe and Palm</li>
<li>No tax and 10% discount when you purchase Cardinal dollars</li>
<li>Full Moon on the Quad</li>
<li>Frat parties</li>
<li>Pizza My Heart in Palo Alto</li>
<li>Getting thrown in the shower at midnight on your birthday</li>
<li>Great RA’s</li>
<li>Great Resident Faculty (RFs)</li>
<li>Very friendly, attentive and always trying to please dining staff</li>
<li>Palm Drive</li>
<li>Stanford Football games and tailgating parties</li>
<li>The Big Game against Berkeley</li>
<li>Living amongst so many high achievers, and not just academically</li>
<li>The great sense of balance on the campus. A real work hard, play hard mentality</li>
<li>Distinguished faculty, with 2nd most membership at U.S. national academies, only behind Harvard</li>
<li>The only university in U.S.A with all professional schools (business, law, education, medicine, and engineering) ranked in top 5</li>
<li>Arguably the most innovative university in the world</li>
<li>The mega of information technology, most connections to Turing award, the ‘Nobel prize’ in computing</li>
<li>Arguably the most well rounded university, with top 5 departments across the board</li>
<li>Current staff has most Nobel prize winners in the world</li>
<li>most national medal of science winners by faculty members, #1 in USA</li>
<li>Super start-up culture: GOOGLE, YAHOO, H-P, CISCO, SUN, and NETSCAPE were all founded by Stanford people</li>
<li>Stanford has changed the world through technology inventions, such as RADAR, LASER, internet protocol, DSL, microprocessor, GPS, satelite dish, and gene cloning </li>
</ol></li>
<li>the Mayfield Fellows program and the Stanford Technology Ventures Program

<ol>
<li>Placing first in the Director’s Cup for overall athletic excellence 17 times in a row (this year it’s on track to win it again), the most individual championships (465), the second-most team championships (102) and the most in the past 25 years, 35 varsity sports, tons of club and IM sports, and great year-round weather to enjoy them </li>
</ol></li>
<li>The extremely collaborative nature of the students</li>
<li>Caltran’s proximity to the campus</li>
<li>The Stanford Mall</li>
<li>The Wheelz program</li>
</ol>

45

<p>

</p>

<p>Why do you think that only Stanford has a humbio major? It’s a really weird claim:</p>

<p>[Human</a> Biology](<a href=“http://www.indiana.edu/~humbio/]Human”>http://www.indiana.edu/~humbio/)
[Concentration</a> Programs Descriptions -AB Human Biology](<a href=“http://biology.brown.edu/bug/ab-human-bio-program-2012-2013]Concentration”>http://biology.brown.edu/bug/ab-human-bio-program-2012-2013)
[The</a> Human Biology Major 2011-12](<a href=“http://admissions.ucsc.edu/academics/majors/human-biology.html]The”>http://admissions.ucsc.edu/academics/majors/human-biology.html)
[Keck</a> Science :: Academics : Human Biology Major](<a href=“http://www.jsd.claremont.edu/majors/humanbiology.asp]Keck”>http://www.jsd.claremont.edu/majors/humanbiology.asp)
[Human</a> Biology :: UW-Green Bay](<a href=“http://www.uwgb.edu/humbio/]Human”>http://www.uwgb.edu/humbio/)
[MSU</a> RO:Academic Programs: Human Biology](<a href=“http://www.reg.msu.edu/academicprograms/ProgramDetail.asp?Program=3969]MSU”>http://www.reg.msu.edu/academicprograms/ProgramDetail.asp?Program=3969)
[Human</a> Biology Major & Minor, University of Indianapolis](<a href=“Department of Biology - University of Indianapolis”>Department of Biology - University of Indianapolis)</p>

<p>and the list goes on ad infinitum</p>

46

<p>^ okay I retract that. :wink: Not sure why that was such an important point to refute, but the main point stands: Stanford has tons of (sometimes weird) interdisciplinary programs that other schools don’t - symbolic systems, MCS, biomechanical engineering, CSRE, CME, etc. Of course you can probably point to some random school that also has it today.</p>

<p>FWIW, Stanford’s human biology program was the first, going all the way back to the late 1960s - all the rest are copycats. :p</p>

47

<p>

</p>

<p>The mere fact that there are so many today is an even more interesting claim to make about Stanford’s influence and forward-looking-ness.</p>

<p>(btw, it wasn’t so much that it was important to refute the point – I just happened to know that there are lots of humbio programs and the claim seemed very weird. I’d guess that “first” somehow transmogrified to “only” in your head at some point.)</p>

48

<p>

</p>

<p>What are you saying? The humbio program was very forward-thinking in the late 1960s. It has a very interesting [url=<a href=“https://humbio.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/alumni_/humbiohistory.pdf]history[/url”>https://humbio.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/alumni_/humbiohistory.pdf]history[/url</a>].</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>No, I was talking about Stanford’s neat interdisciplinary programs, and listed a few that are specific to Stanford, but happened to list one that other universities have since copied, which you felt was important to nitpick. ;)</p>

49

<ol>
<li>The campus</li>
<li>The Stanford name value (prestige)</li>
<li>SLE</li>
<li>Excellence across every academic discipline</li>
<li>A strong orientation toward the future: Stanford is all about “What’s Next”!</li>
<li>A great climate that supports fitness (and allows students to sunbathe while studying in March and April)</li>
<li>Course selection: 1,500 undergrad courses, countless more grad-level ones to take</li>
<li>Interdisciplinary majors: only Stanford has symbolic systems, MCS, humbio, etc.</li>
<li>Proximity to San Francisco, San Jose, the Bay, the ocean, and a drive from Tahoe, Yosemite, etc.</li>
<li>The happiness of the students</li>
<li>Excellent sports programs that produce Olympians</li>
<li>Huge variety of research opportunities available to undergraduates, and professors that reach out to students to let them know about those opportunities</li>
<li>Superb, accessible faculty across the board</li>
<li>Talented, motivated peers from all over the world</li>
<li>Lake Lagunita - it’s actually filled this year!</li>
<li>Introductory Seminars (introsems, <15 students, average size of 10), small classes in general</li>
<li>Athletic facilities</li>
<li>Superb return on investment</li>
<li>Generous Financial Aid</li>
<li>Free Admission for Students to Football Games.</li>
<li>An undergrad experience so rewarding that even the prospect of being the NFL’s top draft pick didn’t entice Andrew Luck to leave Stanford a year early</li>
<li>Quality undergrad housing (with a huge variety), guaranteed for 4 years</li>
<li>SLAC - the longest linear particle accelerator in the world</li>
<li>Video lectures, i.e. having coffee with a friend during CS lecture or not having to get up at 9am, instead watching the lecture that evening on your computer (1.5x speed)</li>
<li>Subs with “dirty sauce” at Ike’s Place in the engineering quad</li>
<li>Tasty veggie eats at Ricker</li>
<li>Research funding: $5 million per year, more than any other school</li>
<li>the LSJUMB!</li>
<li>Very effective freshman roommate-matching system, utilizing extensive input from incoming students, that integrates well-designed algorithms with human evaluation. Result: lots of happy freshmen with compatible roommates.</li>
<li>Getting to take classes at the business/law/med/education schools</li>
<li>Study abroad (so many interesting campuses)</li>
<li>Hopkins Marine Station</li>
<li>Studying (okay, checking out sun-bathers) in the Oval</li>
<li>Dance Expos, featuring (often very attractive) students showcasing their, um, cultural heritage</li>
<li>The fruits on trees</li>
<li>The multitude of student organizations spanning just about everything imaginable</li>
<li>The collaborative working environment</li>
<li>The fact that famous people show up regularly (Joseph Gordon-Levitt came yesterday!)</li>
<li>The fact that everything is in central campus (no separate campuses for the med school, law school etc)</li>
<li>Complete array of academic and tutorial support services always available in any subject (freshmen have academic and writing tutors living in their dorms as well)</li>
<li>Jazz nights at the CoHo.</li>
<li>People don’t get an attitude or assume snobbery when someone says s/he attends Stanford, unlike for HYP</li>
<li>More socially egalitarian</li>
<li>Watching lots of excited ProFros logging in to accept their offers of admission during Admit Weekend.</li>
<li>The Stanford Chaparral (the second-oldest continuously-published college humor magazine in the country) and the Stanford Flipside</li>
<li>Incredible internship opportunities during summer and the school year</li>
<li>Career fairs throughout the year with loads of companies from everywhere looking for Stanford students</li>
<li>Overseas seminars during the summer</li>
<li>The Dollies</li>
<li>BEAUTIFUL Spanish architecture</li>
<li>An awesome common app supplement</li>
<li>Splendid nature, especially in the eucalyptus groves and the Arizona Cactus Garden.</li>
<li>Fountain hopping</li>
<li>Tahoe Ski Trip</li>
<li>Great weather year- round</li>
<li>The Bender Room in the Green Library</li>
<li>Free stadium food on the meal plans</li>
<li>Lots of dining options through the campus</li>
<li>Lots of school Pride</li>
<li>The Marching Band</li>
<li>Late night snacks at the Axe and Palm</li>
<li>No tax and 10% discount when you purchase Cardinal dollars</li>
<li>Full Moon on the Quad</li>
<li>Frat parties</li>
<li>Pizza My Heart in Palo Alto</li>
<li>Getting thrown in the shower at midnight on your birthday</li>
<li>Great RA’s</li>
<li>Great Resident Faculty (RFs)</li>
<li>Very friendly, attentive and always trying to please dining staff</li>
<li>Palm Drive</li>
<li>Stanford Football games and tailgating parties</li>
<li>The Big Game against Berkeley</li>
<li>Living amongst so many high achievers, and not just academically</li>
<li>The great sense of balance on the campus. A real work hard, play hard mentality</li>
<li>Distinguished faculty, with 2nd most membership at U.S. national academies, only behind Harvard</li>
<li>The only university in U.S.A with all professional schools (business, law, education, medicine, and engineering) ranked in top 5</li>
<li>Arguably the most innovative university in the world</li>
<li>The mega of information technology, most connections to Turing award, the ‘Nobel prize’ in computing</li>
<li>Arguably the most well rounded university, with top 5 departments across the board</li>
<li>Current staff has most Nobel prize winners in the world</li>
<li>most national medal of science winners by faculty members, #1 in USA</li>
<li>Super start-up culture: GOOGLE, YAHOO, H-P, CISCO, SUN, and NETSCAPE were all founded by Stanford people</li>
<li>Stanford has changed the world through technology inventions, such as RADAR, LASER, internet protocol, DSL, microprocessor, GPS, satelite dish, and gene cloning</li>
<li>the Mayfield Fellows program and the Stanford Technology Ventures Program</li>
<li>Placing first in the Director’s Cup for overall athletic excellence 17 times in a row (this year it’s on track to win it again), the most individual championships (465), the second-most team championships (102) and the most in the past 25 years, 35 varsity sports, tons of club and IM sports, and great year-round weather to enjoy them</li>
<li>The extremely collaborative nature of the students</li>
<li>Caltrain’s proximity to the campus</li>
<li>The Stanford Mall</li>
<li>The Wheelz program </li>
<li>An awesome array of themed dorms to choose from: 1/3 of Stanford’s 80 houses are themed</li>
</ol>

<p>(see [url=&lt;a href=“http://www.stanford.edu/group/themed/preassignment.html]this[/url”&gt;http://www.stanford.edu/group/themed/preassignment.html]this[/url</a>] if interested)</p>

50

<p>Edit: everything I had in mind has been posted! :(</p>

51

<p>^ keep exploring Stanford - this list barely scratches the surface of things that make Stanford awesome. ;)</p>

52

<ol>
<li>The campus</li>
<li>The Stanford name value (prestige)</li>
<li>SLE</li>
<li>Excellence across every academic discipline</li>
<li>A strong orientation toward the future: Stanford is all about “What’s Next”!</li>
<li>A great climate that supports fitness (and allows students to sunbathe while studying in March and April)</li>
<li>Course selection: 1,500 undergrad courses, countless more grad-level ones to take</li>
<li>Interdisciplinary majors: only Stanford has symbolic systems, MCS, humbio, etc.</li>
<li>Proximity to San Francisco, San Jose, the Bay, the ocean, and a drive from Tahoe, Yosemite, etc.</li>
<li>The happiness of the students</li>
<li>Excellent sports programs that produce Olympians</li>
<li>Huge variety of research opportunities available to undergraduates, and professors that reach out to students to let them know about those opportunities</li>
<li>Superb, accessible faculty across the board</li>
<li>Talented, motivated peers from all over the world</li>
<li>Lake Lagunita - it’s actually filled this year!</li>
<li>Introductory Seminars (introsems, <15 students, average size of 10), small classes in general</li>
<li>Athletic facilities</li>
<li>Superb return on investment</li>
<li>Generous Financial Aid</li>
<li>Free Admission for Students to Football Games.</li>
<li>An undergrad experience so rewarding that even the prospect of being the NFL’s top draft pick didn’t entice Andrew Luck to leave Stanford a year early</li>
<li>Quality undergrad housing (with a huge variety), guaranteed for 4 years</li>
<li>SLAC - the longest linear particle accelerator in the world</li>
<li>Video lectures, i.e. having coffee with a friend during CS lecture or not having to get up at 9am, instead watching the lecture that evening on your computer (1.5x speed)</li>
<li>Subs with “dirty sauce” at Ike’s Place in the engineering quad</li>
<li>Tasty veggie eats at Ricker</li>
<li>Research funding: $5 million per year, more than any other school</li>
<li>the LSJUMB!</li>
<li>Very effective freshman roommate-matching system, utilizing extensive input from incoming students, that integrates well-designed algorithms with human evaluation. Result: lots of happy freshmen with compatible roommates.</li>
<li>Getting to take classes at the business/law/med/education schools</li>
<li>Study abroad (so many interesting campuses)</li>
<li>Hopkins Marine Station</li>
<li>Studying (okay, checking out sun-bathers) in the Oval</li>
<li>Dance Expos, featuring (often very attractive) students showcasing their, um, cultural heritage</li>
<li>The fruits on trees</li>
<li>The multitude of student organizations spanning just about everything imaginable</li>
<li>The collaborative working environment</li>
<li>The fact that famous people show up regularly (Joseph Gordon-Levitt came yesterday!)</li>
<li>The fact that everything is in central campus (no separate campuses for the med school, law school etc)</li>
<li>Complete array of academic and tutorial support services always available in any subject (freshmen have academic and writing tutors living in their dorms as well)</li>
<li>Jazz nights at the CoHo.</li>
<li>People don’t get an attitude or assume snobbery when someone says s/he attends Stanford, unlike for HYP</li>
<li>More socially egalitarian</li>
<li>Watching lots of excited ProFros logging in to accept their offers of admission during Admit Weekend.</li>
<li>The Stanford Chaparral (the second-oldest continuously-published college humor magazine in the country) and the Stanford Flipside</li>
<li>Incredible internship opportunities during summer and the school year</li>
<li>Career fairs throughout the year with loads of companies from everywhere looking for Stanford students</li>
<li>Overseas seminars during the summer</li>
<li>The Dollies</li>
<li>BEAUTIFUL Spanish architecture</li>
<li>An awesome common app supplement</li>
<li>Splendid nature, especially in the eucalyptus groves and the Arizona Cactus Garden.</li>
<li>Fountain hopping</li>
<li>Tahoe Ski Trip</li>
<li>Great weather year- round</li>
<li>The Bender Room in the Green Library</li>
<li>Free stadium food on the meal plans</li>
<li>Lots of dining options through the campus</li>
<li>Lots of school Pride</li>
<li>The Marching Band</li>
<li>Late night snacks at the Axe and Palm</li>
<li>No tax and 10% discount when you purchase Cardinal dollars</li>
<li>Full Moon on the Quad</li>
<li>Frat parties</li>
<li>Pizza My Heart in Palo Alto</li>
<li>Getting thrown in the shower at midnight on your birthday</li>
<li>Great RA’s</li>
<li>Great Resident Faculty (RFs)</li>
<li>Very friendly, attentive and always trying to please dining staff</li>
<li>Palm Drive</li>
<li>Stanford Football games and tailgating parties</li>
<li>The Big Game against Berkeley</li>
<li>Living amongst so many high achievers, and not just academically</li>
<li>The great sense of balance on the campus. A real work hard, play hard mentality</li>
<li>Distinguished faculty, with 2nd most membership at U.S. national academies, only behind Harvard</li>
<li>The only university in U.S.A with all professional schools (business, law, education, medicine, and engineering) ranked in top 5</li>
<li>Arguably the most innovative university in the world</li>
<li>The mega of information technology, most connections to Turing award, the ‘Nobel prize’ in computing</li>
<li>Arguably the most well rounded university, with top 5 departments across the board</li>
<li>Current staff has most Nobel prize winners in the world</li>
<li>most national medal of science winners by faculty members, #1 in USA</li>
<li>Super start-up culture: GOOGLE, YAHOO, H-P, CISCO, SUN, and NETSCAPE were all founded by Stanford people</li>
<li>Stanford has changed the world through technology inventions, such as RADAR, LASER, internet protocol, DSL, microprocessor, GPS, satelite dish, and gene cloning</li>
<li>the Mayfield Fellows program and the Stanford Technology Ventures Program</li>
<li>Placing first in the Director’s Cup for overall athletic excellence 17 times in a row (this year it’s on track to win it again), the most individual championships (465), the second-most team championships (102) and the most in the past 25 years, 35 varsity sports, tons of club and IM sports, and great year-round weather to enjoy them</li>
<li>The extremely collaborative nature of the students</li>
<li>Caltrain’s proximity to the campus</li>
<li>The Stanford Mall</li>
<li>The Wheelz program </li>
<li>An awesome array of themed dorms to choose from: 1/3 of Stanford’s 80 houses are themed</li>
<li>Stanford has had the most generous alumni of any US university for several years running, attesting to their success and their affection for their alma mater</li>
<li>Stanford and its partners are bringing free, state-of-the-art, interactive education to students everywhere through <a href=“https://www.coursera.org/[/url]”>https://www.coursera.org/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
</ol>

53

<ol>
<li>The campus</li>
<li>The Stanford name value (prestige)</li>
<li>SLE</li>
<li>Excellence across every academic discipline</li>
<li>A strong orientation toward the future: Stanford is all about “What’s Next”!</li>
<li>A great climate that supports fitness (and allows students to sunbathe while studying in March and April)</li>
<li>Course selection: 1,500 undergrad courses, countless more grad-level ones to take</li>
<li>Interdisciplinary majors: only Stanford has symbolic systems, MCS, humbio, etc.</li>
<li>Proximity to San Francisco, San Jose, the Bay, the ocean, and a drive from Tahoe, Yosemite, etc.</li>
<li>The happiness of the students</li>
<li>Excellent sports programs that produce Olympians</li>
<li>Huge variety of research opportunities available to undergraduates, and professors that reach out to students to let them know about those opportunities</li>
<li>Superb, accessible faculty across the board</li>
<li>Talented, motivated peers from all over the world</li>
<li>Lake Lagunita - it’s actually filled this year!</li>
<li>Introductory Seminars (introsems, <15 students, average size of 10), small classes in general</li>
<li>Athletic facilities</li>
<li>Superb return on investment</li>
<li>Generous Financial Aid</li>
<li>Free Admission for Students to Football Games.</li>
<li>An undergrad experience so rewarding that even the prospect of being the NFL’s top draft pick didn’t entice Andrew Luck to leave Stanford a year early</li>
<li>Quality undergrad housing (with a huge variety), guaranteed for 4 years</li>
<li>SLAC - the longest linear particle accelerator in the world</li>
<li>Video lectures, i.e. having coffee with a friend during CS lecture or not having to get up at 9am, instead watching the lecture that evening on your computer (1.5x speed)</li>
<li>Subs with “dirty sauce” at Ike’s Place in the engineering quad</li>
<li>Tasty veggie eats at Ricker</li>
<li>Research funding: $5 million per year, more than any other school</li>
<li>the LSJUMB!</li>
<li>Very effective freshman roommate-matching system, utilizing extensive input from incoming students, that integrates well-designed algorithms with human evaluation. Result: lots of happy freshmen with compatible roommates.</li>
<li>Getting to take classes at the business/law/med/education schools</li>
<li>Study abroad (so many interesting campuses)</li>
<li>Hopkins Marine Station</li>
<li>Studying (okay, checking out sun-bathers) in the Oval</li>
<li>Dance Expos, featuring (often very attractive) students showcasing their, um, cultural heritage</li>
<li>The fruits on trees</li>
<li>The multitude of student organizations spanning just about everything imaginable</li>
<li>The collaborative working environment</li>
<li>The fact that famous people show up regularly (Joseph Gordon-Levitt came yesterday!)</li>
<li>The fact that everything is in central campus (no separate campuses for the med school, law school etc)</li>
<li>Complete array of academic and tutorial support services always available in any subject (freshmen have academic and writing tutors living in their dorms as well)</li>
<li>Jazz nights at the CoHo.</li>
<li>People don’t get an attitude or assume snobbery when someone says s/he attends Stanford, unlike for HYP</li>
<li>More socially egalitarian</li>
<li>Watching lots of excited ProFros logging in to accept their offers of admission during Admit Weekend.</li>
<li>The Stanford Chaparral (the second-oldest continuously-published college humor magazine in the country) and the Stanford Flipside</li>
<li>Incredible internship opportunities during summer and the school year</li>
<li>Career fairs throughout the year with loads of companies from everywhere looking for Stanford students</li>
<li>Overseas seminars during the summer</li>
<li>The Dollies</li>
<li>BEAUTIFUL Spanish architecture</li>
<li>An awesome common app supplement</li>
<li>Splendid nature, especially in the eucalyptus groves and the Arizona Cactus Garden.</li>
<li>Fountain hopping</li>
<li>Tahoe Ski Trip</li>
<li>Great weather year- round</li>
<li>The Bender Room in the Green Library</li>
<li>Free stadium food on the meal plans</li>
<li>Lots of dining options through the campus</li>
<li>Lots of school Pride</li>
<li>The Marching Band</li>
<li>Late night snacks at the Axe and Palm</li>
<li>No tax and 10% discount when you purchase Cardinal dollars</li>
<li>Full Moon on the Quad</li>
<li>Frat parties</li>
<li>Pizza My Heart in Palo Alto</li>
<li>Getting thrown in the shower at midnight on your birthday</li>
<li>Great RA’s</li>
<li>Great Resident Faculty (RFs)</li>
<li>Very friendly, attentive and always trying to please dining staff</li>
<li>Palm Drive</li>
<li>Stanford Football games and tailgating parties</li>
<li>The Big Game against Berkeley</li>
<li>Living amongst so many high achievers, and not just academically</li>
<li>The great sense of balance on the campus. A real work hard, play hard mentality</li>
<li>Distinguished faculty, with 2nd most membership at U.S. national academies, only behind Harvard</li>
<li>The only university in U.S.A with all professional schools (business, law, education, medicine, and engineering) ranked in top 5</li>
<li>Arguably the most innovative university in the world</li>
<li>The mega of information technology, most connections to Turing award, the ‘Nobel prize’ in computing</li>
<li>Arguably the most well rounded university, with top 5 departments across the board</li>
<li>Current staff has most Nobel prize winners in the world</li>
<li>most national medal of science winners by faculty members, #1 in USA</li>
<li>Super start-up culture: GOOGLE, YAHOO, H-P, CISCO, SUN, and NETSCAPE were all founded by Stanford people</li>
<li>Stanford has changed the world through technology inventions, such as RADAR, LASER, internet protocol, DSL, microprocessor, GPS, satelite dish, and gene cloning</li>
<li>the Mayfield Fellows program and the Stanford Technology Ventures Program</li>
<li>Placing first in the Director’s Cup for overall athletic excellence 17 times in a row (this year it’s on track to win it again), the most individual championships (465), the second-most team championships (102) and the most in the past 25 years, 35 varsity sports, tons of club and IM sports, and great year-round weather to enjoy them</li>
<li>The extremely collaborative nature of the students</li>
<li>Caltrain’s proximity to the campus</li>
<li>The Stanford Mall</li>
<li>The Wheelz program </li>
<li>An awesome array of themed dorms to choose from: 1/3 of Stanford’s 80 houses are themed</li>
<li>Stanford has had the most generous alumni of any US university for several years running, attesting to their success and their affection for their alma mater</li>
<li>Stanford and its partners are bringing free, state-of-the-art, interactive education to students everywhere through <a href=“https://www.coursera.org/[/url]”>https://www.coursera.org/&lt;/a&gt; </li>
<li>Forward looking and risk taking attitude</li>
<li>Bio-X ventures</li>
<li>Hoover Institutute</li>
<li>SLAC</li>
<li>Stanford + Berkeley+ Silicon valley = the undisputed world capital of information technology</li>
<li>Stanford + UCSF + Berkeley = the well spring of biomedical technology</li>
</ol>

54

<ol>
<li>The campus</li>
<li>The Stanford name value (prestige)</li>
<li>SLE</li>
<li>Excellence across every academic discipline</li>
<li>A strong orientation toward the future: Stanford is all about “What’s Next”!</li>
<li>A great climate that supports fitness (and allows students to sunbathe while studying in March and April)</li>
<li>Course selection: 1,500 undergrad courses, countless more grad-level ones to take</li>
<li>Interdisciplinary majors: only Stanford has symbolic systems, MCS, humbio, etc.</li>
<li>Proximity to San Francisco, San Jose, the Bay, the ocean, and a drive from Tahoe, Yosemite, etc.</li>
<li>The happiness of the students</li>
<li>Excellent sports programs that produce Olympians</li>
<li>Huge variety of research opportunities available to undergraduates, and professors that reach out to students to let them know about those opportunities</li>
<li>Superb, accessible faculty across the board</li>
<li>Talented, motivated peers from all over the world</li>
<li>Lake Lagunita - it’s actually filled this year!</li>
<li>Introductory Seminars (introsems, <15 students, average size of 10), small classes in general</li>
<li>Athletic facilities</li>
<li>Superb return on investment</li>
<li>Generous Financial Aid</li>
<li>Free Admission for Students to Football Games.</li>
<li>An undergrad experience so rewarding that even the prospect of being the NFL’s top draft pick didn’t entice Andrew Luck to leave Stanford a year early</li>
<li>Quality undergrad housing (with a huge variety), guaranteed for 4 years</li>
<li>SLAC - the longest linear particle accelerator in the world</li>
<li>Video lectures, i.e. having coffee with a friend during CS lecture or not having to get up at 9am, instead watching the lecture that evening on your computer (1.5x speed)</li>
<li>Subs with “dirty sauce” at Ike’s Place in the engineering quad</li>
<li>Tasty veggie eats at Ricker</li>
<li>Research funding: $5 million per year, more than any other school</li>
<li>the LSJUMB!</li>
<li>Very effective freshman roommate-matching system, utilizing extensive input from incoming students, that integrates well-designed algorithms with human evaluation. Result: lots of happy freshmen with compatible roommates.</li>
<li>Getting to take classes at the business/law/med/education schools</li>
<li>Study abroad (so many interesting campuses)</li>
<li>Hopkins Marine Station</li>
<li>Studying (okay, checking out sun-bathers) in the Oval</li>
<li>Dance Expos, featuring (often very attractive) students showcasing their, um, cultural heritage</li>
<li>The fruits on trees</li>
<li>The multitude of student organizations spanning just about everything imaginable</li>
<li>The collaborative working environment</li>
<li>The fact that famous people show up regularly (Joseph Gordon-Levitt came yesterday!)</li>
<li>The fact that everything is in central campus (no separate campuses for the med school, law school etc)</li>
<li>Complete array of academic and tutorial support services always available in any subject (freshmen have academic and writing tutors living in their dorms as well)</li>
<li>Jazz nights at the CoHo.</li>
<li>People don’t get an attitude or assume snobbery when someone says s/he attends Stanford, unlike for HYP</li>
<li>More socially egalitarian</li>
<li>Watching lots of excited ProFros logging in to accept their offers of admission during Admit Weekend.</li>
<li>The Stanford Chaparral (the second-oldest continuously-published college humor magazine in the country) and the Stanford Flipside</li>
<li>Incredible internship opportunities during summer and the school year</li>
<li>Career fairs throughout the year with loads of companies from everywhere looking for Stanford students</li>
<li>Overseas seminars during the summer</li>
<li>The Dollies</li>
<li>BEAUTIFUL Spanish architecture</li>
<li>An awesome common app supplement</li>
<li>Splendid nature, especially in the eucalyptus groves and the Arizona Cactus Garden.</li>
<li>Fountain hopping</li>
<li>Tahoe Ski Trip</li>
<li>Great weather year- round</li>
<li>The Bender Room in the Green Library</li>
<li>Free stadium food on the meal plans</li>
<li>Lots of dining options through the campus</li>
<li>Lots of school Pride</li>
<li>The Marching Band</li>
<li>Late night snacks at the Axe and Palm</li>
<li>No tax and 10% discount when you purchase Cardinal dollars</li>
<li>Full Moon on the Quad</li>
<li>Frat parties</li>
<li>Pizza My Heart in Palo Alto</li>
<li>Getting thrown in the shower at midnight on your birthday</li>
<li>Great RA’s</li>
<li>Great Resident Faculty (RFs)</li>
<li>Very friendly, attentive and always trying to please dining staff</li>
<li>Palm Drive</li>
<li>Stanford Football games and tailgating parties</li>
<li>The Big Game against Berkeley</li>
<li>Living amongst so many high achievers, and not just academically</li>
<li>The great sense of balance on the campus. A real work hard, play hard mentality</li>
<li>Distinguished faculty, with 2nd most membership at U.S. national academies, only behind Harvard</li>
<li>The only university in U.S.A with all professional schools (business, law, education, medicine, and engineering) ranked in top 5</li>
<li>Arguably the most innovative university in the world</li>
<li>The mega of information technology, most connections to Turing award, the ‘Nobel prize’ in computing</li>
<li>Arguably the most well rounded university, with top 5 departments across the board</li>
<li>Current staff has most Nobel prize winners in the world</li>
<li>most national medal of science winners by faculty members, #1 in USA</li>
<li>Super start-up culture: GOOGLE, YAHOO, H-P, CISCO, SUN, and NETSCAPE were all founded by Stanford people</li>
<li>Stanford has changed the world through technology inventions, such as RADAR, LASER, internet protocol, DSL, microprocessor, GPS, satelite dish, and gene cloning</li>
<li>the Mayfield Fellows program and the Stanford Technology Ventures Program</li>
<li>Placing first in the Director’s Cup for overall athletic excellence 17 times in a row (this year it’s on track to win it again), the most individual championships (465), the second-most team championships (102) and the most in the past 25 years, 35 varsity sports, tons of club and IM sports, and great year-round weather to enjoy them</li>
<li>The extremely collaborative nature of the students</li>
<li>Caltrain’s proximity to the campus</li>
<li>The Stanford Mall</li>
<li>The Wheelz program </li>
<li>An awesome array of themed dorms to choose from: 1/3 of Stanford’s 80 houses are themed</li>
<li>Stanford has had the most generous alumni of any US university for several years running, attesting to their success and their affection for their alma mater</li>
<li>Stanford and its partners are bringing free, state-of-the-art, interactive education to students everywhere through <a href=“https://www.coursera.org/[/url]”>https://www.coursera.org/&lt;/a&gt; </li>
<li>Forward looking and risk taking attitude</li>
<li>Bio-X ventures</li>
<li>Hoover Institutute</li>
<li>SLAC</li>
<li>Stanford + Berkeley+ Silicon valley = the undisputed world capital of information technology</li>
<li>Stanford + UCSF + Berkeley = the well spring of biomedical technology</li>
<li>Ethnic diversity of students!</li>
</ol>

55

<p>1.The campus
2. The Stanford name value (prestige)
3. SLE
4. Excellence across every academic discipline
5. A strong orientation toward the future: Stanford is all about “What’s Next”!
6. A great climate that supports fitness (and allows students to sunbathe while studying in March and April)
7. Course selection: 1,500 undergrad courses, countless more grad-level ones to take
8. Interdisciplinary majors: only Stanford has symbolic systems, MCS, humbio, etc.
9. Proximity to San Francisco, San Jose, the Bay, the ocean, and a drive from Tahoe, Yosemite, etc.
10. The happiness of the students
11. Excellent sports programs that produce Olympians
12. Huge variety of research opportunities available to undergraduates, and professors that reach out to students to let them know about those opportunities
13. Superb, accessible faculty across the board
14. Talented, motivated peers from all over the world
15. Lake Lagunita - it’s actually filled this year!
16. Introductory Seminars (introsems, <15 students, average size of 10), small classes in general
17. Athletic facilities
18. Superb return on investment
19. Generous Financial Aid
20. Free Admission for Students to Football Games.
21. An undergrad experience so rewarding that even the prospect of being the NFL’s top draft pick didn’t entice Andrew Luck to leave Stanford a year early
22. Quality undergrad housing (with a huge variety), guaranteed for 4 years
23. SLAC - the longest linear particle accelerator in the world
24. Video lectures, i.e. having coffee with a friend during CS lecture or not having to get up at 9am, instead watching the lecture that evening on your computer (1.5x speed)
25. Subs with “dirty sauce” at Ike’s Place in the engineering quad
26. Tasty veggie eats at Ricker
27. Research funding: $5 million per year, more than any other school
28. the LSJUMB!
29. Very effective freshman roommate-matching system, utilizing extensive input from incoming students, that integrates well-designed algorithms with human evaluation. Result: lots of happy freshmen with compatible roommates.
30. Getting to take classes at the business/law/med/education schools
31. Study abroad (so many interesting campuses)
32. Hopkins Marine Station
33. Studying (okay, checking out sun-bathers) in the Oval
34. Dance Expos, featuring (often very attractive) students showcasing their, um, cultural heritage
35. The fruits on trees
36. The multitude of student organizations spanning just about everything imaginable
37. The collaborative working environment
38. The fact that famous people show up regularly (Joseph Gordon-Levitt came yesterday!)
39. The fact that everything is in central campus (no separate campuses for the med school, law school etc)
40. Complete array of academic and tutorial support services always available in any subject (freshmen have academic and writing tutors living in their dorms as well)
41. Jazz nights at the CoHo.
42. People don’t get an attitude or assume snobbery when someone says s/he attends Stanford, unlike for HYP
43. More socially egalitarian
44. Watching lots of excited ProFros logging in to accept their offers of admission during Admit Weekend.
45. The Stanford Chaparral (the second-oldest continuously-published college humor magazine in the country) and the Stanford Flipside
46. Incredible internship opportunities during summer and the school year
47. Career fairs throughout the year with loads of companies from everywhere looking for Stanford students
48. Overseas seminars during the summer
49. The Dollies
50. BEAUTIFUL Spanish architecture
51. An awesome common app supplement
52. Splendid nature, especially in the eucalyptus groves and the Arizona Cactus Garden.
53. Fountain hopping
54. Tahoe Ski Trip
55. Great weather year- round
56. The Bender Room in the Green Library
57. Free stadium food on the meal plans
58. Lots of dining options through the campus
59. Lots of school Pride
60. The Marching Band
61. Late night snacks at the Axe and Palm
62. No tax and 10% discount when you purchase Cardinal dollars
63. Full Moon on the Quad
64. Frat parties
65. Pizza My Heart in Palo Alto
66. Getting thrown in the shower at midnight on your birthday
67. Great RA’s
68. Great Resident Faculty (RFs)
69. Very friendly, attentive and always trying to please dining staff
70. Palm Drive
71. Stanford Football games and tailgating parties
72. The Big Game against Berkeley
73. Living amongst so many high achievers, and not just academically
74. The great sense of balance on the campus. A real work hard, play hard mentality
75. Distinguished faculty, with 2nd most membership at U.S. national academies, only behind Harvard
76. The only university in U.S.A with all professional schools (business, law, education, medicine, and engineering) ranked in top 5
77. Arguably the most innovative university in the world
78. The mega of information technology, most connections to Turing award, the ‘Nobel prize’ in computing
79. Arguably the most well rounded university, with top 5 departments across the board
80. Current staff has most Nobel prize winners in the world
81. most national medal of science winners by faculty members, #1 in USA
82. Super start-up culture: GOOGLE, YAHOO, H-P, CISCO, SUN, and NETSCAPE were all founded by Stanford people
83. Stanford has changed the world through technology inventions, such as RADAR, LASER, internet protocol, DSL, microprocessor, GPS, satelite dish, and gene cloning
84. the Mayfield Fellows program and the Stanford Technology Ventures Program
85. Placing first in the Director’s Cup for overall athletic excellence 17 times in a row (this year it’s on track to win it again), the most individual championships (465), the second-most team championships (102) and the most in the past 25 years, 35 varsity sports, tons of club and IM sports, and great year-round weather to enjoy them
86. The extremely collaborative nature of the students
87. Caltrain’s proximity to the campus
88. The Stanford Mall
89. The Wheelz program
90. An awesome array of themed dorms to choose from: 1/3 of Stanford’s 80 houses are themed
91. Stanford has had the most generous alumni of any US university for several years running, attesting to their success and their affection for their alma mater
92. Stanford and its partners are bringing free, state-of-the-art, interactive education to students everywhere through <a href=“https://www.coursera.org/[/url]”>https://www.coursera.org/&lt;/a&gt;
93. Forward looking and risk taking attitude
94. Bio-X ventures
95. Hoover Institutute
96. SLAC
97. Stanford + Berkeley+ Silicon valley = the undisputed world capital of information technology
98. Stanford + UCSF + Berkeley = the well spring of biomedical technology
99. Ethnic diversity of students!
100. Prof. Robert Sapolsky, Prof. Daphne Koller, and the many other MacArthur “Genius” Grant winners who bring it all to undergraduates while continuing the groundbreaking research that brought them the award
101. There’s no place like it–anywhere.</p>

56

<p>^ save the best for last. ;)</p>

57

<p>Not yet. #23 and #96 are the same.</p>

58

<p>Good catch, ewho. So were #28 and #60, I saw. I’ve updated accordingly:</p>

<p>1.The campus
2. The Stanford name value (prestige)
3. SLE
4. Excellence across every academic discipline
5. A strong orientation toward the future: Stanford is all about “What’s Next”!
6. A great climate that supports fitness (and allows students to sunbathe while studying in March and April)
7. Course selection: 1,500 undergrad courses, countless more grad-level ones to take
8. Interdisciplinary majors: only Stanford has symbolic systems, MCS, humbio, etc.
9. Proximity to San Francisco, San Jose, the Bay, the ocean, and a drive from Tahoe, Yosemite, etc.
10. The happiness of the students
11. Excellent sports programs that produce Olympians
12. Huge variety of research opportunities available to undergraduates, and professors that reach out to students to let them know about those opportunities
13. Superb, accessible faculty across the board
14. Talented, motivated peers from all over the world
15. Lake Lagunita - it’s actually filled this year!
16. Introductory Seminars (introsems, <15 students, average size of 10), small classes in general
17. Athletic facilities
18. Superb return on investment
19. Generous Financial Aid
20. Free Admission for Students to Football Games.
21. An undergrad experience so rewarding that even the prospect of being the NFL’s top draft pick didn’t entice Andrew Luck to leave Stanford a year early
22. Quality undergrad housing (with a huge variety), guaranteed for 4 years
23. SLAC - the longest linear particle accelerator in the world
24. Video lectures, i.e. having coffee with a friend during CS lecture or not having to get up at 9am, instead watching the lecture that evening on your computer (1.5x speed)
25. Subs with “dirty sauce” at Ike’s Place in the engineering quad
26. Tasty veggie eats at Ricker
27. Research funding: $5 million per year, more than any other school
28. the LSJUMB!
29. Very effective freshman roommate-matching system, utilizing extensive input from incoming students, that integrates well-designed algorithms with human evaluation. Result: lots of happy freshmen with compatible roommates.
30. Getting to take classes at the business/law/med/education schools
31. Study abroad (so many interesting campuses)
32. Hopkins Marine Station
33. Studying (okay, checking out sun-bathers) in the Oval
34. Dance Expos, featuring (often very attractive) students showcasing their, um, cultural heritage
35. The fruits on trees
36. The multitude of student organizations spanning just about everything imaginable
37. The collaborative working environment
38. The fact that famous people show up regularly (Joseph Gordon-Levitt came yesterday!)
39. The fact that everything is in central campus (no separate campuses for the med school, law school etc)
40. Complete array of academic and tutorial support services always available in any subject (freshmen have academic and writing tutors living in their dorms as well)
41. Jazz nights at the CoHo.
42. People don’t get an attitude or assume snobbery when someone says s/he attends Stanford, unlike for HYP
43. More socially egalitarian
44. Watching lots of excited ProFros logging in to accept their offers of admission during Admit Weekend.
45. The Stanford Chaparral (the second-oldest continuously-published college humor magazine in the country) and the Stanford Flipside
46. Incredible internship opportunities during summer and the school year
47. Career fairs throughout the year with loads of companies from everywhere looking for Stanford students
48. Overseas seminars during the summer
49. The Dollies
50. BEAUTIFUL Spanish architecture
51. An awesome common app supplement
52. Splendid nature, especially in the eucalyptus groves and the Arizona Cactus Garden.
53. Fountain hopping
54. Tahoe Ski Trip
55. Great weather year- round
56. The Bender Room in the Green Library
57. Free stadium food on the meal plans
58. Lots of dining options through the campus
59. Lots of school Pride
60. The Rodin Sculpture Garden
61. Late night snacks at the Axe and Palm
62. No tax and 10% discount when you purchase Cardinal dollars
63. Full Moon on the Quad
64. Frat parties
65. Pizza My Heart in Palo Alto
66. Getting thrown in the shower at midnight on your birthday
67. Great RA’s
68. Great Resident Faculty (RFs)
69. Very friendly, attentive and always trying to please dining staff
70. Palm Drive
71. Stanford Football games and tailgating parties
72. The Big Game against Berkeley
73. Living amongst so many high achievers, and not just academically
74. The great sense of balance on the campus. A real work hard, play hard mentality
75. Distinguished faculty, with 2nd most membership at U.S. national academies, only behind Harvard
76. The only university in U.S.A with all professional schools (business, law, education, medicine, and engineering) ranked in top 5
77. Arguably the most innovative university in the world
78. The mega of information technology, most connections to Turing award, the ‘Nobel prize’ in computing
79. Arguably the most well rounded university, with top 5 departments across the board
80. Current staff has most Nobel prize winners in the world
81. most national medal of science winners by faculty members, #1 in USA
82. Super start-up culture: GOOGLE, YAHOO, H-P, CISCO, SUN, and NETSCAPE were all founded by Stanford people
83. Stanford has changed the world through technology inventions, such as RADAR, LASER, internet protocol, DSL, microprocessor, GPS, satelite dish, and gene cloning
84. the Mayfield Fellows program and the Stanford Technology Ventures Program
85. Placing first in the Director’s Cup for overall athletic excellence 17 times in a row (this year it’s on track to win it again), the most individual championships (465), the second-most team championships (102) and the most in the past 25 years, 35 varsity sports, tons of club and IM sports, and great year-round weather to enjoy them
86. The extremely collaborative nature of the students
87. Caltrain’s proximity to the campus
88. The Stanford Mall
89. The Wheelz program
90. An awesome array of themed dorms to choose from: 1/3 of Stanford’s 80 houses are themed
91. Stanford has had the most generous alumni of any US university for several years running, attesting to their success and their affection for their alma mater
92. Stanford and its partners are bringing free, state-of-the-art, interactive education to students everywhere through <a href=“https://www.coursera.org/[/url]”>https://www.coursera.org/&lt;/a&gt;
93. Forward looking and risk taking attitude
94. Bio-X ventures
95. Hoover Institutute
96. The new Bing Concert Center and the rest of the new performing arts facilities planned
97. Stanford + Berkeley+ Silicon valley = the undisputed world capital of information technology
98. Stanford + UCSF + Berkeley = the well spring of biomedical technology
99. Ethnic diversity of students!
100. Prof. Robert Sapolsky, Prof. Daphne Koller, and the many other MacArthur “Genius” Grant winners who bring it all to undergraduates while continuing the groundbreaking research that brought them the award
101. There’s no place like it–anywhere.</p>

59

<p>

</p>

<p>Um, that was my point. Stanford did it. It was cool. Lots of other places have it now.</p>

<p>And that’s a cool thing about Stanford.</p>

60

<p>Very good point, woodhead. I’ll amend item #8 accordingly:</p>

<p>1.The campus
2. The Stanford name value (prestige)
3. SLE
4. Excellence across every academic discipline
5. A strong orientation toward the future: Stanford is all about “What’s Next”!
6. A great climate that supports fitness (and allows students to sunbathe while studying in March and April)
7. Course selection: 1,500 undergrad courses, countless more grad-level ones to take
8. Interdisciplinary majors: Stanford offers a wide variety, some of them unique to Stanford (Symbolic Systems; MCS; Science, Technology & Society; et al.), and originated the HumBio interdisciplinary major decades ago. Stanford students also design their own interdisciplinary majors with enthusiastic faculty support
9. Proximity to San Francisco, San Jose, the Bay, the ocean, and a drive from Tahoe, Yosemite, etc.
10. The happiness of the students
11. Excellent sports programs that produce Olympians
12. Huge variety of research opportunities available to undergraduates, and professors that reach out to students to let them know about those opportunities
13. Superb, accessible faculty across the board
14. Talented, motivated peers from all over the world
15. Lake Lagunita - it’s actually filled this year!
16. Introductory Seminars (introsems, <15 students, average size of 10), small classes in general
17. Athletic facilities
18. Superb return on investment
19. Generous Financial Aid
20. Free Admission for Students to Football Games.
21. An undergrad experience so rewarding that even the prospect of being the NFL’s top draft pick didn’t entice Andrew Luck to leave Stanford a year early
22. Quality undergrad housing (with a huge variety), guaranteed for 4 years
23. SLAC - the longest linear particle accelerator in the world
24. Video lectures, i.e. having coffee with a friend during CS lecture or not having to get up at 9am, instead watching the lecture that evening on your computer (1.5x speed)
25. Subs with “dirty sauce” at Ike’s Place in the engineering quad
26. Tasty veggie eats at Ricker
27. Research funding: $5 million per year, more than any other school
28. the LSJUMB!
29. Very effective freshman roommate-matching system, utilizing extensive input from incoming students, that integrates well-designed algorithms with human evaluation. Result: lots of happy freshmen with compatible roommates.
30. Getting to take classes at the business/law/med/education schools
31. Study abroad (so many interesting campuses)
32. Hopkins Marine Station
33. Studying (okay, checking out sun-bathers) in the Oval
34. Dance Expos, featuring (often very attractive) students showcasing their, um, cultural heritage
35. The fruits on trees
36. The multitude of student organizations spanning just about everything imaginable
37. The collaborative working environment
38. The fact that famous people show up regularly (Joseph Gordon-Levitt came yesterday!)
39. The fact that everything is in central campus (no separate campuses for the med school, law school etc)
40. Complete array of academic and tutorial support services always available in any subject (freshmen have academic and writing tutors living in their dorms as well)
41. Jazz nights at the CoHo.
42. People don’t get an attitude or assume snobbery when someone says s/he attends Stanford, unlike for HYP
43. More socially egalitarian
44. Watching lots of excited ProFros logging in to accept their offers of admission during Admit Weekend.
45. The Stanford Chaparral (the second-oldest continuously-published college humor magazine in the country) and the Stanford Flipside
46. Incredible internship opportunities during summer and the school year
47. Career fairs throughout the year with loads of companies from everywhere looking for Stanford students
48. Overseas seminars during the summer
49. The Dollies
50. BEAUTIFUL Spanish architecture
51. An awesome common app supplement
52. Splendid nature, especially in the eucalyptus groves and the Arizona Cactus Garden.
53. Fountain hopping
54. Tahoe Ski Trip
55. Great weather year- round
56. The Bender Room in the Green Library
57. Free stadium food on the meal plans
58. Lots of dining options through the campus
59. Lots of school Pride
60. The Rodin Sculpture Garden
61. Late night snacks at the Axe and Palm
62. No tax and 10% discount when you purchase Cardinal dollars
63. Full Moon on the Quad
64. Frat parties
65. Pizza My Heart in Palo Alto
66. Getting thrown in the shower at midnight on your birthday
67. Great RA’s
68. Great Resident Faculty (RFs)
69. Very friendly, attentive and always trying to please dining staff
70. Palm Drive
71. Stanford Football games and tailgating parties
72. The Big Game against Berkeley
73. Living amongst so many high achievers, and not just academically
74. The great sense of balance on the campus. A real work hard, play hard mentality
75. Distinguished faculty, with 2nd most membership at U.S. national academies, only behind Harvard
76. The only university in U.S.A with all professional schools (business, law, education, medicine, and engineering) ranked in top 5
77. Arguably the most innovative university in the world
78. The mega of information technology, most connections to Turing award, the ‘Nobel prize’ in computing
79. Arguably the most well rounded university, with top 5 departments across the board
80. Current staff has most Nobel prize winners in the world
81. most national medal of science winners by faculty members, #1 in USA
82. Super start-up culture: GOOGLE, YAHOO, H-P, CISCO, SUN, and NETSCAPE were all founded by Stanford people
83. Stanford has changed the world through technology inventions, such as RADAR, LASER, internet protocol, DSL, microprocessor, GPS, satelite dish, and gene cloning
84. the Mayfield Fellows program and the Stanford Technology Ventures Program
85. Placing first in the Director’s Cup for overall athletic excellence 17 times in a row (this year it’s on track to win it again), the most individual championships (465), the second-most team championships (102) and the most in the past 25 years, 35 varsity sports, tons of club and IM sports, and great year-round weather to enjoy them
86. The extremely collaborative nature of the students
87. Caltrain’s proximity to the campus
88. The Stanford Mall
89. The Wheelz program
90. An awesome array of themed dorms to choose from: 1/3 of Stanford’s 80 houses are themed
91. Stanford has had the most generous alumni of any US university for several years running, attesting to their success and their affection for their alma mater
92. Stanford and its partners are bringing free, state-of-the-art, interactive education to students everywhere through <a href=“https://www.coursera.org/[/url]”>https://www.coursera.org/&lt;/a&gt;
93. Forward looking and risk taking attitude
94. Bio-X ventures
95. Hoover Institutute
96. The new Bing Concert Center and the rest of the new performing arts facilities planned
97. Stanford + Berkeley+ Silicon valley = the undisputed world capital of information technology
98. Stanford + UCSF + Berkeley = the well spring of biomedical technology
99. Ethnic diversity of students!
100. Prof. Robert Sapolsky, Prof. Daphne Koller, and the many other MacArthur “Genius” Grant winners who bring it all to undergraduates while continuing the groundbreaking research that brought them the award
101. There’s no place like it–anywhere.</p>