<p>I’m flipping through my viewbook trying to piece together a good ‘why stanford’ and i noticed that Stanford only has a 117 year history…just curious how Stanford got so famous globally.</p>
<p>^ I reckon Silicon Valley played major part of Stanford’s rise (and vice versa).</p>
<p>This is a good way to find out how Stanford emerged as a major research university with prestige:</p>
<p>[History</a> - Part 3: Stanford University](<a href=“http://www.stanford.edu/about/history/history_ch3.html]History”>http://www.stanford.edu/about/history/history_ch3.html)</p>
<p>FWIW, make sure not to mention prestige in your ‘why Stanford’ essay.</p>
<p>^truth .</p>
<p>kyledavid80, i talked about prestige in my why stanford essay and got in. why not?</p>
<p>At a 10,000-foot level, it was a confluence of factors. California and the West became progressively more important, and Stanford was one of the places that trained smart kids from that region or who settled there. For example, in 1949, Stanford Law School was at best a third-tier regional school, but its class that year included two future Supreme Court Justices and two future Cabinet members, and two current Supreme Court Justices were undergraduates around then. It owned a huge amount of real estate in Palo Alto, that became some of the most valuable real estate on Earth. </p>
<p>Bill Hewlett and David Packard were extremely generous alumni, both with dollars and with networking. In terms of areas of strength, Stanford was in the right place and the right time for the computer industry and a lot of defense-oriented research. It also benefitted from the legacy of Herbert Hoover, an alumnus; the Hoover Institute is the most prominent conservative university-based think tank in the country, and was an important intellectual talent pool for the Reagan/Bush Administrations. George Schultz, probably the most all-around impressive figure from that era, with tremendous business and public service accomplishments, is very involved with the university behind the scenes. (He had a lot to do with promoting Condi Rice’s career.)</p>
<p>Cal, its main competitor for primacy in the West, sort of tore itself to shreds a bit in the late 60s and early 70s over political issues, and it suffered a lot under Reagan’s governorship. It was also less able to attract students from other Western states, other regions of the country, and other countries. The widespread urban decline in the 1960s and 70s made competitors like Columbia, Chicago, USC, Yale, and Penn (and even Harvard, to some extent) comparatively less attractive, at the same time that smaller, more rural LACs were somewhat becoming less popular with top students.</p>
<p>In the 60s and 70s, it made some big, wholesale raids on prominent faculty at Eastern institutions, which gave it an instant prestige boost, and more or less catapulted it into Ivy-equivalence.</p>
<p>Stanford has accomplished A LOT in it’s relatively short history. So many advancements in science, psychology, whatever have been made at Stanford so it’s easy to see why it’s now reaping the benefits (ie-prestige) of its success. Furthermore, a lot of its alumni have gone on to be quite famous, further boosting it’s name recognition. </p>
<p>Truthfully, I think Stanford might have more to show for itself in its 100 years of history, than Harvard does in its 400 years.</p>
<p>I also am still amazed at how Stanford has been able to infiltrate itself into top rankings and become a peer school to HYPM in a little more than 100 years.</p>
<p>Also, I advise others to NOT mention prestige in their apps since other schools have it. That doesn’t make Stanford unique; many other things do.</p>
<p>Thanks, dpattzlover!</p>
<p>You mean that you WOULD NOT advise ppl to mention the prestige, right? And StanfordMom, supereagle got in solely because of his URM status? Didn’t you just say on the SCEA decisions thread that just b/c someone is an URM doesn’t mean they will get in?</p>
<p>No, it’s okay, I just thought I saw something like that. It’s not a big deal though. Anyway, what are SuperEagle’s stats like and what ethnicity is he? I’m American Indian, does this make me more attractive to Stanford? </p>
<p>Also, I’m assuming that your S or D goes to Stanford, right?</p>
<p>Hold up. Mentioning prestige isn’t terrible. </p>
<p>Focussing on it is.</p>
<p>Yes, being American Indian definitely does help. Check his posts. He has chances threads on other forums.</p>
<p>Okay, yeah, that makes sense. But I’m trying to avoid coming across as one of the ppl who want to go to a top school just because of its prestige…I don’t think Stanford wants ppl like that I think that makes it a unique school. </p>
<p>@ Stanford mom, I looked again and you did say something like that in your last SCEA post…“but you and I know very well that you got in because of URM”.</p>
<p>Also, Stanford is only second to Harvard in terms of number of billionaires who have been students. </p>
<p>That definitely helps boost prestige. ;)</p>
<p>StanfordMom, you are clearly a ■■■■■. </p>
<p>1) You just joined today. </p>
<p>2) You post like a teenage boy:
</p>
<p>Yeah, a “mom” would say those things…</p>
<p>3) You entered a thread about the prestige of Stanford, and instead of posting on topic you immediately derailed the thread by bringing up race. Isn’t that the definition of a ■■■■■?</p>
<p>You are amicw, the Stanford reject who was raising hell in the decisions thread. I am reporting you now.</p>
<p>Who are you then?</p>
<p>It’s clear that you are a former poster in the Stanford forum on another name. So why don’t you tell us your previous screenname?</p>
<p>Daaaaamn. Called out on it.</p>
<p>Okay, this is a bit fishy. “Just trying to spread some knowledge, my brothers.” What mother speaks like that? Thankfully not mine.</p>
<p>^ Please stop posting…</p>
<p>Can we officially label Stanfordmom09 as a ■■■■■. I mean, it’s more obvious than the fact that Donald Trump wears a toupee</p>