Current Student
Joined: 23 Jul 2007
Posts: 313
Given Kudos: 0
Concentration: Healthcare
Schools:Attending Stanford
Re: Stanford GSB
[#permalink]
18 May 2008, 08:38
Hi guys-
I'm terribly sorry I didn't have a chance to respond to your questions until now. I've been out of town for the past week and had ~30 minutes of internet access.
Ashaker- Kryzak was kind enough to answer for me, I don't have much to add there. Don't feel compelled to visit Stanford if it'll be difficult to get to the West Coast... they don't track visits closely, and I know several people (myself included) who hadn't been to the GSB until admit weekend. It's much more important that you're able to talk about how the Stanford curriculum (see below), entrepreneurial programs, small size, etc. will benefit you. The information sessions are terrific and the website has a wealth of material on classes and programs that should help you with essays.
Highhopes- Kryzak's right, I haven't started school yet so I can't comment too specifically. But in general, I agree with Kryzak. The new flexible/tailored curriculum allows you to choose what you want to focus on and concentrate your efforts in that area. I'll use myself as an example. I'm pretty sure I want to do something related to medical devices/biotech (either start-up or VC). So my curriculum would prominently feature courses from Biodesign Innovation, Bio-X, and other programs allowing close collaboration with students and faculty from the medical and life sciences schools. I'm pretty sure I don't want to go into finance... so I'd take the "basic" finance and accounting courses. Conversely, I know some folks from PE who want to get back into that area. They'll take a bunch of heavy-duty advanced finance courses and stay as far away from Biodesign Innovation and Bio-X as possible. That's the beauty of the program. We all get a general grounding in basic underlying principles but get a jump start on what we "really" want to do. Assuming you know what you want to do, this sort of education should (hopefully) look pretty attractive to employers.
As kry mentioned, the new curriculum has placed a lot of emphasis on critical thinking, with the Critical Analytic Thinking (CAT) seminar and the capstone seminar at the conclusion of second year. Along these lines, each student is assigned a writing coach to improve his writing skills. Pretty cool, I think.
Finally (I hinted at this above), the collaboration between the various graduate schools at Stanford is incredible. Remember, we're talking a top-3 law school, top-3 engineering/CS school, top-3 education school, top-10 med school, and top-5 in pretty much everything else. So if you want to go into biotech, etc., you can collaborate with the medical and life sciences schools. If you want to go into entrepreneurship, there are some terrific courses covering the patent process in partnership with the law school. If you want to get into education administration, take education courses or go ahead and get the MBA/M.Ed. And I won't even get started on the tech entrepreneurship collaborations with the engineering and CS schools.
I hope I answered your question... let me know if anything's unclear.