I just sent the following to one of the readers of this blog in response to some questions he had about the GSB. I hope you guys find it helpful if you’re planning on applying this year:
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1. Why do you choose Stanford as you are accepted in other schools as well?
- My primary reasons for choosing the GSB were:
a. its strength as a General management program
b. its strength in entrepreneurship, leadership development, and reputation for technology (this reputation is associated with “Stanford University” more than the GSB)
c. its diverse and collaborative culture where people are more focused on helping each other than climbing over each other to reach the top
2. In a single short sentence, what do you remember most from your business school experience? (i.e. boot camp, team work, or case studies)
- The most memorable thing about my B-school experience so far has been the rigor of the first-year Core curriculum. I didn’t have any business background before arriving at Stanford, so I had to learn everything from scratch and it damn near killed me.
3. What do you like most from your school?
- There are a million things I could say to answer this question, but the biggest one for me is my fellow classmates. The GSB Admissions office puts a lot of time into putting together a class of kids each year who are incredibly diverse, intelligent, and accomplished and I wonder how I was able to slip through the cracks every day. I’ve got classmates who are from every part of the world, are every color in the spectrum, and bring somethihng unique to the school. The best part is that the Admissions team focuses on picking nice people to make up each class, so there isn’t any of the cutthroat, “it’s all about me” behaviors that I’ve heard stories about at other schools. I’d be lying if I said that I was friends with every person in my class or had even had a conversation with all of them, but I have built great relationships with a lot of my classmates. I don’t look at them as my “network”…they’re like “family” to me, which is important since my real family is 3000 miles away. The folks at the GSB are simply amazing and I am getting as much of an education from being around them as I am from taking GSB classes.
4. What don’t you like most from your school?
- Wow, this is a tough question to answer, but, if I had to choose something, it’d be the on-campus recruiting process. Our Career Management Center does a fantastic job of coordinating company visits and making sure everything runs smoothly, but the GSB has a rule that companies can’t make presentation for first-year MBAs until the start of the Winter quarter. The rationale behind this is that the Fall quarter is so tough with all of the quantitative Core classes that the CMC doesn’t want the MBA1′s to be distracted with all of the company visits. The consequence of that policy is that MBA1′s are forced to fit company presentations into the start of the Winter quarter, which is already difficult because students are coming off of Winter break. From what I’ve heard, companies can make presentations to first-years as early as October and November, which I think provides a lot more flexibility to those students. Also, while doing interviews, people were sometimes scheduled at times that conflicted with their class schedules, forcing some students to have to miss class. The professors were not happy with that at all and many issued unescused absences for those who had to miss class, but I’d argue that the students had no control over the situation and shouldn’t have been penalized.
5. If you were not accepted by Stanford but accepted by all other schools, which other school would you have attended and why?
- If Stanford had rejected me, it would have been tough for me to pick another school because I had my heart set on being a GSB student. Out of the other schools that accepted me, I probably would have gone to UVA’s Darden School because it has a strong general management program, rigorous first year Core curriculum, is a known commodity (I spent some time using the Darden facilities while getting my first Master’s degree at UVA), and would have put me within an hour of my family for the first time since leaving for college.
6. In your opinion, which business schools is the most similar to Stanford?
- I don’t think there are any business schools similar to Stanford. That’s the best thing about the GSB…I believe that we have a unique academic experience and our culture is second to none in my opinion. Please take what I say with a grain of salt though because I’m a GSB student and it is likely that a student from any other school will have similar things to say about their own school.
————–
1. Why do you choose Stanford as you are accepted in other schools as well?
- My primary reasons for choosing the GSB were:
a. its strength as a General management program
b. its strength in entrepreneurship, leadership development, and reputation for technology (this reputation is associated with “Stanford University” more than the GSB)
c. its diverse and collaborative culture where people are more focused on helping each other than climbing over each other to reach the top
2. In a single short sentence, what do you remember most from your business school experience? (i.e. boot camp, team work, or case studies)
- The most memorable thing about my B-school experience so far has been the rigor of the first-year Core curriculum. I didn’t have any business background before arriving at Stanford, so I had to learn everything from scratch and it damn near killed me.
3. What do you like most from your school?
- There are a million things I could say to answer this question, but the biggest one for me is my fellow classmates. The GSB Admissions office puts a lot of time into putting together a class of kids each year who are incredibly diverse, intelligent, and accomplished and I wonder how I was able to slip through the cracks every day. I’ve got classmates who are from every part of the world, are every color in the spectrum, and bring somethihng unique to the school. The best part is that the Admissions team focuses on picking nice people to make up each class, so there isn’t any of the cutthroat, “it’s all about me” behaviors that I’ve heard stories about at other schools. I’d be lying if I said that I was friends with every person in my class or had even had a conversation with all of them, but I have built great relationships with a lot of my classmates. I don’t look at them as my “network”…they’re like “family” to me, which is important since my real family is 3000 miles away. The folks at the GSB are simply amazing and I am getting as much of an education from being around them as I am from taking GSB classes.
4. What don’t you like most from your school?
- Wow, this is a tough question to answer, but, if I had to choose something, it’d be the on-campus recruiting process. Our Career Management Center does a fantastic job of coordinating company visits and making sure everything runs smoothly, but the GSB has a rule that companies can’t make presentation for first-year MBAs until the start of the Winter quarter. The rationale behind this is that the Fall quarter is so tough with all of the quantitative Core classes that the CMC doesn’t want the MBA1′s to be distracted with all of the company visits. The consequence of that policy is that MBA1′s are forced to fit company presentations into the start of the Winter quarter, which is already difficult because students are coming off of Winter break. From what I’ve heard, companies can make presentations to first-years as early as October and November, which I think provides a lot more flexibility to those students. Also, while doing interviews, people were sometimes scheduled at times that conflicted with their class schedules, forcing some students to have to miss class. The professors were not happy with that at all and many issued unescused absences for those who had to miss class, but I’d argue that the students had no control over the situation and shouldn’t have been penalized.
5. If you were not accepted by Stanford but accepted by all other schools, which other school would you have attended and why?
- If Stanford had rejected me, it would have been tough for me to pick another school because I had my heart set on being a GSB student. Out of the other schools that accepted me, I probably would have gone to UVA’s Darden School because it has a strong general management program, rigorous first year Core curriculum, is a known commodity (I spent some time using the Darden facilities while getting my first Master’s degree at UVA), and would have put me within an hour of my family for the first time since leaving for college.
6. In your opinion, which business schools is the most similar to Stanford?
- I don’t think there are any business schools similar to Stanford. That’s the best thing about the GSB…I believe that we have a unique academic experience and our culture is second to none in my opinion. Please take what I say with a grain of salt though because I’m a GSB student and it is likely that a student from any other school will have similar things to say about their own school.
nice!
Excellent- a refreshingly reassuring post. I’m looking forward to starting in less than 2 weeks now!