38 Facts About Stanford University

1.

Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California.

FactSnippet No. 416,932
2.

Leland Stanford was a U S senator and former governor of California who made his fortune as a railroad tycoon.

FactSnippet No. 416,933
3.

Stanford University struggled financially after the death of Leland Stanford in 1893 and again after much of the campus was damaged by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

FactSnippet No. 416,934
4.

Stanford University is organized around seven schools on the same campus: three schools consisting of 40 academic departments at the undergraduate level as well as four professional schools that focus on graduate programs in law, medicine, education, and business.

FactSnippet No. 416,935
5.

Stanford University alumni have founded numerous companies, which combined produce more than $2.

FactSnippet No. 416,936
6.

Stanford University was founded in 1885 by Leland and Jane Stanford, dedicated to the memory of Leland Stanford Jr, their only child.

FactSnippet No. 416,937
7.

Jane and Leland Stanford modeled their university after the great eastern universities, most specifically Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

FactSnippet No. 416,938
8.

Stanford University was referred to as the "Cornell of the West" in 1891 due to a majority of its faculty being former Cornell affiliates, including its first president, David Starr Jordan, and second president, John Casper Branner.

FactSnippet No. 416,939
9.

When Leland Stanford died in 1893, the continued existence of the university was in jeopardy due to a federal lawsuit against his estate, but Jane Stanford insisted the university remain in operation throughout the financial crisis.

FactSnippet No. 416,940
10.

Also in the 1950s William Shockley, co-inventor of the silicon transistor, recipient of the 1956 Nobel Prize for Physics, and later professor of physics at Stanford University, moved to the Palo Alto area and founded a company, Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory.

FactSnippet No. 416,941
11.

Stanford University currently operates in various locations outside of its central campus.

FactSnippet No. 416,942
12.

Stanford University land is leased for a token rent by the Palo Alto Unified School District for several schools including Palo Alto High School and Gunn High School.

FactSnippet No. 416,943
13.

White Memorial Fountain between the Stanford Bookstore and the Old Union is a popular place to meet and to engage in the Stanford custom of "fountain hopping"; it was installed in 1964 and designed by Aristides Demetrios after a national competition as a memorial for two brothers in the class of 1949, William N White and John B White II, one of whom died before graduating and one shortly after in 1952.

FactSnippet No. 416,944
14.

The 11th and current president of Stanford University is Marc Trevor Tessier-Lavigne, a Canadian-born neuroscientist.

FactSnippet No. 416,945
15.

Stanford University is the beneficiary of a special clause in the California Constitution, which explicitly exempts Stanford University property from taxation so long as the property is used for educational purposes.

FactSnippet No. 416,946
16.

Half of applicants accepted to Stanford University have an SAT score between 1440 and 1570 or an ACT score of 32 and 35.

FactSnippet No. 416,947
17.

Stanford University is accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges.

FactSnippet No. 416,948
18.

For undergraduates admitted starting in 2015, Stanford University waives tuition, room, and board for most families with incomes below $65, 000, and most families with incomes below $125, 000 are not required to pay tuition; those with incomes up to $150, 000 may have tuition significantly reduced.

FactSnippet No. 416,949
19.

In 2022, Stanford University started its first dual-enrollment computer science program for high school students from low-income communities as a pilot project which then inspired the founding of the Qualia Global Scholars Program.

FactSnippet No. 416,950
20.

Stanford University is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity.

FactSnippet No. 416,951
21.

Together with UC Berkeley and UC San Francisco, Stanford University is part of the Biohub, a new medical science research center founded in 2016 by a $600 million commitment from Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg and pediatrician Priscilla Chan.

FactSnippet No. 416,952
22.

Stanford University is home to the Cantor Center for Visual Arts, a museum with 24 galleries, sculpture gardens, terraces, and a courtyard first established in 1891 by Jane and Leland Stanford University as a memorial to their only child.

FactSnippet No. 416,953
23.

In 2014, Stanford University opened the Anderson Collection, a new museum focused on postwar American art and founded by the donation of 121 works by food service moguls Mary and Harry Anderson.

FactSnippet No. 416,954
24.

Stanford University is host to ten a cappella groups, including the Mendicants, Counterpoint (the first all-female group on the West Coast), the Harmonics, the Stanford University Fleet Street Singers, Talisman, Everyday People, and Raagapella.

FactSnippet No. 416,955
25.

The New York Times in the same year concluded "Stanford University has become America's 'it' school, by measures that Harvard once dominated.

FactSnippet No. 416,956
26.

Stanford University is one of the most successful universities in creating companies and licensing its inventions to existing companies, and it is often considered a model for technology transfer.

FactSnippet No. 416,957
27.

Stanford University is described as having a strong venture culture in which students are encouraged, and often funded, to launch their own companies.

FactSnippet No. 416,958
28.

Stanford University is a member of the Pac-12 Conference in most sports, the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation in several other sports, and the America East Conference in field hockey with the participation in the inter-collegiate NCAA's Division I FBS.

FactSnippet No. 416,959
29.

Stanford University athletes have won medals in every Summer Olympic Games since 1912.

FactSnippet No. 416,960
30.

Stanford University is home to a set of student journalism publications.

FactSnippet No. 416,961
31.

The Stanford Daily is a student-run daily newspaper and has been published since the university was founded in 1892.

FactSnippet No. 416,962
32.

The Stanford University Review is a conservative student newspaper founded in 1987.

FactSnippet No. 416,963
33.

Stanford University is home to a large number of pre-professional student organizations, organized around missions from startup incubation to paid consulting.

FactSnippet No. 416,964
34.

Stanford University Women In Business is an on-campus business organization, aimed at helping Stanford University women find paths to success in the generally male-dominated technology industry.

FactSnippet No. 416,965
35.

Stanford University Marketing is a student group that provides students hands-on training through research and strategy consulting projects with Fortune 500 clients, as well as workshops led by people from industry and professors in the Stanford University Graduate School of Business.

FactSnippet No. 416,966
36.

Stanford University Finance provides mentoring and internships for students who want to enter a career in finance.

FactSnippet No. 416,967
37.

Stanford University immediately referred the case to prosecutors and offered Miller counseling, and within two weeks had barred Turner from campus after conducting an investigation.

FactSnippet No. 416,968
38.

Stanford University alumni have started many companies and, according to Forbes, has produced the second highest number of billionaires of all universities.

FactSnippet No. 416,969