Stanford Graduate School

Leland and Jane Stanford laid the groundwork for what would become Stanford University in 1885. Since it initially opened its doors in 1891 to students, it presently boasts more than 6,000 students for Undergraduate and 8,000 students for Stanford Graduate School and are enrolled in its various degree programs.

Stanford University is situated in the San Francisco Bay area, close to one of the most important technological hubs in the world. Students have the opportunity to make use of the school’s expansive campus, which is comprised of 8,180 acres of land and about 700 main buildings. In addition, they are provided with access to the Bay area’s many amenities.

As a result of the university’s seven distinct schools, each of which focuses on a different subject such as law, medicine, business, or education, students at Stanford are able to study virtually any subject they choose to study at the institution.

In addition, Stanford has enormous financial resources available to it because of its endowment, which is valued at $28.9 billion, making it the third-largest of its kind in the United States. Because of this, it is able to grant considerable amounts of financial assistance.

Because Stanford awards an average of $52,030 in scholarships to first-year students, the university is accessible to practically every student, regardless of their family’s financial situation.

Stanford is home to eight distinct Stanford graduate school. Each of graduate school focuses on a different academic field and some of which have their own set of requirements for admission. The professional schools at Stanford, such as the Law School, Medical School, and Graduate School of Business, each have their own set of specialized requirements and applications. The application process is standard across all of the university’s graduate programs.

Since the university’s inception, graduate education has been an essential component in the Stanford Graduate School’s ability to maintain its reputation for academic superiority, intellectual innovation, and an enterprising spirit. In 1891, the first year that Stanford University was open for business, a total of 39 men and 12 women from 19 different states enrolled as graduate students. This was one of the first options for graduate study on the West Coast. At the moment, they account for 57 percent of Stanford University’s total student body.

How to get into Stanford Graduate School?

How to get into Stanford Graduate School? In order to be considered for admission to the graduate program at Stanford, you must be able to demonstrate that you meet the university’s basic requirements for English language and academic credentials.

You must hold, or anticipate to hold before enrolling at Stanford, a bachelor’s degree from a college or university in the United States or its overseas equivalent from a reputable institution in order to be eligible for admission.

The characteristics of a national educational system, the kind of school that you attended, and the level of studies that you finished are taken into consideration when Stanford evaluates an applicant’s post-secondary degree. The admissions offices and application processes for each professional institution are handled independently.

Students who are interested in applying are required to hold a bachelor’s degree or its equivalent. In addition to submitting a statement of purpose, transcripts, and letters of recommendation, applicants are required to provide an explanation of why they are interested in pursuing a graduate degree in the topic that they have selected.

The admissions committee at the school uses a holistic procedure, which means that they look at every aspect of your application before making a decision about whether or not to grant you admission.

Academic quality, intellectual vibrancy, non-academic interests (extracurricular activities), and context are the four primary factors that Stanford takes into consideration when making admissions decisions.

The word “context” indicates that Stanford will evaluate all of your successes and qualifications by placing them in the context of your past, background, educational opportunities, and responsibilities.

Stanford Graduate School Requirements

What are the current Stanford Graduate School requirements for admission? The Graduate School of Business at Stanford University, the Law School at Stanford University, the School of Medicine at Stanford University, the School of Engineering at Stanford University, and the Graduate School of Education all award degrees on behalf of Stanford University.

Listed below are the requirements that must be met in order for you to be accepted into the Stanford Graduate School:

Personal Background

Stanford is dedicated to providing all members of our community with an inclusive, accessible, varied, and fair educational experience at our institution. In this part of the application, we ask that you share some biographical and demographic information with us so that the admissions committee can get a more complete picture of your life and the things you’ve been through.

Program Selection

In this part, you will indicate the graduate program that you intend to attend as well as the entering term. If any of the following extra choices are appropriate for your program, they will be displayed in this section:

• Specialization
• Honors Concurrent Enrollment Program
• Consideration for admission to the master’s program in the event that admission to the doctoral program is not granted

You are only permitted to submit an application to one of the graduate degree programs detailed on this page for each academic year. The one and only exemption to this rule are found inside the Ph.D. programs in the biosciences; there, you are permitted to submit applications to both of those programs at the same time.

Academic History

You are required to supply a list of all postsecondary institutions in which you have been or are currently enrolled in an undergraduate or graduate degree program, as well as an unofficial copy of your transcript from each of those institutions.

• The admissions office at Stanford believes that unofficial transcripts provide sufficient information for the assessment process. If you are given admission to Stanford and choose to accept the offer, you will be asked to produce official transcripts and documents proving that you have been awarded the appropriate degree.
• The information contained in your academic records should include specifics on the nature and level of your performance, as well as the titles of the classes you attended each year and the grades you were awarded (along with any legends or keys that pertain to the grading scale used by the institution).
• If the records at your institution are not issued in English, you are required to submit the documents in their native language along with approved translations into English. We will accept translations that have been certified by either the institution or a qualified translation provider. The original records must be faithfully recreated in their entirety and literally in the translations.

In addition to that, you are required to respond to the following questions:

• Have you ever been suspended, dismissed, placed on enforced leave from any college, university, or post-secondary institution, or been the subject of disciplinary action by such an institution? •
• Have you ever been the subject of disciplinary action by such an institution?
• Have you ever been warned about your academic performance by any of the colleges or universities that you’ve attended?

Test Scores

You could be asked to submit one or more of the following exam scores, depending on the program you’ve chosen and the level of language proficiency you already possess:

• Graduate Record Examination (GRE) General Test
• Graduate Record Examination (GRE) Subject Tests
• Test of English as a Foreign Language Internet-Based Test (TOEFL iBT)

The Educational Testing Service is in charge of the administration of each and every test (ETS).

The Stanford Graduate School strongly recommends that prospective students register as soon as possible to increase their chances of obtaining their first-choice test date and location and to ensure that their test scores are received before the application deadline for their chosen graduate program.

Recommendations

You are expected to provide the names and contact information for three academic or professional references who are familiar with your work and are in a position to judge your potential for graduate studies because of their knowledge of you.

Recommendations for graduate school should come from people in your professional or academic network who are familiar with your work and are in a position to assess your prospects for further education. At least one of these letters should be from a university professor who is familiar with your academic work. This is a recommendation that should be taken very seriously.

Statements

In response to the question that follows, you are asked to submit a Statement of Purpose as part of the application process:

Describe succinctly your reasons for applying to the proposed program at Stanford, your preparation for this field of study, research interests, future career plans, and other aspects of your background and interests which may aid the admission committee in evaluating your aptitude and motivation for graduate study. The maximum recommended length is 1,000 words.

It is possible that the exact question that appears on the application (as well as the suggested length) will be different based on the graduate school that you choose.

In addition, you have the option of submitting a Diversity Statement in response to the question that is presented below:

Stanford University is committed to expanding the diversity of its graduate student body, improving students’ sense of inclusion and belonging, and advancing equity and justice in higher education. We invite you to share your lived experiences, demonstrated values, perspectives, and/or activities that shape you as a scholar and align with these commitments.

It is recommended that your Diversity Statement be no more than 500 words.

Program Supplemental

The questions that are asked in this part are geared specifically toward the graduate school that you have chosen. It is possible that you will be required to offer writing samples, extra essays, your academic interests, or the interests of faculty members. The prerequisites that are unique to your graduate program can be found on the website of your graduate school.

Extra Material and Information

If you want to contribute additional information that was not addressed by the questions in the application, you have the opportunity to upload a supplemental document.

Application Fee

There is a non-refundable charge of $125 associated with the application. Under no circumstances is it possible to receive a refund of the application money. This includes situations in which the applicant withdraws their application from admission consideration before obtaining a decision. You are eligible to request that the application fee not be charged to you if any of the following apply to you.

What is a Good GRE Score?

How do you define a good score on the GRE? The fact that standardized examinations can have a substantial influence on your life can make taking them a stressful experience. The Graduate Record Examination (GRE) is essential since it helps determine which graduate programs you may be accepted into.

If you don’t do well on the GRE, you might have to settle for a program that you’re not as enthusiastic about as an alternative if you want to get into the school that you want to attend.

The majority of standardized examinations, including the GRE, do not employ the letter grading scale or the scale ranging from 0% to 100% which is common practice among students. Because of this, it may be difficult to determine whether or not your score is satisfactory.

Because of the odd nature of the grading structure, it can be difficult to determine what constitutes a decent score on the GRE. On a standard exam, a score of 130, along with any additional credit earned, would be considered excellent performance. The Graduate Record Examination (GRE) has a minimum score requirement of 130.

You are in luck because ETS occasionally publishes data that includes average test scores in addition to scoring percentiles, both of which you can use to evaluate how well you have performed.

The GRE was taken by approximately 1.64 million persons between July 1, 2016, and June 30, 2019, inclusive. The following is the typical score on the GRE:

• The score for verbal reasoning was 150.37.
• The numerical reasoning score is 153.39.
• Critical Thinking in Writing: 3.58

If you achieve a score that is higher than these values, you can have a degree of confidence in the fact that you have outperformed the average score on the GRE.

However, if you have your sights set on enrolling in a prestigious graduate school, you could get the impression that you need to do more than just outperform the other applicants.

Researching the programs that interest you will give you an idea of the goal GRE score that you should strive to get. Many educational institutions provide information about the average GRE score of their incoming class on their websites. Although receiving a score that is higher than the program’s average will not ensure that you will be accepted into the program of your choice, it certainly won’t hinder your chances either.

Stanford Graduate School Acceptance Rate

What is the current Stanford Graduate School acceptance rate? The graduate school at Stanford has an acceptance rate of approximately 5.2%, making it one of the universities with the lowest acceptance rate among the top-ranked schools. Because the school’s policy only permits applicants to submit an application to one graduate program during each academic year, you should be absolutely certain about which department and degree you want to obtain before submitting an application. The University of Stanford received 55,471 applications for the class of 2025 and made a final admissions decision of 2,190 students.

Graduate school at the university is attended by students who come from a wide range of different backgrounds and have had a variety of different experiences in life. Over 3,144 graduate students, or approximately 34 percent of the total graduate student population in 2021-22, will be international students hailing from more than 117 countries.

China, India, Canada, South Korea, and Brazil are, in order, the top five countries outside of the United States that graduate students at Stanford Graduate School consider to be their homes. In the academic year 2021-2022, the proportion of female graduate students was 45 percent, while students from underrepresented backgrounds made up 15 percent of the total.

Today, there are 9,292 students enrolled in nearly 200 graduate programs across all seven of Stanford University’s schools, including Business, Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences, Education, Engineering, Humanities and Sciences, Law, and Medicine. These students are working toward one of 14 distinct postbaccalaureate degrees. In addition to a wide range of master’s degrees, including MS, MA, MBA, and MFA, Stanford also confers a number of doctorates, including the Ph.D., JD, MD, DMA, and JSD.

About half of Stanford’s graduate students are working toward a doctoral degree, and the university is consistently ranked among the top private colleges in the United States in terms of the number of doctorates it confers each year. The schools, departments, and faculty at Stanford Graduate School have a significant amount of autonomy when it comes to defining the prerequisites for their graduate programs, allocating money, and developing creative educational opportunities.

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