[Farm93]

The short-term alums bother me a bit, but they are alums by Stanford's definition.

Famous in the Chronicle context was clearly something closer to a Q-Rating or Q-Score.  There are a lot of very successful people that could sit next to me on a plane and most I suspect I would not recognize.  Stanford, like other schools, has a lot of successful alums in that category for me.

Essentially, I am thinking about the John Elway and Sherman Uber/Lyft type experiences.  The most famous people should have strong Q-Scores, and most of the Stanford alums are not at that level of fame.

I am pretty confident the list of alums that I could identify while waiting for a plane at an airport would include John Elway, Reese Witherspoon, Cory Booker, and maybe Tiger Woods.  For almost every other "famous" alum, my guess is that with a hat, sunglasses, a change in hair color, or other similar tactics, I would not even give them a second glance.

Success in a particular field may be notable, but I am not sure that correlates strongly with the Chronicle's notion of fame.

[Farm93]

The short-term alums bother me a bit, but they are alums by Stanford's definition.

Famous in the Chronicle context was clearly something closer to a Q-Rating or Q-Score.  There are a lot of very successful people that could sit next to me on a plane and most I suspect I would not recognize.  Stanford, like other schools, has a lot of successful alums in that category for me.

Essentially, I am thinking about the John Elway and Sherman Uber/Lyft type experiences.  The most famous people should have strong Q-Scores, and most of the Stanford alums are not at that level of fame.

I am pretty confident the list of alums that I could identify while waiting for a plane at an airport would include John Elway, Reese Witherspoon, Cory Booker, and maybe Tiger Woods.  For almost every other "famous" alum, my guess is that with a hat, sunglasses, a change in hair color, or other similar tactics, I would not even give them a second glance.

Success in a particular field may be notable, but I am not sure that correlates strongly with the Chronicle's notion of fame.