Stanford University

The university is organized around seven schools of study on an 8,180 acre campus, one of the largest in the nation. It houses the Hoover Institution, a public policy think tank, and is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity". Students compete in 36 varsity sports, and the university is one of eight private institutions in the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC). Stanford has won 136 NCAA team championships, and was awarded the NACDA Directors' Cup for 25 consecutive years, beginning in 1994. Students and alumni have won 302 Olympic medals (including 153 gold).

The university is associated with 94 billionaires, 58 Nobel laureates, 33 MacArthur Fellows, 29 Turing Award winners, as well as 7 Wolf Foundation Prize recipients, 2 Supreme Court justices of the United States, and 4 Pulitzer Prize winners. Additionally, its alumni include many Fulbright Scholars, Marshall Scholars, Gates Cambridge Scholars, Rhodes Scholars, and members of the United States Congress.

Stanford University was founded in 1885 by Leland and Jane Stanford as a tribute to the memory of their only child, Leland Stanford Jr. The university officially opened in 1891 on the Stanfords' former Palo Alto farm. Modeled after the great Eastern universities, specifically Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, Stanford was often referred to as the "Cornell of the West" in its early years. This comparison was largely due to a significant portion of its faculty being former Cornell affiliates, including its first president, David Starr Jordan, and its second president, John Casper Branner. Both Cornell and Stanford were among the first to make higher education accessible, non-sectarian, and inclusive of women and men. Cornell is recognized as one of the first American universities to embrace this progressive approach to education, and Stanford quickly followed suit, solidifying its commitment to these ideals. From an architectural perspective, the Stanfords sought to distinguish their university by emulating the style of English university buildings while also incorporating elements of local California heritage. They specified in the founding grant that the buildings should "be like the old adobe houses of the early Spanish days; they will be one-storied; they will have deep window seats and open fireplaces, and the roofs will be covered with the familiar dark red tiles." The Stanfords also hired renowned landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, who previously designed the Cornell campus, to design the Stanford campus.