[stupac2]

That's more than a little shocking. 

I'm not sure what to make of Stanford's stats and ranking but it ain't good to be on that list.

It's not that shocking. There's only so much a university can do to screen out the assholes who do these things, so the sad fact is that some will get in. So everyone will be on the list. Where you fall on these rankings depends on two things:

1) How many sexual assaults happen.
2) How many are reported.

My guess is that #1 doesn't vary all that much, maybe an order of magnitude depending on lots of factors, but it should be fairly stable. But #2 is going to vary a ton, you can easily imagine reporting rates ranging from basically none to a fairly high fraction (though sexual assault is so underreported hitting 50% would be brobdingnagian). My guess is that Stanford is high on that list mostly because of #2, and the places that are really low are the ones that should be the most suspect of having institutional problems.

Also, as I said before, Stanford (at least from 2005-2009) was extremely aggressive about telling students the basics of how to avoid sexual assault (from both directions), I can't begin to count how many times I was told "someone who's drunk can't consent" among other things. If the changes in the way sexual assault cases are handled happened in 2010, it's possible that this has gotten even better.

[stupac2]

That's more than a little shocking. 

I'm not sure what to make of Stanford's stats and ranking but it ain't good to be on that list.

It's not that shocking. There's only so much a university can do to screen out the assholes who do these things, so the sad fact is that some will get in. So everyone will be on the list. Where you fall on these rankings depends on two things:

1) How many sexual assaults happen.
2) How many are reported.

My guess is that #1 doesn't vary all that much, maybe an order of magnitude depending on lots of factors, but it should be fairly stable. But #2 is going to vary a ton, you can easily imagine reporting rates ranging from basically none to a fairly high fraction (though sexual assault is so underreported hitting 50% would be brobdingnagian). My guess is that Stanford is high on that list mostly because of #2, and the places that are really low are the ones that should be the most suspect of having institutional problems.

Also, as I said before, Stanford (at least from 2005-2009) was extremely aggressive about telling students the basics of how to avoid sexual assault (from both directions), I can't begin to count how many times I was told "someone who's drunk can't consent" among other things. If the changes in the way sexual assault cases are handled happened in 2010, it's possible that this has gotten even better.