Is there a facebook group or anything like that for accepted students? I think I'm pretty much decided on Stanford (it was my favorite school even before I got in) but I'm not sure, and I'd love to get in touch with other future classmates talk (and figure out housing if I do decide to go)
You should go to Stanford and you should start a Facebook group yourself.
Speaking of which, is everyone planning on living on-campus? Do you know how hard it is to get the cheapest rooms even with a bad lottery number, or do the cheaper rooms go first so people with bad numbers are stuck with nice and incredibly expensive on-campus housing?
A lot of times the very expensive housing (like Munger) is still really popular because it so nice, and the law students and business students like to live it up. Lyman is near the medical school, and it is actually quite fine, but not super fancy, so there is sometimes less competition for it, as it is not really close to the other graduate housing and thus not known for being super social. If you come to admit weekend you should be able to visit some different on campus housing situations.
Also, quick question to current students - is it necessary to have a car first and second years? And what do you guys do for fun other than go in SF? Is there any night-life in Palo Alto or do you have to go to the city?
Not at all. A sizable portion of current med students don't have cars. Stanford is considered the best campus for bicycling:
http://www.bikeradar.com/news/article/stanford-university-tops-in-bike-friendliness--29682/
It is the only "platinum" rated school.
There is a little bit of nightlife, and they will probably take you out on admit weekend to a little bar/club place on University Ave. However, there is a huge graduate community at Stanford, because it is huge university, and the campus is vast, sort of like it's own town, so there are a lot of internal activities and parties. Lots of opportunities to make friends in other parts of the university to hang out with or date (law school, business school, science or humanities grad school, engineering school, etc.). It's also usually nice weather, so you can have get togethers outside, and there are bbq areas and stuff near all the grad housing, so on a nice evening, people will do some grilling and drink beer and play frisbee or throw a football around or something if that is the kind of thing they like to do.
There are a lot of sports at Stanford, so if you're into football or basketball, there are always huge parties and tailgates (the med school alumni association hosts at least one) associated with home football games.
There are also usually a few giant med school parties each year, including a formal. This year it was at the San Francisco Aquarium (open top shelf bar).
Different people like to do different things on the weekends, from rock climbing to going wine tasting up in Napa/Sonoma, or shucking oysters at Hog Island. The beach is also pretty close (Half Moon Bay), so some people surf occasionally, and in the winter Tahoe is only a few hours drive, so you can ski or snowboard. The driving range right near the medical school, and a very fancy golf course (the one Tiger Woods played on), as well as horse barns, etc. so you can take horseback riding lessons, judo lessons, tennis lessons, squash lessons (Mark Talbott, basically the Michael Jordan of squash is the squash coach), or whatever. Some people do music, and there is even some med school specific scholarships so med school students can take free one on one music lessons. Some people are in dance groups. One guy plays a lot of ice hockey (you have to that off campus). Another guy is really into Brazilian jiu-jitsu.
Honestly though, most people in med school are pretty chill, and they do have to study and work a lot, so mostly people just get together with a few friends and make food or go out to dinner and just hang out, watch movies, or whatever. Go get frozen yogurt or boba tea. Go get tea or coffee at one of the cafes with outside seating. Basically just hanging out with your friends, and everyone usually finds a good group of friends very quickly. Lots of spots around where you can go to happy hour and just chill out.
There is no end of the stuff you can do. It's a little bit like being at an all inclusive resort sometimes. There are always activities and events, often with free food.
But you can also dedicate a lot of your time to research, doing clinical things, etc. Right away you can start volunteering at the free clinics, and if you are interested in any area of medicine, you can go hang out with the people doing it and jump right in. It's not like in pre-med where it sometimes hard to find shadowing opportunities. If you start showing up at things and you learn what is going on, you can start helping out. You can start working with patients basically right away if you want to and have time. They are also always running different special interest sessions and groups for this and that, from something on physician filmmakers to a luncheon with pediatric surgeons talking about work-life balance.
Basically, it is impossible to be bored. My email inbox is constantly full of invitations to events and activities. It's more a matter of picking and choosing rather than not having enough to do. Also, if you start to get stressed or upset, they have all these quality of life and student health people checking up on you. They even have someone whose job it is to help you study if you have difficulty and need new learning strategies:
http://med.stanford.edu/profiles/frdActionServlet?choiceId=facProfile&fid=26746
Sorry to bring bad news, but I hope you've found a home next year in another wonderful institution!
