<p>Stanford is stronger than Harvard for my intended major, CS. It’s obviously a fantastic place to do a PhD in CS and a lot of great people come out of their graduate programs. However, I’m concerned about Stanford’s undergrad student body. Namely, it seems that students are too focused on startups and are not as intellectual as students at Harvard/MIT. So what’s more important, who’s teaching you or who your peers are? </p>
What's more important: quality of the academic department or quality of the student body as a whole?
<p>That’s funny…of our two kids…K2, who is at Stanford, is far more “intellectual” and “deep thinker” and less superficial than our K1 who is at the other aforementioned school…</p>
<p>…not only that…I have noticed that students that LOVE to complain and whine about every possible situation…whether it’s the classes, the teachers, the miserable weather, the miserable food, etc…who make an art of being miserable…belong at a school near Boston…</p>
<p>…I know our K1 is not the happiest of campers like so many there…and lets us know regularly…but, still wants to hang in there to get the “degree” like so many other students…who “bear” with it…and get the hell out…</p>
<p>…and by the way, the school known for having “intellectual” students who eat breathe and live the life of the mind is not at S, H, and definitely not M…it’s in another city.</p>
<p><a href=“The Harvard Crimson”>http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2014/4/13/why-stanford-is-better/</a></p>
<p><a href=“The Harvard Crimson”>http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2013/4/7/top-dream-school/</a></p>
<p>…and you wonder why my K1 is embarrassed and longs to get OUT…</p>
<p>And one more…<a href=“A Stanford Fantasy | Opinion | The Harvard Crimson”>http://www.thecrimson.com/column/a-dash-of-insanity/article/2014/3/7/harvard-stanford-fantasy/</a></p>
<p>…it speaks volumes when a school expends so much energy talking about another school…</p>
<p>Ok, I’m going to do my best to actually be helpful here. The first article by the previous poster is joke, and the second doesn’t really state that Stanford is better than Harvard. Acceptance rates mean almost nothing. I was actually choosing between Yale and Stanford and ultimately chose Yale a few days ago.</p>
<p>I was talking to my friend at Stanford while I was there, and she said that Stanford students are a notch or two lower than Harvard/Yale/Princeton students (you can see this in SAT scores, and she said GPA as well). I think Stanford students are less traditional and have to have a “Stanford factor” – something that makes you stand out – in order to be accepted. So yes, I would say that Stanford does have a less intellectual atmosphere than Harvard/Yale, but I don’t think that this is because of the entrepreneurial spirit, but instead just because Stanford is looking for a different type of student than the top Ivies.</p>
<p>I don’t think that everyone at Harvard is miserable, nor do I think that everyone at Stanford is incredibly happy. You’ll probably ultimately be happy with wherever you go, especially if you aren’t leaning anywhere. I could see very clearly that Stanford was not a good fit for me, and I knew that despite it’s reputation as a school with happy students, I wouldn’t be happy there.</p>
<p>I do think the people make all the difference (and there won’t be a huge difference between the faculty at Harvard vs Stanford, though the student bodies will be very different). Both schools are predominantly graduate institutions (and you can always go to Stanford for grad school; you don’t have to go there for undergrad to do a graduate degree there). I realized at Yale that I was really excited about all of my prospective classmates, whereas I didn’t get that same vibe at Stanford. While Stanford has fantastic weather, if you were talented enough to get into Stanford and Harvard, you can handle the weather in Boston. Also a potential issue with Stanford is that there is this expectation to be outside having fun, which isn’t that conducive to studying. Boston is a great college town – Palo Alto is not a college town at all. If you go to Stanford, you probably won’t experience real life (i.e., living in a city with real people – some of whom are homeless – for four years). People talk about the “Yale Bubble,” but when I visited Stanford, it seemed like there was a much denser bubble there – Yale is actually making a difference in New Haven. </p>
<p>Hopefully that helps you some! :)</p>
<p>@gravitas2 – are you actually reading ANY of those articles? None of them are stating that Stanford is better than Harvard. </p>
<p>@Tanboyrunfast. Congrats on choosing Yale! I’m not surprised you chose Y. Reading through your old threads…I know Yale was your top choice to begin with since you wanted to study the humanities/liberal arts…and that’s OK. But let’s not insult the intelligence of the entire Stanford student body because not "all’ of them will want to talk about Kant or Descartes like they do at a noted school in the midwest…</p>
<p>…for you to use a strawman opinion of “your” one friend’s view is neither here nor there…for students who get into the LOTTERY schools S, H, Y, P, M…it all comes down to the individuals PERSONALITY and FIT…</p>
<p>…and that’s the reason why our K1 who…despite complaining about the school in the northeast on a regular basis…BELONGS there…because K1 has that “personality”…whereas, our K2 BELONGS at S…</p>
<p>
I think it is accurate that there is more of an emphasis on tech entrepreneurship at Stanford (which many would consider a positive), but this doesn’t mean that everyone is creating startups and focused on startups. Only a small portion of the student body is concerned with startups. You can also find highly intellectual students, as well as students with whom you can have interesting and thoughtful conversations. For example, SLE (Structured Liberal Education) dorms have a reputation for this type of intellectual atmosphere. One of the earlier posts mentions Stanford has lower test scores. This relates to focusing on other areas of the application, including thinking about things like creating a student body full of people with varied backgrounds and ideas, who are generally interesting and pleasant to be around, a focus on what they consider to be as you wrote, “quality of the student body,” rather than just top stats. The Stanford website describes this more eloquently saying,</p>
<p>“We want to see your commitment, dedication and genuine interest in expanding your intellectual horizons; both in what you write about yourself and in what others write on your behalf. We want to see the kind of curiosity and enthusiasm that will allow you to spark a lively discussion in a freshman seminar and continue the conversation at a dinner table.”</p>
<p>One difference in the atmosphere is a greater portion of student body are liberal arts majors at Harvard or Yale, and fewer are tech majors. CS is the most popular major at Stanford by far, while the Harvard CDS indicates only 2% of degrees were awarded in CS (the total has likely increased since the CDS publication). The few tech majors at Harvard have a reputation for having more of a liberal arts focus in their coursework than at most other schools This difference in the major distribution of the student body no doubt contributes to the difference in tech entrepreneurship and the difference in expectations of an intellectual atmosphere. That said, Harvard isn’t exactly lacking in entrepreneurship. The University Entrepreneurship Report found that among the reviewed colleges, Harvard was 2nd to only Stanford in terms of number of startup deals and billions of VC funding.</p>
<p>More to the point of what @Data10 pointed out…Stanford, unlike any other institution, is in a very unusual position…because they have a equal mix of students who would fit great at MIT/Caltech (techies) and those who would also fit great at Harvard/Yale (fuzzies)…and depending on who you spend time with…you may think you were at MIT or Harvard…the FIT and personalities of the individuals being the INTANGIBLES here…</p>
<p>…that is why someone in the past came up with the following equation:
Stanford = the best of MIT(engineering/CS) + the best of Harvard(humanities/social sciences) + the great weather</p>