Yesterday I posted on the greatness of Stanford University. Today, I refer to an article in the November/December issue of STANFORD: "What it Takes: How does Stanford's undergraduate admissions staff decide who gets accepted? The Short answer is: It's complicated.
Over the past three decades, applications have tripled and the acceptance percentage has dropped by three:
This year Stanford got more applicants than Harvard, Yale and Princeton. The trend shows that Stanford has gained in attraction.
I remember when I was a freshman, football coach Cactus Jack Curtis addressed the class and said he scoured the nation for the best players who qualified, and signed both of them. (* See the asterisk below to gain an appreciation that Stanford brings in students who can contribute.) Thus, read and weep:
- That one person who reads your application reviews an average of 745 others...spending 15 minutes on each.
- 80% of those who apply would graduate if accepted.
- Each application then is quickly processed through a committee of five individuals: if you get a majority vote, you're in.
- Many universities, especially in Asia, ONLY rely on your scoring well in a standardized test: Stanford looks for:
- intellectual vitality
- passion
- uniqueness
- probability of becoming an agent for change
- etc.
- This is scary: 69% of applicants who got PERFECT SAT scores DID NOT GET IN!!!
- * However, if there is only one decent tuba player for their band, chances are this person will be admitted. This would also apply to athletic teams, of course.
- Says Marie Bingham,
- "OK, let's assume there are approximately 10,000 high schools in the United States (and just the U.S.--students were accepted from 67 countries this past year).
- Assume that the very best students from only half of those high schools all apply to Stanford. That's 5,000 of these very best kids, just in one country.
- Stanford can only take half of those kids, because they don't have the space.
- The percentage of alumni children admitted is roughly three times the overall percentage of acceptance, and this group takes up around 15% of those admitted. However, there are many, many more "no's" than "yes'," so there are a lot of unhappy alumni Moms and Dads. Stanford's best response is that Provost (ranks #2 to the President) John Etchemendy, whose mother was a Stanford graduate, applied when he was in high school, and was turned down. He said his parents were crushed, and very well understands this problem.
- If you get a thin envelope, the answer is a no. If you get that thick envelope, great!
To close, there is also graduate school, and Forbes has the following ranking for the best business schools:
SCHOOL CLASS OF 2014
TUITION GMAT SCORE
- Stanford $118,000 740
- Chicago $117,000 720
- Harvard $127,000 730
Ho hum, but the Dow Jones Industrial Average broke yet another all time record, up 73 to 16,295. For the year, the Dow is up 24.4%, but the Nasdaq has zoomed 37.4%. Maybe I shouldn't have sold all my stocks.
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