Stanford University

Stanford University is a private research university in Stanford, California, next to Palo Alto. Leland and Jane Stanford founded it in 1885 in memory of their only son, and it opened in 1891. Its campus covers about 8,180 acres. Faculty and graduates played a direct role in building Silicon Valley, and the university's links to industry and venture capital remain a defining feature.

Stanford has seven schools: Business, Education, Engineering, Humanities and Sciences, Law, Medicine, and the Doerr School of Sustainability, which opened in 2022. Major research units include SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, the Hoover Institution, the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. Stanford Health Care and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital support clinical and translational research. The university is best known for computer science, engineering, economics, business and the life sciences.

Stanford enrolls about 17,500 students, and more than half are graduate students. International students make up roughly a quarter of the graduate population. More than 20 Nobel laureates currently or formerly on the faculty have been associated with the university. Its alumni include William Hewlett, Sandra Day O'Connor and Reed Hastings.

Graduate degrees include PhDs, MS programs in engineering and the sciences, the MBA, the JD and the MD. Doctoral students typically rotate through labs or take coursework before choosing an adviser. Most PhD students are funded through fellowships and assistantships. The Knight-Hennessy Scholars program funds graduate study in any school of the university. Stanford runs on a quarter calendar. Most graduate students live on campus or in nearby Peninsula towns.

In the Grad School Navigator directory, Stanford University lists 199 graduate programs across 51 subjects: 79 master's programs and 109 doctoral programs, with the widest choice in education, biology and languages & linguistics. Stanford University holds rank 2 in the GSN Overall University Ranking.