Stanford School of Earth Sciences - Too big?

[rockbender]

I am on the fence about applying to Stanford's School of Earth Sciences. I know they have a great program there and it's very well respected in the field... but I am a little put off by just how BIG it is. They had 63 new graduate students this year! If every cohort is that large, there would be something like 300 grad students currently enrolled. It's hard to imagine getting personalized attention when you are one among so many...

Does anyone have any experience with Stanford? Either from being a student there, knowing someone there, visiting, etc. I'm afraid that if I went there I would just become a number (grad student #167), and I was hoping for some insider information about whether or not that is true.

Thanks!

[Chai_latte]

I don't have anything useful to add, but I'm really shocked by its size. Wow. Are most of their students M.S.? Non-thesis?

[rockbender]

I'm not sure about MS vs non-thesis. I assumed most of them were PhD...? But maybe someone who is actually familiar with Stanford can help with that question...

The School of Earth Sciences IS divided into 4 departments, so I guess 16 new students per department. But are the departments completely isolated? Do the grad students in "Environmental Earth System Science" never talk to the people in the "Geophysics" department? That seems pretty insular... but at the same time, can you imagine if they all tried to get together in one room?

[InquilineKea]

I'm also wondering - does the department have a more "risk-tolerant" attitude towards potentially risky grad students than other departments? I know from some sources (Quora especially) that Stanford is a school that *likes* to pursue risk more than others, although I wonder if that's mostly true for its CS departments.

[Usmivka]

I don't view that as a very big department (more average), but I've always gone to large R1s, so I probably have perception bias. The more people are there, the more research is happening and the more possible collaborations. I don't think socializing with or even knowing the name of every student in the department is a top priority as a grad student. And you get your personalized attention from your adviser and committee, so I'm not sure how the number of students impacts that, unless your adviser has a large number of other grad students. I view this as unlikely in the Earth Sciences, as opposed to, say, Physics or Chemistry. I suspect if you looked at the number of faculty, there would be a similarly large number.

Edited November 14, 2012 by Usmivka

[emie]

I am a student at Stanford in the School of Earth Sciences (SES). There are a lot of misconceptions going on here, so allow me to clear it up.

We are 4 separate departments, not one single earth sciences department. Each department is in different (but close by) buildings. For the most part, the departments stay separate, with separate seminars, degree requirements, administrative staff, etc. However research collaboration between departments is not uncommon.

Each department has 70ish grads and 14ish faculty. A typical faculty member might have 4-6 grad students, which provides plenty of personal attention. My lab has 6 students and I think it's a good size. I would say that 90% of the people (faculty and grads) in my department know me, and large fractions of the other departments as well. I never feel like grad student #167.

I would say that our large size is because we are simply covering more research ground, with more specialties represented. If anything it's a really good thing, because for any earth sciences specialty we probably have someone who is an expert here. Overall I would say grad life here is pretty good.