Answers

I went to Stanford so I have some first hand experience. In general, Stanford's programs are excellent across the board. It's one of the best universities in the world. The engineering department is one of the best in the world...it's no surprise that hundreds of companies have been started by former Stanford engineering graduates, including Google and Yahoo! The science and social science programs also tend to be very strong but can vary. For example, you would definitely want to come to Stanford to do CS but if you wanted to do Math you may want to consider Harvard. The liberal arts programs also vary in strength -- if you want to do East Asian Studies, it has a solid program, but if you want to do journalism you may want to head to Columbia. The biggest advantage of Stanford in my opinion is that you have the freedom to select between a number of majors and departments that are all top notch so you have the freedom to decide what you want to study based on what you actually like, not what you think you may like in your freshman year.