<p>First off, congrats on the acceptance, and even more congrats for making the right decision to come to the Farm! I’m rising junior here, so I think I should be able to give pretty accurate answers to your questions. It’s also worth noting that I am a pre-med Biology major, although I have taken several courses in the humanities and social sciences, and I hear about many other classes since most of my friends are either humanities, engineering, CS, social science, or math majors. Warning in advance: Long post to follow.</p>
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<li>Exactly how difficult/stressful are the classes and quarter system at Stanford?
The quarter system can definitely feel like quite a rush. In standalone classes, you will often have 10 weeks to cover as much material that semester system students cover in 15 weeks. In some year-long sequences, the actual amount of material is actually the same, but the pacing of projects, papers, and tests is what does it: For sciencey classes, you may have as many as 3 midterms* plus the final exam; in project-based engineering classes, you’ll often have new projects assigned as soon as you’re done with the previous one; and in writing-based humanities classes, you may have as many as 3 major papers, sometimes in addition to a final exam.</li>
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<p>*When you have 3 midterms, they often either let you drop the lowest midterm grade OR let your skip the final if you’re happy with your grade on the midterms, without penalty.</p>
<p>As for the difficulty of individual classes, it varies immensely. Some classes are absurdly easy requiring nearly no work as the lectures are videotaped and slides are uploaded, while some classes are absurdly difficult either because they’re conceptually challenging, assign lots of reading/work/projects, or both. A lot depends on the teacher and, in many cases, the TA’s. Most students use our Courserank website to look for reviews of particular classes from other students, as well as an approximate grade distribution. Be aware, however, that very few people may input their grades onto the site for some classes, so the grade distribution can be very inaccurate in some cases. In addition, different professors may teach the class in different quarters, in which case past reviews can be very misleading. Take a look at the link below as you plan out your schedule: <a href=“https://www.courserank.com/stanford/”>https://www.courserank.com/stanford/</a></p>
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<li><p>Do you have any tips on adjusting to the quarter system?
Take a low-unit count first quarter, 12-15 units like they recommend. This is not only to gauge how many units you’ll be able to take in the future, but also to adjust to all of the other new things about college as well as have time to meet all the wonderful new people in your dorm, classes, and clubs. I took 17 units my first quarter because two of the classes were “supposed” to be the equivalent of AP classes I had already taken in high school. Big mistake. CHEM 31x is far more difficult than AP Chem, and I wish I’d had more time to socialize in autumn of Freshman year (though I did make quite a few friends study partying for chem).</p></li>
<li><p>Is grading lenient or tough?
Depends a lot on the professor (and sometimes TA’s). They choose how to do the grading, which may or may not be curved/shifted/otherwise adjusted based on the class’s performance. For instance, in my freshman year a professor wanted to “skip” a midterm and give everyone in this 100+ person class an A, but the registrar decided that wasn’t okay. On the other hand, I hear from some of my humanities friends about TA’s who make it their personal job to always deduct points from papers. Overall, I would say that the stereotype of grade inflation at Stanford is on average true, or at least not overtly false.</p></li>
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<p>I don’t know what you’re thinking about majoring in, but the upper level math, CS, and engineering classes in general hold the reputation for being the hardest at the undergrad level. I personally have found the premed classes (gen chem, ochem, physics, and bio) to be reasonable and often challenging, but it’s certainly possible to get a very high GPA if you put in the effort. But then again I am one of those weirdos who found out he actually likes ochem.</p>
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<li><p>How would you describe the sense of community at Stanford?
Strong overall, but it obviously isn’t as close-knit as a SLAC with only 1500 undergrads. Rather, it feels more like having several smaller communities–dorms, clubs, classes, frats/sororities, research labs, etc.–within a much larger community, similar to the way that you have several close-knit hallways within a larger dorm. On top of these smaller groups, there definitely is a larger “Stanford vibe,” that’s difficult to describe but is certainly noticeable during rallies, football games, and other big events. And with just under 7000 undergrads on campus, although you might not recognize every face you pass in the hallways, you very likely will have a mutual friend between you and any given stranger. Or at least a friend of a friend. </p></li>
<li><p>I know that dorms are very close-knit freshman year, but do you think upperclassmen get the same experience or is everyone very isolated?
Upperclassmen CAN get the same experience, although it’s certainly less common. For sophomore year, you can try to get into the highly-sought after and all-soph Toyon dorm, which is very reminiscent of an all-frosh dorm. You can also try to get into one of the Greek, co-op, or self-op houses, which are also very close-knit as you might expect. Failing that, you can enter the housing draw with up to 7 other friends to ensure that you’ll all be in the same dorm (but beware–big draw groups practically always get worse housing than smaller groups due to the way the draw works).</p></li>
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<p>That said, you shouldn’t expect it be anything like freshman year. Many people start taking harder classes and joining more clubs, and therefore often won’t have as much time for socializing. You’ll find that many aren’t quite as open to meeting new friends as they were during NSO, although there are certainly many exceptions, and making new friends in your later years is far from impossible.</p>
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<li>What is your favorite part of attending Stanford?
The people, hands down. I could go on for ever about the people, but in a few words: gifted, caring, humble, unique. I won’t pretend to understand exactly how the admissions process works, but I think you’ll see a general trend once you’re on the Farm. While some top tier institutions value grades, test scores, and other numerical representations of a student, I’m all but certain that Stanford places a huge emphasis on everything else in your application: letters of recommendation, personal statement, supplemental essays and short questions, extracurricular activities, etc. That we reject ~80% of 2400 SAT scorers should tell you something. It seems like everyone has done something truly exceptional, and no one bothers to brag about it; it sometimes takes years before you realize that your best friend was an Olympic athlete or a National Science Bowl champion. I’ll let you reach your own conclusions starting with NSO, but in short, your dormmates and classmates are going to be awesome.</li>
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<p>The weather’s obviously pretty great too, although as a Californian native I don’t notice it as much as people from out of state. Some friends from Seattle complain they can’t study in Spring Quarter because they’re not used to seeing the sun that time of year, so they go out to sunbathe when they should be hitting the books.</p>
<p>Hope all that was helpful, and get ready for a wonderful four years! Enjoy these last few weeks before NSO too–I’ll bet it’ll be your last “free” summer for a while.</p>