How Does Stanford Do It?

"I have a graduate degree from Stanford but only pulled it off by getting a lot of scholarships."

Think about this really hard and change one of the words to undergraduate.

Go look up where a lot of those kids are from. They come from wealthier backgrounds, which helps, plus I am sure many (if not all) are taking out student loans. Taking out loans to go to Stanford is something I am willing to bet many would do if they got accepted to the school. I can't think of another school that can match the academics, culture and athletics that Stanford provides.

I want to go to Stanford after watching this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwAGGD-n_Ng

Yeah, I honestly think that Stanford is able to pull it b/c the name carries so much prestige.

Parents are willing to send their kids to Stanford, while they might not throw down so much cash for a place like Wisconsin or Michigan. There is something about saying, "I have a degree from Stanford" that is up there with "I have a degree from Harvard, Princeton, Yale, etc."

Plus, you forget that most distance runners, particularly really good ones, come from wealthy backgrounds. Not sure why, but that seems to be the case more often than not. I guess wealthy kids are the only ones that have the expendable time and energy to run so much.

It's called need-based financial aid. Virtually every top academic school guarantees to provide financial aid that will accommodate the demonstrated financial need of all accepted students. A lot of them aren't on athletic scholarships, but I bet a good percentage are on some sort of need based aid because it's pretty tough for most families to pay 50k/year for an undergrad education. Rojo talked about this aid being a great asset for recruiting because Cornell could actually end up cheaper than a lot of other schools through their need based aid. Not many schools can supplement this kind of aid with athletic scholarships because very few top academic institutions with guarantees to meet the demonstrated need are competitive in Div. 1 and can give/have athletic scholarships.

What's not to love about Stanford? Decent program there, excellent academics, beautiful setting with great weather for year-round training. How do they do it? How would they fail? Where did you live when in graduate school there? We were in Escondido Village. LOVE that campus. Would love it if either of my kids went there for undergrad or graduate school.

Weathly background for some is correct. I know ramsey chapin from high school and he turned down all scholarship offers so the coaches could recruit more kids.

107B EV (before that, i.e. pre-child, 3A Abrams highrise). Right across from the fire station. Fire truck sirens woke me up at 3am on occasion, but great running was right out the door!

My beloved aunt and uncle live across the street from Stanford and they kept telling me to come out West to go to college.

I said something like, Stanford is pretty elite, and they said, uh, we think you'd be perfect for San Jose State, not Stanford.

How true, how true.

They probably get partial athletic scholarships, but also qualify for academic scholarships, and other need based scholarships as well.

I bet if you could find out the GPAs of most of these guys on the roster in high school, you would find that most were near the top or at the top of their graduating classes.

all top schools do this wrote:

It's called need-based financial aid. Virtually every top academic school guarantees to provide financial aid that will accommodate the demonstrated financial need of all accepted students. A lot of them aren't on athletic scholarships, but I bet a good percentage are on some sort of need based aid because it's pretty tough for most families to pay 50k/year for an undergrad education. Rojo talked about this aid being a great asset for recruiting because Cornell could actually end up cheaper than a lot of other schools through their need based aid. Not many schools can supplement this kind of aid with athletic scholarships because very few top academic institutions with guarantees to meet the demonstrated need are competitive in Div. 1 and can give/have athletic scholarships.

This is correct. For low income students, a school like Stanford will be cheaper than many state schools. If not, then you don't need the money anyway.

Combined with Stanford's academic reputation, it is no surprise that they can draw in lots of talent.

I lived in three places in EV. The last was 144. My twin daughters went to EV elementary for their first 2 years of school but, alas, went to USC for college.

I agree that Stanford has a helluva lot to offer. I enjoyed doing the dish run and all the myriad trails around campus. I ran with the Angel Field Ancients (do they still exist?) and truly loved my time there.

Of course, my first year on campus, the total bill (tuition/R&B) was $8000. A few years ago when my daughters applied to college, they got into an Ivy league school. The financial aid package required us to cough up $23k the first year. Fortunately, USC was a better fit and offered them Trustee scholarships.

I give all this background because as a middle-class parent, I'd really struggle with coughing up the tariff that schools like Stanford etc. require when my child has the opportunity to go to a not-so-prestigious, but nonetheless, good school for free or much less.

Indeed, one could argue that it is to one's advantage to be lower class rather than upper middle class when dealing with college tuitions.

If your family makes less than $100K per annum, Stanford foots the bill for your undergraduate education.

I couldn't get in as an undergraduate, but was there for a summer program a couple years ago and found the running around campus poor, couldn't get much off the roads, the dish was okay but hard to really get moving too well with some of the course such as it was, and the radio telescope hills (can't remember what that was called) right near by, when it finally opened after being closed because of arson, didn't have much off the pavement. So, maybe I missed all the good trails. Nevertheless, if dull as dishwater in comparison to UC Berkeley, a very pretty campus in many places, excellent weather, and excellent facilities. Anyone who got in with a choice of Stanford vs. the other running powers would do well to go to Stanford because of the reputation, the classes, and the kind of career you can get out of there. That name opens doors. But schools like that will set you up with financial aid to the point where you only provide a summer work contribution and a minimal school year work contribution (you can cover both with a summer pizza delivery job), and mostly grant aid. That's what my school did, to the point that it was far cheaper to attend than Berkeley, which was in state tuition for me and the minimal five hundred dollar Regents fellowship they gave me.

All of the big name schools in the US have gigantic endowments and tons of scholarships and grants from their wealthy and successful alumni who attribute much of their success to their education/networking/opportunities gained at these successful schools. Thus, as many above have mentioned, most student's pay little, if any, to attend these schools and the cycle continues.

if your family makes under 100k tuition is free

The old rumor that everybody goes to Stanford for free because of their endowment is simply not true. Academic money is virtually none existent at high academic schools (Ivy League, Stanford, etc...) Aid is based almost exclusively on financial need. Believe it or not, the more your parents make the better shot you have of athletic money at a school like Stanford, assuming you are a top flight runner who can score at conference and above. Financial aid money will often add up to a much bigger pot than athletic money.

Don't forget that the definition of "financial need" is quite liberal/ambitious at these schools, where some 1% of the students come from families making less than the national median household income.