They say Stanford students are like ducks -- placid on the surface, but paddling vigorously beneath. Now the truth can finally be told: students on the Farm work harder than their counterparts at a certain school in Cambridge, Mass.
Okay . . . maybe the study is not quite ready for the New England Journal of Medicine. But according to a time-use survey conducted by Marc Wais, dean of students, and Keith Light, '78, an associate director of development, Stanford freshmen spend 45.97 hours a week on academic pursuits compared with 40 hours reported by Harvard freshmen. (Light did a similar survey for his doctoral thesis at Harvard.) The Stanford results are based on diaries kept for a week by 70 students.
"In spite of a sun-drenched campus and many potential distractions, these results appear to challenge any notion that Stanford students are 'laid-back' when it comes to their studies or have lighter academic commitments than their Crimson counterparts," Wais and Light wrote in a memo accompanying their report. Based on the research, a portrait of an average day:
| Academic pursuits | 27% | 6.46 hours |
| Sleeping | 30% | 7.09 hours |
| Socializing | 10.3% | 2.48 hours |
| Eating in cafeteria | 5% | 1.2 hours |
| Nonacademic computer time | 3% | 0.71 hours |
| Extracurricular | 2.9% | 0.69 hours |
| Other activities | 22% | 5.37 hours |
Source: Keith Light and Marc Wais
