Stanford University

Stanford University is a research university that offers bachelor’s, master’s, doctoral and professional . Stanford includes seven schools: Business, Earth Sciences, Education, Engineering, Humanities and Sciences, Law and Medicine. In addition, multidisciplinary research and teaching are at the heart of -wide initiatives on human health, the environment and sustainability, international affairs and the arts. These initiatives offer our faculty and students opportunities for collaboration across disciplines that will be key to future advances.

Stanford University was founded in 1885 by former California Governor and Senator Leland Stanford and his wife, Jane, to memorialize their son, Leland Stanford Junior. Their intent was to establish a "University of high degree" that would “qualify students for personal success and direct usefulness in life and promote the public welfare by exercising an influence on behalf of humanity and civilization.” Stanford opened in 1891.

Stanford is highly selective for both undergraduate and graduate students. In 2013, Stanford accepted 5.7 percent of undergraduate applicants and 11 percent of graduate school applicants. Stanford enrolls about 7,000 undergraduate students and 9,000 graduate and professional school students.

Students who derive pleasure from learning for its own sake thrive at Stanford. We look for distinctive students who exhibit energy, curiosity and a love of learning in their classes and lives. Academic excellence is the primary criterion for admission, and the most important credential is the transcript. We seek outstanding students who have selected a rigorous academic program and achieved distinction in a range of courses. 114 Stanford students have been Rhodes Scholars.

Stanford has 1,934 tenure-line faculty, senior fellows and center fellows at specified policy centers and institutes, and Medical Center faculty. Fifty-five percent of the faculty have earned tenure. Faculty at Stanford are expected to be among the best teachers and researchers in their fields. Stanford faculty have won 31 Nobel Prizes since the university's founding. The faculty currently includes 22 Nobel laureates, 5 Pulitzer Prize winners, 27 MacArthur Fellows and 20 recipients of the National Medal of Science.

The synthesis of teaching and research is fundamental to Stanford. All faculty do scholarly research, most often in association with graduate students or advanced undergraduates. Stanford is noted for multidisciplinary research within its schools and departments, as well as its independent laboratories, centers and institutes.

There are more than 5,100 externally sponsored projects throughout the university, with the total budget for sponsored projects at $1.35 billion during 2013-14, including the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, a facility run by Stanford for the U.S. Department of Energy. Of these projects, the federal government sponsors approximately 83 percent, including SLAC. In addition, nearly $210 million in support comes from non-federal funding sources. Approximately 2000 postdoctoral scholars are involved in research at the university. Basic research at Stanford has made possible applications from microwaves to GPS, heart transplants to gene splicing, digital sound synthesis to modern web-search algorithms.

Stanford’s entrepreneurial spirit, the result of its California location and the legacy of Leland and Jane Stanford, has helped spawn more than 3,000 companies in high technology and other fields. Stanford played a key role in the creation of the high-technology region known as Silicon Valley. Among the companies started by Stanford graduates or faculty are Google, Yahoo, Hewlett-Packard, Gap, eBay, Electronic Arts, Taiwan Semiconductor, Cisco Systems, Nike, Sun Microsystems and VMware.

Stanford has 19 libraries that support Stanford’s mission of teaching, learning and research. The libraries have amassed collections of books, journals, scores and printed reference works numbering more than 8.5 million physical volumes. The libraries hold 1.5 million e-books, nearly 1.5 million audiovisual materials, more than 75,000 serials, thousands of other digital resources and nearly 6 million microform holdings. Stanford also houses one of the most extensive computing environments of any university.

There are an estimated 191,519 living Stanford degree holders, including 75,183 undergraduate alumni, 97,367 graduate alumni and 18,969 dual-degree holders. Stanford alumni can be found in 143 countries, 20 territories and all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Stanford offers its students study opportunities at Stanford centers in Australia, Barcelona, Beijing, Berlin, Cape Town, Florence, Kyoto, Madrid, Moscow, Oxford, Paris and Santiago. The Bing Stanford in Washington Program enables undergraduates to work and study through courses and internships in a residential program in the U.S.  Capital. The Hopkins Marine Station allows students to live in Pacific Grove while studying marine biology.

Stanford is located in California on the San Francisco Bay Peninsula, midway between San Francisco and San Jose. With more than 49 miles of roads, a 49-megawatt power plant, three separate water systems, three dams and lakes, 88 miles of water mains, a central heating and cooling plant, a high-voltage distribution system and a post office, the university is a self-sustaining community. There are more than 690 major buildings at Stanford that incorporate 14.7 million square feet. Stanford is considered one of the top universities in the United States for sustainable practices and development. Ninety-six percent of undergraduates live on campus, as do about 57 percent of graduate students and 30 percent of faculty members.