Stanford University, a private research university with an undergraduate enrollment of 7,645 students, plays a total of 34 NCAA sports, 16 of them for men and 18 for women. In the 2021/2022 season, Stanford University had a total of 810 NCAA athletes comprising merely 11% of the total student body.

Stanford is likely to have recruited many of the athletes on its NCAA sports teams through the Division 1 athlete recruitment process, enabling these recruited athletes to leapfrog the normal admissions process. It is our best estimate based on team profiles that about 50% to 75% of their teams comprise of recruited athletes while the remaining athletes are “walk-on” athletes who were admitted to Stanford University on merits unrelated to sports.

How Top Colleges in Division 1 Select their Athlete Recruits

The table below lists the NCAA and varsity sports played at Stanford University and the number of athletes in each sports team.

All data compiled from Stanford University athletic website.