Virtual College Tours: Stanford University

Webinar Transcription

2021-05-13 Virtual College Tours Stanford University

[00:00:00] Hi, everyone. Welcome to the CollegeAdvisor’s, Virtual College Tours Stanford University. To orient everyone with the webinar timing, we’ll start off with a presentation. Then answer your questions in a live Q and a on the sidebar. You can download our slides and you can start submitting your questions in the Q and a tab.

Now let’s meet our panelists. Hello I am Carolyn. I graduated last June with a degree in human biology from Stanford and I concentrated in infectious diseases. And I’m super happy to be here talking with you all about Stanford. So as a brief overview Stanford is located in Stanford. It really is its own little town.

It is right next to Palo Alto. So oftentimes students forget that it’s in its own town. We just refer to it being in Palo Alto. And it is a private school. [00:01:00] It’s about 7,000 undergrads. Graduate students are off doing their own things. So when you’re an undergrad at Stanford, you really don’t realize how many grad students there are, because all you really see on campus are undergrad.

So that means that there’s a valid. 1500 to 1800 people in your graduating class. And although Stanford is about 45 minutes away from San Francisco, which is fairly close it is in a very suburban area. And one of the noteworthy things about the school is that it has a huge campus. Huge.

A lot of the land is undeveloped. So it’s just like forest and trees, but that’s, what’s so great about it. There’s just so many spots to just hang out and relax and get away from like the hub of everything. And then last thing is that there is a very high student to faculty ratio. When I was a student there[00:02:00] I had a couple classes where there were.

Three or four students in the class. So it would be me and Other students which was really great to be able to connect with professors. All right. So the college application process for me back in fall of 2015 was first around September. I compiled a list of colleges. The way that I did that was figuring out which schools I wanted to be safety schools, which was, I wanted to be target schools.

Which schools, I want them to be reached schools. I did apply to mostly reach schools and then some of my target schools were some UC schools, university of California, since I am a California resident and my safety, I only applied to one that was a California state university. Since, as long as he had above a 3.0, and you had taken the sat, like you were pretty much guaranteed admission.

So yeah, I did that mostly in September. I brainstormed for my essays in September and [00:03:00] October. I began writing my essays in October, but if we’re going to be honest, I did save the bulk of the essay writing for Thanksgiving and winter breaks lessons. Please don’t do what I did. Like I regret that. So much it brought so much unnecessary stress.

I was applying to 15 schools, total, which is a lot And most of those schools were Ivy league schools, basically top 30 schools that did require several prompts to write about. And so if I could give one piece of advice to you all, it would simply be to establish your college list around July latest August and.

Really try and get the bulk of your essays done by before Thanksgiving break. That way you avoid any other unnecessary stress. So what factors [00:04:00] mattered to me when creating the college list first was location setting. Either wanted to stay in California or go to the east coast. Another huge factor was financial aid.

So one resource that I used that pretty much all colleges just have available on their financial aid website is like a financial aid calculator. So you input all sorts of information about your family’s finances and it spits out a number of, or an amount that you’ll probably have to pay up attending that school.

And. Because a lot of Ivy league institutions and the like have large endowments, they do have the. The funds to be able to distribute and match here need based amount. That makes sense. So that was a really big factor. Another factor that I took into account with student body size. So I knew that I didn’t want to [00:05:00] go to a huge school.

That being like a. Like a huge state school, one that would have any like 5,000 plus people per graduating class. That was way too big for me, but I also didn’t want a small school like a liberal arts school that would be anywhere from 500 to. No, sorry. Yeah. 500 to around like 3000 students total.

That was too small for me. Another thing that I took into account was research opportunities available on the campus. A local state school. Wouldn’t have been the best fit for me because they just wouldn’t have the research opportunities that I was looking for. Another thing I took into account was networking opportunities.

So something about Stanford for example, is that you definitely will have networking opportunities because all sorts of companies and nonprofits and alum come back to the school to be able to connect with [00:06:00] current staff. Why I chose Stanford. So one Stanford met my financial aid needs. That was huge.

I got way more money from them than I did from, let’s say a university of California school, even though I am. I’m a California resident and that’s simply because the UCS don’t have as much money in their endowment. Another reason was that there’s just so many amazing academic and extracurricular pre-med opportunities.

One opportunity that I take advantage of all four years of college was being a Spanish interpreter at Cardinal free clinics, which is an organization run by. Undergrads and med students to be able to provide free healthcare for residents throughout the south bay. Another huge reason was that the weather was just absolutely stunning when I visited during admin weekend, which is usually in [00:07:00] April.

I did get the opportunity to visit some other east coast colleges. I was admitted to, but It was like 30 degrees in April. And when I visited it was like 80 and I thought, wow, this is amazing. I want to go to a school that has amazing weather year round. As I had mentioned before, I really fell in love with the huge campus and just how beautiful it was.

The picture that. Able to see in the background of this slide is the front of the quad. And pretty much all the buildings look like that. If they don’t look like that, they’re newer buildings that look a lot more modern, but the campus is known to be very beautiful. And another reason why I chose Stanford was because it isn’t a metropolitan area.

It’s not in a city, but the bay area is huge and there’s just so much culture. It’s a very diverse area and. It also is only about five or six hours from my home. And so Cal, so is there some reasons why I [00:08:00] chose Stanford? And here we have a poll. Are you planning to apply to Stanford?

All right, I’m going to go ahead and close it in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. And it looks like 90% of respondents do plan to apply, which makes sense, because if you’re interested in Stanford, that is why you are here today. That’s awesome. Yes. I recommend that you definitely take the chance and apply it because undergrad admissions at these schools Aren’t very [00:09:00] holistic, in my opinion, it’s not just your GPA and test scores that matter the essays are also weighed heavily and they give you an opportunity to really demonstrate who you are.

All right on to some places around campus. The first is green library. The title does not appear, but that’s fine. So green library is the largest library and it’s usually where students immediately had to study. My favorite spot was the lane reading room and here we have a video and if you’d like to pull it up, thank you.

Okay, here it is. This is the lane reading room in green library. I really loved this room because of all the awesome natural lighting. Very quiet because any movement that you make echoes throughout the entire room, but I really liked [00:10:00] it. And not going to lie. It wasn’t always my go-to place.

Or the library wasn’t my go-to place to study necessarily because during midterm season finals season, it was just packed. Usually what I would do is sneak into. Pretty much any building with classrooms and just snatch a classroom all to myself, because there were always whiteboards. It was a room all to myself.

I could have food, which you can’t have in the library. But yeah, green is great. Another thing to know, is that right outside that library there’s Coupa cafe, which is it sounds like a cafe with some really amazing Venezuelan style coffee and desserts and entrees. So yeah. All right.

So dining halls, there are, I believe seven or eight dining halls, always amazing options. Today. I’m going to talk about Wilbur dining hall[00:11:00] because it’s one of the main freshmen dining halls. Now I will say. Stanford is transitioning to a brand new residential neighborhood system. So unlike, for decades for freshmen were housed in Wilbur hall.

Now the different dorms within Wilbur hall will be a part of separate neighborhoods. And it’ll be different for. For future Stanford students, that one thing is for sure it will remain as the Asian cuisine dining hall because of Ocado, which is the Asian-American theme dorm that is located in Wilbur.

I actually stayed there during my freshman year. And it was an absolutely awesome experience to be able to explore Asian American culture. And, become more familiar with a culture that it’s not my own. I’m not Asian, I’m Latina, but yeah. All yes, there is a video for Wolver [00:12:00] dining.

I almost forgot. And it was a little bit difficult to film because of the COVID restrictions. But as you can see the day that they filmed it was Cinco de Mayo. That’s another neat thing about the dining halls is that whenever there is some sort of holiday There’s an entire feast. So there’s Mardi Gras that they S that they decorate.

There’s also like St. Patrick’s day. It’s really. All right. As far as dorms, there’s so many dorm options at Stanford, which is a really neat feature about this school. Today. I’m going to be talking about Brantner hall, which is where I lived my sophomore year. And at the time it was known as a public service dorm.

So occasionally you’ll have dorms that have certain themes. So as I mentioned, Ocado was the Asian-American theme. This one was the public service storm. And Brandner is known as being one of the prettiest [00:13:00] storms. It was built like about a hundred years ago, but it’s undergone several restorations.

And something really neat about the dorm is that. There’s singles and two room doubles. So very spacious rooms. And there’s also a lot of really pretty common areas and it has a dining hall attached to it that was also known for being one of the best dining halls. And I have to agree with that statement.

They prepare the food in a lot smaller batches and adds to the quality of the food. But again, that may change given the new residential system that they’re going to be implementing beginning fall of 2021.

This is a video of the exterior of the hall. There’s two wings. And I lived here in this first wing on the second floor. But yeah, super, super pretty. There’s a courtyard in the middle of the. On the inside of the [00:14:00] dorm. And it was just a really awesome place to live in sophomore year.

Oh, and another thing to mention is that when I lived there, it was an upperclassmen dorm. So sophomores through seniors lived there. I believe that this upcoming fall, it will be a freshmen dorm. And I believe that. Two room doubles will be for three people. So it’ll be two people in one room and one person in the other, which kind of sucks, but it is what it is.

All so my favorite place off campus would definitely be Coupa cafe in downtown Palo Alto. I mentioned that there was a Cooper red outside green library. That one was always busy and it was great to, grab a coffee on the go. But if you really wanted a spot to study that was off campus, this is one of the best coffee shops because of it.

Usually it wasn’t packed. And on top of having their main [00:15:00] dining area where the register is and the kitchen is, they also expanded and bought a like an area next door for extra seating and usually guests who did go to the coffee shop, use that spot just for working and studying. So it was super quiet.

Really nice ambience and really good food. So sometimes I would spend like 10 hours at this cafe and I would just do my studying there to get my mind off of the hectic activity on campus. So yeah, this is the Cal fan. Other thing to note is that downtown Palo Alto architecture is this like Spanish colonial architecture, it’s very picturesque.

And as you can see, there was this like empty window area. And that’s where the other dining spaces. So yeah.[00:16:00]

Most beautiful place on campus would definitely be the terrace at the last school. Super peaceful, really beautiful, really green, always quiet. I often studied here during spring and summer quarters and no, the school year does not formally include summer quarters. But I did spend. Two summers on campus doing research.

And I would go ahead and do some of my research work at the terrace. And other times I would just go there to journal on, listen to music.

So as you can see, it’s just like a canopy of greenery really pretty. And this particular building at the law school is pretty [00:17:00] new. I’d say about five years old.

And another thing about it is that the law school is pretty central to campus. I’d say it’s like. An eighth of a mile from green library. And right next to what used to be considered the freshman.

All right. Most iconic place. I couldn’t just pick one because if you’ve ever gotten a postcard from Stanford or any of their marketing materials, it’s always Hoover tower, the oval. Memorial church mem shoe on their stuff. Hoover tower is, I’d say probably the most iconic part of campus. It’s almost like a Rite of passage to visit it during admin weekend.

And I will say that after you visited during the admit weekend, you probably never go up to the top ever again.[00:18:00] But you definitely do walk past it or ride your bike past if you live on east campus and you’re headed to class, most classes are and the central part of campus or the. West side of campus as far as the oval if you guys have heard of Palm drive at the very end of Palm drive is the oval.

It’s just this grassy area. The center of it is usually decorated with flowers in the form of an S for Stanford. And people usually hang out here in the spring to hang out, play games. And then mum true is this really beautiful church at the heart of campus. In case you didn’t know, Stanford was founded as a Catholic university, not does not have the Catholic affiliation anymore, but the Stanford family was Catholic and they founded the university in honor of their late son who died.

Typhoid fever in his teens.[00:19:00] And so they thought it was super important to add this Memorial church in also in honor of their son.

So that is the oval. Can’t see the ass, but it’s in that center area with bushes and flowers and. Here is Hoover tower and this is the front of the quad which is the oldest part of the university. And up ahead, you see it like a little cross in that square Memorial churches.

Hold. All right. So my best memory would definitely be during my senior year. I was a resident assistant. So someone who [00:20:00] supervises an organized activities in a dorm. As an RN Florence Moore hall, which was a four class dorm. So freshmen through seniors, I believe in the fall, it’ll be mostly freshmen with a couple small halls dedicated to sophomores.

And I guess I can’t pick just one best memory because so many amazing memories were formed during my senior year with my staff and with residents that I got close with. Most of these memories are formed during staff training, which is a period of three weeks before the school year starts, where as it sounds they train the staff to be able to adequately supervise and build community in the dorms.

And I also remember great things from late night talks and especially in mealtimes. . Short for Florence Moore does have a dining hall touch to it. And so it was just very easy to [00:21:00] come across other residents during meal times. And then another unique aspect about the residential system at Stanford is that each dorm has what’s called resident fellows, and it’s a family that lives in an apartment that’s attached to the dorm and they basically help guide staff to be able to create a cohesive community.

So yeah.

So this is the front of Florence Moore hall,

and there’s a total of seven dorms in this hall.

Right? And here we have another poll. Where are you in the college application process?[00:22:00]

All right. Can I go ahead and close it? And from what I can tell about a quarter of you haven’t started, which is perfectly fine. We’re in may. Some of you good, 10% are working on essays. That’s awesome. And then a 15% of you are working on it. Yeah. Through curriculars, which is awesome. And then half of you, we’re currently crafting a school list, which is great.

I’d say you’re definitely ahead of the game.

All right. [00:23:00] So my favorite thing about Stanford, and this may sound interning, but honestly the quarter system, not just because of the academic opportunities that. I got because of the quarter system versus a semester based system, but also because of the social opportunities that I got. So academically quarter systems involve three quarters during the year, all winter spring.

So you get a total of 12 quarters throughout your four years, whereas it semester systems school is two semesters per year. So a total of eight semesters. Over four years. And that does, in my opinion, limit the number of classes that you can take. For me as someone who’s struggled their first two years in college I would not have had as much flexibility to fix my grades or to take, more classes had I done a semester system.

So quarter systems I must say are faster 10 weeks long.[00:24:00] But they really did benefit me. And I think I learned a lot more than had I gone to a semester-based school as far as social opportunities. I am, I was pre-med I guess I still am gonna, I’m currently applying to medical school. But there are requirements that you have to complete in college on top of your major requirements and on top of your graduation general ed requirements.

And that does limit the extent to which you can study abroad. If you go to a semester-based school. So I fortunately had the opportunity to. Spend fall quarter of my junior year in Madrid. And a lot of the classes that I took were history and culture classes. They had nothing to do with biology or medicine, and that probably would not have been the case.

Had I gone to a [00:25:00] semester-based school? I probably maybe would have still been able to study abroad, but I definitely would have had to take some sort of bio classes or pre-med classes. No, it was a really awesome break from school or from, I should say from attending school at Stanford. And. I guess there’s also some really awesome traditions at the end of every quarter.

There’s something called nomad where it’s just this big crowd of people and you go around campus at night at the end of finals week and you just party, like someone carries a boombox and you’re just dancing at different spots on campus. And. You got to do that three times in a school year, which is great.

And there’s other school traditions that take place according to each quarter. So yeah, that, that’s probably my favorite thing about Stanford. The quarter system.

Least favorite thing about Stanford. [00:26:00] I would definitely say the lack of ethnic and socioeconomic diversity that you see among the student body and the faculty. So Stanford is very progressive. It’s in a very progressive area in the U S and. They are definitely taking steps to admitting more students of color, first gen low income students.

And they are definitely making an effort to hire more faculty or people of color. And they are making an effort to give Title of department to certain cultural programs. So for example, it wasn’t until this past year that the program in African and African-American studies just became the department of African and African-American studies.

And that what that does is essentially give more funding to [00:27:00] this major. And so I definitely think that there needs to be more work done. I believe that

I think like 15% of the student body is Latin X, for example, but out of that 15% if I had to take a guess, probably A very small percentage are actually like first gen low income students. And so diversity is not just ethnic and racial. It’s also socioeconomic, so that, that would be my 2 cents on that.

And what do I want people to know about Stanford? So there’s definitely a stereotype of, you are only a computer science student, or you are interested in the tech business or you’re a computer science student interested in the tech business. And there are definitely people like that, [00:28:00] but A good percent of the student body does made sure in the humanities and Stanford does offer so many opportunities for interdisciplinary studies.

You can definitely study whatever you want and you will find your niche and your community. So yeah, I’d say that I think 700 out of like the 1700 people. Per class does major in some sort of engineering, which is a lot, but because of the quarter system people do venture out and take classes and, things that are not for example, engineering related.

So yeah, the stereotype can definitely be present, but I think that Stanford students are very like well-rounded in their academic pursuits and Yeah. Like people also know how to have fun. So we are nerds. I’d say that Stanford is a pretty vibrant community and people know how to have fun when it’s time to [00:29:00] have fun.

All right. Q and a session. All right, everyone. That’s the end of the presentation. Part of the webinar. So moving on to the Q and a I’ll read through the questions you submitted in the Q and a tab, paste them in the public chat. So you can see and then read them out loud before our panelist gives you an answer as a heads up.

If your QA tab, isn’t letting you submit questions, double check that you joined the webinar through the custom link in your email and not from the webinar landing page. Okay. Our first question is where did you find your research opportunities? Did you just ask your professors and what other pre-med opportunities did you have?

Great question. I must say I was definitely on the shier side when I started Stanford and it was scary having to venture out and look for research opportunities. The way that I found mine. So I. [00:30:00] Did work in two labs. One was within the department of rheumatology at Lucile Packard children’s hospital.

And I found out about that opportunity by asking one of the heads of the human biology program. I just made an appointment with Catherine Preston, who. Was I think as, I think she’s still as assistant director of the program in human biology and it was a 15 minute meeting and I just asked her, Hey, this is what I’m interested in.

Do you know of anyone that I could possibly work with to do research and she gave me a list of people. Another way that you can go about finding research opportunities is simply looking at professors that align with your interests. Sending them an email. And there’s usually like email templates that you can use if you just Google them.

But yeah, you will definitely have to be comfortable with reaching out to [00:31:00] people out of the blue. It’s just how things work and you shouldn’t be afraid because faculty and professors are there for you. They’re teaching you and they are there to expose you to research and to guide you.

Oh, and sorry. One of the premier opportunities. Oh, sorry. Yes, let’s answer that question. So I did mention the free clinic that I volunteered for. There’s also pre-med organizations, so I was a part of cha, which stands for Gomi that and health equity. It’s basically like the Latinex Pre health organization.

There’s also another organization called scope. They’re like Cardinal free clinics, but centered around the ER. And so it’s, I think. Eight or 12 hour shifts for a long time. But you basically help around the ER by taking people’s belongings and storing [00:32:00] them. I would say it’s not as hands-on, but that’s just because of a liability issue because you are operating in an emergency room in a hospital.

And then there’s another group that focuses on it’s called sinaps. It’s like a. Concussion peer support organization. And those are just like three or four opportunities out of 20 there’s a lot. At the beginning of every year, there will be like when you call it like a club fair and you can go around and explore other premium opportunities.

Our next question is what is the core curriculum? And can we test out of some subjects in the core curriculum with APS core curriculum? So they’re called ways requirements and there’s seven different pathways that you have to complete. You only have to take, [00:33:00] I think. One or two classes per category.

It just depends on the category. And you can try to remember, I don’t believe you can test out of the ways requirements, but you can definitely test out of classes for certain major requirements. I will say that if you were pre-med let’s say that you got a five in AP biology or AP chemistry or AP physics, unfortunately, med schools like to make your life difficult.

So you do have to take all of the pre-med classes that they will require. But yeah, I usually, for every major you can test out of like the 100 level courses.

Oh, Hannah, your [00:34:00] mic is muted. There you go. I am still muted. Yes. Thank you. The next question is, do you know what the top majors studied at Stanford are? Yes. Engineering is pretty much at the top. Within an engineering, I think computer science is the most popular followed by. I want to say mechanical engineering and then electrical engineering, bioengineering.

There’s one called management, science and engineering, which is like finance, but with some computer science, it’s a very Stanford majors. And then after engineering, you have the biology, so there’s human biology and then there’s regular biology. The difference between the two is that one is a lot more strict with major requirements.

So as a human biology major, you basically create your concentration. Whereas with biology, you have to pick one of six tracks, I believe. And then after that, [00:35:00] It’s hard to say. I wouldn’t be surprised if after that it’s probably psychology. Yeah, there’s a lot of humanities, major options, but within each major, there’s probably no more than 30 people.

So yeah, I’d say very stem heavy. I’d also say that Stanford is very humanities friendly.

Okay. Our next question is sorry. What we’ve seen quite a few questions about sat scores and. About Stanford, whether Stanford is test-optional and is going to continue being test-optional. For the upcoming school year tests will also be optional. And I think moving forward, there is a good chance that sometime in the future tests [00:36:00] will become obsolete.

Honestly. There are. Are a lot of students that often don’t apply to these very competitive schools because they just don’t have the means to pay for the test, much less test prep. And if we’re going to be completely honest, these exams do not test, how smart you are. They simply test how well you can take a test.

That’s all that standardized tests are. So as of now, I would say if, because there are test optional, if you want to take the act or the sat I’d say it’s only worth taking it. If on your practice exams, you’re scoring very high. Because if you turn in a high score, it may add a little bit to your application.

But it doesn’t make sense to take the exam, to get. Anything below Stanford’s [00:37:00] average, you may as well just not take the test and you’re going to be fine. Like your chances of acceptance are not going to be hurt simply by not turning in a test score.

Our next question is there pre-med guidance to ensure that you’re getting the support in taking all the classes you need to take? Yes. So there are pre-med advisors and I believe that if you’ve marked on your application that you intend on being prima. I think you’re automatically added to the pre-med mailing list.

If not, you can always like Go on. I think we, it’s a website called like mailman dot Stanford, something, and you can select to receive emails from the pre-med advisors and they have a really neat infographic of the courses that you need to take. And when you should take them[00:38:00] usually most people get their pre-med requirements done within their first two years, but that’s not a hard rule.

You can take them whenever you want. And as far as like the support personally, I found a lot more support within my own pre-med group. I felt like sometimes the premed advisor. Gave very unrealistic standards for what you must get in order to be a competitive applicant for medical school. There were a couple of times that I went in and every time they told me you need a 4.0 and like 99th percentile on the M cat.

And I was just. That’s probably not going to be me, but I know plenty of, my peers who have gotten into med school without those stats. And let’s be honest, like getting those stats is just not a healthy expectation to have. Okay, our next question is, do you have any advice on dealing with imposter syndrome or applying to Stanford and how to stand up?[00:39:00] I would say that like over 90% of people face imposter syndrome at some point in their Stanford career. For a lot of people, I would say that they deal with imposter syndrome all four years.

That was definitely me. And you simply have to repeat yourself that like you were chosen to be at Stanford. You deserve your spot. And it’s so much easier said than done, but you simply have to believe in yourself. And I would, I think what helped me the most is finding a supportive group of friends.

My friend group was just very supportive and I got to be honest. We were all at different levels academically. I had some friends who went to prep schools. I had other friends who went to urban schools that were underfunded, but at the end of the day, we all believed in each other. And I think [00:40:00] that’s what kept me afloat throughout my four years.

Okay. We’re going to take a very quick break in the middle of the Q and a. And I wanted to tell you about a wonderful offer. So if you want to work one-on-one with an advisor from our team of over 155 advisors and admissions officers, then you can sign up for a free consultation with us by going to CollegeAdvisor.com and clicking the green chat button in the bottom, right of the screen from there, just write consultation and a live team member will get back to you to help coordinate your free consultation with us.

Now, back to the Q and a. Our next question is how are your aerospace engineering and astrophysics programs and what is the acceptance rate for the engineering program? If so the aerospace engineering program is small. It’s funny that you asked that. So my boyfriend [00:41:00] originally applied as aerospace engineering and he actually succumbed to the CS crowd.

And it is a small program. But it is expanding in size. I would say that compared to Caltech or MIT, definitely not as large, but Stanford does have awesome opportunities. Just in pretty much every field as far as the acceptance rate for the school of engineering. So the way that Stanford operates is like, The majors are not divided into different colleges, as you may find at most universities.

So if you applied to, let’s say a state school, this is usually how it operates. Like you not only apply to the university, but you apply to a specific college and that specific college may have, Like a higher, lower rate of acceptance. Usually engineering colleges have a lower rate of acceptance compared to let’s say the [00:42:00] college of arts and sciences.

So that acceptance rate that you find online, like the four or 5% acceptance rate. Pretty much what it is across the board for any major. It’s not that, there’s a lower chance of acceptance if you’re interested in engineering. So yeah, I guess that fits well with our next question, which is it better to apply undecided slash undeclared or to pick a major, apply with whatever you want to, study?

It really doesn’t matter. I would say that what matters most is on your application is your essays I mean your test scores and, or not test scores anymore, but your GPA and your extracurricular activities definitely matter. But your. Essays give you the opportunity and the flexibility to showcase who you are.

So yeah, [00:43:00] it doesn’t really matter what you apply as

our next question is what resources are there for first-generation slash low-income students? Yeah. So there is I guess a department, there’s a program called flip it’s the first gen low-income partnership and they are dedicated to catering to first gen low income students. And they have all sorts of opportunities from study nights to one-on-one.

Peer counseling to finance opportunities. They have something called the opportunity fund. So if you need help with paying for, the fee that you need to pay for taking any sort of lab class, or if you need help paying for Elsa GMAT prep. They have those resources. So [00:44:00] if for some reason the financial aid office says no to your request for more money, chances are that, flip we’ll have at least some resources for you.

And then I would say that the the. Cultural student centers. So there’s El Centro, which is the Latinex student center. There’s the , which stands for Asian American.

I forget it’s the Asian American Pacific Islander student center. And then there’s also another center for black students. There’s a lot of resources for fly students at those centers as well. So I would say that those centers do support, fly students very well. As far as the feelings students have about whether the administration is as supportive of five students is a different story.

But these [00:45:00] communities on campus definitely support PlayStation. Okay.

Yeah. Our next question is are there any internship opportunities slash summer programs available for current high schools? Yes. So there are the pre-collegiate summer programs. I believe that you do have to pay for them, but there are specific pre-collegiate programs that you can apply for financial aid.

And then I do know that there is a competitive program through Stanford med for high schoolers. I can’t remember what it’s called. But I believe those are like the main high school opportunities for yeah. Through Stanford.[00:46:00]

There are a few questions that are asking. If you can tell us more about the children’s hospital. Yeah. There’s Stanford hospital and then attached to it is Lucile Packard children’s hospital. And it was recently renovated. It looks super, super nice. And. I will say that there are a lot of labs associated with the seal Packard children’s hospital.

There is an organization on campus called dance marathon, and what they do is once a year, they hold a dance marathon that lasts 24 hours and they raise funds for the children’s hospital. Aside from that, I didn’t have too big of an affiliation with the hospital. A lot of the work that I did was just like analyzing blood tests of pediatric patients within the department of rheumatology.

But [00:47:00] yeah, there, if you want to do research through Lucile Packard, there are definitely opportunities for them.

I’ve heard a few questions along this line, but would you mind talking a bit more about your college application experience and was Stanford your dream school, as well as maybe something about the essays that you wrote or what makes a great day. Yeah. So Stanford was actually not my dream school.

It became my dream school once I visited the campus, but I wanted to get the hell out of California. I said that I wanted that I, apply to California schools, but that was really more for my parents’ sake. I wanted to explore the east coast. I was like, California is overrated. Spoiler. I don’t think California’s are great to now, but yeah, as far as my application process I did focus a [00:48:00] lot of energy on my essays and I did so because through, I did a good amount of research on what it takes to get into these very competitive schools.

And the reality is that when I was applying test scores and GPA. Or yeah, test scores on your GPA were like the bare minimum. They will interest like the foot in the door. It’s what would make admissions counselors look at your application, but what really makes or breaks your application as a strength of your essays and the descriptions that you have for your extracurricular activity.

So ultimately admissions counselors want to see that the activities that you didn’t just do to check. No I’m off of lists like, oh yeah, I got my extra curriculars done. This will get me into college. No, like they want to see passion. They want to see you explain why you did these things and why you care about these things as far as [00:49:00] the essays.

So I. Wrote my common app essay about my upbringing and how my upbringing shaped me into the person that I am. A little bit of personal information. So my dad is a. What does a public school teacher for the majority of his career. And now he does more administrative stuff. My mom only went to school up until eighth grade.

And when I was in high school, she went to get her GED. And so the bulk of my essay had to do with how much my parents valued education and how much they showed it and how all the actions that they did for me and my siblings influenced me. Clearly the topic that I wrote about I care a lot about.

And so the topic that you should pick for your essay should be something that you care about. Do not try to impose press admissions counselors, because trust me, they’ve just read thousands of essays that they likely will not be blown [00:50:00] away by, a specific topic. Usually the one, the essays that stand out the most are the ones that like you read and you feel like.

The warmth and the passion of them, the writer spent on that essay.

Okay. This might be our last question, but it is, I’ve been discouraged about applying to Stanford because the acceptance rate is so low. Do you have any encouraging advice? Apply? Definitely apply. I would say, unless you have, and again, this is not like a benchmark by any means, but usually unless you have not taken.

So let’s say that unless you have not taken any APS, disclaimer, some high schools do not offer APS and [00:51:00] that’s, that’s fine. You just didn’t have the opportunity to take APS that this does not apply to you, but unless your high school had AP or IB classes and you didn’t take any. And let’s say that you got I don’t know, like five or six or more CS without a legitimate reason for getting those CS. Like you were just like, not really into school or something. And unless you have zero extracurriculars, I say take the chance and apply to Stanford. Trust me, like they accept students of all backgrounds. And it truly is a holistic process.

So I would say, yeah. Chances are those of you who are here, do hope to go to college. And I’ve thought about college for at least a little while. So that shows initiative. And so I think any of you here should, take the chance and apply. Definitely. I would say because the essays are important, definitely reach out to teachers or counselors or us to review your essays.[00:52:00]

But yeah, definitely apply. And don’t let the acceptance rate and intimidate you. I think. Part of the reason why the acceptance rates are so low is because you just have so many students applying because Stanford, is a very desirable school to study at. And at the end of the day, it’s not that like the majority of the people that apply to are under-qualified too. Do well in these classes, it’s just that they only have a certain number of slots and they have to weed out people.

There are thousands of students who would do great at Stanford, but at the end of the day, they only have a limited number of spots. And a denial does not mean that you like, we’re not worthy of acceptance. It’s just like they had to cut out people. And unfortunately, They just had to so yeah.[00:53:00]

All right. I think that’s a great place to stop. Thank you everyone so much for coming tonight and thank you Carolyn for presenting. It’s great. It’s wonderful to have you. Thank you. All right, everyone. This is the end of the webinar. We had a wonderful time telling you about Stanford university and here is a map of our home.

May series. So next Tuesday, I think we start with brown university. Have a great night, everyone.

Hi.