Frederick Law Olmsted, the designer of New York City's Central Park, planned the architecture and layout of the university. His buildings feature buff sandstone walls, red-tiled roofs, and long sandstone arcades. The structures still stand at the center of today's campus, with new buildings designed to blend in with them. Among Stanford's extensive facilities are an earthquake engineering center, a biological preserve, a water quality lab, the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, and the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace. The university spends about 100 million dollars a year on construction, which sometimes includes repairing damage caused by earthquakes.

Stanford consistently ranks among the best national universities, enabling it to be very selective when admitting students. Almost all entering freshmen were in the top quarter of their high school class, and most ranked in the top tenth. The university seeks students from all states of the Union; California residents account for less than half of the student body. Undergraduate enrollment is roughly 6,500, out of a total enrollment of about 14,000. The numbers of men and women seeking bachelor's degrees are about equal. Asian Americans make up about a quarter of the undergraduate student body, with minorities as a whole making up close to half. The vast majority of undergraduates live in campus housing, with freshmen being required to live on-site. Many residence halls are theme-centered in order to group together people of similar interests. In some places, faculty members live among the students. Faculty are also known to join students for meals. Almost all members of Stanford's faculty hold doctorates, and the staff includes many Nobel laureates and Pulitzer prizewinners.

The academic year is divided into quarters. Undergraduate programs are conducted by the Schools of Humanities and Sciences, Earth Sciences, and Engineering. Many foreign languages are offered, as are numerous ethnic studies majors. Besides strong preprofessional programs and traditional liberal arts and science disciplines, students may choose such less conventional majors as human biology, product design, and feminist studies. In addition to specific requirements for each major, all students earning the degree of bachelor of arts or of science must take a yearlong course in Cultures, Ideas, and Values, plus a course dealing with gender studies. Distribution requirements guarantee that everyone gets a background in the humanities, math, science, and technology. More than two fifths of the graduating students immediately pursue advanced studies.

Stanford runs many overseas study centers, mostly in major European cities, and students are given full credit for courses taken at these sites. About a third of the undergraduates take advantage of these programs. The center's faculty is composed of regular Stanford staff plus educators from the host country. The Stanford-in-Washington program lets selected students study and hold internships in the nation's capital.

The university's graduate programs are considered to be some of the best in the United States. Stanford's medical, business, and law schools only accept between 5 and 15 percent of applicants. Environmental, aerospace, and mechanical engineering programs are known to be particularly strong. Likewise, the university has highly regarded programs in physical and biological sciences, computer sciences, humanities, and social sciences.

More than 300 extracurricular activities are available to students, including communications organizations, performing arts groups, and an array of political, religious, ethnic, and academic clubs. There are also a large number of fraternities and sororities. Popular annual events include a Viennese Ball every February and the Halloween Mausoleum Party (held at the final resting place of the university's founders). The university contains a small lake where many students enjoy recreational activities, and Stanford's proximity to the Pacific Coast and to San Francisco also presents many social and cultural outlets.

The Stanford Cardinal participates in Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (except in football, in which it participates in Division I-A) and in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics. The university fields teams in an array of sports, including in some less traditional sports such as crew, sailing, fencing, and synchronized swimming. Athletic teams have tended to do very well and have won numerous national championships. Stanford athletes also won 11 medals in the 1988 Olympics. School colors are cardinal and white