<p>D is an econ major, but only a soph. My sense is it’s a mixed bag. The intro. econ. classes have problem sets, so in that way they are like techie classes. I think some of the upper level classes are very quantitative, while others are more behavioral and sociological in nature and thus fuzzier.</p>
<p>wow, dad2, really? “Otherwise, Stanford students probably have a similar workload (volume and difficulty) to most ivies, but less than the top tier LAC’s (predominately East coast), which are considered in most quarters to be the most “intense” schools.”</p>
<p>"…probably have similar workload…"??? “…less than the top tier LAC’s…???”
which top tier LAC’s/most “intense” schools? </p>
<p>i think you dont know what you’re talking about. why, what’s your experience with Stanford? how did you know? where did you get those information?</p>
<p>by all means, those are incorrect statements.</p>
<p>do you have a child/children that attends/attended stanford. or if i may ask, do you have a child/children who was/were not accepted at Stanford???</p>
<p>^ I believe his kid got rejected from Stanford and went to a LAC instead. Since then, Dad2 has been railing against Stanford as much as possible on these boards and promoting Swarthmore and Williams. If you look at his posting history, you’ll see many of his posts related to Stanford. (By this point, Dad2 isn’t even annoying - he just makes me yawn.)</p>
<p>I think it’s pretty hard to compare workload across schools unless you’ve attended more than one. A lot of work to one student may be manageable to another. Personally, I’ve definitely been challenged at times here at Stanford, but never overworked or constantly buried under work for a lengthy period of time (granted I’m only a frosh.) My friends often talk about how much work they have, but people usually get it done and do pretty well. </p>
<p>One big difference for me though, is that even when I have a decent amount of work to do, (like the work I’m procrastinating right now; two essays and a problem set all due within the week, haha) I may complain about it, but so far I’ve never been actually stressed out about it. I may not like sitting down and doing it, but after a few complaints it gets done and I move on. </p>
<p>As far as grading, I’ve gotten settled into the feeling that if I simply do the work, I’ll get a B. If I try REALLY hard and do my absolute best, I have a good chance of getting an A. If I really don’t understand what I’m doing at all, I’ll get a C. And so far that’s been across both my intro fuzzy and techie classes. Again, this may change as I get deeper into a major, but specifically for freshman year that’s the mentality I’ve gathered.</p>
<p>For me specifically, stress has never really come from academic classes alone. What sometimes stresses me is the homework, compounded by various extracurriculars, days spent almost entirely in class/lab, and wanting to enjoy meals and not rush them.</p>
<p>Like if I’m in class until 6, then have rehearsal from 7 to 10, have dorm staff duties from 10 to 11, have to write a Daily column before morning, and have a pset and 100 pages of reading due the next day. That can get pretty stressful. But if it weren’t for the extracurriculars, it would be a breeze.</p>
<p>^^^ wow, i see it now. Dad2 is just everywhere, all kinds of threads. Taking every chance he can get to put down Stanford, sometimes even subtly. Such bitterness!</p>
<p>^ should’ve seen his posts before, when the majority had something to do with Stanford. But since people have been calling him out on that, he’s posting more without mentioning Stanford. His other annoying tendency is to offhandedly lump Swarthmore and Williams (where his children attend) in with top private universities, e.g. “Harvard, Swarthmore, Williams, Yale, MIT, etc. are so selective because…” and thinks nobody notices it. We periodically see bitter parents who blast Stanford for being “unfair” when their child doesn’t get in and who never post again, but Dad2 seems to be the most persistent in his main mission to let the world know just how evil Stanford is, one CC post at a time. :)</p>
<p>Stanford was ranked #2 in the world in the 2011 ARWU ranking. It wouldn’t be there, right behind Harvard, if the students were not hardworking, bright, and motivated. It’s a dumb discussion.</p>
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<p>It seems like you have not read the methodology ARWU uses in ranking schools. The current students play almost no role in giving Stanford a high ranking.</p>
<p>[|Methodology</a> of ARWU 2010](<a href=“http://www.arwu.org/ARWUMethodology2010.jsp]|Methodology”>http://www.arwu.org/ARWUMethodology2010.jsp)</p>
<p>You should rephrase the statement and say: "It wouldn’t be there, right behind Harvard, if the professors and faculty were not hardworking, bright, and motivated. This doesn’t mean students aren’t any of the aforementioned. In fact, because the students are around such great people, they probably are motivated to do well.</p>
<p>@Falcon16, that doesn’t make much sense. Only 800 of Stanford’s students are varsity athletes, an even smaller number were recruited, and an even smaller number were in a sport where that matters in admissions (not by much, either). More importantly, all the Ivies recruit for sports, and the “one standard deviation” rule does not mean that it’s harder to get in as athlete at an Ivy (admissions are based on much more than just numbers).</p>
<p>falcon16, read the student responses to the article on the “easy” list of courses (many classes on it aren’t easy, the listed classes mostly fit into a typical athlete’s schedule, the list was mostly ignored by athletes, anyone could get the list, etc.). Anyone can say, “I know someone who had a 1560 on the SAT and still got in,” etc. I know someone who got into Yale and Brown with a 1400/2400 on the SAT, had a 3.5 GPA in mostly easy classes, and was good at basketball. So what?</p>
<p>The fact that Stanford competes against such schools doesn’t matter. Many elite Northeast universities compete with schools like UMass-Amherst or Holy Cross. They don’t have to be equally selective to compete with them.</p>
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<p>No, it doesn’t. What data do you have to back this up? I would say that the best student-athletes are those that are at the very top both in academics and in sports. Many of these students exist, but yes the pool is small. (If you search around on how Stanford chose its football team, you’ll find one discussing how small the pool of high school recruits it draws from, since they have to be approved by the admissions office, etc.) These students go to Stanford because it offers athletic scholarships. The next best student-athletes are those that are decent at sports and strong in academics; these tend to go to Ivies, though some to Stanford as well. The next would be those strong in sports and mediocre/decent in academics; these go to Ivies, Stanford, and (mostly) lower-ranked schools. </p>
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<p>What is your evidence of this?</p>
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<p>Uh, no it doesn’t. Stanford doesn’t have any special classes for athletes, either. That list of courses was compiled directly from the bulletin that everyone uses; those classes are taken mostly by students who aren’t athletes.</p>
<p>Hey just for the heck of it, I remember a very good friend of ours who attended a local state school. He was a genius. Majored in Biochem and chem and is now at Duke working on his MD/PhD. In any case, he went to Yale for two years before going to Duke and worked as a researcher there. Interestingly, he came across some organic chem finals and was surprised at how easy they were, compared to the ones given at his state school. So all this just to say, that I’m not so sure that anyone can say that one school is tougher than another. I think most would think this scenario wasn’t possible either, but it’s the truth… So take it for what its worth. Does it mean that SUNY kids work harder than Yale kids?</p>