Stanford University

"Stanford" redirects here. For other uses, see Stanford (disambiguation).

Leland Stanford Junior University

File:CardSeal-1.gif
Motto	[Die Luft der Freiheit weht] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) "The wind of freedom blows"
Type	Private
Established	1891
Endowment	U.S. $17.2 billion
President	John L. Hennessy
Academic staff	1,807
Undergraduates	6,689
Postgraduates	8,201
Location	Stanford , CA , USA
Campus	Suburban, 8,180 acres (33.1 km²)
Athletic nickname	Stanford Cardinal
Mascot	Cardinal
Website	Stanford.edu
File:Stanfordlogo.png

Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly known as Stanford University or simply Stanford, is a private university located approximately 37 miles (60 kilometers) southeast of San Francisco and approximately 20 miles (32 km) northwest of San Jose in Stanford, California, United States. Stanford is situated adjacent to the city of Palo Alto, in Silicon Valley. It is one of the most widely known and highly regarded universities in the United States and ranks highly in numerous rankings.

History

The ruins of Stanford Library after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake

The children of California shall be our children.

— Leland Stanford

Stanford was founded by railroad magnate and California Governor Leland Stanford and his wife, Jane Stanford. It is named in honor of their only child, Leland Stanford, Jr., who died of typhoid just before his 16th birthday.

The story that a lady in "faded gingham" and a man in a "homespun threadbare suit" went to visit the president of Harvard about making a donation, were rebuffed, and then founded Stanford is untrue.

Locals and members of the university community are known to refer to the school as The Farm, a nod to the fact that the university is located on the former site of Leland Stanford's horse farm.

The University's founding grant was written on November 11, 1885, and accepted by the first Board of Trustees on November 14. The cornerstone was laid on May 14, 1887, and the University officially opened on October 1, 1891, to 559 students, with free tuition and 15 faculty members, seven of whom hailed from Cornell University^[2]. Among the first class of students was a young future president Herbert Hoover, who would claim to be first student ever at Stanford, by virtue of having been the first person in the first class to sleep in the dormitory.

Stanford University's Main Quad building, as seen from Palm Drive.

Stanford Memorial Church

The school was established as a coeducational institution although it maintained a cap on female enrollment for many years. This was not due to any anti-female sentiment but rather based on a concern of Jane Stanford, who worried that without such a cap, the school could become an all-female institution, which she did not feel would be an appropriate memorial for her son.

The 1906 San Francisco earthquake destroyed parts of the Main Quad (including the original iteration of Memorial Church) as well as the gate that first marked the entrance of the school; rebuilding on a somewhat less grandiose scale began immediately.

The official motto of Stanford University, selected by the Stanfords, is "Die Luft der Freiheit weht." Translated from the German, this quotation of Ulrich von Hutten means "The wind of freedom blows." At the time of the school's establishment, German had recently replaced Latin as the supraregional language of science and philosophy (a position it would hold until World War II).

Campus

Many students use bicycles to get around the large campus.

Stanford University owns 8,183 acres (32 km²). The main campus is bounded by El Camino Real, Stanford Avenue, Junipero Serra Boulevard and Sand Hill Road, in the northwest part of the Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula.

It is sometimes asserted that Stanford University occupies the largest university campus in the world, in terms of contiguous area, and this may be true. Moscow State University, which is built vertically and has a large floor area, is the largest university, but occupies a smaller piece of land. Berry College occupies 28,000 acres (110 km²) of contiguous land, and Paul Smith's College occupies 14,200 acres (57 km²) of land in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York, but neither is a university. Duke University occupies 8,709 acres (35.2 km²), but they are not contiguous. The United States Air Force Academy has a contiguous 18,000 acres (73 km²) at its disposal, but it is not a university. Dartmouth College, with a large land grant, owns more than 50,000 acres (200 km²), but only 269 of those are part of the campus.

In the summer of 1886, when the campus was first being planned, Stanford brought the president of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Francis Amasa Walker, and prominent Boston landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted westward for consultations. Olmsted worked out the general concept for the campus and its buildings, rejecting a hillside site in favor of the more practical flatlands. Charles Allerton Coolidge then developed this concept in the style of his late mentor, Henry Hobson Richardson, in the Richardsonian Romanesque style, characterized by rectangular stone buildings linked by arcades of half-circle arches. The original campus was also designed in the Spanish-colonial style common to California known as Mission Revival. The red tile roofs and solid sandstone masonry hold a distinctly Californian appearance and most of the subsequently erected buildings have maintained consistent exteriors. The red tile roofs and bright blue skies common to the region are a famously complementary combination.

Much of this first construction was destroyed by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake but the University retains the Quad, the old Chemistry Building and Encina Hall (the residence of John Steinbeck and Anthony Kennedy during their times at Stanford). After the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake inflicted further damage, the University implemented a billion-dollar capital improvement plan to retrofit and renovate older buildings for new, up-to-date uses.

Stanford University is actually its own census-designated place which is part of unincorporated Santa Clara County though some of the university land is within the city limits of Palo Alto. For many intents and purposes it can be considered a part of the city of Palo Alto; they share the same school district and fire department though the police forces are separate. The United States Postal Service has assigned it two ZIP codes: 94305 for campus mail and 94309 for P.O. box mail. It lies within area code 650 and campus phone numbers start with 723, 724, 725, 736, 497, or 498.

The physicist Werner Heisenberg was once asked if he knew where Stanford University was located. "I believe it is on the west coast of the United States, not far from San Francisco. There is also another school nearby, and they steal each other's axes," he replied, referring to Stanford's rivalry with the University of California, Berkeley.

Off-campus

The off-campus Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve is a nature reserve owned by the university and used by wildlife biologists for research. Hopkins Marine Station, located in Pacific Grove, California, is a marine biology research center owned by the university since 1892. The University also has its own golf course and a seasonal lake (Lagunita, actually an irrigation reservoir), both home to the endangered California Tiger Salamander.

Landmarks

Lou Henry and Herbert Hoover House

Contemporary campus landmarks include the Main Quad and Memorial Church, the Cantor Center for Visual Arts and art gallery, the Stanford Mausoleum and the Angel of Grief, Hoover Tower, the Rodin sculpture garden, the Papua New Guinea Sculpture Garden, the Arizona Cactus Garden, the Stanford University Arboretum, Green Library and the Dish. Frank Lloyd Wright's 1937 Hanna-Honeycomb House and the 1919 Lou Henry and Herbert Hoover House are both National Historic Landmarks now on university grounds.

Institutions

View from Hoover Tower observation deck of the Quad and surrounding area, facing west

Stanford University is governed by a board of trustees, in conjunction with the university president, provosts, faculty senate, and the deans of the various schools. Besides the university, the Stanford trustees oversee Stanford Research Park, the Stanford Shopping Center, the Cantor Center for Visual Arts, Stanford University Medical Center and many associated medical facilities (including the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital), as well as many acres of undeveloped foothills.

Other Stanford-affiliated institutions include the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) and the Stanford Research Institute, a now-independent institution which originated at the University, in addition to the Stanford Humanities Center.

Stanford also houses the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, a major public policy think tank that attracts visiting scholars from around the world, and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, which is dedicated to the more specific study of international relations. Apparently because it could not locate a copy in any of its libraries, the Soviet Union was obliged to ask the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, at Stanford University, for a microfilm copy of its original edition of the first issue of Pravda (dated March 5, 1917).

The Stanford University Libraries hold a collection of more than eight million volumes. The main library in the SU library system is Green Library. Meyer Library holds the vast East Asia collection and the student-accessible media resources. Other significant collections include the Lane Medical Library, Jackson Business Library, Falconer Biology Library, Cubberley Education Library, Branner Earth Sciences Library, Swain Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Library, Jonsson Government Documents collection, Crown Law Library, the Stanford Auxiliary Library (SAL), the SLAC Library, the Hoover library, the Miller Marine Biology Library at Hopkins Marine Station, the Music Library, and the University's special collections. There are 19 libraries in all.

Digital libraries and text services include HighWire Press, the Humanities Digital Information Services group and the Media Microtext Center. Several academic departments and some residences also have their own libraries.

Traditions

• Full Moon on the Quad: A student gathering in the Main Quad of the university. Traditionally, seniors exchange kisses with freshmen, although students of all four classes (as well as the occasional graduate student or stranger) have been known to participate.
• Sunday Flicks: Watching a film on Sunday night in Memorial Auditorium. Usually involves paper airplanes or simply throwing wads of newspaper.
• Steam-tunnelling: Exploring the steam tunnels under the Stanford campus
• Fountain-hopping: Cavorting in any of Stanford's many fountains (such as the Claw in White Plaza)
• Big Game events: Including Big Game Gaieties (a student-written, composed, and produced musical), which is the week before and including the Big Game vs. UC Berkeley.
• Primal scream: Performed by stressed students at midnight during Dead Week
• Midnight Breakfast: During dead week, Stanford faculty serves breakfast to students in several locations on campus (you might see a vice-provost refilling orange juice, etc.)
• Viennese Ball: a formal ball with waltzes which was started in the 1970s by students returning from the now closed Stanford in Vienna program.
• The Stanford Powwow: Organized by the Stanford American Indian Organization and held every Mother's Day weekend.
• Mausoleum Party: Halloween Party at the Stanford family mausoleum. It was on hiatus from 2001 to 2005 due to the fear that the festivities would further deteriorate the conditions of the mausoleum, but was revived in 2006.
• Senior Pub Night: On most Thursdays during the school year, seniors gather together at a bar in Palo Alto or San Francisco. The location rotates week to week, and chartered buses are organized to take the seniors safely between the bar and campus.
• Uncommon Man/Uncommon Woman: Stanford does not award honorary degrees, but in 1953 the university created the degree of Uncommon Man/Uncommon Woman for persons that give rare and extraordinary service to the university. The university's highest honor, the degree is not given at prescribed intervals, but only when appropriate to recognize extraordinary service. Recipients include Herbert Hoover, Bill Hewlett, Dave Packard, Lucille Salter Packard, and John Gardner.
• Birthdays: Boys get thrown in the shower at midnight. For girls, such an ordeal is not required, but may be arranged.
• Stanford Sloshball: kickball with a keg at second base. Full beer must be finished before leaving second base. Beer must be held in a cup at all times. Disputed calls are settled by beer chugging contests known as boatraces.

Older, now inactive traditions include the Big Game bonfire on Lake Lagunita (a seasonal lake usually dry in the fall) due to the presence of endangered salamanders.

Community

Stanford has been coeducational since its founding; however, between approximately 1899 and 1933, there was a policy in place limiting female enrollment to 500 students and maintaining a ratio of three males for every one female student. By the late 1960s the "ratio" was about 2:1 for undergraduates and much more skewed at the graduate level, except in the humanities. As of 2005, undergraduate enrollment is split nearly evenly between the sexes, but male enrollees outnumber female enrollees about 2:1 at the graduate level.

Student government

The Associated Students of Stanford University (ASSU) is the student government for Stanford University. Its elected leadership consists of the Undergraduate Senate elected by the undergraduate students, the Graduate Student Council elected by the graduate students, and the President and Vice President elected as a ticket by the entire student body.

Dormitories and student housing

Stanford places a strong focus on residential education. Approximately 98 percent of undergraduate students live in on-campus university housing, with another five percent living in Stanford housing at the overseas campuses. According to the Stanford Housing Assignments Office, undergraduates live in 77 different houses, including dormitories, co-ops, row houses, fraternities and sororities. Residences are located generally just outside the campus core, within ten minutes (on foot or bike) of most classrooms and libraries. Some residences are for freshmen only; others give priority to sophomores, others to both freshmen and sophomores; some are available for upperclass students only, and some are open to all four classes. All residences are coed except for seven all-male fraternities, three all-female sororities, and one all-female house. In most residences men and women live on the same floor, but a few dorms are configured for men and women to live on separate floors.[3]

Several residences are considered theme houses, with a cross-cultural, academic/language, or focus theme. Examples include Chicano themed Casa Zapata, French language oriented French House, and arts focused Kimball.[4]

Another famous style of housing at Stanford are the co-ops. These houses feature cooperative living, where residents and eating associates each contribute work to keep the house running. Students often help cook meals for the co-op, or clean the shared spaces. The coops are Chi Theta Chi, Columbae, Enchanted Broccoli Forest (EBF), Hammarskjöld (which is also the International Theme House), Kairos, Terra, and the Synergy cooperative house.[5]

At any time, around 50 percent of the graduate population lives on campus. When construction concludes on the new Munger graduate residence, this percentage will probably increase. First-year graduate students are guaranteed housing, assuming they are willing to take anything.

Greek life

Stanford is home to three housed sororities (Pi Beta Phi, Kappa Alpha Theta, and Delta Delta Delta) and seven housed fraternities (Sigma Alpha Epsilon, Sigma Chi, Kappa Sigma, Kappa Alpha, Theta Delta Chi, Sigma Nu, Phi Kappa Psi), as well as a number of unhoused Greek organizations, such as Alpha Phi Alpha, Kappa Alpha Psi, Omega Psi Phi, Phi Beta Sigma, Alpha Kappa Alpha, Delta Sigma Theta, Alpha Epsilon Pi, Delta Kappa Epsilon, Kappa Kappa Gamma, Chi Omega, Delta Tau Delta, Alpha Kappa Psi, Sigma Phi Epsilon, Lambda Phi Epsilon, alpha Kappa Delta Phi, and Sigma Psi Zeta. In contrast to many universities, all the Greek houses are on university land and in almost all cases the university also owns the house. As a condition to being recognized they also cannot permit the National organization or others outside the university from having a veto over membership or local governance.[6]

Faculty residences

One of the benefits of being a Stanford faculty member is the "Faculty Ghetto," where faculty members can live within walking or biking distance of campus. Similar to a condominium, the houses can be bought and sold but the land under the houses is rented. The Faculty Ghetto is composed of land owned entirely by Stanford. A faculty member cannot buy a lot, but he or she can buy a house, renting the underlying land on a 99-year lease. The cost of owning a house in Silicon Valley remains high, however, and the average price of single family homes on campus is actually higher than in Palo Alto. The rapid capital gains of Silicon Valley landowners are enjoyed by Stanford, although Stanford, by the terms of its founding cannot sell the land. Houses in the "Ghetto" may appreciate or may depreciate but not as rapidly as overall Silicon Valley land prices.

Academics

Walkway near the Quad

The schools of the University include the School of Humanities and Sciences, School of Engineering, School of Earth Sciences, School of Education, Graduate School of Business, Stanford Law School and the Stanford University School of Medicine.

Stanford awards the following degrees: B.A., B.S., B.A.S., M.A., M.S., Ph.D., D.M.A., Ed.D., Ed.S., M.D., M.B.A., J.D., J.S.D., J.S.M., LL.M., M.A.T., M.F.A., M.L.S., M.S.M. and ENG.

The University enrolls approximately 6,700 undergraduates and 8,000 graduate students. The University has approximately 1,700 faculty members. The largest part of the faculty (40 percent) are affiliated with the medical school, while a third serve in the School of Humanities and Sciences.

Stanford's current community of scholars includes: 18 Nobel Prize laureates; 135 members of the National Academy of Sciences; 82 members of National Academy of Engineering; 224 members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; 21 recipients of the National Medal of Science; 3 recipients of the National Medal of Technology; 26 members of the National Academy of Education; 41 members of American Philosophical Society; 4 Pulitzer Prize winners; 23 MacArthur Fellows; 7 Wolf Foundation Prize winners; 7 Koret Foundation Prize winners; 3 Presidential Medal of Freedom winners.

Stanford built its international reputation as the pioneering Silicon Valley institution through top programs in business, engineering and the sciences, spawning such companies as Hewlett-Packard, Cisco Systems, VMware, Yahoo!, Google, and Sun Microsystems—indeed, "Sun" originally stood for "Stanford University Network." In addition, the Stanford Research Institute operated one of the four original nodes that comprised ARPANET, predecessor to the Internet. The university also offers distinguished programs in the humanities and social sciences, particularly American studies, creative writing, history, political science, economics, communication, musicology, and psychology.

Arts

Bronze statues by Auguste Rodin are scattered through the campus, including these Burghers of Calais.

Stanford University is home to the Cantor Center for Visual Arts museum with 24 galleries, sculpture gardens, terraces, and a courtyard first established in 1891 by Jane and Leland Stanford as a memorial to their only child. Notably, the Center possesses the largest collection of Rodin works outside of Paris, France. There are also a large number of outdoor art installations throughout the campus, primarily sculptures, but some murals as well. The Papua New Guinea Sculpture Garden near Roble Hall features handmade wood carvings and "totem poles."

Stanford has a thriving artistic and musical community, including theater groups such as Ram's Head Theatrical Society and the Stanford Shakespeare Society, and award-winning a cappella music groups, such as the Mendicants, Stanford Fleet Street Singers, Harmonics, Mixed Company, Testimony, Talisman, and Everyday People.

Stanford's dance community is one of the most vibrant in the country, with an active dance division (in the Drama Department) and over 30 different dance-related student groups, including the Stanford Band's Dollie dance troupe.

Perhaps most distinctive of all is its social and vintage dance community, cultivated by dance historian Richard Powers and enjoyed by hundreds of students and thousands of alumni. Stanford hosts monthly informal dances (called Jammix) and large quarterly dance events, including Ragtime Ball (fall), the Stanford Viennese Ball (winter), and Big Dance (spring). Stanford also boasts a student-run swing performance troupe called Swingtime and several alumni performance groups, including Decadance and the Academy of Danse Libre.

The Leland Stanford Junior (pause) University Marching Band rallies football fans with arrangements of "All Right Now" and other contemporary music.

The creative writing program brings young writers to campus via the Stegner Fellowships and other graduate scholarship programs. This Boy's Life author Tobias Wolff teaches writing to undergraduates and graduate students. Knight Journalism Fellows are invited to spend a year at the campus taking seminars and courses of their choice. There is also an extracurricular writing and performance group called the Stanford Spoken Word Collective, which also serves as the school's poetry slam team.

Stanford also hosts various publishing courses for professionals. Stanford Professional Publishing Course, which has been offered on campus since the late 1970s, brings together international publishing professionals to discuss changing business models in magazine and book publishing.

Athletics

Main article: Stanford Cardinal

The "block S" is the official logo of Stanford athletics

Stanford participates in the NCAA's Division I-A and is a member of the Pacific-10 Conference. It also participates in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation for indoor track (men and women), water polo (men and women), women's gymnastics, women's lacrosse, men's gymnastics, and men's volleyball. Women's field hockey team is part of the NorPac Conference . Stanford's traditional sports rival is the University of California, Berkeley, its neighbor to the north in the East Bay. Many Cardinal fans also have a special disdain for the University of Southern California, often referring to the foe as U$C.

Stanford offers 34 varsity sports (18 female, 15 male, one coed), 19 club sports and 37 intramural sports—about 800 students participate in intercollegiate sports. The University offers about 300 athletic scholarships.

The new Stanford Stadium, site of home football games.

The winner of the annual "Big Game" between the Cal and Stanford football teams gains custody of the Stanford Axe. Stanford's football team played in the first Rose Bowl in 1902. Stanford won back-to-back Rose Bowls in 1971 and 1972. Stanford has played in 12 Rose Bowls, most recently in 2000. Stanford's Jim Plunkett won the Heisman Trophy in 1970.

Club sports, while not officially a part of Stanford athletics, are numerous at Stanford. Sports include archery, badminton, cricket, cycling, equestrian, ice hockey, judo, kayaking, men's lacrosse, polo, racquetball, rugby union (union), squash, skiing, taekwondo, triathlon and Ultimate. The men's Ultimate team won a national championship in 2002, the women's Ultimate team in 1997, 1998, 1999, 2003, 2005, and 2006, and the women's rugby team in 2005 and 2006.

Until 1930, Stanford did not have a "mascot" name for its athletic teams. In that year, the athletic department adopted the name "Indians." In 1972, "Indians" was dropped after a complaint of racial insensitivity was lodged by Native American students at Stanford.

The Stanford sports teams are now officially referred to as the Stanford Cardinal, referring to the deep red color, not the the cardinal bird. Cardinal, and later cardinal and white has been the university's official color since the 19th century. The Band's mascot, "The Tree", has become associated with the school in general. Part of Leland Stanford Junior University Marching Band (LSJUMB), the tree symbol derives from the El Palo Alto redwood tree on the Stanford and City of Palo Alto seals.

Stanford hosts an annual U.S. Open Series tennis tournament, the Bank of the West Classic) at Taube Stadium. Cobb Track, Angell Field, and Avery Stadium Pool are considered world-class athletic facilities.

Stanford has won the award for the top ranked collegiate athletic program -- the NACDA Director's Cup, formerly known as the Sears Cup, every year for the past thirteen years. The Cup has been offered for fourteen years.

NCAA achievements: Stanford has earned 91 NCAA National Titles since its establishment, the second-most by any university; 74 NCAA National Titles since 1980, the most by any university; and 393 individual NCAA championships, the most by any university.

Olympic achievements: According to the Stanford Daily, "Stanford has been represented in every summer Olympiad since 1908."^[7] As of 2004, Stanford athletes had won 182 Olympic medals at the summer games; "In fact, in every Olympiad since 1912, Stanford athletes have won at least one and as many as 17 gold medals."^[8]

People

Hoover Tower, which houses a library collection, is named for U.S. President and Stanford alum Herbert Hoover.

University presidents

1. David Starr Jordan (1891–1913)
2. John Casper Branner (1913–1915)
3. Ray Lyman Wilbur (1916–1943)
4. Donald Bertrand Tresidder (1943–1948)
5. J. E. Wallace Sterling (1949–1968)
6. Kenneth Sanborn Pitzer (1968–1970)
7. Richard Wall Lyman (1970–1980)
8. Donald Kennedy (1980–1992)
9. Gerhard Casper (1992–2000)
10. John L. Hennessy (2000–present)

Provosts

The position of Provost was created in 1952 during the Presidency of J. E. Wallace Sterling. Many people consider the Stanford Provost to be the "heir apparent" to the President because of the five men who succeeded Sterling as President, three were Provost of Stanford (Lyman, Kennedy, and Hennessy), one was Provost of the University of Chicago (Casper), while the other was President of Rice University (Pitzer). The Provost is the University's chief academic and budget officer. The Provost and the President together conduct Stanford's relationships with the neighboring community and other schools and organizations.

1. Douglas M. Whitaker (1952–1955)
2. Frederick E. Terman (1955–1965)
3. Richard Wall Lyman (1967–1970)
4. William F. Miller (1971–1978)
5. Gerald J. Lieberman (1979–1979)
6. Donald Kennedy (1979–1980)
7. Albert M. Hastorf (1980–1984)
8. James N. Rosse (1984–1992)
9. Gerald J. Lieberman (1992–1993)
10. Condoleezza Rice (1993–1999)
11. John L. Hennessy (1999–2000)
12. John W. Etchemendy (2000–present)

Notable alumni, faculty, and staff

Main article: List of Stanford University people

Admission and rankings

History

Main article: Criticism of college and university rankings (North America)

Associated Students of Stanford University (ASSU) Vice-President, Nicholas Thompson, founded FUNC or "Forget U.S. News Coalition" in 1996 as a show of support for Reed College's decision not to participate in the U.S. News and World Report survey. , FUNC eventually spread to other colleges and universities and was composed of a "group of students at universities across the country who argue that ranking something as complex and variable as a college education with a single number is an oversimplification. FUNC claims that the process makes college administrations focus on numerical rankings rather than on educating students."

FUNC also involved then-Stanford President Gerhard Casper. On 23 September 1996, Casper sent a letter to James Fallows, editor of U.S. News & World Report, stating, "As the president of a university that is among the top-ranked universities, I hope I have the standing to persuade you that much about these rankings - particularly their specious formulas and spurious precision—is utterly misleading."

In February 1997, Stanford contemplated not filling out the ranking survey, a move advocated by FUNC. On 18 April 1997, Casper issued a letter critical of U.S. News and World Report college rankings titled "An alternative to the U.S. News and World Report College Survey" Casper's letter circulated among college presidents and led to a decision by Stanford that it will "submit objective data to U.S. News, but will withhold subjective reputational votes." Stanford also announced at this time that it would post information about the University on its website. In 1998, Stanford posted an alternative database on its website, stating: "This page is offered in contrast to commercial guides that purport to "rank" colleges; such rankings are inherently misleading and inaccurate. Stanford believes the following information, presented without arbitrary formulas, provides a better foundation for prospective students and their families to begin comparing and contrasting schools." . It has since been posted annually as the "Stanford University Common Data Set." FUNC eventually disbanded and Stanford currently participates in the survey.

Current

• Stanford University's undergraduate program is ranked fourth among national universities by U.S. News and World Report (USNWR).,
• Stanford University is ranked second among world universities and second among universities in the Americas by Shanghai Jiao Tong University, nineteenth among world universities in the THES-QS World University Rankings,, seventh among national universities by The Washington Monthly, second among "global universities" by Newsweek, and in the first-tier among national universities by The Center for Measuring University Performance. Stanford University also participates in the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (NAICU)'s University and College Accountability Network (U-CAN).
• Stanford received $911 million in private donations for the year ended August 31, 2006, the most of all U.S. universities and seventh highest of all charities.
• Stanford is ranked 19th in the ranking published by The Times Higher Education Supplement 2007, following the University of Hong Kong.

Selectivity

Stanford is one of the most selective universities in the U.S. In 2006, Stanford's undergraduate admission rate was 10.8 percent, from a pool of 22,223 applicants—the lowest rate of undergraduate admission in the history of the university.The acceptance rates at the university's law school (7.7 percent), medical school (3.3 percent), and business school (10 percent) are also among the lowest in the country. For the Class of 2011, Stanford admitted 10.29 percent of an undergraduate applicant pool of 23,956 students; the lowest percentage in University history. The entering transfer class of 2009 was 20 students, with a selectivity rate of 1.4 percent.

Orthographic panorama of the Main Quad, located in the heart of the Stanford University campus.

Further reading

Vintage Stanford University postcard

• Stuart W. Leslie, The Cold War and American Science: The Military-Industrial-Academic Complex at MIT and Stanford, Columbia University Press 1994
• Rebecca S. Lowen, R. S. Lowen, Creating the Cold War University: The Transformation of Stanford, University of California Press 1997

See also

• Stanford prison experiment
• Eadweard Muybridge and Leland Stanford's galloping horse
• The Folding@home Project

External links

• Stanford University Official Website
• Stanford Athletics Official Website
• Stanford Graduate School of Business
• Unofficial Student Guide to Stanford
• Stanford Management Company Official Website
• Wellspring of Innovation: Database of Stanford-affiliated companies
• Photos of Stanford University
• Photo tour of Stanford (extended version)

For the student or prospective student

• Stanford University Prospective Students Site
• Associated Students of Stanford University Official Website
• Stanford University Student Groups Website
• Stanford Student Enterprises

Stanford publications and other media outlets

• The Stanford Daily (The student newspaper)
• The Cardinal Inquirer
• Stanford Review (The conservative student newspaper)
• Stanford Progressive (The liberal student publication)
• Stanford Report (The official university newspaper)
• KZSU 90.1 FM Stanford Radio
• Stanford Chaparral Official Website (A student humor magazine)
• Stanford Scientific Magazine (The student-run science, ethics, and policy publication)

For the visitor

• Stanford Events Calendar
• Campus Attractions
• Points of Interest on campus (plants)
• Searchable Campus Map