Stanford's Admit Weekend Starts Thursday

BY KATHLEEN J. SULLIVAN/ STANFORD NEWS SERVICE

"The Dish." "The Tree." "The Claw." The Quad." "The Oval."

During Admit Weekend 2014, which opens tomorrow, Stanford Admitted Students  and their families will have the opportunity to add some of those iconic campus phrases to their "Stanford Speak" vocabulary as they join in specially planned activities.

As of last week, 1,300 students admitted to the Class of 2018 had registered for Admit Weekend 2014, along with 1,320 parents and guardians, and 270 siblings, said Matthew Proto, assistant dean of undergraduate admission.

The April 24-26 event opens Thursday afternoon with an official Stanford welcome from Provost John Etchemendy and Richard H. Shaw, dean of admission and financial aid.

It ends Saturday with a "What Matters to Me and Why" presentation by Srinija Srinivasan, cofounder of the startup Loove, a performance space, audio-visual studio and cooperative music label in Brooklyn, N.Y. Srinivasan, '93, was recently elected to the Stanford University Board of Trustees. She worked at Yahoo for 15 years and stepped down as the company's vice president and editor-in-chief in 2010.

Admit Weekend is designed to encourage prospective freshmen to begin to explore Stanford's academic, residential, athletic and social scenes by offering them a wide variety of activities and programs that showcase the university's breadth and depth.

Dorms, departments and student community centers will host open houses.

There will be panels of students talking about Overseas Studies, women in STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics), humanities research and arts endeavors, and the Stanford experience for first-generation college students.

Panels of faculty and students will discuss diversity programs in engineering and also two new academic programs based in residence halls: "Science in the Making Integrated Learning Environment" and "Immersion in the Arts: Living in Culture."

The weekend features tours of Bing Concert Hall, the Science and Engineering Quad, campusathletics facilities and Memorial Church. Activities include a hike to the Dish led by Stanford students who will talk about the university's wilderness, sustainable farming and outdoor education programs.

President John Hennessy will take the stage to field questions from students and family members during his always-popular question-and-answer session.

Stanford has offered admission to 2,138 students for the Class of 2018. Admitted students have until May 1 to accept the university's offer.

Admitted students can get a taste of life in the classroom by attending seminars taught by faculty members, including:

• "Creative Confidence," by David Kelley, Donald W. Whittier Professor in Mechanical Engineering and founder of the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford, affectionately known as the d.school.

• "Ambition: Géricault's Raft of the Medusa, 1819," by Alexander Nemerov, the Carl and Marilynn Thoma Provostial Professor in the Arts and Humanities.

• "The Joint-Major Program: Encouraging Interdisciplinary Study at Stanford," by Eric Roberts, the Charles Simonyi Professor in the School of Engineering.

• "If Ben Franklin had Facebook," by Caroline Winterer, Anthony P. Meier Family Professor in the Humanities and director of the Stanford Humanities Center.

• "Maintaining Humanity's Life Support Systems in the 21st Century," by Elizabeth Hadly, the Paul S. and Billie Achilles Professor in Environmental Biology.

Many of the admitted students will share a dorm room with a current student so they can experience residential life at Stanford firsthand.

The weekend includes events designed specifically for parents, including residence hall tours, an alcohol education panel, a conversation with parents and a parent breakfast.

The Parents' Club of Stanford University is hosting a mixer on Thursday evening. On Friday afternoon, Stanford administrators and parents of current students will host a "coffee table talk" on how students can make the most of their Stanford experience.