If you’re from outside of the United States, or if you simply don’t know much about American universities, it can be hard to understand what makes one college stand out from another.
For example, there’s a lot of confusion around whether Stanford University is part of the Ivy League—and whether it should be.
In this article, we’ll explore this question and answer why Stanford might not even want to be considered part of an elite group like the Ivy League.
Table of Contents
What is an Ivy League School?
The Ivy League is an elite group of eight schools in the northeast United States that used to be known for their athletic competition.
But over time, the term, “ivy league,” changed; Ivy League schools are a select few schools in the northeast United States that are known for their academic research excellence, prestige, and low admission selectivity.
The Ivy League has long been considered some of the best universities in the country, and even though these schools are private, they are also very selective and only accept students who have stellar academic records and test scores.
Since these schools take fewer applications than other colleges, you should be prepared to compete with lots of other students who want to go there.
So, is Stanford Ivy League?
Ivy League refers to the eight private universities that are part of the athletic conference in the northeast United States. The Ivy League was originally established as a group of eight schools that shared a similar history and shared heritage.
Harvard University, Yale University, Princeton University, Columbia University, Brown University, and Dartmouth College were founding members of this athletic conference back in 1954.
The Ivy League is not just an athletic conference though; it’s actually an academic honor society within U.S colleges and universities that has been active since 1956 when Columbia College was first accepted into its ranks.
Typically, ivy league schools are known to be:
- Academically sound
- Highly selective of its prospective students
- Highly competitive
- Expensive (although most of them offer generous grants and financial aid)
- High-priority research schools
- Prestigious, and
- They are all private universities
However, we cannot discuss this topic fully until we have analyzed how Stanford competes as an ivy league school.
Stanford University: Brief History and Overview
Stanford University is a public university. It’s not even a small school; Stanford has over 16,000 degree-seeking students in its undergraduate, master’s, professional, and doctoral programs combined.
Stanford University was founded in 1885 by Amasa Leland Stanford, the former governor of California and a wealthy American industrialist. He named the school after his late son, Leland Stanford Jr.
Amasa and his wife, Jane Stanford, built Stanford University in memoriam of their late son who died due to typhoid in 1884 at age 15.
The aggrieved couple had decided to invest in building the school with the single aim of “promoting the public welfare by exercising an influence on behalf of humanity and civilization.”
Today, Stanford is one of the best universities in the world, ranking in the top 10 of major publications like Times Higher Education and Quacquarelli Symonds.
Along with other schools like MIT and Duke University, Stanford is also one of the few schools popularly confused as being ivy league due to its high research credibility, high selectivity, fame, and prestige.
But, in this article, we will examine all there is to know about Stanford University, and whether or not it is ivy league.
Research Reputation of Stanford University
When it comes to academic excellence and research, Stanford University is one of the best universities in the world. U.S. News & Report ranks the school as one of the third-best research schools in America.
Here’s how Stanford has also performed in related metrics:
- #4 in Best Value Schools
- #5 in Most Innovative Schools
- #2 in Best Undergraduate Engineering Programs
- #8 in Undergraduate Research/Creative Projects
Also, in terms of freshman retention rate (used to measure student satisfaction), Stanford University ranks at 96 percent. Thus, there is no doubt that Stanford is one of the best research schools in the world with generally satisfied learners.
Patents by Stanford University
As a school heavily invested in research and solving real problems of the world, it is common sense to be able to prove these claims. This is why this school has a ton of patents to its name for its numerous innovation and inventions across multiple disciplines and sub-fields.
Here is a highlight of two of Stanford’s most-recent patents found on Justia:
Patent number: 11275084
Paraphrased Abstract: A method of determining the number of a solution constituent includes introducing the first number of solution constituents to a first test location, establishing a first binding environment for the introduced first number of solution constituents, binding the first plurality of solution constituents to create a first residual number of solution constituents, establishing a second binding environment for the first residual number of solution constituents, and creating a second residual number of solution constituents.
Type: Grant
Filed: January 15, 2010
Date of Patent: March 15, 2022
Assignees: Stanford University, Robert Bosch GmbH
Inventors: Sam Kavusi, Daniel Roser, Christoph Lang, AmirAli Haj Hossein Talasaz
2. Measurement and comparison of immune diversity by high-throughput sequencing
Patent number: 10774382
This invention showed how the immunological receptor diversity in a sample may be precisely measured via sequence analysis.
Type: Grant
Filed: August 31, 2018
Date of Patent: September 15, 2020
Assignee: The Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford University Junior University
Inventors: Stephen R. Quake, Joshua Weinstein, Ning Jiang, Daniel S. Fisher
Stanford’s Finances
According to Statista, Stanford University spent a whopping total of $1.2 billion on research and development in 2020. This figure is on par with the budget allocated by other top universities in the world for research and development in the same year. For example, Duke University ($1 billion), Harvard University ($1.24 billion), MIT ($987 million), Columbia University ($1.03 billion), and Yale University ($1.09 billion).
This was a steady but significant increase for Stanford university since 2006 when it budgeted $696.26 million for research and development.
It is also noteworthy that Stanford University does not have a large endowment compared to some of the ivy league schools in the U.S.: the total collective endowment of Stanford was $37.8 billion (as of August 31, 2021). By comparison, Harvard and Yale had $53.2 billion and $42.3 billion in endowment funds, respectively.
In the U.S., an endowment is the amount of money a school has to spend on scholarships, research, and other projects. Endowments are an important indicator of a school’s financial health, as they can help cushion the effects of economic downturns and enable administrators to make strategic investments in areas like hiring world-class faculty or launching new academic initiatives.
Stanford’s Sources of Income
In the 2021/22 fiscal year, Stanford University generated an impressive $7.4 billion. Here are the sources of Stanford’s income:
| Sponsored research | 17% |
| Endowment income | 19% |
| Other investment income | 5% |
| Student Income | 15% |
| Health care services | 22% |
| Expendable gifts | 7% |
| SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory | 8% |
| Other income | 7% |
Expenditure
| Salaries and benefits | 63% |
| Other operating expenses | 27% |
| Financial aid | 6% |
| Debt service | 4% |
Hence, Stanford is one of the wealthiest universities in the world, behind Harvard and Yale. It is usually ranked in the top 5.
Degrees Offered at Stanford University
Stanford offers a program at the bachelor’s, master’s, professional, and doctoral levels in the following disciplines:
- Computer science
- Human biology
- Engineering
- Econometrics and quantitative economics
- Engineering/industrial management
- Cognitive science
- Science, technology, and society
- Biology/biological sciences
- Political science and government
- Mathematics
- Mechanical engineering
- Research and experimental psychology
- English language and literature
- History
- Applied mathematics
- Geology/earth science
- International relations and affairs
- Electrical and electronics engineering
- Physics
- Bioengineering and biomedical engineering
- Chemical engineering
- Ethnic, cultural minority, gender, and group studies
- Communication and media studies
- Sociology
- Philosophy
- Anthropology
- Chemistry
- Urban studies/affairs
- Fine/studio arts
- Comparative literature
- African-American/black studies
- Public policy analysis
- Classics and classical languages, literature, and linguistics
- Environmental/environmental health engineering
- Civil engineering
- American/united states studies/civilization
- Materials engineering
- East Asian studies
- Aerospace, aeronautical, and astronautical/space engineering
- Drama and dramatics/theatre arts
- French language and literature
- Linguistics
- Spanish language and literature
- Philosophy and religious studies
- Film/cinema/video studies
- Art history, criticism, and conservation
- Russian language and literature
- Area studies
- American-Indian/Native American studies
- Asian-American studies
- German language and literature
- Italian language and literature
- Religion/religious studies
- Archeology
- Music
The 5 most popular majors at Stanford University are Computer and Information Sciences and Support Services, Engineering, Multi/Interdisciplinary Studies, Social Sciences, and Mathematics and Sciences.
Stanford’s Prestige
Now that we have analyzed Stanford University in terms of its academic and research strength, endowment, and courses offered; let us now look at some aspects of what makes a university prestigious. As you know now, ivy league schools are prestigious.
We will examine this factor based on:
- The number of candidates applying to Stanford University yearly. Prestigious schools typically receive more applications than the available/required admission seats.
- Acceptance rate.
- Average GPA requirement for successful admission at Stanford.
- Awards and honors for its faculty and students.
- Tuition fee.
- The number of faculty professors and other distinguished members of this body.
To begin with, Stanford University has consistently received over 40,000 admission applications yearly since 2018. In the 2020/2021 academic year, Stanford received applications from an estimated 44,073 degree-seeking candidates; only 7,645 were accepted. That’s a little over 17 percent!
For more context, 15,961 students were accepted at all levels, including undergraduate students (full-time and part-time), graduate, and professional students.
Stanford University has an acceptance rate of 4%; to stand any chance of making it into Stanford, you must have a GPA of at least 3.96. Most successful students, according to data, typically have a perfect GPA of 4.0.
In terms of awards and recognitions, Stanford does not fall short. The school has produced faculty members and students who have won awards for their research, invention, and innovation. But the major highlight is Stanford’s Nobel laureates – Paul Milgrom and Robert Wilson, who won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2020.
In total, Stanford has produced 36 Nobel laureates (15 of them are deceased), with the most recent win in 2022.
The cost of tuition at Stanford University is $64,350 per year; however, they offer financial aid to the most qualified candidates. Currently, Stanford has 2,288 professors in its ranks.
All these facts are clear pointers that Stanford is a prestigious school. So, does that mean that it is an ivy league school?
The Verdict
Is Stanford University ivy league?
No, Stanford University is not part of the eight ivy league schools. These schools are:
- Brown University
- Columbia University
- Cornell University
- Dartmouth University
- Harvard University
- Princeton University
- University of Pennsylvania
- Yale University
So, Stanford is not an ivy league school. But, it is a prestigious and widely-acclaimed university. Along with MIT, Duke University, and the University of Chicago, Stanford University often outranks these eight “ivy league” universities in terms of academics.
Some people, however, prefer to call Stanford University one of the “little Ivies” because of its tremendous success since its inception. It is one of the big 10 universities in the United States.
FAQs and Answers
Why is Stanford not an Ivy League school?
This reason is not known, given that Stanford University satisfactorily exceeds the academic performance of most so-called ivy league schools. But an educated guess will be because Stanford University did not excel at sports at the time the original idea of “Ivy League” was created.
Is it harder to get into Harvard or Stanford?
It is slightly harder to get into Harvard; it has an acceptance rate of 3.43%.
Are there 12 Ivy Leagues?
No, there are only eight ivy league schools. These are prestigious, highly-selective universities in the northeast of the United States.
Is Stanford hard to get into?
Stanford University is incredibly hard to get into. They have a low selectivity (3.96% - 4%); so, only the best students are accepted. Historically, most successful students who have entered Stanford had a GPA of 4.0 (perfect score) when they applied to study at Stanford.
Which is better: Stanford or Harvard?
They are both great schools. These are two top schools in the United States with the most Nobel Prize winners. Graduates from these schools are always considered for high-profile jobs.
Recommended Reads
We recommend you go through the following articles:
- Is Harvard a College or a University? Find Out
- Cornell University Acceptance Rate, Tuition, and Requirements
- Why Should I go to University?
- 30 Best Colleges in the Northwest
- The 20 Importance of Higher Education: College or University.
Wrapping It Up
So, is Stanford an Ivy League school? It’s a complicated question. Some people might say that Stanford has more in common with the Ivy League than some of the other top-tier universities on the list. But its high admission rate and lack of any athletic scholarships mean it isn’t quite Ivy material. This debate will likely continue for years to come—until then, we’ll keep asking these questions.