With a perceived emphasis on high SAT scores, impressive high school GPAs and similar statistics, Stanford’s admissions process can make it difficult for incoming freshmen to see themselves defined by anything more than a set of numbers. New Student Orientation and Residential Education try to combat this thinking by fostering communities upon the arrival of new students on campus. Nonetheless, when 49 percent of the sophomore class was surveyed this fall about their freshman experience, many respondents indicated that they were dissatisfied with the extent to which Stanford “valued [them] as a person.”

According to Jerold Pearson, the director of market research at the Alumni Association, “That [valued as a person] is a very intangible concept, and I think it’s harder for people to give superlatives to something like that,” Pearson said.

While the concept may be rather vague, the survey’s questions about being valued as a person centered around five concrete categories — independence, support in times of need, faculty interest in students, administrative interest in students and the University’s response to student concerns.

The report also included a leverage analysis by the Pacific Consulting Company, which said that increasing the feelings in students that they are valued as people would lead to the greatest increase in satisfaction with freshman life.

According to the survey, freshmen tended to be very satisfied with the University trusting them with independence and adult responsibilities, even to the extreme of believing they had too much independence and not enough direction — a fact that encouraged Dean of Freshman and Transfer Students Julie Lythcott-Haims.

“I think these numbers are great,” she said. “I’m actually surprised we didn’t get a higher number who feel we don’t give them enough independence. I certainly wouldn’t want the pendulum to swing back in that direction. Independence can be scary and overwhelming, which may account for the feeling behind the 25 percent who feel they have too much of it.”

Student approval of the freedom granted to them was the only criterion that the majority of surveyed sophomores said they were very satisfied with. Considerably fewer students were content with the degree to which the “University provides support and help in time of need” and to which “faculty care about and take an interest in you.”

This year’s freshmen seemed sympathetic to these results, but the general reaction was that the University did a better job than the survey suggested.

“I think that there are always plenty of resources for students who are having problems or want to get in touch with faculty members, but you have to take the initiative yourself to reap their benefits,” said freshman Sarah Carroll. “For example, talking to professors is obviously a great opportunity, and in my experience, they’re always incredibly eager to meet with students, but they can’t come to you — you have to make an effort and go to their office hours. Likewise, a student who feels like he or she needs some kind of emotional support should be aware that there are countless University resources available, but again, it would be impossible to take advantage of them without actively pursuing them.”

Yet not all students find these resources that accessible. One freshman who wished to remain anonymous scoffed at the idea of seeking out her academic advisers for help.

“The academic advisory program is a joke,” she said. “It gives me no direction, and my [academic adviser] wouldn’t know if I were having academic problems or not.”

In fact, only a third of students responding claimed to be very satisfied with the Undergraduate Advising Center. Satisfaction with all student services tended to be low, with an overall 34 percent satisfaction rate for centers ranging from the Bursar’s Office to Cowell — now Vaden — Student Health Service to the Career Development Center.

Satisfaction was lowest with the extent to which “the University is responsive to student concerns” and “administrators and staff care about and take an interest in you.”

Lythcott-Haims, while admitting that the University has made some mistakes in its day-to-day operations, said that administrators are trying to improve the situation by granting students more participation and a larger voice in University decisions. The primary medium for this input is in student membership on University committees.

“As a rule, we care a great deal about students’ involvement in decision-making, and committee work is a great way to make a student’s voice heard,” Lythcott-Haims said. “Of course, we don’t always get it right, as was demonstrated by the process we just went through surrounding revisions to the Alcohol Policy. I think we learned a lot from that experience, and we’re all committed to doing things better next time around.”

Students interviewed expressed overall contentment with the administrative system, despite its problems.

“People here just want so much freedom,” said freshman Noah Lang. “But the University is just like a small city, so of course it’s going to have its problems with bureaucracy and administration.”

University President John Hennessy said he was aware of these problems and that he hopes to improve the administration’s services.

“It’s clear that we know that we have challenges making it easy for students to deal with all of the standard issues at the University — paying your bills, getting something fixed with the registrar — but clearly what I think the survey told us is when you do a lousy job on those things, students don’t feel like they’re being treated well,” he said. “It’s a reminder that when you run into the relentless bureaucracy, it comes back in other ways, and people don’t feel good about it.”

Lythcott-Haims is in the process of convening an Advisory Group on the Freshman Experience at Stanford of about 60 people to review and possibly revamp the traditional freshman programs for the incoming Class of ‘07, in order to increase student satisfaction with their sense of being valued.

A primary way in which the University endeavors to make freshmen feel valued is through the Approaching Stanford program and New Student Orientation.

“The moment a student returns her information forms in the summer before coming to Stanford, she ceases to be a demographic and becomes a person with hopes, fears and a personality,” said New Undergraduate Housing Coordinator Emil Martinsek, a junior. “Throughout the summer, the Approaching Stanford program is in charge of handling information exchange between freshmen, transfers and the University . . . We attempt to humanize students in all steps of this process so that the transition to Stanford is as smooth as possible. The folly is to believe that a dean will actually sit down and do all the assignments and answer all the phone calls individually. That is simply impossible.”

Another important means of reaching out to freshmen, according to Lythcott-Haims, is the Residential Education program, which seeks to ease the transition for incoming freshman and increase their sense of belonging.

“The Res Ed system strives to create a community of students who care about one another,” she said. “From RFs to RAs to RDs, if a student is in some kind of predicament, they are willing and able to help. In my office, we try to carry this philosophy through to the end of the freshman year, by having meaningful person-to-person interactions and thoughtful, responsive and encouraging conversations. I never miss an opportunity to tell the ‘06ers just how special they are to us. I hope these good feelings are making a difference in their freshman experience.”