Front Page  »  

Admission into Stanford University harder than ever

March 30, 2010

Just how hard is it for your son or daughter to be admitted into Stanford University? Acceptance stats announced this week in Palo Alto underscore the formidable challenge. [San Jose Mercury News]

A new record was set as only 7.2 percent of applicants for the Stanford Class of 2014 gained admission, down from 7.6 percent last year.

Of the 32,022 candidates, the university accepted only 2,300, including 753 prime candidates who first earned seats last December through the school’s “early action” program.

Only 20 students will be allowed to transfer in from other universities. Another 998 high school seniors have been placed on a wait list for Stanford. Applicants have until May 1 to accept the admissions offer.

Stanford saw a record number of applications this year, with 2,000 more seeking a spot than last year.


Loading...
Subjects:     
Related:


7 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

My dad graduated from Stanford and got in because he got all A’s in highschool. Stanford is a private school. Should they not get to pick who they want? The last thing we need is gov’t control. When I went to Cal Poly, I saw all the different races getting special treatment ie. student grants, gov’t loans with ease etc. I am sorry but is complete B.S. that anyone gets special treatment because they couldn’t earn it on their own. I would always rather hire the person that earned it than the one who received help all along the way.


0

You know the part here that you’re missing… is that they are not required by law to practice affirmative action, they do as you say… pick who they want! So now that you understand that, is it still B.S.? I’m curious which is going to win out, your American ideals of liberty, or your desire to keep the playing field even (although it is pretty clear the odds on the playing field are stacked in your favor) and void of any special treatment?


0

Historically, universities have prided themselves on being ‘selective.’ This has been based on an age old philosophy of encouraging achievement (building achievement motivation) and the goal of entering a top school.


There are those — and I think Mr. Kaney will like this — that universities should abandon ‘selectivity’ in favor of some new paradigm that will allow a more ‘inclusive’ method of selecting folks for university admission. Unfortunately, this is sadly being looked at far too seriously in places even very close to us here. Here’s a site for your review:


http://www.aacu.org/inclusive_excellence/index.cfm


If our universities fail to admit only the most qualified, we are in fact, penalizing the best and the brightest…. and this would have predictably consequences.


Roger Freberg


By the way, the major effect of abandoning affirmative action was to allow Asians a more deserved representation in our states universities.


0

I didn’t say I liked it, I was saying that I feel that relative to many other issues, and maybe an excessive sense of fairness, that I give it an extremely low priority when it comes to what concerns me. My point was more in regard to the arrogance of people making comments like that, and that I think that it is somewhat self-righteous that people constantly use this as a talking point.


I also indicated that in doesn’t have a place in the public sphere though, which would include Cal Poly. A private organization that practices affirmative action may also have a variety of motives too, as I suggested. Thus the comment shows the commenter to be regurgitating a simplistic notion (like all talking points), one which frames the policy as a handout for those who don’t deserve it. It shows the person does not consider the possibility that they are not as smart as they think they are, nor as smart as the people whose actions they are questioning.


So, again, on principal I agree with you Roger, it’s just these tired cliche’s like the one i was commenting on don’t do anything to enhance the level of public discourse.


0

rogerfreberg: Yes, universities like Stanford are selective. But Stanford is actually offering thousands of hours of course content on iTunes U and YouTube for FREE to EVERYONE on earth with internet access.


0

It’s not hard at all if you qualify as a celebrated minority.They will lower the bar as much as it takes to let the dummies in.


0

Yeah, and I’m sure you don’t in any way shape or form benefit from NOT being a minority. Even ignoring generational wealth and status, if you look at it in terms of understanding the world around you, you benefit a lot from the knowledge and experience you absorbed from your family and environment, who benefited a lot from their families and environments. Even if you just go back a couple of generations, your family benefited from being part of the majority quite substantially, and this legacy has been passed on to you and then you added to it from your own experiences. This accumulation of moral understandings, understanding of the systems which govern the world you live, business and social connections, and many other things have contributed to who you are.


Now let’s go back and strip your grandparents of their education, even if it was just work experience. Let’s take away all of the opportunities your parents had. Let’s remove any advantages you had from living in a community with good schools. Let’s put you in a neighborhood where most of the kids that you’ll hang out with are as ignorant as you are with these new parameters. Now let’s see how far you get, how upstanding of a citizen you are, how hard of a worker you are.


Unless you were raised in an orphanage, or maybe have a parent in prison (through no fault of YOURS), or grew up in the Ozarks, I suggest you drop your “minorities get special priveleges” rant and appreciate, I mean really trully understand and appreciate, the family you have, the time and place you were born, and be grateful for it even if you have to put up with some unfairness. Then worry about yourself, understand this is an imperfect world, and do the best you can do with what you’ve been given. I love how people take so much credit for their own morality, or being hard working and self reliant, when generally even these qualities are a product of circumstance and good fortune


Before your brain goes into autopilot mode and you make a bunch of assumptions… I’m not a minority, I’m not a Democrat, and I’m not a socialist. But of all the things in this country that are broken, of all the things in life that are unfair, of all the things that are taken from me or forced upon me, I realize that giving some advantages to people from groups who have historically been less fortunate is the LAST thing to worry about and to get mad about it probably would suggest that I don’t put much value in the virtue of humility. I would prefer that things like affirmative action weren’t something practiced in the public sector, because moral hazard is ever present in public policy. However, Stanford is a private university and they should be entitled to use whatever selection process they want.


One other thing that you might also consider is that some intelligent people might think that exposure to minorities, even at the expense of lowering standards, can be beneficial to their own perspectives, understandings, and education. This might be as simple and self-serving as someone realizing that pretending to be open-minded and interested in helping minorities might provide them with more market share for their future capitalist endeavours.


Meanwhile you tripping over your own frustration and spending your time yelling “They took rrr jobzzz!” while your “conservative” politicians are serving up a line of B.S. about terrorists and illegals so they can get your vote and perpetuate their own good fortune.


Welcome to Moralton, AnyState, U.S.A.


0