For most of us, college is a fresh start, a blank canvas, a clean slate. Though the newness and anonymity that come with this are daunting, it can also feel good to be unknown, to be a stranger to all and for all to be strangers to you. I’ve certainly embraced it, at least as much as possible. But for many students, such extreme novelty is far from their reality.
Some freshmen begin college with a network of dozens of acquaintances from high school. This is especially true for students who attended high schools nearby, such as Paly, Gunn and Menlo-Atherton, each of which tends to send around 10 students to Stanford every year.
Jeffrey Propp ‘21, who graduated from Menlo-Atherton, for instance, has several close friends from high school on campus. “It’s a good net to have, and it’s nice to see them and keep that friendship strong, but you have to make a conscious effort to not only stick with people from high school, and that was one of the decisions I made coming here,” he said.
Not everyone, however, makes the same choice: “I’ve noticed that people from the Bay Area often congregate,” said Propp.
There are clear benefits to coming from a well-represented school or region. During the application process, it can be helpful to know students at colleges that you’re interested in, be it for general questions about the school or about the application itself. Later on, such networks can be helpful in making a decision. Once move-in day approaches, it’s invaluable to have someone who can address questions about matters like housing and classes. On campus, having a friend when all else is new is priceless.
On the other hand, it’s healthy for freshmen to be pushed outside their comfort zones and to make new friends. After college, few of us will ever find ourselves in an environment quite like this, which unites so many people from distinct backgrounds. We should take advantage of it.
That being said, Stanford seems to have dramatically fewer (if any) “location-specific” cliques than many other schools. Stanford’s freshmen residential assignment system, which doesn’t allow incoming students to pick a roommate and gives them limited choice in their specific dorm placement, plays a key role in preventing the formation of such social clusters.
In addition to local schools, like that of Propp, many others around California (which around 40 percent of students call home) see themselves significantly represented at Stanford.
Caroline Kim ‘21 attended Palos Verdes Peninsula High School in Los Angeles County, which accounts for six members of the freshman class, and about 20 in total across the University.
At first, Kim was apprehensive about seeing her former classmates on campus: “By the time senior year came around, I was pretty done with high school. When I decided to come here, I thought, ‘Am I gonna be reminded of high school every single day?’”
But her opinion has shifted: “It doesn’t really matter, because I’m gonna meet so many people, and I’m happy with my decision to come here.”
Max Newport ‘21, from Greenwood, Indiana, has had a distinct experience from Kim and Propp. As the second graduate of his high school to attend Stanford, he started the year with virtually no strings or a social safety net. From the application process through today, however, this has not been a problem. In fact, he has even welcomed it: “To some extent, it would be nice to have a piece of home here, but also, I was looking to escape, to being in a new environment where I didn’t have to be who I was in high school.”
Like Kim and Propp, Newport has found the fresh start that he was looking for.
Coming from New York City, I fall somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, which has been a comfortable place for me to be. Although there is only one other graduate of my high school at Stanford, I knew a significant group of freshman from the New York area before arriving in California.
The comfort that comes with this kind of familiarity became clear to me just a few hours after I received my acceptance to Stanford in December of last year. Before long, I got a congratulatory text from my friend Andrew, who had gone to high school with me and was then a freshman here.
Over Admit Weekend, I stayed with him and was treated to a personal tour of campus and an ongoing Q&A session: Where should I live? What was your favorite class this year? How are the parties? Did you make friends in your dorm? What in the world is Full Moon on the Quad?
Even when Andrew was busy studying for a midterm or at a meeting that weekend, I was rarely alone. By some stroke of (my) luck, my friend Chloe from back home had also been admitted, so we were joined at the hip for all of Admit Weekend. She was my default partner for Humans vs. Zombies, breakfast at Arrillaga, Casino Cardinale and the BROC party. Chloe and I had attended different schools in New York City, and we previously only hung out occasionally. Yet since her admission in April – and especially over Admit Weekend – we became a duo.
That weekend in April and the rest of my time in New York were just a preamble to the importance that our friendship would assume a few months later, once we arrived on campus. Before we had each made friends in our dorms, classes, and elsewhere, I relied on Chloe for comfort. To me, she is a piece of home only a short walk across Wilbur. Through all of NSO, and up until recently, we had lunch or dinner together nearly every day, and we continue to hang out regularly.
She and Andrew are not the only people from back home who bring me comfort. I see a familiar face from New York at least once a day: in the library, on the row, in Arrillaga, on my way to class. A few I knew before arriving, some I had mutual friends with, and a handful I had no immediate connection to. Regardless of our proximity and the nature of our relationship before college, our link to home unites us. We speak the same language, and sometimes, I crave that. In the beginning of my time here, when I found myself in a group of strangers, I always floated to them first.
Now, more than a month into my freshman year, I have built new networks and forged new friendships whose roots extend beyond a common connection to New York City. Still, I am left wondering what it would be like to start college not knowing anyone, without a friend to cling onto and talk about bagels and music festivals and city drama at times when all I want is a piece of home. And I also wonder what it would be like to know someone everywhere I turned, to have such a convenient and abundant escape in times of social discomfort or loneliness. But for now, I’ll continue to walk the line between old and new, comfort and growth, New York and California.
Contact Lucas Hornsby at lhornsby ‘at’ stanford.edu.