Stanford Business School

Took the CalTrain out to Palo Alto today to visit Stanford University. Palo Alto is about 50 kilometres south of San Francisco, and the town basically exists to support the university. The Stanford University campus is absolutely gorgeous - well laid out and well cared for, lots of lawns and common areas, beautiful gardens, and many of the builidings are architecturally unique. Most of the buildings are funded by donations from wealthy alumni, but I imagine a great deal of the rather high student fees go towards maintaining the image of the place.


The fees for the Stanford MBA program are quite high (just under US$29K this year) - the highest I've seen so far, but this is also the first private university that I've visited. There's nothing particularly special about the curriculum for the program. It's extraordinarily flexible, with no requirement to do majors or concentrations. You can even take up to 16% of units outside of the b-school.


Essentially, I think the main drawcard is the Stanford experience itself, rather than any particular feature of the MBA program. Most students also live on campus (about 95% of the undergrads, and 45% of the grads), so there's a big culture that's built up over time that you become a part of.


Difficult to tell whether I'd want to apply to Stanford. The school's well-regarded, and I'm sure I'd get a top-flight education (if I actually got accepted - they get around 6000 applicants for only 365 positions), but I'd be concerned about living a sheltered life on campus or in a college town. I'd like to be able to experience American city living at the same time. Out of Stanford and Haas, I think Haas is more suited to my profile.