Stanford University
Stanford University, famous as one of northern California’s several institutions of higher learning, is sometimes called "the Harvard of the West." The closeness of Stanford to San Francisco, a city thirty-two miles to the north, gives the university a decidedly cosmopolitan flavor.
The students are enrolled mainly from the western United State. But most of the fifty states send students to Stanford, and many foreign students study here, as well. And standards for admission remain high. Young men and women are selected to enter the university from the upper fifteen percent of their high school classes.
Not only because of the high caliber of its students but also because of the desirable location and climate, Stanford has attracted to its faculty some of the world’s most respected scholars. The university staff has included many Nobel Prize winners such as Dr. Felix Bloch, Dr. Robert Hofstadter, and Dr. William Shockley in physics, Dr. Author Kornberg and Dr. Joshua Lederberg in medicine, and Dr. Paul J. Flory and Dr. Linus Pauling in chemistry. The Russian novelist Aleksander Solzhenistsyn has been in residence. Stanford’s undergraduate school of engineering and its graduate schools of business, law, and medicine are especially well-regarded.
What is student life like on "The Farm"? Culturally, the campus is a magnet for both students and citizens of nearby communities. Plays, concerts, and operas are performed in the university’s several auditoriums and in its outdoor theater, where graduations are also held. Several film series are presented during the school year. Guest lecturers from public and academic life frequently appear on campus. In the evenings, many students gather to socialize in the Student Union’s coffee house; here the beverages an the atmosphere both have a decidedly European flavor. For the sports-minded, the Stanford campus offer highly developed athletic facilities. Team sports, swimming, and track and field activity are all very much part of the Stanford picture. So are bicycling and jogging.
In addition to financial support from alumni, Stanford receives grants from the government and from private philanthropic foundations. In recent years, government grants have made possible advanced studies in the fields of history, psychology, education, and atomic energy. At presents Stanford is carrying out an ambitions building program, financed in part by the Ford Foundation’s 25 million grant. Recently added to the campus are a new physics building, new school of business, new graduate school of law, new student union, and undergraduate library.