Stanford University

Overview

Stanford University sits in Stanford, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area. It was founded in 1885 and welcomed its first students in 1891. In fall 2025 it enrolled 7,289 undergraduates, reports a student-to-faculty ratio of about 5 to 1, and has a six-year graduation rate of 92%. Across the whole undergraduate body, 38% come from California, 46% from other US states, and 16% from outside the United States. The campus covers 8,353 acres and is organized into seven schools, three of which award undergraduate degrees.

For Irvine families, Stanford is the in-state private option that is most often compared with the University of California. The two differ sharply in how they admit, test, and award aid: Stanford requires the SAT or ACT, offers a restrictive early round, and awards aid purely on need. Two kinds of students tend to fit. The first has formed a clear academic interest in high school and wants to try interdisciplinary work in Stanford’s fast-paced quarter system. The second has an exceptional academic record and a modest or middle family income, because Stanford’s need-based aid brings the cost down substantially. The last section of this page lays out a plan by grade.

Admissions data

3.8%Class of 2029 admit rate

1. Applied60,646
2. Admitted2,302
3. Enrolled1,839

• Public58%
• Private28%
• International14%

Home-schooled students are under 1%.

• Other US states46%
• California38%
• Outside the US16%

Origin outside the US is based on each student's permanent home country.

First-generation college students make up 20% of the Class of 2029. Stanford offered 669 applicants a place on the waitlist; 573 accepted a place and 57 were ultimately admitted.

How to apply

Stanford accepts only the Common Application. The application fee is $100, and eligible students may request a fee waiver. Students apply to the university as a whole rather than to a major or school, and the intended majors listed on the application are not binding. Materials include the personal essay; five short questions of 3 to 50 words each; three short essays of 100 to 250 words each; the School Report, counselor letter, and official transcript; letters from two academic teachers, ideally grade 11 or 12 teachers of English, math, science, world language, or history; and a midyear transcript due February 15. A student may apply to Stanford for undergraduate admission no more than three times in total.

Testing is required. Stanford’s wording is that “ACT or SAT scores are required.” Applicants self-report their highest scores and send official reports only after enrolling. There is no minimum score, neither exam is preferred, and both are superscored. English proficiency tests cannot replace the SAT or ACT, and international applicants are not required to submit one. One rule is easy to miss: any AP exam a student has taken, including exams taken after self-study, must be self-reported on the application.

Interviews are optional and conducted by alumni volunteers. All 50 states are interview areas, but invitations depend on local alumni availability, many applicants are never contacted, and Stanford states that declining or not receiving an interview does not count against a candidate. REA interviews take place in the first few weeks of November and RD interviews from mid-January to mid-February; each lasts about 40 minutes.

Admission is need-blind for US citizens, permanent residents, undocumented students, and eligible noncitizens wherever they attend high school, meaning an aid request never affects the decision. For international applicants, an aid request is a factor in the admission review, but every admitted student who applied for aid has full demonstrated need met regardless of citizenship.

Cost and financial aid

2026-27$93,285billed items

• Tuition$67,731
• Student fees (allowance)$2,610
• Housing and food$22,944

What a family actually pays, by parent income

1. Under $100,000Parents $0No parent contribution; the student still covers a small share from summer or campus work
2. $100,000 to $150,000Tuition $0All tuition covered for students living on campus
3. Above $150,000Assessed on income, assets, and siblings in college

Stanford’s aid is entirely need-based; apart from a limited number of athletic scholarships there are no merit awards. When calculating the parent contribution, Stanford counts savings, investments, and real estate but not home equity or retirement accounts. Stanford reports that need-based aid recipients in the Class of 2028 received an average of $74,310 in scholarships and grants, $66,259 of it from Stanford, and that recipients from families earning $150,001 to $200,000 had an average net cost of $33,059. Of the most recent graduating class, 86% had no student debt. REA applicants who file the CSS Profile (the College Board’s aid application) and IDOC (its tax document upload service) by November 15 receive an aid notification in mid-December.

Schools and fields of study

Stanford has seven schools: the Graduate School of Business, the Doerr School of Sustainability, the Graduate School of Education, the School of Engineering, the School of Humanities and Sciences, the Law School, and the School of Medicine. Only Humanities and Sciences, Engineering, and the Doerr School of Sustainability award undergraduate degrees, which are the Bachelor of Arts (BA), Bachelor of Science (BS), and Bachelor of Arts and Sciences (BAS). Students must declare a major by the end of sophomore year, and in fall 2025, 53% of undergraduates had not yet declared. Stanford offers no pre-med, pre-law, or business major; students headed for those graduate schools complete the prerequisites within a regular major.

The map follows the bachelor’s programs listed in the 2026-27 Stanford Bulletin: 63 majors, four of which (Data Science; Economics; Human Biology; and Science, Technology, and Society) offer both a BA and a BS. Stanford’s overview pages describe 66 undergraduate major fields; the two counts use different methods. By fall 2025 enrollment, the five largest majors were Computer Science, Economics, Human Biology, Symbolic Systems, and Mathematics.

Undergraduates complete at least 180 units, including writing and rhetoric, one year of a foreign language, and the Ways of Thinking / Ways of Doing general education requirement of 11 courses across 8 categories. First-year students also take COLLEGE, a required sequence of seminars on civic, liberal, and global education. Introductory Seminars for first- and second-year students enroll more than 2,000 students a year. The Bing Overseas Studies Program runs sites in Australia, Berlin, Cape Town, Florence, Hong Kong, Kyoto, Madrid, New York, Oxford, Paris, and Santiago, and about 900 students study away each year. The Office of the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education commits nearly $7.5 million a year to research funding for about 1,200 students.

Campus life

Students who enter as first-year students are guaranteed 12 quarters of on-campus housing, which covers all four academic years. First-year students live in mixed-gender residence halls or houses that, apart from the University Theme Houses and a few four-class houses, are for first-year students only. Undergraduate residences range from 27 to 274 students, and all sit within a ten-minute walk of classrooms. From sophomore year on, students pick their house and room each spring through House and Room Selection, in groups of up to four, with seniors choosing first. First-year students may not bring cars to campus, and the free Marguerite shuttle serves the campus.

A timeline for Irvine families

The five Irvine Unified high schools differ in math acceleration, when AP courses open, and how weighting works, while Stanford recommends reaching calculus and three years of one world language, so the four-year schedule needs an early plan. School-by-school rules are in the IUSD high school guides.

1. Grade 9Set the path, protect grades
   • Choose a math sequence that reaches calculus
   • Pick one world language and plan three or more years
   • Choose one or two activities that can run four years
2. Grade 10First AP courses
   • Take the first AP courses the school allows
   • Every AP exam taken must be self-reported later
   • Consider an academic summer program or research
3. Grade 11Finish testing
   • First SAT or ACT sitting in spring
   • For REA, finish by end of September (ACT) or end of October (SAT)
   • Choose two grade 11 core-subject teachers as recommenders
4. Fall of grade 12Decide on REA
   • REA: application by November 1, aid materials by November 15
   • File the UC application between October 1 and November 30
   • Otherwise Regular Decision by January 5

Dates and registration deadlines are on the 2026-27 test calendar, and preparation options are on the SAT page.

How EDUBUS helps

EDUBUS college planning runs year by year from grade 9: a four-year course plan built around the rules of each Irvine high school, a schedule for the SAT or ACT and AP exams, a clear activities direction, and in grade 12 a counselor review of every application component, including the five short questions and three short essays, along with timing for Stanford REA alongside the UC application. Preparing the CSS Profile and FAFSA for financial aid is part of the service. To see where a student stands relative to schools like Stanford, start with a free assessment.