A business school with one of the lowest acceptance rates, getting into the Stanford full time MBA program is very difficult. Stanford MBA is a 21 months program divided into six academic quarters where students from more than 66 countries come together to obtain the degree. The program consists of a relatively small batch size of 400-420 students. Out of which roughly 40% are international students, 40% women, & 20% ethnic minorities.
Ranked #1 by QS World University Rankings in top world-wide MBA colleges, Stanford full time MBA program is one of the most prestigious & highly competitive management programs in the world. GSB faculty includes several Nobel Prize laureates and an alumni network of the world’s most influential people like Phil Knight, Steven Smith, Mary Barra, Vinod Khosla, Mukesh Ambani, Stephens Adams and many more.
A master’s degree from Stanford is a transformational journey that helps you develop your vision, skills, & prowess and makes you a better leader who is ready for handling real-life cases with utmost efficiency. In this article, we shall let you know what it takes to get into the Stanford full time MBA program.
Stanford’s curriculum is one of the most diverse & flexible curricula which enables the students to work on their existing skills as well as newer skills that they’ve not developed yet. The first year’s curriculum helps students learn General management principles & theories and assist them in gaining global exposure. The core curriculum of first-year put the students in the shoes of management leaders to help them gain knowledge of the larger context of management.
Along with the core curriculum, there’s a Global Experience Course at Stanford providing many exciting opportunities for students to expand their experience by engaging in projects at the global level. It helps the students broaden their outlook and prepared for real-life global challenges ahead.
Unlike the first-year curriculum that is full of core courses, the second year of Stanford full time MBA program consists of mostly electives. There are several subjects to choose from. These courses help you broaden your insight & gain maximum exposure on a particular subject.
Elective topics ranging from Accounting, Entrepreneurship, Finance, Organizational behavior to Marketing, Economics, Human resource, information technology & many more are available for students to select.
Along with this, you may take other Stanford courses outside your MBA program like Arts, Design, Foreign Language, Politics, etc. to build profound knowledge in your particular area of interest.
Eligibility & Entry Requirements
For the Stanford full time MBA program, you’ve to be eligible for the following:
- Bachelors in any discipline:
At Stanford, there’s no cutoff for your class 12th marks or graduate GPA. The applicant must only hold a bachelor’s degree equivalent to the US’s bachelor’s degree. According to the batch profile of 2021, 50% of students had an undergraduate major in Business, followed by Engineering (33%) & Humanities (17%).
- Professional experience:
Unlike Harvard, Stanford welcomes applications from fresh graduates. There’s no minimum work experience required to enter Stanford full time MBA program. According to Stanford GSB’s official account, there’s no minimum GPA or work experience required for admission to the Stanford full time MBA program.
However, the GPA & work experience of the average class profile of the batch 2021 is 3.7 & 4.7 years, respectively. It gives us a clear idea that your work experience & strong academics will give you a good advantage over others. The majority of the candidates come with a Consulting industry background followed by Investment Management and Technology.
- Exams:
A candidate is required to take English Proficiency Tests like IELTS, TOEFL, or PTE to apply at Stanford full time MBA Program. Only the students who have studied from a college or university where the language of instruction is entirely English, are exempt from these examinations. Below are the minimum score requirements for English Proficiency Tests:
TOEFL- 100
IELTS- 7.0
PTE- 68
Along with the English Proficiency Tests, a valid GRE or GMAT score is required for admissions. Although there’s no minimum GMAT or GRE score requirement at Stanford, a good score play a helpful role in the evaluation process. According to the Stanford GSB’s class profile of 2021, the average GMAT score stood at 734 while the average GRE score was 165 each in Verbal & Quantitative, making it the highest of any business school in the US.
The total fee including everything (tuitions, living expenses, books & supplies, materials & program fees, transportation, medical insurance, and health fee) for a single student rounds up to $118,644 a year (that’s around 89 lakhs INR). The two-year ‘cost of attendance’ can be ascertained by multiplying the above number by 2. Along with this, a student has to bear the additional expenses related to the global experience requirement course, which may range from $3,000 to $4,500.
There are several scholarships & fellowships a student can avail, regardless of citizenship, after getting selected into Stanford full-time MBA program.
Some of them are:
-Stanford GSB Need-based fellowship
Approximately half of Stanford MBA students benefit from this fellowship. The average Stanford’s Need-based fellowship is $40,000 a year. ($80,000 in total awards.)
-Stanford Full-tuition fellowship:
An additional full-tuition fellowship targeted to students with specific backgrounds. Along with these, there are many general international scholarships that a student can avail including, UNCF scholarships and grant, Margaret McNamara Memorial fund grants, International Education Financial Aid, Fulbright scholarship for Non-US students, etc.
Some Indian Specific scholarships include:
Inlaks Shivdasani Foundation
JN Tata Endowment
KC Mahindra Education Trust
Stanford MBA graduates, undoubtedly, get the best pay among all the other top business schools. Last year in 2019, the median package received by a Stanford MBA graduate was an impressive $187,760 (from $180,950 in 2018.) That’s a whopping 1.4 cr. INR. The median base salary received was $150,000 along with the median sign-on bonus of $25,000 & median performance bonus of $33,000.
The technology industry was one of the biggest recruiting industries with 32% of students getting placed in it. It was closely followed by the Finance industry that placed a total of 27% of students into various profiles such as Private Equity, Investment Banker, Venture Capitalist, and others.
Here are the top three recruiting industries of Stanford MBA in 2018-19:
-Technology (32%)
-Finance (27%)
-Consulting (13%)
How to apply to Stanford full time MBA program
Before applying for the Stanford full time MBA program, remember that Stanford’s acceptance rate is very low. Out of 7797 applications last year, only 417 students made it to the institution. Stanford is very specific to its requirements with the application. So, great care is of utmost importance.
Following are the things you have to prepare:
- Online Application
Including
-Transcripts
-GMAT/GRE score
-TOEFL/IELTS/PTE score
-Resume
-Personal Information, Activities & Awards
-Optional Short Answer Questions
-Essays (2)
-Letter of Reference (2)
-Application fee (of $275)
- Interview
After your application gets reviewed by the admissions panel, you may be invited to the interview.
The interview takes place in 3 schedule
Round 1 (mid-October to late-November)
Round 2 (early-February to mid-March)
Round 3 (mid-April to early-May)
The Stanford admissions committee believes that one’s past action predicts future behavior. In the interview, they attempt to gain a deeper understanding of what all you have done and how you have done it. So before appearing for the interview, a self-reflection of yourself will help you a lot to ace the interview.
Stanford Essay Tips
Stanford requests the applicants to write two personal essays that help them learn & understand who you are. The admission committee encourages the applicants to be genuine & authentic with their essays.
Essay 1:
What matters most to you, and why?
Essay 2:
Why Stanford?
There’s a combined word limit of 1050 words for both these essays. (Stanford GSB recommends up to 650 words for essay 1 & 400 words for essay 2). Your essays play a considerable role in your application evaluation process. So, a good amount of time must be devoted to self-reflection and coming up with the best & genuine response.
Stanford Interviews Details
If your application is liked & approved by the admissions panel, you get an interview invite by email. Stanford pairs you up with an interviewer, and then you both have to work together to schedule the interview. (within 10-days). The duration of the interview ranges from 45-60 minutes & conducted in English. Once the interview is over, your interviewer submits a written assessment to the MBA admissions office that gets added to your application file. The MBA admissions office then considers your entire application, and the evaluation is done accordingly.
Getting into Stanford full time MBA program is one of the most difficult paths. With its lowest acceptance rate of less than 7% of any business school, Stanford is a tough nut to crack. But if you have within you what all it takes to land a place at Stanford Graduate school of Business, you will find a way for sure.
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