<p>
[quote]
Sorry, sports drive fame of universities only in the US. In the rest of the world, Harvard beats Stanford any day and twice on Fridays.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I don't think that's any of the reason why anyone here is saying they would prefer a Stanford MBA to a Harvard MBA.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Yes, because you implied the reason to go to Harvard over Stanford because the person's parent's friends (the common man on the street) are more likely to have heard of it, which is a ridiculous and totally superficial reason to pick a school.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>No, I did not imply that. But, frankly, either way your answer is nonsense. I never said it was the reason to chose one school over the other. The hypothetical example I gave, which carries no implications with it (...it's a hypothetical example), simply illustrates the point that going to Harvard is likely to have more of an impact in one's life (esp. if one ventures outside business...). If you can't understand this, well, I am sorry.</p>
<p>And, seriously, in any case... say someone takes HBS over Stanford GSB... you are saying you would blame them for liking the Harvard brand and knowing more people will be aware of it? As if there's anything to blame? Seriously, dude, who do you think you are? </p>
<p>
[quote]
I would like to think (maybe erroneously) that someone who is good enough to choose between the two schools is not so mindless in their approach to the decision and goes by what would be better for what they're looking for and hope to get out of the experience rather than trying to impress people who know nothing about either program.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>This is, again frankly, more nonsense. When a person who "is good enough" has to choose, they have already proven that they are not "mindless". They couldn't have gotten there otherwise. But again, the point remains: besides the nice lifestyle perks Stanford GSB offers, the GSB has no edge over HBS (not even in VC!)</p>
<p>But perhaps the ironic thing is that you did not have such a choice. Did you? So perhaps you never got to the point where you could prove you were "mindless"?</p>
<p>
[quote]
Like the_prestige and hmom, I have always considered the Stanford MBA to be more impressive to attain and also it seems like a much more enjoyable, collegial experience. Harvard seems much more cutthroat and confrontational while Stanford seems much more laid back.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>The case method worked just fine for me. Cambridge worked just fine for me. I would not have traded any of it for wednesdays off and nicer weather... to each her own, I suppose...</p>
<p>I do wonder, however, how you guys explain the yield rate, which clearly favors HBS...</p>
<p>I would also likely choose Stanford over Harvard. But I feel that much of the entrepreneurial activity occurs in the engineering grad programs. MS/PhD students are just as, or more active, in business plan competitions. For the dedicated tech entrepreneur, I don't know if it would be more beneficial to attend the GSB or get an MS with several entrepreneurship courses. Obviously, this doesn't apply for those going into other fields.</p>
<p>
[quote]
But again, the point remains: besides the nice lifestyle perks Stanford GSB offers, the GSB has no edge over HBS (not even in VC!)
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Totally wrong. No other school on the planet is more plugged into the VC community than Stanford. Period. In the words of that UConn basketball coach, "get some facts and come back and see me." Seriously just do a bit of homework on the matter and you'll want to eat those words faster than you can say "crow".</p>
<p><a href="sakky:">quote</a>
Actually, I believe the cross-yield data strongly favors Harvard, I believe by a 2:1 basis. That is also evidenced by the raw yield ratings: about 90% of HBS admits choose to go, whereas only 78% of the Stanford GSB admits will go.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>We've been through this discussion before, but let me say it anyway.</p>
<p>Though suggestive, the yield numbers don't have much to say about either the direction or the magnitude of the cross-yield discrepancies. </p>
<p>As I recall, in the undergrad Revealed Preferences data (or rather their model, we don't know the data), the likely explanation for Caltech's #2 rank
was winning cross-admit battles against everyone but MIT, which ranked lower overall because it typically lost to generalist schools. Similarly,
you could have Harvard generally being more desirable than Stanford, but not to those applying or accepted to both schools.</p>
<p>I'm a sophomore in college. I admittedly don't know a whole lot. I would never want to go to school in California, good weather or otherwise.</p>
<p>
[quote]
And let's be serious, how do you think most parents would prefer to introduce their kid to their friends? My 'kid who goes to Harvard' or 'my kid who goes to Stanford'?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>
[quote]
No, I did not imply that.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>When this is your first response as to why someone should choose Harvard over Stanford, it certainly seems like an implication to me.</p>
<p>
[quote]
And, seriously, in any case... say someone takes HBS over Stanford GSB... you are saying you would blame them for liking the Harvard brand and knowing more people will be aware of it? As if there's anything to blame? Seriously, dude, who do you think you are?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I'm not blaming anyone for choosing Harvard; for liking the case method more or the funnel into corporate America or for its respect in the business world. However, being able to better impress your parents' friends seems stupid and shallow to me and a worthless and unbecoming point to bring up in an intelligent discussion of the relevant merits of the two schools. </p>
<p>
[quote]
This is, again frankly, more nonsense. When a person who "is good enough" has to choose, they have already proven that they are not "mindless".
[/quote]
</p>
<p>This is not true at all. Just because someone is smart enough to get admitted does not in any way determine what drives them.</p>
<p>I've always known more who preferred Stanford MBA over Harvard MBA and seen many more accepted at Harvard and rejected at Stanford than the other way around; so resultingly never understood why Harvard would have a higher yield.</p>
<p>
[quote]
In the words of that UConn basketball coach, "get some facts and come back and see me." Seriously just do a bit of homework on the matter and you'll want to eat those words faster than you can say "crow".
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Uh, TP, I think I have done my homework. I work in VC...</p>
<p>
[quote]
When this is your first response as to why someone should choose Harvard over Stanford, it certainly seems like an implication to me.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>buddy, I wrote it and I am telling you that there is no such implication. It's not that hard to understand if you are being sensible about. Now if you want to carry on with your one small, poor, argument (namely, 'the implication is stupid'...when such implication does not even exist!!), who else do you want to ask for their opinion? Mother Theresa? </p>
<p>I already explained (twice, I think) that that was not a literal response. Sure if your parents are 'in the know' in the business world (or are alum of the GSB) they might of course favor said school. That said, with your parents being (presumably and hopefully) the people who care about you the most, I think, perhaps wrongly, that asking most parents on a blank slate would give you an honest idea of what you can expect out there. But, then again, that was neither a real reason nor a literal example--it was merely a hypothetical to drive a point across. If you can't get through this, or at least acknowledge it, I can't do anything about it. (I presume is the latter in your case).</p>
<p>The case of Yale law being more selective than Harvard Law is certainly true. But there are certainly many criteria that prove this to be the case, unlike the Stanford GSB over HBS question. You see, you can measure Yale Law in terms of 1) how many people it sends into academia (something ridiculous like 80% of all law profs); 2) how many of their students get Supreme Court clerkships; 3) how many people get Big Law jobs and high level government jobs; 4) etc, etc, etc...</p>
<p>So, you see, there's actually data for such assertion (namely, that Yale Law is more selective that Harvard Law); it's not just a matter of who takes the less people (that would be mindless!)... and even then Yale Law is significantly smaller than Harvard Law. So, without all the other criteria that signify excellence and give distinction to Yale, the same 'size' argument re HBS/GSB would likely apply to them, too.</p>
<p>Look, you are going to feel the way you feel about HBS v. the GSB. In all your wisdom, you are set in your ways. That's fine. But the GSB, again, does not have any edge over HBS. Period. Simply acknowledge that. Be honest with yourself. When one is choosing between the two, it becomes a matter or personal preference. Nothing more, nothing less. Calling people "mindless" at the point where they are --of all things!-- eligible to choose between HBS v. GSB is just terribly silly.</p>
<p>
[quote]
As I recall, in the undergrad Revealed Preferences data (or rather their model, we don't know the data), the likely explanation for Caltech's #2 rank
was winning cross-admit battles against everyone but MIT, which ranked lower overall because it typically lost to generalist schools. Similarly,
you could have Harvard generally being more desirable than Stanford, but not to those applying or accepted to both schools.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Uh, no, actually, the RP paper attempted to model revealed preferences of who would choose one given that they did have the choice between two schools. On the other hand, cross-admit data regards actual made by people who actually had the choice to make.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Anyone who matters in terms of an MBA's future knows Stanford is more selective.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>
[quote]
However, if you are talking about people in the know who will be judging your candidacy for employment and are trying to advance your career, then you should be more sophisticated in your approach.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I believe these are ultimately empirical questions. If it is really true that Stanford is more valued than Harvard when it comes to employers, then one would think that that would be borne out in the data through differences in pay and in job outcomes. No such difference can be found. Both Stanford and Harvard MBA grads garner a $120k median starting salary and signing bonus. Nor does either school seem to have a strong edge in terms of placing students into the highly compensated hedge fund/PE/LBO/VC industry. Stanford seems to have the edge in hedge funds, Harvard in PE/LBO and it's basically a wash in VC. </p>
<p>Career</a> Hiring Data - MBA Recruiting - Harvard Business School</p>
<p>Employment</a> Report for the MBA Class of 2008 (Stanford MBA Admission Blog)</p>
<p>So that begs the question of, if employers really do know that Stanford MBA's are better than Harvard MBA's, then why aren't they paying them better? Or maybe the Stanford MBA's are less skilled when it comes to salary negotiation?</p>
<p>Wildflower, are you based in the east coast?</p>
<p>
[quote]
The case of Yale law being more selective than Harvard Law is certainly true. But there are certainly many criteria that prove this to be the case, unlike the Stanford GSB over HBS question.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Isn't the fact that the avg GMAT at Stanford is ~ 25 points higher than Harvard and the Stanford acceptance rate being at least a few percent lower than Harvard also criteria to show that Stanford is more selective? </p>
<p>Look, I think both schools are regarded about equally as salary stats and % going into PE have shown. I've just seen more choose Stanford when given the choice, which apparently may not be consistent with the yield rates and to me Stanford seems like a much more cooperative, enjoyable atmosphere.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Isn't the fact that the avg GMAT at Stanford is ~ 25 points higher than Harvard and the Stanford acceptance rate being at least a few percent lower than Harvard also criteria to show that Stanford is more selective?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Yet the fact that Harvard's average GPA is higher would indicate that it is the more selective. </p>
<p>But I think that's all missing the point anyway. You don't choose a school just because it's selective, but rather because you think it is the one that will help you attain your desired career the most. I think there are valid reasons to choose Harvard over Stanford, and vice versa, depending on what you want to do. </p>
<p>For example, one reason that I know people have chosen Harvard over Stanford or any other school is that power that the brand name has with people who are not familiar with rankings. Let's face it. Everybody has heard of Harvard, whereas I still periodically encounter people who have never heard of Stanford. Granted, these people are usually not business-savvy, but therein lies the business opportunity: starting your own company that caters to people who are not business savvy. For example, I know quite a few HBS students from developing nations who, after a stint in the US to pay back their loans, all aim to return to their home countries to start companies and leverage the Harvard brand name to generate business. It would have made little sense for them to have chosen Stanford even though it may be more selective, as their fellow compatriots in their home countries don't know that. {Heck, many people in those countries don't even know how to read.}</p>
<p>^I've always viewed GMAT as more objective than GPA (and Stanford probably has more science majors who usually have lower GPAs) but otherwise definitely appreciate the rest of your point.</p>
<p>sakky, while i don't disagree with much of what you are saying, let's ask a simple question,</p>
<p>if you HAD to pick one university that would either match or overtake Harvard's pole position as "the" university in terms of desirability / reputation / prestige (et. al.) in, say, 25 years time, which university would you choose? (think about where Stanford stood in people's mind 25 years ago vs. where Harvard stood -- I'd argue that while Harvard hasn't budged -- granted it was still no. 1 back then -- Stanford has really begun closing that gap, i.e. is it a stretch to think that 25 years from now they won't be standing toe to toe with Harvard? Many people already think that's a legitimate position currently).</p>
<p>people think of Harvard as the be all and end all, and I don't necessarily disagree with that thinking (at least on a global level) because this is the current reality. But there was also a time when Oxford could claim that untouchable status as well. </p>
<p>There are two trends which are working as strong "tailwinds" in favor of Stanford:</p>
<p>1) The rising importance of Asia on a global level (politically, economically, culturally -- and Stanford is ideally positioned (proximity-wise) as well as already enjoying a strong level of brand awareness there benefit)</p>
<p>2) Technology. Pretty self-explanatory.</p>
<p>Put simply, if Stanford were a stock and I could only buy one, that's where I would put my money going forward.</p>
<p>I have 3 quick points:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>One of my best friends just got into both HBS and Stanford GSB MBA programs. His background is in supply chain/operations, working for a large pharma/biotech company. I'll let you all know what turns his decision.</p></li>
<li><p>Long-term value of degrees - Harvard does get some separation here. I'm sure most of you saw the BusinessWeek study:
MBA</a> Pay Through the Years</p></li>
<li><p>I can't quite agree with this...
[quote]
Totally wrong. No other school on the planet is more plugged into the VC community than Stanford. Period. In the words of that UConn basketball coach....
[/quote]
This seems a little extreme to me. Stanford is more physically proximate, and more tech startups are started within 30 miles of Stanford than within 30 miles of Harvard. But both send 15% of their graduates to VC funds, and Harvard's class size is 2.5 times larger, implying a greater quantity of HBS grads go into VC. As someone who has recently been meeting with a number of VC associates and principals trying to raise capital, even many of the firms out on Sand Hill Drive are largely populated by HBS grads. I've only met one who went to Stanford. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>Perhaps Stanford grads are pushed more to Seed capital funds, or Mezzanine/LBO funds, but I doubt there's a bias there strong enough to confound my own data.</p>
<p>So I just can't agree that Stanford is a better place to go to get "plugged into the VC community".</p>
<p><a href="sakky:">quote</a>
[quote]
As I recall, in the undergrad Revealed Preferences data (or rather their model, we don't know the data), the likely explanation for Caltech's #2 rank
was winning cross-admit battles against everyone but MIT, which ranked lower overall because it typically lost to generalist schools.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Uh, no, actually, the RP paper attempted to model revealed preferences of who would choose one given that they did have the choice between two schools.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>You're a bit confused about RP. Data means the information the RP study had on acceptance and matriculation decisions of several thousand applicants (with a much smaller subset of the data directly involving Caltech or MIT). We don't know their data but can infer that there was a certain pattern in that data explaining the mismatch between their prediction (Caltech beating MIT by a wide margin in hypothetical cross-admit yield) and the known data (MIT beats Caltech 2-to-1 on actual cross-admits who choose one or the other). The short explanation of that pattern is that for people admitted to exactly one of Caltech or MIT, plus some other schools, Caltech is more likely to yield the matriculant, while the opposite is true for applicants accepted to both schools.</p>
<p>As that example indicates, if something similar is true for HBS versus Stanford, it would not be surprising to see HBS have higher yield while losing cross-admit battles to Stanford (even if winning them against most other schools). The yield numbers are not evidence of anything about the cross-yield, and the same is true for the HLS vs Yale Law School comparison, also discussed earlier.</p>
<p>
[quote]
You're a bit confused about RP. Data means the information the RP study had on acceptance and matriculation decisions of several thousand applicants (with a much smaller subset of the data directly involving Caltech or MIT). We don't know their data but can infer that there was a certain pattern in that data explaining the mismatch between their prediction (Caltech beating MIT by a wide margin in hypothetical cross-admit yield) and the known data (MIT beats Caltech 2-to-1 on actual cross-admits who choose one or the other). The short explanation of that pattern is that for people admitted to exactly one of Caltech or MIT, plus some other schools, Caltech is more likely to yield the matriculant, while the opposite is true for applicants accepted to both schools.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>No, I'm afraid that you're the one who is confused about the RP study, and this actually gets to one of my major objections to it, which has also been acknowledged by the authors - that the model upwardly biases the 'revealed preferences' of certain specialty schools like Caltech. The authors attempt to deal with this issue in Section 7, although not in a highly satisfactory manner, perhaps due to data limitations. As the authors freely acknowledge, only those students who are strongly biased towards studying science & engineering - which happen to be Caltech's strong suits - would even bother to apply to Caltech in the first place, and that strongly biases the model's predictions. Table 7 shows the results of breaking down the preferences into various intended majors, but leaves out the social sciences as a potential major, and - even worse - makes no mention of how many students are included in the various intended major categories and hence provides no method to reweight the aggregate preferences accordingly. </p>
<p>The bottom line is that the study is, as the authors concede, not well suited for modeling a specialty school like Caltech. The authors themselves strongly imply that Caltech does not really 'deserve' the preference ranking that the model scores. Many (probably most) people would simply not apply to Caltech in the first place because they would never go.</p>
<p>Denzera,</p>
<p>I'm not saying that HBS doesn't have a strong presence in the VC industry. I'm saying it's not as strong or as plugged into the VC community as Stanford -- which is placed front and center in the tech capital of the world. Not other school is more "in the flow" -- from every conceivable level -- undergrads, grads, alumni network, even the faculty get into the act -- I have plenty of friends who are both HBS and Stanford GSB grads / who work in the industry and those from GSB would not turn in their Stanford creds for any school including Harvard.</p>
<p><a href="sakky:">quote</a>
No, I'm afraid that you're the one who is confused about the RP study, and this actually gets to one of my major objections to it, which has also been acknowledged by the authors - that the model upwardly biases the 'revealed preferences' of certain specialty schools like Caltech.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>That's completely irrelevant, because the issue was not the artificial self-selection advantage of Caltech, MIT, Wellesley and others in their study, but how MIT and Caltech (both of which have a strong self-selection effect) came out in opposite positions compared to the actual cross-yield data. To understand that you have to understand how the RP arrives at its rankings.</p>