<p>OP - Trust your gut - it sounds as though you are leaning toward Stanford. If you are laid-back and non-competitive you would probably be more comfortable in a west coast school.</p>
<p>You are going to get a biased opinion here, but I need to echo the other parents - my daughter loves Stanford and is having a great time. She has made wonderful friends (I met them and their parents during parent weekend so I know first hand) and is doing well academically.</p>
<p>She attended a very competive east coast prep school and finds the west coast attitude refreshing. She feels like kids at Stanford are much more authentic and not as concerned with how they come off to others. </p>
<p>Also, my impression is that Stanford seems much more focused on developing the individual where the Ivy’s can come off as being more concerned with developing the institution. By this I mean that Ivy grads seem to go through life leading with their school affiliation as in this is “Yale grad Joe Shmoe”, where Stanford grads seem like really intesting people. I had a wonderful friend that graduated from Stanford and it was years before I knew this - it wasn’t something that defined her.</p>