2009-2010 Stanford Application Thread

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I think this type of over-analyzing becomes useless. Some years they end up accepting 170. Last year it was in the low 200s. The matriculation rate changes every year, it isn't always 45%, it can be as 30%. It seems like last year they only had 55 students at re-visit...which is below average. They saw higher waitlist movement because of it.

Bottom line: They've accepted 135. We have no idea what percentage of those students are going...it's highly variable. We also have no idea what type of students will enroll elsewhere (I, as a white caucasian male am probably not going to replace a hispanic woman's spot, etc.). The waitlist is so highly unpredictable I think there's nothing we can do now.

On a happy note though, I just went to Sinai revisit weekend and had a blast/loved NYC. So, as of now, I'm happy even if things don't work out elsewhere. In the end, we're all going to med school next year...so I'm just excited about that!
 
can I get Arturo's email? i'm going to go ahead and withdraw from the waitlist. good luck everyone!
 
I just read that article too, Naijaba...probably not healthy to be on Stanford med's site so much but I can't help myself. Reading your posts and mdeast's posts has really helped me get through these past couple months. I've also been keeping up with the waitlist thread, but I decided to post here first.

I'm very hopeful for the Stanford waitlist this year. I spoke to my Dean about it after I found out earlier in the year (II: 8/24, invite: 11/22, interviewed: 12/16, wl: 2/5).

He was explaining that Stanford is a school that usually has to deal with low yield. For example, from my undergrad institution,7 people got in last year but no one matriculated. In the previous year 5 were admitted and no one matriculated either. Those people choose places like Penn and Hopkins over Stanford. Therefore, I can understand why Dean Garcia would be hesitant to continue admitting people from here if they're just going to stay on the East Coast. Another Stanford prof I spoke to (he mostly deals with MSTP but knows a lot about MD admissions), said that most applicants don't know that a sizable chunk of their incoming class always comes from the waitlist. It's definitely not the kiss of death like it is for some schools where they're taking like 5-15 people. Also, my student tour guide during the interview said he knows a lot of people in his class were from the WL. Of course, the economy is worse this year but I really don't think we're going to be seeing that drastic of a change.

And regardless of how ridiculous US News rankings are, pre-meds are very rankings driven and the "top 10" often does mean something to most applicants, so I think that students may very well easily pick places like Penn/Hopkins over Stanford but also reconsider schools like Michigan/U-W etc b/c they can be cheaper and are clearly strong.

Anyway, you guys probably know this but I always find comfort in reading your posts so I guess I'll be optimistic. 🙂
 
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Although I believe there should be some movements, I am curious to know how many are actually on the waitlist. Anyone knows?
 
panda11 said:
Although I believe there should be some movements, I am curious to know how many are actually on the waitlist. Anyone knows?
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Because Stanford doesn't ask students to accept a spot on the waitlist...I'd imag ine there are about 300 students on it...assuming ~150 accepted already and 450 interviewed. Certainly people have withdrawn, and not everyone has written letters to Stanford.

I think last year it started to move a few days after May 15th. So maybe next weekend.
 
mdeast said:
Because Stanford doesn't ask students to accept a spot on the waitlist...I'd imag ine there are about 300 students on it...assuming ~150 accepted already and 450 interviewed. Certainly people have withdrawn, and not everyone has written letters to Stanford.

I think last year it started to move a few days after May 15th. So maybe next weekend.
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there are post-interview rejections too, but i think it's a small number so the ballpark is probably still around 300
 
TheFreak said:
there are post-interview rejections too, but i think it's a small number so the ballpark is probably still around 300
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oh man, that means still a lot of competitions for a small number of spots...
 
panda11 said:
oh man, that means still a lot of competitions for a small number of spots...
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sure, but the odds are no worse than we started this game last year
 
tns999 said:
I just read that article too, Naijaba...probably not healthy to be on Stanford med's site so much but I can't help myself. Reading your posts and mdeast's posts has really helped me get through these past couple months. I've also been keeping up with the waitlist thread, but I decided to post here first.

I'm very hopeful for the Stanford waitlist this year. I spoke to my Dean about it after I found out earlier in the year (II: 8/24, invite: 11/22, interviewed: 12/16, wl: 2/5).

He was explaining that Stanford is a school that usually has to deal with low yield. For example, from my undergrad institution,7 people got in last year but no one matriculated. In the previous year 5 were admitted and no one matriculated either. Those people choose places like Penn and Hopkins over Stanford. Therefore, I can understand why Dean Garcia would be hesistant to continue admitting people from here if they're just going to stay on the East Coast. Another Stanford prof I spoke to (he mostly deals with MSTP but knows a lot about MD admissions), said that most applicants don't know that a sizable chunk of their incoming class always comes from the waitlist. It's definitely not the kiss of death like it is for some schools where they're taking like 5-15 people. Also, my student tour guide during the interview said he knows a lot of people in his class were from the WL. Of course, the economy is worse this year but I really don't think we're going to be seeing that drastic of a change.

And regardless of how ridiculous US News rankings are, pre-meds are very rankings driven and the "top 10" often does mean something to most applicants, so I think that students may very well easily pick places like Penn/Hopkins over Stanford but also reconsider schools like Michigan/U-W etc b/c they can be cheaper and are clearly strong.

Anyway, you guys probably know this but I always find comfort in reading your posts so I guess I'll be optimistic. 🙂
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Oh Stanford Thread...

Everytime I'm down you give me another dose of hope...

This is like crack-cocaine, can't stop visiting this thread, and if I dunt hear anything by June, I'm going to suffer some serious withdrawal....:laugh:
 
Feef said:
Oh Stanford Thread...

Everytime I'm down you give me another dose of hope...

This is like crack-cocaine, can't stop visiting this thread, and if I dunt hear anything by June, I'm going to suffer some serious withdrawal....:laugh:
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Gah don't say we won't hear anything by June. I'm going to kill a kitten if I move to Boston only to get a call to move to Palo Alto. Granted, I'll be happy to kill the kitten...you know I'm just going to stop.
 
oze said:
Gah don't say we won't hear anything by June. I'm going to kill a kitten if I move to Boston only to get a call to move to Palo Alto. Granted, I'll be happy to kill the kitten...you know I'm just going to stop.
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Which school in Boston? I'm going to do the MD/PhD at BU if neither Northwestern nor Stanford accepts me.
 
Naijaba said:
Which school in Boston? I'm going to do the MD/PhD at BU if neither Northwestern nor Stanford accepts me.
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Tufts if I don't get off the WL at Stanford or UCSD.
 
TheFreak said:
yeah we've been chilling on that ucsd thread.

when does tufts start?
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yeah the UCSD thread is pretty optimistic - I think its b/c the school is really transparent about the process.

Tufts starts in mid-August, so I've got some time to hope for the best with Stanford.
 
Does stanford negotiate awards? Some schools like penn will match other schools awards or at least give you more dollars if they're really into you. Anyone try this with Stanford? Success? Defeat?
 
Otiose said:
Does stanford negotiate awards? Some schools like penn will match other schools awards or at least give you more dollars if they're really into you. Anyone try this with Stanford? Success? Defeat?
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I don't think they do. I know quite a few students who picked other schools over Stanford, and one of their reasons was the small financial aid. Any current students care to enlighten us?
 
Feef said:
I don't think they do. I know quite a few students who picked other schools over Stanford, and one of their reasons was the small financial aid. Any current students care to enlighten us?
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That is correct, Stanford does not match other school's offers. We do not give out any merit-based awards, which leaves more money to be generously distributed based on need. Stanford wasn't the least expensive school I got into on paper, but between the med scholars and TA-ing it will be much less expensive that I would have ever expected.
 
Ok, how does this Stanford being cheaper thing work when they charge $15k tuition 4 times since they're on the quarter system? Even with med-scholars and the TAing, isn't tuition still 60k/year if you stay for 4 quarters?
 
NavyMan45 said:
Ok, how does this Stanford being cheaper thing work when they charge $15k tuition 4 times since they're on the quarter system? Even with med-scholars and the TAing, isn't tuition still 60k/year if you stay for 4 quarters?
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Good financial aid, 30-40k Stanford grants/year for many qualifying people. Med Scholars, TAing...exactly. Only M3 and M4 are 60k/year tuition. M1 and M2 are still "cheap", aka 45k/year. I don't get the 80k average debt either, but it somehow works out that way with all the other ways that Stanford throws money at students.
 
mdeast said:
Good financial aid, 30-40k Stanford grants/year for many qualifying people. Med Scholars, TAing...exactly. Only M3 and M4 are 60k/year tuition. M1 and M2 are still "cheap", aka 45k/year. I don't get the 80k average debt either, but it somehow works out that way with all the other ways that Stanford throws money at students.
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When you do research full time, the cost of tuition drops but I'm not sure how much. Maybe to 8 or 9k/yr.
 
LSU Gladiator said:
When you do research full time, the cost of tuition drops but I'm not sure how much. Maybe to 8 or 9k/yr.
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They got rid of that system. Now it's free tuition + 6,000k grant money for living expenses. Makes more sense I guess, but it eliminates the tuition benefits of taking a 5th year (which mainly helped those who were only high financial aid...aka. lots of stanford grants).
 
mdeast said:
They got rid of that system. Now it's free tuition + 6,000k grant money for living expenses. Makes more sense I guess, but it eliminates the tuition benefits of taking a 5th year (which mainly helped those who were only high financial aid...aka. lots of stanford grants).
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are you talking about a 50% research assistantship here? or something else?


I was wondering about the 50% RA thing, if you can get that it seems to cover full tuition (~roughly 14,000 per quarter), and leave you with about $2500 of spending money.

Could any current student confirm this?


Also there's the whole med scholars thing which I think is for summer research.
 
mdhouse said:
are you talking about a 50% research assistantship here? or something else?


I was wondering about the 50% RA thing, if you can get that it seems to cover full tuition (~roughly 14,000 per quarter), and leave you with about $2500 of spending money.

Could any current student confirm this?


Also there's the whole med scholars thing which I think is for summer research.
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RA? thing? I don't know what that is.

I was referring to the med scholars program. They restructured it so it's not a 12k grant anymore + paying tuition. Now you don't pay tuition, but instead just get a living stipend essentially.
 
mdeast said:
RA? thing? I don't know what that is.

I was referring to the med scholars program. They restructured it so it's not a 12k grant anymore + paying tuition. Now you don't pay tuition, but instead just get a living stipend essentially.
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Research Assistantship (RA)

Yea, not many people seem to know about it
 
Hi, to anyone who has been accepted, I'm pretty confused by the "award" letter... is expected parental and student contribution yearly or for the entire time you are there???
 
Question123 said:
Hi, to anyone who has been accepted, I'm pretty confused by the "award" letter... is expected parental and student contribution yearly or for the entire time you are there???
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Hmmm....I obviously haven't gotten one. But considering every school makes you re-apply for financial aid every year (and the tuition changes in MS3 and MS4), I'd expect that expected contribution is just for next year.
 
Question123 said:
Hi, to anyone who has been accepted, I'm pretty confused by the "award" letter... is expected parental and student contribution yearly or for the entire time you are there???
Click to expand...

Would be yearly. I think mine was scary high at first too. Bottom line of their award letter is grants/quarter x3 (yearly grants) and then everything else up to CoA, which will need to be paid by you/loans/fairies.
 
Okay, well I somewhat expected my parents to be high (but um, this is literally half their income... ), but my own contribution was half of my savings too! So both my parents AND my expected contribution was way high... I am not sure if I'm reading this wrong or not... ugh.

Btw, does anyone know if they do have a "match" thing ?? I think I remember this from our interview w/ the finaid person, that for every dollar of our own money we spend (i.e. not from loans), stanford would "match it" up to a certain amount. Did I dream this?? For some reason I walked away thinking Stanford could be economically a good choice, but now I'm convinced I took crazy pills...
 
Question123 said:
Okay, well I somewhat expected my parents to be high (but um, this is literally half their income... ), but my own contribution was half of my savings too! So both my parents AND my expected contribution was way high... I am not sure if I'm reading this wrong or not... ugh.

Btw, does anyone know if they do have a "match" thing ?? I think I remember this from our interview w/ the finaid person, that for every dollar of our own money we spend (i.e. not from loans), stanford would "match it" up to a certain amount. Did I dream this?? For some reason I walked away thinking Stanford could be economically a good choice, but now I'm convinced I took crazy pills...
Click to expand...

You're not reading it wrong, they expect a pretty high out of pocket contribution, which can then be met by loans if it's unreasonable. They did have a match...something like 5k or 10k, would call to see if this still exists. Yeah, I bet it can be cheapish, but that may be different now with the reformulation of the med and traveling scholars stuff. You can still TA to get some cash...They also have 3 semi need/semi merit full tuition grant things, one of which is taken by a matriculating student, one of which I decline to take, and one of which is a wild card that we have not accounted for. :laugh:
 
Thanks premad! I doubt I'll get any grant thing b/c, I am not need based... btw, where did you end up? Harvard?
 
Question123 said:
Okay, well I somewhat expected my parents to be high (but um, this is literally half their income... ), but my own contribution was half of my savings too! So both my parents AND my expected contribution was way high... I am not sure if I'm reading this wrong or not... ugh.

Btw, does anyone know if they do have a "match" thing ?? I think I remember this from our interview w/ the finaid person, that for every dollar of our own money we spend (i.e. not from loans), stanford would "match it" up to a certain amount. Did I dream this?? For some reason I walked away thinking Stanford could be economically a good choice, but now I'm convinced I took crazy pills...
Click to expand...

Yes! This is the "middle-income" program. They have it at Harvard too I think. I think you parents have to be making below a certain amount (make 180k combined?) and also have relatively little in terms of assets. If you still have your folder from interview day...on the financial aid powerpoint presentation they give us...they have an example financial aid package from someone who qualified for the "match". I think their parents made below the cutoff amount, but had very little in terms of assets. At least this is from what I remember. I'd check, but it's at home now and I'm at work.

I was considering this too, because I think my parents income is below their cutoff...but their assets are too high for me to qualify when I asked the financial aid advisor about it.

Hope that helps!
 
mdeast said:
Yes! This is the "middle-income" program. They have it at Harvard too I think. I think you parents have to be making below a certain amount (make 180k combined?) and also have relatively little in terms of assets. If you still have your folder from interview day...on the financial aid powerpoint presentation they give us...they have an example financial aid package from someone who qualified for the "match". I think their parents made below the cutoff amount, but had very little in terms of assets. At least this is from what I remember. I'd check, but it's at home now and I'm at work.

I was considering this too, because I think my parents income is below their cutoff...but their assets are too high for me to qualify when I asked the financial aid advisor about it.

Hope that helps!
Click to expand...

Stanford does not have a middle income initiative, just the match, i.e. if you parents pony up 5k, Stanford will match with 5k grant money. Harvard has the middle income thing, which means no expected family contribution if combined income < 120,000/year.

And, yeah, I ended up at Harvard. Should be interesting, at least. 🙄
 
Oh this is good to hear! I will def check in on it....

I doubt my parents will contribute at all, but it does mean I can use my own money to get Stanford to give me some...

Is there a limit on this??

Okay, emailing finaid...
 
Question123 said:
Oh this is good to hear! I will def check in on it....

I doubt my parents will contribute at all, but it does mean I can use my own money to get Stanford to give me some...

Is there a limit on this??

Okay, emailing finaid...
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If it still exists, it's either 5 or 10k...they seemed to emphasize that it was 'parent' money, but I would imagine that could be worked around. You have reached the ends of my not-so-extensive Stanford fin aid knowledge, haha. Goodluck with all your decisions!
 
Hahah, thanks premad! I actually just checked. Sadly, this is a middle income initiative... not sure what the cut off was, but I was informed that I do not qualify. I think at the end of the day, no one is going to give me money (save some from UCSF) which is sad but expected so I'll just have to go to the lowest ticket. So, someone can at least have my Stanford seat!
 
Question123 said:
Hahah, thanks premad! I actually just checked. Sadly, this is a middle income initiative... not sure what the cut off was, but I was informed that I do not qualify. I think at the end of the day, no one is going to give me money (save some from UCSF) which is sad but expected so I'll just have to go to the lowest ticket. So, someone can at least have my Stanford seat!
Click to expand...

Yeah, it definitely is middle income. I remember getting really excited about this because it essentially amounts to a 70k scholarship over 14 quarters if you somehow find a way to also invest 70k (which I think, might be do-able between my parents and I...I have about 1/2 that saved up for med school already, and my parents are will to contribute 10k/year).

But yes, I sadly don't think I'd qualify either...at least from what the financial aid guy told me on interview day.
 
Question123 said:
Hahah, thanks premad! I actually just checked. Sadly, this is a middle income initiative... not sure what the cut off was, but I was informed that I do not qualify. I think at the end of the day, no one is going to give me money (save some from UCSF) which is sad but expected so I'll just have to go to the lowest ticket. So, someone can at least have my Stanford seat!
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Huh. I love Stanford, but I totally did not expect them to be so elite wrt financial aid. I think that calling that match a middle income initiative is a little...odd. If my parents don't have 5k laying around to give me, that would make my family...poors? :laugh: I guess every school has something a bit weird.

I don't think you should necessarily go for the highest bidder/lowest price. If you really love one school more, you'll make the money work. But, if they're kinda equal, debt can be an OK way to choose. Debt or sweet sweet location.
 
Anyone know how tuition is charged? Is it one lump sum per year? Or is it charged quarterly?

This somewhat goes into play with how many loans I'll take out.
 
mdeast said:
Anyone know how tuition is charged? Is it one lump sum per year? Or is it charged quarterly?

This somewhat goes into play with how many loans I'll take out.
Click to expand...

Not 100% sure but pretty confident that it is paid quarterly.
 
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