Academics
Stanford’s Graduate School of Business offers a selective, top-ranked MBA program in close proximity to the hub of technology and venture capital sectors. So it’s no surprise that many professors are “actively involved in the Silicon Valley business community…[and] bring…practical experience into the classroom.” And perhaps that’s why you hear Stanford’s students throwing out terms like “cutting edge” and “innovation hub” to describe its academics. Yet it’s Stanford’s “unusual” culture that ends up selling Stanford’s competitive and “mission-oriented” cohort on the program. Administration and faculty together promote an “effective” and “unparalleled culture of vulnerability and growth,” amid an academic experience “characterized by personal discovery…and other soft-skill development.” Like other brand-name MBA programs in the country, Stanford has a policy of grade non-disclosure to recruiters, which some students say encourages them “to truly experiment” during their tenure. This is also facilitated by GSBs flexible curriculum, which lets first-year students take any number of electives, in contrast with other business-school models that emphasize a more rigid foundation. Yet some students have commented on the “foundation[al] curriculum” being “satisfactory but…not great,” and “less rigorous quantitatively or in terms of student preparation for the required curriculum as some peer schools.” That being said, the “elective classes are unbelievably well-taught and incredibly interesting.”
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