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College of the month for August

Every month we will be taking a closer look at some of our favorite colleges and where better to start than with Stanford University, located in California's Bay area.

The main areas we are always going to focus on include the colleges academics, sports program and student life. The three main aspects we always get asked about when a student-athlete is talking to us about what college they would like to attend. 

Academics

Stanford is a private institution with an undergraduate enrollment of approx. 6,600 students, set with in a fantastic 8,000 acre campus.  Founded in 1885, it has a long and established tradition of excellence, both in the class room and on the sports arena. Proving year in year out to be a major competitor in every  aspect, with regular high rankings in educational publications (US News #5 and Forbes #6) for it's academic success.

The student-faculty ratio is an amazing 6:1 and there are over 68% of classes with 20 students or less, making it a great learning environment for students to excel as they are able to receive individual attention.  Stanford has seven different schools, all of which are on the same campus, three of them offering undergraduate and graduate programs (Earth Sciences, Engineering and Humanities and Sciences). The other four schools offer graduate programs only (Business, Medicine, Law and Education).   The faculty at Stanford are also almost second to none in regards to experience and expertise, having a vast array of Nobel, Pulitzer and MacArthur winners through out its schools.

Stanford is positioned in the heart of Silicon Valley, just outside San Francisco and as a result has served as a great spring board into employment with some of the biggest corporations in the world, including Google, Yahoo, Netflix and Charles Schwarb.  A graduate from Stanford has an incredible education background that will serve them well for the rest of their life and will be a massive influence on future employers. 

Admission into Stanford is not an easy task however, with 1700 new freshman every year and over 30,000 applications, all of which having near perfect high school GPA's and SAT scores, the demand heavily out ways the supply!  In order to be accepted a student needs not only great academic scores, but they also need to express their desire to excel and must show that they possess other skills outside of the normal. 

Tuition costs at Stanford are very high like most Ivy League schools and there are no sports scholarships on offer, with tuition costing $50,000US per year!  However, admission policy states that if a student's parents earn less than $100k a year (from salary or assets) then that accepted student is not required to pay tuition and if the parents earn less than $60k then Stanford are willing to pay for everything!! So if you are good enough to be accepted you have every chance of a Stanford education regardless of your financial situation.

Sports Programs

Stanford competes in the NCAA Division 1 and will be part of the newly formed Pac-12 conference when in begins this coming Fall (August).   Incredibly Stanford has won 115 NCAA National titles and 421 individual sports titles (the most in history) and it's student-athletes won more medals at the recent Beijing Olympics than most nations! In fact if they were a nation they would have finished 19th with 24 medals!

Notable student-athletes that have attended Stanford include baseball player Mike Mussina; football quarterbacks John Elway, Trent Edwards and Jim Plunkett, golfers Tom Watson and Tiger Woods; Olympians Jennifer Azzi, Janet Evans, Julie Foudy, Eric Heiden, Bob Mathias, Pablo Morales, Jessica Mendoza, Summer Sanders, Kerri Strug, Jenny Thompson, Kerri Walsh and tennis player John McEnroe.

Further information, latest Stanford sport news and videos from the athletics director Bob Bowlsby can all be found at www.gostanford.com.

Student life

The average freshman retention rate at Stanford is a really high 98%! This stat tells us a lot about student life alone and how much students appreciate and want to be there. 

The gender split is pretty much 50-50, with most students living on-campus (90%) in University managed housing. With the enrollment being very diverse in terms of ethnic and religious backgrounds and with 7% of students coming from overseas, studying at Stanford will present you with an opportunity to mix and create friendships with people from all different backgrounds.

With Stanford being outside of the major cities in California it does not have the same social aspect as some of the other major Universities, but what it misses in that area it makes up in others, with lots of university clubs and activities for students to participate in.  Like most universities it very much depends on the sort of person you are on how quickly you settle in and enjoy the experience, but Stanford will definitely do it's best to help you and will provide you with a fantastic start in your future.