Admit Weekend welcomes Stanford’s Class of 2023

Stanford welcomes prospective first-year students, family members and guests during Admit Weekend 2019 with events designed to encourage prospective first-year students to explore the academic, residential, athletic and social scene on the Farm.

Students and their families arrived first at Arrillaga Alumni Center to check in on Admit Weekend. (Image credit: L.A. Cicero)

More than 1,300 admitted students are expected to attend the three-day event, April 25-27, which opens with a campus walking tour and closes at noon Saturday with a talk by a surprise special guest who will reflect on the role Stanford has played in their life.

In between, there will be open houses, master classes, panel discussions and tours of memorable campus spaces, including Bing Concert Hall and Memorial Church.

Many of the admitted students will share dorm rooms with current students to experience residential life on campus firsthand.

The official welcome on Thursday afternoon features addresses by Richard H. Shaw, dean of admission and financial aid, and Persis Drell, provost of the university.

During Admit Weekend, President Marc Tessier-Lavigne will discuss his vision of the university’s future with admitted students and their families.

The prospective students are also invited to a picnic with admission officers at the newly renovated Frost Amphitheater. Across campus, Meyer Green will host a gigantic game of tag – “Humans vs. Zombies.”

During Admit Weekend student panels will talk about studying overseas as well as in New York City and Washington, D.C. Students will also discuss LGBTQ life on the Farm and their experiences as first-generation college students.

The visitors are invited to learn about the rich variety of religious opportunities available on campus at the Center for Inter-religious Community, Learning and Experiences, where a panel of students from the Fellowship for Religious Encounter, an interreligious dialogue group that meets regularly throughout the academic year, will speak.

Also opening its doors is the Bridge Peer Counseling Center, Stanford’s 24/7 peer counseling service. They will offer freshly-baked delicacies to visitors, along with conversation and information about valuable on-campus resources devoted to mental health and wellness.

Students who participated in the Leland Scholars Program and the Stanford Summer Engineering Academy will talk about free residential summer programs that are open to incoming students. These programs are designed to help ease the transition to university life for students who may be first in their families to attend college, come from low-income households or are graduates of high schools with limited curricular offerings.

On each day of Admit Weekend, representatives from the Financial Aid Office and the Student Services Center will talk about the real cost of a Stanford education, the student billing process and the types of financial aid available.

Stanford offers comprehensive, need-based financial aid that makes it possible for all admitted undergraduate students to attend – and does not expect students to borrow to meet their need. To learn more about how the program works, visit the Office of Undergraduate Admission’s Financial Aid webpage here.

Admitted students and their guests can get a taste of life in the classroom by attending master classes taught by Stanford faculty, including:

• “Beyond Blame and Shame: Authentic Intergroup Communication,” with Dereca Blackmon, co-instructor for the psychology course Intergroup Communication and associate dean and director of the Diversity and First-Gen Office
• “The Conundrum of Color: Reading James Baldwin,” with Jennifer DeVere Brody, professor of theater and performance studies
• “Ice, Mud and Thermometers: How Records of Past Climate Change Help Us Understand Modern Global Warming,” with Richard Nevle, lecturer and deputy director of the Earth Systems Program.
• “What, If Anything, Does One Need to Know About Native American History?” with Delphine Red Shirt, lecturer in Native American studies
• “Cool Hands, Hot Performances, Better Than Steroids, and Legal,” with H. Craig Heller, professor of biology

Admit Weekend includes programs for parents and guardians, including tours of residence halls, a tour of the award-winning Arrillaga Family Dining Commons and a courtyard reception hosted by the Parents’ Club of Stanford.

Student work will be on display during a two-hour poster symposium highlighting the research and creative projects of students. Student panels will discuss opportunities available to women in STEM – science, technology, engineering and mathematics – and the research they are conducting at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute.

The Stanford Symphony Orchestra will present a guided open rehearsal at Bing Concert Hall, and the Stanford Spoken Word Collective will host an open mic. The weekend program also includes a screen and conversation with filmmaker Kahlil Joseph, the 2018-19 Presidential Resident Artist at Stanford.

Admitted students can also explore social life on campus through a variety of special events, including an a cappella concert, a Dance Expo and “A Queer Night Out on the Farm,” and a pop-up concert by the Stanford Collaborative Orchestra.