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Re: You and Stanford - stupac2 - 06-19-2013

Even though junior year of high school wasn't very long ago for me, I honestly can't remember specifically what drew me to Stanford. I was born while my dad was getting his Masters (paid for by the Navy), my first home was in Escondido village (in fact there's a picture of 6-month-old me on a skateboard on the sidewalk off of Serra that we recreated while I was in my gown after graduating). Because my dad was in the Navy we moved around a lot, I have no memories of California. There was always a sense that I ought to return, even before I knew much about Stanford besides the academic reputation.

I had the typical reasons too. We took a trip out here around my sophomore year, and it's hard to avoid falling in love with the area. Almost everyone who comes here cites the weather, and after living in Rhode Island it's a big step up. Plus it's close to impossible to beat the atmosphere on campus, and you sense that quickly. When it came time to apply to schools I had all the those typical reasons to have Stanford my #1, plus I also wanted to be somewhere far from home. There are lots of people who are anchored to where they live, who don't move very far, who stay close to family. I'm not one of them. I wanted to be a plane ride away, I wanted to be on my own.

I applied early and was deferred. Apparently that's an uncommon outcome (or at least it was then), with less than 10% of early applicants being deferred. So I applied to a few other places, Carnegie Mellon, RPI (I won their medal thingie that came with a ridiculous scholarship, so even though I probably wouldn't have liked it there it made sense to at least apply), and Cornell. I'm actually not sure why, given how much I wanted to be in CA, I didn't bother with Berkeley or UCLA. I think, knowing what I know now, I would have. But, really, I didn't want to go to any of them, although I probably would've been happy at CMU. I wanted to go to Stanford.

So sometime around when acceptance letters were coming out I got a random call from a California number asking me if I had any questions about Stanford. I was very confused. Turns out they call deferred early applicants who get in, but they try to wait until after the acceptance package comes. Well, they didn't quite wait long enough for someone across the country. But that was a funny way to find out about getting accepted.

I waited to mail in the matriculation form until after Admit Weekend, but really that was a formality. I knew where I was going.

I still don't fully understand how I got to Stanford - Redrum - 06-19-2013

By car, that much I know.

In HS I hadn't a clue.  I was a top 10%er but not one of the shining stars.  Our  school and class was loaded with the kids of Caltech professors.  That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.  But I had great (for then) test scores. One lucky thing was I got taken under the wing of a family whose daughter had my best friend-- and then me--as a boyfriend. (Can't explain that either, but it changed my life.)  They were a Stanford family and just great people, and active best friends with another that was a C..al family.  Both families actively worked on me to set my sights high and that I did belong at great schools.  That's how I started even thinking about colleges.  That, and the fact that most of the guys in my class who were USC bound were just *****.  So C..al and Stanford were the two schools to which I applied.

But fate intervened.  I was a middling German language student with a grade that would have me immediately ruled out of Stanford then and now.  So by late senior year,  C..al was my only option. Anyway,  our native German teacher had his summer return to the Fatherland booked and (this part still gets me) submitted the year-end grades before the final and flew off to Germany.  As chance and hard work would have it,  I did really well on the final...only to find out that my fate always was pre-sealed.  Game over. Got into neither Stanford nor C..al.

So, a  freshman year of total focus at community college  got me....nowhere w/ C..al.    It was geared for 2-year transfers.  So I finished freshman year knowing Stanford was my only hope.  I remember the day envelope came.  That summer I was working construction at night and would come home and snooze out on a folding lounge in the back yard, working on my tan. (Dumb).  One day my mom brings in the mail, comes out and hands me the envelope.  It was thick.  Didn't open it.  I knew I got in.  Went back to sleep.  Can't imagine those stressed-out, academically obsessed kids these days reacting like that.

The epilog is that not getting in as a freshman changed my total Stanford experience.  I drove into campus as a sophomore: no campus housing with peers,  no freshman year of bonding and friends/acquaintances to carry me forward and a rude awakening to the difference between community college and the standards of a Stanford educational experience.  I now know and continue to see what classmates at Stanford  got from freshman year that I missed.  I envy them and still feel I missed out on something very important.  So after a disorienting sophomore year I went to Stanford in Germany as a junior and then, suddenly,  I was senior focused on what I was going to do after graduation.  Stanford in Germany stands out as THE Stanford experience for me.  That, and Stanford football.    But,  I got a kind of do-over.  The redrumette got in as a freshman and just this last year got spit out as a PhD.  Stanford gave back to her much of what I missed.  Stanford owed our family a great experience and this time it paid off.  Helped me come to terms w/ my own experience and made my Stanford class reunion a lot more fun.

P.S. A somewhat more macabre HS teacher story.  Like garvin's, but a HS English teacher who inspired me to work hard and love literature and language.  I knew he'd be more excited than I was with my Stanford acceptance.  Unfortunately he had died of a massive heart attack a couple months prior.  The school held a memorial for him with a Rose Queen (who had been in the same English class w/ me) delivering the eulogy. Grrrrrrrr.  I really, really regret not being able to share with him tangible result of his teaching and general life counseling.



Re: You and Stanford - doug - 06-19-2013

Nice topic. I will add my story.

My dad was a career Army officer. We moved around constantly, generally every 2-3 years except for 5 years at West Point, but generally in the East or South with one tour in Germany. In 1968, my dad was off to Vietnam for a year and a half. As the youngest of 3 kids and having achieved academically, my parents wanted to keep me in one high school which might not be possible with his career rotations. So through a combination of fortuity and complete accident, I was packed off to a prep school in New England (Andover) which changed my life. A world of possibilities opened up, but it took an emotional toll.

Andover at that time (I am Class of '75, like Garvin) was a college admissions juggernaut. During my sophomore year, I thought I wanted to go to Yale. By late sophomore year, I was thinking Harvard (who knows why I changed). But by early to mid-junior year, I was set on Stanford, for a pretty basic reason. Having done well enough at Andover, the bar (i.e., expectations) had been raised. But though Andover was a fabulous opportunity, I was absolutely clear that I wanted college to be as little like Andover as possible within the constraints imposed by the newly raised expectations. Harvard did not fit that bill.

So Stanford was it for me, and I never wavered. I had never been west of Colorado until the day I stepped off the airplane to enter Stanford as a freshman, yet it completely matched my expectations and fulfilled my hopes. It was the best of times after the worst of times (ok, that's an exaggeration but otherwise I lose the literary reference).

Interesting sidenote: my dad didn't try to influence my college choice, but he did sit me down and ask the reasoning for my choice. There was some background I didn't know until years later, in particular that he had considered Stanford. He was a poor boy from Texas whose dad had not gone to college and didn't have the money to send my dad to college. But my dad was an outstanding football player -- first team all-state in Texas when there were only 11 first teamers and winner of the 1939 award as the most versatile high school football player in Texas. His high school coach was Paul Tyson, a legendary figure in Texas high school football who had coached at Stanford under Pop Warner for a year in the early 1930's. My dad was also one of the best students in his class, and Tyson helped him get scholarship offers and advised him on colleges. Tyson told my dad there were 3 schools he should consider: Columbia, Stanford and Vanderbilt. Of the 3, Tyson said Columbia was a city school and my dad was a country boy, Stanford was a rich kid's school and my dad was a poor boy, Vanderbilt was where he should go. He did, and played for Bear Bryant and Red Sanders for 2 years. After Dec. 1941, he applied for an appointment to West Point and played there for Red Blaik just as Army's glory days were building.

My dad never told me he had ever considered Stanford when we talked about my college choice. But he didn't question it either.

Re: You and Stanford - Nan3cy - 06-19-2013

i had just graduated from eighth grade in Madison, WI, and my parents treated me to a trip to California to visit my aunt and uncle who lived in Atherton. It was a great two weeks, with trips to the beach, a few days in Tahoe, and ending with a day at Disneyland. One of the obligatory features was a tour of the Stanford campus. My aunt's family had no connection with Stanford except for local pride that it was in their back yard. The tour was conducted by an older cousin, with me in the back seat of her VW bug. I remember her as a terrible driver, but at least we got home safely.

Anyway, my reaction to the place was that it was a really ugly campus. Before you get out the tar and feathers, remember that I was from Madison, which is one of the prettiest places in the world in late June (February, not so much). The Wisconsin campus is gorgeous at that time of year. To me the entire campus was monochromatic (sandstone and dried-out hills) except for the red tile. I was dumb enough to say that to some of Aunt Betty's friends -- who were Stanford grads -- before I learned to shut up about it.

However -- since I had been there, I paid attention any time I saw a newspaper or magazine article that mentioned Stanford, and by the time I was a sophomore I had decided that was where I wanted to go. Applied to three schools (no early apps then), got into all three, but never spent much time agonizing over which place I wanted. When I got to campus (which I hadn't seen since the eighth-grade graduation trip), I didn't really notice the dryness because I was captivated by the smell of the eucalyptus everywhere. To this day the smell of eucalyptus in the fall takes me right back to freshman year.





Re: You and Stanford - needle - 06-19-2013

didn't get into harvard

Re: You and Stanford - Farm93 - 06-19-2013

A fun thread that will certainly grow impossibly long...
At some point very early in my junior year of HS, I decided I would need to brush up on my various options.  My parents and I shopped for a variety of those USA university summary books.  I read up on several of the schools, and then developed my list of desirable attributes. 

My universe quickly expanded to 20-30 universities that I would try to learn more about.  Ultimately, I decided that I would likely apply to 10 that spanned a full range of selectivity.  In the summer before my senior HS year, I went out to the SF Bay Area to visit two choices on my shorter application list.  The August weather at SFO was spectacular, and I knew this Cali thing had some merit.  At the time, I was rather indifferent between UCB as #1 or Stanford as #1.  True story.  I was from the East Coast, so I was not really aware of any "rivalry" concept.

I went on the campus tour for UCB and Stanford, but (again true story) I realized that Stanford needed to be my #1 choice while I attended the UCB tour.  On the UCB tour all the tour guide did was compare UCB to Stanford.  UCB was almost as good in baseball as Stanford.  UCB had a bigger band than Stanford.  On and on, for a whole hour of this UCB relative to Stanford.  I really didn't like the endless comparison thing, and worried that it was a very bad sign that the tour guides were that obsessed.  I decided then that UCB would drop to my #5 choice, and Stanford would occupy my #1 choice slot.  A different public school would move up to #2, followed by two Ivy league schools.  It is because of that tour that I have an amazing fondness for UCB.  For years, I could go on the UCB campus and point to places on the UCB tour that helped solidified my belief that Stanford must be a very special place.

The Stanford tour was nice enough, I guess.  I remember thinking that the time capsule idea was amazing, and that the campus was amazing.

Stanford was my #1 from then on.  I remember the day I found my acceptance letter in the mail.  Crazy how memorable that day remains to me.  Few singular moments in my life were as uncertain and special at the same time. 

I actually drove across the USA to get to Stanford.  It was a solo driver trip that included all of the longest days of driving in my life at that point.  Definitely some of the most memorable days of my life filled with expectation about Stanford and wonder about many parts of the USA I had not seen at that point.

My AAA trip book took me up Embarcadero and Galvez.  To this day, I am a little disappointed that the cross country journey did not end with a drive up Palm Drive.

Re: You and Stanford - Kathy - 06-19-2013

My story is Stanford sports-related:
My dad and I were watching the 1971 Rose Bowl. The telecast included taped segments where the players introduced themselves with their name, (maybe) hometown and major. There seemed to be an inordinate number of Buckeye players who were PE majors; I didn't notice — after all, they were football players — but my dad did, although he said nothing until the Stanford Indians were introduced.

"Not a PE major in the bunch," he said.

From that moment, I was hooked.

Thanks, Dad.

Re: You and Stanford - Robbie - 06-19-2013

It was a simple choice. I had entirely missed two summers in a row by being in countries that didn't have them. (Paraguay - which has one, but not during May-August, while I was there; and the west coast of Scotland, which does not have a summer at any time.) So I chose a warm place.

I had never been to Stanford; I had never met anyone who went there. I was quite ignorant except that I knew that it was supposed to be a good school.

But my arrival on campus was quite unusual.

There were only two flights per week directly from Glasgow to the United States (and I didn't want to fly out of London.) The flight on the appropriate day to arrive on campus on time was the same day as a threatened general strike. (These were the Thatcherite years - and Scottish politics meant that a general strike was likely to be widespread.) Two of the more hard-core unions stood in the way of my flight - the ferry workers (since I needed a ferry to get to the airport) and the air traffic controllers. So I decided that it would be better to show up on campus three days early rather than four days late.

It's a long trip - a flight across the ocean, followed by a night in the Philadelphia airport, and then a flight across the country. I'm really tired. So I take a shuttle to campus. I don't know where to have the driver drop me, so he leaves me at Palm Drive.

I have the ResEd information packet. I call some name on the list and tell her my story. She says that RA training is going on right now, if I can get to Creskey Auditorium (I had no idea how to spell it) then she would help me out. I start carrying my stuff. I don't know where I'm going - just hoping to find a map. Two people walk by and see me struggling and offer to help. They figure out where I want to go and each take a bag. We walk from Palm Drive to Kresge - but they are having this conversation about their work. They are grad students in Philosophy (or something like that) - the whole time we're walking I don't understand a word they say. (Well, I understood the words, it was the ideas I didn't follow.) I'm really intimidated - just hoping that not everyone is going to be that much smarter than me.

We get to Kresge, they let me into my room three days early, and I have arrived. And when the rest of the freshmen show up on campus I'm an old timer.

Re: You and Stanford - 97fan - 06-19-2013

My older brother was always smarter than me, so from a young age I internalized the idea that I was a good student but not necessarily top-of-the-heap.

When it came time to apply to college, I decided to apply to a list of very good but not top-of-the-heap schools: Northwestern, Penn, Georgetown and Duke.

I wrote away for application materials, and for whatever reason, I never received anything back from Duke. So one day I was complaining to my Dad about this annoyance, and he responded, "Why don't you just apply to Stanford instead?"

Turned out, all I needed was a little encouragement, a simple assurance that I could apply to the very best schools. I never applied to Duke, rejoiced when I got accepted to Stanford, and had the same kind of love-at-first-sight moment that others have described when they first pulled onto Palm Drive.

Re: You and Stanford - oman - 06-19-2013

Because it was warmer than Harvard.

Re: You and Stanford - TreeWeird - 06-19-2013

About 43 people in my midwest hometown had even heard of Stanford (OK, I exaggerate a little).  I had zero connection to Stanford and did not know much about it.  When I got into high school, though, I remembered seeing the band on TV at the 70 and 71 rose bowl games and thought Stanford must be a pretty cool place to go to school.  Wanting to get the hell out of the midwest, I applied only to schools on the coasts.  I got my acceptance from Dean Fred (Great!) two weeks before being accepted at Yale, so I had that time to imagine myself at Stanford.  At that point it wasn't much of a decision.

Thanks, LSJUMB.

Re: You and Stanford - jacketree - 06-19-2013

Dang it. Redrum stole my "In a Volkswagen" line.

January 1, 1972 - Watched the Rose Bowl on our brand new and first color TV sitting in a snowbound Colorado basement. I was 8 years old. Stanford won, the sky was bluer than blue, the grass was greener than green, and as far as I knew Stanford was a school located in some place called Pasadena in exotic southern California.

Sometime in the early 1970s - Laird Rollins' sister graduated high school and was off to Stanford. Not to be sexist or anything, but as far as I knew Stanford was a school full of smoking hot Laird Rollins' sister look-a-likes located in California. I asked Laird where exactly. "Monterey I think."

1980 - Went to a college fair hosted by South High School (go Rebels) in Denver. I remember going to Michigan's presentation, MIT's (yeah right), possibly Oregon, possibly Tennessee (and wth is Tennessee doing recruiting high school kids in Colorado during ski season? Oh yeah.) Hey Stanford is on the list. I wonder if Laird Rollins' sister recruits for them? (Laird moved out of state years before this.) Worth checking out.  Fun facts: Stanford is actually located in Stanford, which is a postal code for an area immediately adjacent to Palo Alto in Santa Clara County, California. It is located closer to San Jose than San Francisco, but (at the time) in San Francisco's area code. Vincent White from right here at Mullen High goes to school and plays football at Stanford (lots of boos - we were sitting in a room at South after all); nobody gets into Stanford - nobody (OK I'm done here); and their regional recruiter is Mr. Rogers' doppleganger right down to his hushpuppies. Yeah, I'm really done here.

1984 (November) - Mini-recession job prospects so far include going back to the Denver area and working for the civil engineering firm where I had spent the summer prior (lukewarm, although I would spend the following summer there); a job for Exxon pretending to be a petroleum engineer in Andrews, Texas ("Don't worry, we'll train you." "Where do you go for fun?" "Midland or Odessa." "Where do they go for fun?" "El Paso or Dallas."); a job designing nuclear power plant piping in Cherry Hill, NJ (that sounds way cooler than it is); and a job with General Dynamics Electric Boat Division in Groton, CT that would probably entail designing submarines, although it was hard to discern exactly what we would be doing since I did not have clearance during my interview to see anything more than locked filing cabinets and more 'don't worry we will train the you that is a civil engineer not a naval architect.' But our cab from the airport was rolled by an angry mob protesting anti-union stances taken by good ole GD, so that was pretty exciting.  The guy from U Cincinnati sharing the cab with me said it best. 'This might be a sign to find a different job.'

Anyway, why not grad school?  I asked my favorite professors to list the graduate schools other than GT they would attend or be on faculty if they could do so simply by asking. (I doubt it would happen, but I didn't want one school on every list to be Tech for fear I was a mole working for the Dean of the School of Civil Engineering; heck I even asked the Dean.)  Pretty universal: MIT, Berkeley, Stanford.

I applied to those three. (I gained entrance to those three.)  MIT called first, offering a two year RA in transportation engineering. Full ride. "But I'm interested in water resources." "Well, we don't have anything there right now. I'm sure you will come to love transportation. Cambridge is really nice. Not so much right now (February), but, and that reminds me, you should really visit a program before signing up."  Hmmm, good advice. I was sort of thinking about just throwing a dart on the map and seeing if I hit the Pacific or Atlantic Ocean, but he does have a point.  Sooooo....spring break is coming up. I have four real choices:

1. Stay in Atlanta. I've never done that for spring break. Second cheapest alternative.
2. Go to Panama City with everyone else. I've almost always done that for spring break. Cheapest alternative. (And why that is, is another thread.)
3. Boston
4. San Francisco


Boston....San Francisco.....Boston.....San Francisco..... I have two choices at one location; one choice at the other.  San Francisco open your Golden Gate.

March 1985.  I visit the University of California at Berkeley, which is honestly my first choice of the three. (Respect points through the floor!) I hang out on Telegraph, eat at Harry's Hoffbrau (?) and spend an evening in Larry Blake's Rathskeller. Memphis Guitar Slim.  Freaking awesome.  I tour the campus the next day and meet with the CE department chair at the appointed time. "Good news! You have been accepted!" (Awesome. Based on last night alone, I love this place.)  "Not as good news....there is no money.....well, I mean you never know, but sorry, I tried."  (Booooo! Estimated tuition + living expenses were something on the order of more than zero, which is what I had saved in the bank.)

March 1985, one day later. After arising from a no-tel motel bed off El Camino somewhere in the vicinity of the Millbrae-Burlingame border, I drove south through the heart of the Peninsula wondering if I'd wind up in some place like Groton, or Cambridge counting cars for credit after all. Hell, I didn't visit, but this is plain old monetary fate.  Damn this place is gorgeous. "Climate Best by Government Test." You got that straight. It must be room temperature. Slight breeze. The humidity actually feels good.  Aha, Santa Clara County line. Hey remember Mr. Rogers? Yeah, forgot about that guy. Look at me now!  Oh yeah, nobody but nobody gets into Stanford.  Yeah, well I got into MIT Mr. Rogers. Suck on that!!!  Hey now, gather yourself, the sign for Stanford University is just up ahead (leaving El Camino and swinging right on to University....) Holy shit.

After touring the campus with a young professor (wow this place is nice, they sure dig sandstone and tile, look at all the open space, this place is huuuuge, hey check out those bear paws running all over the place....that must be what they do with their money in Berkeley rather than giving it to grad students), we meet with another young professor. "This is Jeff."  (Jeff? you call professors by their first names?). "Jeff will be your adviser. I think this makes the most sense because he runs the hydraulics lab." Wait, what? That sounds like good news.  Professor 1 (laughing): "Oh I'm really sorry. I dragged you all over the place and never told you the good news! Here, you might find this interesting." Hands over a letter (which is still ensconced somewhere in my personal effects). Congratulations.....your credentials......pleased to offer....teaching assistant......full fellowship......water resources.....fluid dynamics lab.....new equipment.....we think you will be challenged.....exciting opportunity.....monthly stipend to cover all anticipated expenses.....signature by May 1.......we look forward to you coming......California......good luck.....future endeavors...Sincerely......

I know I did a touchdown dance in my head.  I may have done one in real life right then and there. Hard to tell, and if I did my professors never let on.

Re: You and Stanford - Bruce Wang - 06-19-2013

(06-19-2013, 12:40 PM)Kathy link Wrote:There seemed to be an inordinate number of Buckeye players who were PE majors; I didn't notice — after all, they were football players — but my dad did, although he said nothing until the Stanford Indians were introduced.

"Not a PE major in the bunch," he said.

What would have been priceless is if one of the Stanford players was indeed a PE major as in Petroleum Engineering.

Re: You and Stanford - Cardinal_Coop - 06-19-2013

Stanford is the first place I remember being, and I spent my school years thinking about how I'd get back there.

My parents moved into Escondido Village when I was a baby and my father was a Ph.D. student (after several years since he'd co-termed as an undergrad). My earliest memories are set at places like Stanford Children's Center and Cantor (where my mother would take me, probably as an early investment in getting me back on campus as a student).

We moved away after my dad got his Ph.D., but we'd visit periodically for sporting events. Even though I had more perspective every time I visited, no visit ever diminished my childhood perception that Stanford was a special place.

I busted my butt during high school, and on April 1st, 2004 I went home for lunch just in time to see the mailman hand my mother the "big envelope." I think I realized how much force of will I had applied toward becoming a Stanford student, because my thought was something like "Oh good, my acceptance arrived." I was tremendously happy though, and had to fight off senioritis constantly.

My four years exceeded expectations. Now, as an alumnus, one of my favorite hobbies is travelling to football road games. Get ready, Utah; we're coming!



Re: You and Stanford - terry - 06-19-2013

I grew up in the East Bay, near Berkeley. Despite living in the Bay Area, I did not know much about Stanford. I had never been to the Stanford campus, and I had no connection to it. (My parents went to their state schools, Nebraska and Wisconsin.) When I was a junior in high school, my dad gave me a college guide. I think it was "The Insider's Guide to the Colleges." I spent a lot of time reading that guide. I remember it said Stanford was the dream school of students from San Diego to Seattle.

I sent away to get applications from Dartmouth, Princeton, Harvard, and a few other schools, based mostly on what it said in my college guide. But I never completed them. I figured we had two of the best universities in the nation right here close to home. Also the Ivy League applications were long and intimidating. So I ended up applying to just two schools -- Stanford and UC. In those days, there was a single UC application, and you ranked the UC campuses in order of preference. I ranked Berkeley first, then UCLA, then Davis, and so forth all the way down to Riverside. I figured one of the UCs would take me.

I was accepted at Berkeley and was set to go there. I even had found housing. Then, to my surprise, I got the acceptance from Stanford. I still had never been on the Stanford campus. I figured it was finally about time to visit. I cut school, drove to Stanford alone, and wandered randomly around campus for a while. After a while, a campus tour passed by, and I attached myself to it. (I had not known there was such a thing as a campus tour.) I remember that the guide took us into his room in Branner. That day was all it took. I thought wow, this is great.

Re: You and Stanford - Class_of_75 - 06-20-2013

I, like Garvin and doug, was in the Class of 75. I grew up in northwest Pasadena (not the good side of town), and when I was in the 7th grade, the state decided to build the 210 Freeway right through our neighborhood. We had to move, and ended up moving to Altadena, the town just noth of Pasadena. I remember watching Stanford play in the Rose Bowl vs. Ohio State, and I loved how they beat the favored Buckeyes. Being a mere high school junior, I thought it would be neat to go to a school with a good football team.  :) I bought one of those books that had descriptions of colleges in it, and Stanford sounded great. I bought another book that had sample SAT questions in it, studied, and did pretty well on the SATs. Nobody in my family had gone to college, so I relied on friends in high school to give me info. I applied to Stanford, UCLA, and USC. I was accepted to all 3, so it was a no brainer to pick Stanford. We had 10 people from my graduating class get accepted at Stanford, and 9 out of the 10 attended. The 10th went to USC because his father told him there were too many Communists at Stanford!

Re: You and Stanford - pefloresjr - 06-20-2013

I grew up in the southern part of this fine state in a working class family so I didn’t know much about Stanford.  I knew it had a great academic reputation and that it was the best school on the West Coast.  I only applied to four schools:  Stanford, UCB, San Diego State, and West Point.  SDSU was my safety because it was cheap and would be fun.  West Point was my other safety because it would be even cheaper, but would not be fun. 

Stanford was my early first choice simply because it was the best school by reputation.  It became my dream school when I sent away for the application packet.  Stanford’s materials were all just so beautiful and interesting and cool.  Even the application made it very clear that they were looking for interesting people and stories, not just scores on an admissions grid.  I wanted to be part of whatever it was that Stanford had. 

My high school only had one AP class, so a few of us were allowed to take some classes at UC Riverside during senior year.  As a result, I was a transfer applicant to UCB.  I got admitted early and even got a Regent’s scholarship guaranteeing me on-campus housing.  I was a lock at SDSU and got accepted at West Point.  I chose West Point because I wasn’t sure my family with nine kids could afford to send me to any college.  Two of my brothers were in the service (Army and Marines) and poor Mexican kids from Riverside don’t know if anything else will be a legitimate option.  The recruiter from West Point was giving me all kinds of love/pressure to accept “the appointment to the academy.”  But I was holding out for Stanford.

One day in early April 1982, the two other kids from my class who had applied to Stanford told me they got their rejection letters the day before.  I had not.  Was it a good sign or just the vagaries of the US Postal Service?  I didn’t have any expectation of getting in because unlike most California public high schools, nobody from my school had ever gone to Stanford.  I had to find out, so I walked home for lunch.  You can see the front of my house across an open field so I could see from a long way off that there was mail in the box.  I didn’t run and I didn’t slow down.  I just kept walking steady, trying to keep my heart from beating out of my chest, and not taking my eye off our mailbox.  When I pulled the mail out of the box, there was a fat envelope from Stanford.  I had to sit down to open it.  I read the acceptance and honestly thought that Dean Fred wrote “Great!” on it because he was particularly excited to welcome me to the Stanford family.  I know now that was not true, but going to Stanford included me in a family of people I never really believed I could join. 

Stanford gave me an even better financial aid offer than that silly Regent’s scholarship and I told the West Point recruiter that I could not accept the appointment because I was going to my first choice.  I haven’t regretted it for a single day. 

Cheers,
Pete F.

Re: You and Stanford - Nan3cy - 06-20-2013

Great story, Pete.  :)

Re: You and Stanford - Spiny_Norman - 06-20-2013

From the youngest age, college to me meant football.  I have a theme that I wrote in kindergarten - "When I grow up, I want to play football for the University of Oklahoma."  Those of you who have met me know what a ridiculous aspiration that was.  Still, I have always been crazy about sports so it was not too odd that I might make a college decision based on the impression left by athletics teams.  Growing up in a small town in Oklahoma, I was of course a Sooners fan.  As the son and grandson of Michigan alums, I learned Hail To The Victors about the same time as Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.  My first exposure to Stanford was joy when they beat the hated Buckeyes and heartbreak the following year when they upset Michigan.

I did not know much about the academic reputation until my older cousin (who was sort of my idol) considered Stanford before finally deciding on Brown.  If John had such a high opinion of Stanford, maybe it was worth investigating.  Then a friend from Tulsa who was two years older enrolled at Stanford.  Jeff is a cool guy.  If he likes Stanford, maybe I would too.

I had done well in high school and was keen to leave the state for college.  But if your main criteria is "not OU or OSU," that leaves a lot of others to consider.  I remember receiving the Stanford brochure but I don't know that it made a lasting impression.  All of the college collateral kind of looked the same.  I did have one other strong preference - a school where you could have a social life outside of the greek system.  Fraternity life was not for me.

Ultimately with advice from parents, relatives, friends and especially a wonderful guidance counselor (God bless you, Maxine Kaiser), I applied to Stanford, Yale, Duke and Michigan (my safety school).  I had never been to any of them.  When I was accepted at all 4, my folks said "you have time to visit one."  I chose Yale.  My best friend from high school was a freshman there and the alumni interviewer had helped to convince me that it could be a great fit academically. 

My trip was disillusioning especially for a kid from Oklahoma who had never really been in an urban setting like the Northeast corridor.  New Haven is a dark place even on the nicest weekend of the spring.  Old, soot encrusted buildings.  Students that I did not have much in common with.  I went with my friend to visit one of classmates in the hospital.  She had been hit by a car while crossing the street.  Jeez, maybe this is not the place for me.

On the plane ride home, I was explaining my situation to the passenger next to me.  He was a professional (doctor, lawyer, something like that).  He said "If I was in your situation, Stanford would be my top choice, no question."  When I got home, I called Jeff who was a sophomore living in Roble by then.  I missed him and left a message.  Turns out he was studying outside at Lake Lag.  Now you're talking!  Everything he said sounded like the antithesis of Yale.  In a (somewhat informed and somewhat naive) leap of faith, I chose Stanford.

Everything turned out to be Fred Hargadon Great (despite making a wrong turn into East Palo Alto initially before my first view of campus on the jaw-dropping approach down Palm Drive).  In 4 years, I grew personally and academically, I made great friends who are still great friends today, I studied overseas.  And I saw a lot of football games.

Re: You and Stanford - Bruce Wang - 06-20-2013

Spiny, as a football fan why were you even considering Yale or Duke?

I'm noticing a pattern here.  A lot of you mentioned the Stanford appearances in the Rose Bowl.  I realize there's a selection bias with this particular sample, but why would this sample doubt my hypothesis that Stanford's restoration to glory on the gridiron is the biggest factor in the jump in applications?