Stanford Business School

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Stanford Graduate School of Business

The Stanford Graduate School of Business (also known as Stanford Business School or Stanford GSB) is one of the professional schools of Stanford University, in Stanford, California. It is one of the leading business schools in the United States.

The Stanford Graduate School of Business offers a general management MBA degree and thus does not offer degrees in specialized areas such as finance or marketing, although it does offer certificate programs in public management and global management. The school also offers the Sloan Master's Program, a full-time ten-month MS in Management for accomplished mid-career executives and entrepreneurs, and a Ph.D. program. The school also offers a number of dual degrees jointly with other schools at Stanford University including Education, Engineering, Law and Medicine.

Background

The school was founded in 1925. There are three Nobel Prize winners on the faculty, two recipients of the John Bates Clark Award, 15 members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and three members of the National Academy of Sciences. Its faculty members maintain several joint appointments with affiliated research centers, most notably with the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace (also located on the Stanford campus). The GSB maintains very close links with the venture capital, finance and technology firms of nearby Silicon Valley.

The school operates with an annual budget of $133 million, and is the second wealthiest business school in the nation with an endowment of $1,005.1 million (as of August 31, 2007), roughly tied with Harvard Business School in per capita endowment. There are 25,083 living alumni, including 17,871 alumni of the MBA program. Stanford Business School is renowned to have produced a remarkable number of successful business leaders and entrepreneurs, many among the world's wealthiest, from its relatively small alumni base.

In August 2006, the School announced what is believed to be the largest gift ever to a business school - $105 million from Stanford alumnus Phil Knight, MBA '62, Founder and Chairman of Nike, Inc. The gift will go largely toward construction of a $275 million campus, to be called the Knight Management Center, for the Business School. When construction is completed, the Stanford Business School will comprise the Knight Management Center and the Schwab Residential Center (named after alumnus Charles R. Schwab, Founder, Chairman, and CEO of the Charles Schwab Corporation).

Rankings

Stanford's MBA program was ranked #1 in the 2008 U.S. News and World Report ranking, #3 in Financial Times and #6 in Business Week business school rankings in 2006. Forbes ranked Stanford Business School #2 in its fifth biennial ranking of business schools in 2007, up from #6 in 2005. The Economist magazine ranked Stanford #2 in its 2007 business school ranking. In its biennial report "Beyond Grey Pinstripes", the World Resources Institute and the Aspen Institute identified the Stanford Graduate School of Business as the leader among business schools that are incorporating academic content involving ethics, corporate social responsibility, and environmental sustainability into their curricula and activities. The ranking was based on an extensive survey in which schools were asked to describe cases, research, and course content that address these issues.

Student profile

The Stanford GSB is the most selective business school in the U.S. It has maintained the highest ratio of "applicants to available seats" of any business school in the U.S. for the last decade. It has also had the lowest acceptance rates (typically <10%) of any major business school in the world. For the class which entered in 2007, approximately 6% of applicants were offered admission.

The school has approximately 360 students per year in its full-time two-year MBA program. It is relatively diverse compared to its peer institutions. The most recent entering class was approximately 40% female, 25% ethnic minorities and 39% international. Among these are Fulbright scholars and Coro, Gardner, Rhodes, Rotary, and Truman fellows. Approximately 10% of the class entered the MBA program with other graduate or professional degrees; including medical doctors, lawyers, and Ph.Ds.

The students at the school have traditionally maintained a policy of grade non-disclosure whereby they do not release grades. Some annual academic distinctions do exist. Students graduating in the top ten percent of the class are designated "Arjay Miller Scholars". The top student receives the Henry Ford II award. The top 5 students during the first academic year are designated Siebel Scholars.

New curriculum

In June 2006, the School announced a dramatic change to its curriculum model. The new model, dubbed "The Personalized MBA Education", has four focus points. First, it aims to offer each student a highly customized experience by offering broader menus of course topics and providing personal course-planning mentoring from Stanford Business School faculty advisors. Second, the new program attempts to deepen the school’s intellectual experience through several smaller, high-impact seminars focused on critical analytical thinking. Third, the new program will increase global business education through both new course options and requiring international experience from all students. Finally, the new program expands the schools focus on leadership and communication through new courses that examine students’ personal strengths in the topic. Overall, the school sees the flexible program as an important point of differentiation that leverages the school’s smaller relative size versus most other top MBA programs.

Organizational relationships

Stanford GSB has a number of relationships with other leading business schools. It offers a number of Executive Education programs jointly with Harvard Business School. It also offers one of the three Sloan Fellows programs, coordinating with the others at the MIT Sloan School of Management and the London Business School. Recently, the school entered into exchange programs with Tsinghua University and Indian Institute of Management Bangalore.

Alumni Association

The Stanford Business School Alumni Association provides a wide range of opportunities, services and resources for their alumni, including local regional/chapter activities, special alumni events, continuing education programs, alumni career services, international conferences, reunion programs, Alumni/Student programs and password protected online services. Alumni Statistics