You don’t have to go to Stanford
Posted by Cottontimer on 30 Oct 2007 | Tagged as: Schooling
My alma mater, Stanford, is considering expanding the freshman class. For the past 35 years, the number of undergraduate students enrolled has been between 6,000 and 7,000.
University President John Hennessy:
In the end, though, I believe expanding the size of the undergraduate population would be both a practical and a principled response to current realities. It would create more opportunities for gifted students to attend Stanford and it would avail Stanford of some of the best and brightest minds in the country.
There is no doubt that each year, many qualified students are denied admission to Stanford. These students would, of course, enhance any university. The question is, can these same students find a quality university experience at another school besides Stanford? Of course! So do we really need to expand the student body to give more people a chance to attend Stanford? I’m not convinced. Bringing more students in could lead to overcrowding, insufficient resources, and brand dilution.
As much as I loved my time at Stanford, I’m not under the illusion that it’s the only university worth attending. The US has many wonderful colleges and universities, big and small. Gifted students can find a rewarding experience no matter where they go because the real gift is within themselves. No matter where you go to school, it’s up to you to take the initiative to create opportunities for yourself and to discover the path you’re meant to go down.
You don’t have to go to Stanford to achieve great things. What distinguishes successful people from the rest is some parts good luck and many parts drive, ingenuity, and hard work. Going to Stanford was a small achievement. Living a productive life is an even greater one.
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I saw a letter to the editor in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal that noted how Universities were expanding enrollment to increase income. In order to do this they are also lowering admissions standards.
I do think it is very important for more people to get a college education, in part because the high school education is not sufficient or adequate, but more so because we are leaving the manual labor economy. As service becomes a larger part of business, people need to be able to think and make decisions. This is not taught at the high school level. Sadly, many colleges are also reducing decision training in favor of accepting the conventional wisdom and not questioning authority.
Hi Roger, You were real fired up about the subject! I wonder how much money a university makes off of their undergrads. Somehow I suspect the profit margin is pretty slim. Although, having more alums out there marked with “the brand,” could be worth a lot in the long run.
I think all schools need to increase their enrollment. There was an article a few months ago in the NYTimes about admission at top tier and second tier universities. In the last 5-10 years, admissions have gotten a LOT tougher, and kids who once would have easily been accepted are being rejected.
I saw this in play with my daughters. The first one applied 5 years ago, got accepted in every school she applied to. Daughter Number Two got rejected by schools we were sure she would have been accepted to earlier, such as Columbia and Berkeley, despite the fact they both had almost identical test scores, etc. (DNT was even valedictorian to boot!)
She’s perfectly happy where she is, but I do think there’s been an increase in the number of highly qualified students graduating high school. They’re a lot more savvy now about how to ace tests and how to play the admissions game. And most high schools (in the wealthier suburbs, anyway) have gotten a lot better at “teaching to college”, i.e. offering AP, etc.
Plus, we just have a lot more students to educate these days, due to population increases.
Hi Kathy, I know what you mean about more students wanting to go to college but I remember reading that a number of colleges nationwide were still short of enrolling a full student body. The way things are now, everyone clamors to go to the top tier of colleges even though many others are just as good. And quite honestly, I don’t really buy the argument that everyone “qualified” deserves to go to the top tier b/c some of criteria are quite subjective and for decades, there have been excellent students who could have done well but didn’t make it in. Some of the best students in my class at Stanford were off the waitlist.
Of course, watch this space in about 10 years when my own kid is getting ready to go and listen to me rant about the admissions criteria.
Oh, and don’t get me started on tuition costs…that’s another rant entirely!
As a fellow Stanford alumna & Stanford neighbor–I smell money. The school’s been on a building binge for a decade. It all started with Palo Alto increasing the number of square feet under a roof in 2000.
I’d be more impressed if Hennessey had vowed to increase the number of middle income and low income students.
Is undergraduate education at Stanford so great in the current configuration?
Hey Liz, That was my first reaction too. The campus is so crowded now with all the new buildings and yet how many new student facilities have gone up? I don’t know the answer but I’m guessing the ratio is skewed big time.