Stanford University was founded in 1885 by Leland and Jane Stanford, dedicated to the memory of Leland Stanford Jr, their only child. The institution opened in 1891 on Stanford's previous Palo Alto farm.
Jane and Leland Stanford

Stanford is a private, non-profit university administered as a corporate trust governed by a privately appointed board of trustees with a maximum

Student body
Stanford enrolled 6,996 undergraduate and 10,253 graduate students as of the 2019–2020 school year. Women composed 50.4% of undergraduates and 41.5% of graduate students. In the same academic year, the

As of late 2021, Stanford had 2,288 tenure-line faculty, senior fellows, center fellows, and medical center faculty.
Award laureates and scholars
Stanford's current community of scholars includes:
• 20

Most of Stanford is on an 8,180-acre (12.8 sq mi; 33.1 km ) campus, one of the largest in the United States. It is on the San Francisco Peninsula,

Admissions
Stanford is considered by US News to be 'most selective', with an acceptance rate of 4%. Half of applicants

Natural sciences
• Biological synthesis of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) – Arthur Kornberg synthesized DNA material and won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1959 for his work at Stanford.
• First Transgenic organism – Stanley Cohen