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​May 18, 2026

 

The Bureaucratization of Student Life at Stanford

 

We have added to the top of our Stanford Concerns webpage PDF copies of Stanford’s current policies and procedures for:

 

1. Determining where an undergraduate will live next year (the Draw); and

    

2. Holding a party.

 

To quote an alum who recently read these two documents: 

 

“I am floored. Stunned. Overwhelmed. I had never before read the policy manual for planning a party. If it had not come from a confirmed source, I would have easily concluded it was a parody. It is simply unreal. I have never before seen anything quite like it. What a travesty of bureaucrats squeezing the life out of everyday events.  

 

“Equally terrifying are the rules governing the Draw. I have long believed that the (lottery-like) Draw, combined with the chronic multi-decades long shortage of undergrad housing, are responsible for radically harming the campus student experience at Stanford and, as a long-term consequence, undermining long-term alumni ties to Stanford and thereby reducing alumni donation rates. Stanford’s undergrad housing and its Draw system are an embarrassment in comparison to the campus experiences provided by so-called peer schools.”

 

We encourage readers to read these two documents for themselves, although with this warning: Even the lawyers among you may find it difficult to make their way through just one of the documents, let alone both. Yet this is what Stanford subjects its undergraduates to, and this is only a sample of current policies and procedures that now dominate campus life. 

 

Instead of having hundreds of mid-level staff people meeting, writing, revising, meeting again, revising again and then expanding still further these sorts of byzantine policies and procedures, shouldn’t Stanford’s senior administrators, faculty, students and trustees be asking: How do we create a system where little if any of this is needed in the first place? Frankly, we think that is quite do-able.

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See also The Office - Best Clips of the Party Planning Committee at YouTube (video, 10 minutes).

 

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Editor’s note: This article and the two PDF documents now posted at the top of our Stanford Concerns webpage were prepared several days before a similar discussion appeared in an article at The Times of London regarding Stanford undergraduate Theo Baker, including references to his book, to be released tomorrow (May 19), “How to Rule the World: An Education in Power at Stanford University,” and with this excerpt from the Times article:

 

“[Baker went to the Daily’s offices,] offering to write about Stanford’s shrinking party scene, caused by what students had named the ‘war on fun’. The college had banned parties in dormitories, prohibited alcohol and created something called the Party Review Committee.

 

“‘On the surface it’s this sort of absurd and ridiculous and honestly funny thing, right?’ he says. ‘Because you have this bureaucratic contortionism, you know, where kids have to take a course and pass an exam to be able to apply three weeks in advance to host a college function of any kind.’ They had to apply to the Party Review Committee, ‘which only meets once a week on Tuesdays’.

 

“The college seemed to be reacting to all the well-publicised incidents of hazing, of student deaths, of campus sexual assault.

 

“‘They arguably make things less safe,’ Baker says. Because the practical result was huge crowds of students all trying to squeeze into one approved party or going off campus to the least salubrious parts of San Francisco to do their drinking."​​

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Why We Care -- Stanford's Leadership in Teaching, Research and Innovation 

 

Guiding Principles of Stanford President Jon Levin and Provost Jenny Martinez; full statement at Stanford Report.

 

Stanford's Continued High Standing in Various Disciplines; full article, as noted previously, at U.S. News including charts showing that Stanford ranked #1 in business, law, computer science, economics and psychology, #2 in engineering, #3 in biology and earth sciences and #4 in chemistry (some were ties and Stanford's School of Medicine in recent years has declined to participate).

 

Stanford Is Considered the Most Beautiful College Campus in the U.S.; full article at Travel & Leisure. 

 

Examples of Current Research (click on each article for direct access; selections are from Stanford Report and other Stanford websites):

 

• Stanford Fuels Solutions for a Power-Hungry World

• Preparing Robots for an Aging Society

• What Should Governments Do About AI and Jobs?

• Solar-Powered Gel Pulls Drinking Water from the Air

• New Immersive Studio Enhances Global Learning 

• How the Rubin Observatory Maps the Universe (video, 5:30 minutes)

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Other Articles of Interest

 

Higher Education Still Valued but Considered Out of Reach

Full article at Gallup: “Only one in four adults without a college degree (25%) believe most people can access a quality, affordable education. This is the lowest level recorded since 2022 and a drop of 10 points in just two years. Even so, nearly three in four adults without a degree (73%) say earning a credential is just as important today as it was 20 years ago.”

 

Download a PDF copy of the full report from Lumina Foundation here and alumni report here.

 

See also “U.S. Leads the World in Youth Pessimism About Job Prospects” at Gallup: “In no other country does young adults' confidence in the jobs market lag behind older adults' by such a wide margin.”

 

Lawmakers See Different Threats to Campus Speech but the Same Stakes

Full article at FIRE.

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The Only Thing Harder Than Getting Into College Is Getting Off the Wait List

Full article at WSJ: “The University of California, Berkeley had almost 6,500 students on its wait list last year. It ended up admitting none of them.”

 

In AI Adoption, Don't Forget the Human Touch

Full op-ed at Hechinger Report.

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There Is a Fire Sale on MBAs

Full article at WSJ.

 

See also “Here’s What to Know About Post-Grad Unemployment” at U.S. News.

 

Sex Week at Stanford

Full article at Stanford Review.​

 

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