On-Site Child Care FAQs

You may apply for Stanford child care once you have a due date, date of birth, or confirmed adoption date for your child, and are affiliated with Stanford or have confirmation of acceptance for future affiliation with Stanford. Applications are accepted year-round, so families can apply at any time. We encourage you to submit an application for your child well in advance of your desired start date. The sooner you apply, the better your chances of being offered an enrollment invitation.

We are thrilled to hear that you are planning ahead. Unfortunately, we require a confirmed due date before proceeding to apply. Please reach out to our office if you have additional questions about family planning.

Yes, Stanford’s early childhood programs serve children with various needs. Along with our operators, we believe in inclusive programs that meet the needs of a wide range of children and focus on each child's strengths. Our centers support a team approach; the teacher, director, specialists, and parents work closely together to identify and meet every child’s needs through an individualized plan. For example, we have welcomed experts already working with families’ children into the program in order to provide specialized support through therapy and observation.

For families who are arriving from another state or country, we recommend bringing documentation of the last doctor visit, preferably a printout of the summary of visits and immunization record for the child, even if you are not yet enrolled in a child care program. The state agency that regulates child care, the Community Care Licensing Division, requires immunizations. A child can be “exempt” or excused from immunizations only if they have a valid medical exemption. Otherwise, a child care provider cannot allow a child without vaccinations into the child care program.

We understand that housing decisions may not be decided until closer to your Stanford affiliation start date. You do not have to include a local address to apply for care.

A confirmed due date or adoption date is required to apply. If you are expecting, please enter your due date in the Date of Birth/Due Date field. If you are in the process of adopting, list the anticipated adoption date and the child’s birth date if known.

An Ideal Start Date is considered the date that you are open to starting care if provided with an enrollment invitation. We recommend selecting the earliest date that works for your family. Your application will not be considered for any vacancies prior to your ideal start date.

Please enter “Baby” in the First Name field and your last name in the Last Name field for the child if you are unsure of the name at this time. Inform the WorkLife Office of any updates to the start date, birth date, or child’s name.

Arboretum, Madera Grove, Pine Cone, Stanford West, and Stock Farm Road Children’s Center offer the following schedules:

• 5 Full Days (Monday through Friday)
• 3 Full Days (Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays)
• 2 Full Days (Tuesdays and Thursdays)

The Children’s Center of the Stanford Community offers the following schedules:

• 5 Full Days
• 4 Full Days
• 3 Full Days

No. You will need to submit one application for each center that interests you. We encourage you to submit applications for at least a few centers.

Application fees are due within 14 calendar days after the WorkLife Office has confirmed your eligibility and approved your family profile. If the application fees are not received by the due date, your application will be marked as incomplete and inactive. Please submit a help ticket to the WorkLife Office and we can update the status of your application status to “Pending Payment”. You do not need to submit a new child care application.

Enrollments are not offered exclusively in a time-dated order, nor are they generated from a linear or static list. After a parent applies, children receive enrollment offers in the respective order listed below:

• Tier 1: Siblings of enrolled children receive first priority at all child care centers.
• Tier 2: Benefits-eligible University faculty, student, postdocs and staff
• Tier 3: Benefits-eligible Hospital Staff and Residents
• Tier 4: Visiting Faculty/Scholars (space-available basis only)

Stanford West Apartment residents and Oak Creek Apartment residents receive Tier 1 priority at Stanford West Children’s Center following siblings of enrolled children. Please note that you will be asked to provide proof of residence upon enrollment. If you have a future lease agreement, please reach out to the WorkLife Office to confirm your change in address and a member of our team will be able to update your priority status.

Staff clinician educators and hospital residents receive a higher priority at Stock Farm Road Children’s Center due to its proximity to the adult hospital. Staff Clinician Educators receive priority following professoriate faculty. Hospital residents receive the same priority as postdocs. 

Please note that enrollment at our child care centers is not guaranteed in the timeframe you may need to start care. To ensure that you are planning accordingly, please also review the “Other Considerations” section for off-site child care resources.

For university affiliates with an active SUNet ID, create your family profile through the child care application system, accessible via one SUNet ID. If both affiliated parents have active SUNet IDs, choose one parent who will create the profile and retain the responsibility to log in.

For future Stanford affiliates, hospital residents, and hospital employees, complete only one application form and include both parents’ affiliations in the additional information section.

In both circumstances, the WorkLife Office will determine which parent to list as the primary affiliate, which will be the parent with the higher affiliation priority. There is no impact to your application if both parents have similar positions (i.e., both parents are university staff).

Letters from your department chair do not impact a family’s priority status for Stanford’s child care centers. Applications are open to all who are eligible. Invitations to enroll in on-site child care are guided by multiple factors and enrollment priorities.  

The university prioritizes infant and toddler spaces at the Stanford campus for university students, postdocs, staff, and faculty. Hospital employees and hospital residents are eligible to enroll their infants and toddlers at the Pine Cone Children’s Center at the Redwood City campus. Hospital residents are also eligible to enroll their infants and toddlers at Stock Farm Road Children’s Center at the Stanford campus.

Please submit a help ticket to the WorkLife Office and we will be able to add an application and/or update your information.

Spaces become available when children transition into older age groups at the same center, move on to kindergarten, or when families depart Stanford. Most enrollment offers are made for start dates in January and September because it is typical for our campus child care centers to transition children into older age groups during these months. This is also when children exit to start kindergarten.

The child care centers generally provide in-person tours after your family has received an enrollment offer. They can also provide virtual tours if you are currently located out of state or out of the country.

Factors that impact who is considered as the next-eligible family are the family’s Stanford affiliation, application date, and ideal start date. When a space becomes available, the child care center will account for the age group of the classroom, the schedule (full-time or part-time), and start dates they need to fill. They will enter this information into the child care application system. The system will prioritize the next most eligible families within the Tiers (see Applying for On-Site Care). The families that have applied furthest in the past and have the ideal start date that falls in the range of when the center is seeking to enroll a family, are more likely to get the next offer.

Wait times vary considerably due to these factors. We cannot guarantee an enrollment offer will become available at the time when your family needs care.  Typically, the infant and toddler wait time is significantly longer than wait times for older children. This is due to lower child-teacher ratios and a smaller classroom capacity given their needs. Our preschool (two, three, and four-year olds) programs have more immediate availability and families can receive immediate enrollment offers. 

It is important to remember to cast a wide net when planning for child care, especially for the infant and toddler age group. While on-campus care may be your preferred option, planning a back-up option (off-site care) is also strongly encouraged. Please see the “Other Considerations” section for a list of off-site child care resources.

The child care center’s enrollment team is most knowledgeable about the timing for when spaces become available and the child date-of-birth ranges used for each vacancy. Please contact the enrollment team directly at the centers for which you have applied in order to obtain the most accurate waiting time status update. We recommend reaching out to the centers eight weeks prior to your requested start date. Otherwise, the enrollment team will only contact you when a space becomes available for your child. 

If neither parent is affiliated with Stanford, Stanford Health Care, or Stanford Medicine Children’s Health, your family is no longer eligible for care at Stanford’s child care centers and your application(s) will be inactivated. Application fees are non-refundable. 

If your family is already enrolled in a center, you will be given a 90-day notice to plan for an exit.

Enrollment invitations are sent from our child care application system and come from do-not-reply @ mcttechnology.com. Please add this email address to your list of known senders to ensure it is not sent to your spam folder.

Once you have received an enrollment invitation, you have two (2) calendar days to confirm your interest. At this point, you are not committing to enroll. By confirming your interest you have the opportunity to tour the child care center and meet the center director and teaching team. This is also a great opportunity to ask questions about the program’s philosophy and policies, and how to confirm your enrollment.

If you receive an enrollment offer but are not ready to accept, you can decline the offer and update your ideal start date to a later date by communicating that information to the person listed in the offer letter. Your application will remain active and the center will provide an enrollment offer again at a later date when a space becomes available in your child’s age group. Please note, you may not receive another offer for the time period you are seeking to start care for your child.

During the month of February, the WorkLife Office and all six campus child care programs will focus on filling their preschool vacancies for the summer and fall. Families with preschool-aged children (ages 2-5) who have active child care applications will receive an invitation to tour and confirm their enrollment at one of the six child care centers. Our goal is to support families planning for child care in the upcoming academic year by providing early notifications about our space availability.

Our child care centers are managed by three independent child care operators. If you are seeking to enroll in another on-site child care center, we encourage you to take the following steps:

1. Speak to your current center’s teaching team and center director about your situation. They are your partners when it comes to caring for your child and can share information on what a transition for your child may look like. 
   
   Note: If your child is enrolled in a center where the operator is managing multiple centers (i.e., ICRI or Bright Horizons), they can help you manage a transfer to a center they are operating if approved by the center leadership. Otherwise, this is considered a new enrollment and you will need to continue through steps 2-4 below. 
    
2. Reach out to the WorkLife Office to reactivate/add additional child care applications.
    
3. Wait to receive an invitation to enroll at the center of your preference. 
    
4. If you are seeking to enroll in a center that is managed by a completely different operator, please read the parent handbook of your current center to understand the exit policies, which includes information about the required exit notification required by all campus child care centers. Enrollment with a different child care operator means that you will pay the enrollment deposit and fill out the necessary paperwork to enroll your child in a new program. Your child’s start date at another on-campus child care center will be determined by your family and the center director, and is subject to align with your exit notice from your previous child care center.

Your monthly tuition rate funds the operations of the program in which you are enrolled. Tuition rates increase annually to keep up with rising operational costs including competitive teacher total compensation and classroom materials.

The hospital tuition is set at market rates. The university provides ongoing financial support to our campus child care system which reduces the university tuition levels.

We recommend looking for off-site child care resources in case our centers are unable to provide an enrollment invitation in the time frame you need care. To assist you, we have compiled some additional resources to help you plan for your child care needs:

• Off-site child care resources
• Join our ParentNet mailing list
• Child Care Resource & Referral Website 
• Bing Nursery School 
• Choosing Child Care Guide & Choosing Child Care Workshop

We understand this can be a difficult time. Contact the WorkLife Office so that we can temporarily hold your application. If decide to move forward with seeking enrollment in campus child care in the future, your original application date and fees will be preserved. We can also provide additional resources to help you and your family.