4 Things to Think About When Deciding Between HBS and Stanford GSB
Congratulations! Perhaps a couple weeks ago you got offered admissions to both Harvard Business School and Stanford GSB for Round 1. Or you’re in the depths of application madness and are furiously trying to finish before the Round 2 deadlines. Either way, the biggest question remains, what’s the difference between HBS and GSB? How should I decide?
When we get these questions, applicants tend to ask: “What’s it like at HBS/GSB?” Depending on who you ask, you’re likely to get a variety of answers on what their experience has been like at the individual school, but it’s probably hard to understand the differences since they haven’t been to both. Especially if you’re trying to imagine the next two years at either school and figuring out where to spend +$200K, this is understandably a big decision.
While having spent time at HBS and now at the GSB, here are the major differences we’ve noticed that are likely to impact your experience. We’ll delve into these topics in greater detail in later posts, but for now if you’re really grappling between the two schools, we hope this perspective sheds some light.
- Do you want to choose tech culture or do you want tech culture to choose you?
Yes, we know that Stanford GSB is in the heart of Silicon Valley and HBS is in Boston, but we didn’t expect that the emphasis of tech vs other industries in the culture and courses differed so much between the two schools.
Culture:
In terms of the class profile, HBS and GSB actually have a similar percentage of students that had previous industry experience in tech (15% — HBS1, 16% — GSB2) but those differences seem to play out differently in the classroom.
HBS is relatively balanced across industries. At HBS, just a few people per section will have spent substantially all of their professional experience in tech prior to business school. The balance is filled with ex-consultants and bankers who spent a year or two typically in a big or medium sized tech company before business school. There is a lot of interest in tech and entrepreneurship on campus and a vibrant community to join for those interested. However, there is a diversity of conversations about what people want to do after HBS. Tech is significant but certainly not the dominant industry buzz on campus. For people coming from tech, especially in Silicon Valley, many enjoy the opportunity to take lessons from the many non-tech perspectives and experience a place where tech isn’t the constant topic of conversation.
At the GSB, tech is king. It seems like there are many more people that came from the big tech giants like Google, Facebook, and Apple in addition to smaller tech startups, which are less represented at HBS. The dominant conversation topic is around tech. This difference can impact your experience because the environment you’re in may influence your career decisions. When everyone thinks that tech, AI, machine learning, big data are the cool things to do, you just can’t help being a bit more curious about them too.
Courses:
When you take a class like “Strategic Leadership” as the general first quarter strategy course at the GSB, one would expect the course to give you a wide sampling of strategy across industries. While there were definitely a sampling of cases from industries not in tech, the majority of the cases were on companies related to tech (i.e. Facebook, Apple, Intel, Seagate etc). 8 out of the 16 sessions in Strategic Leadership were on tech companies or tech concepts like growth, virality, and platforms. Although the same level of focus on tech wasn’t necessarily the case in the other first quarter GSB courses, the emphasis in tech was prevalent. Many class discussions even in classes not ostensibly about tech also revolved around topics like A/B testing and scaling a digital company.
The first year strategy course at HBS has a more balanced assortment of cases across industries. In general, the first year tech content in HBS will be in the semester long TEM, The Entrepreneurial Manager class, and can be supplemented by second year electives.
If you’re thinking of going to the GSB, just be prepared for the tech culture. If you’re thinking of going to HBS, expect to experience a balanced range of industries.
2. Do you want to explore entrepreneurship or do you want the flexibility to focus on entrepreneurship?
Another major difference between the GSB and HBS is the amount of resources to explore entrepreneurship vs the flexibility to focus on your startup.
Exploring Entrepreneurship:
Not that you can’t be an excellent entrepreneur from HBS and there are many successful companies, it’s just that there seems to be more resources available to you at the GSB. There are 160+ entrepreneurship courses offered at Stanford that GSB students have access to dedicated to learning essential skills for being an entrepreneur, helping you form an idea, building a team around an idea, or launching and scaling your idea into an actual company. These courses are also taught by leading instructors in the lean startup method or design thinking who are often practitioners rather than faculty or a mix of both, whereas at HBS, courses are primarily taught by faculty with exceptions. The advantage is that you have industry professionals who have experience starting and running successful companies or investing in them coaching you through the process. You can access these courses starting your second quarter of first year. There is also the Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, Design School, and several on campus incubators that also encourage you to start a company.
At HBS, the FIELD experiential courses are the only classes which allow first years a hands on approach to entrepreneurship. In the mandatory FIELD 2 Global Immersion students learn Design Thinking methodologies and apply those skills on the ground with trips to work with companies in low to middle income countries. Previously FIELD 3, a mandatory course where students were given money to create a startup, gave everyone the opportunity to start something whether they wanted to or not. It’s actually similar to the Startup Garage class at the GSB. Field 3 is now an optional second year class. Though there are opportunities and support at the Rock Center for Entrepreneurship and the Harvard i-lab, the first year class load at HBS generally makes starting something pretty difficult unless you are really committed to the cause. For the second year, HBS offers 24 courses in entrepreneurship taught by HBS faculty including 7 Field courses which are more experiential in nature. Although HBS faculty may not have had direct experience in entrepreneurship, you can expect to learn from professors with extensive experience in teaching many successful entrepreneurs.
Focusing on your startup:
Despite the GSB being a super friendly school for entrepreneurial support, if you want to really commit to running your company during school, you can’t take time off in between your first two years like you can at HBS. You would have to drop out and re-apply. I guess though if they allowed you to do that everyone would just “take time off.” One of Carol’s friends already had to make the difficult decision to drop out of the GSB to pursue her successful startup. On the other hand, HBS has a very generous policy of leave with the ability to take a 5 year break with no questions asked. Two of Jeffrey’s HBS section-mates used this policy to pursue entrepreneurship.
Both schools allow you to pursue your start ups as independent projects your second year as academic credit.
Basically, if you’re not so sure about entrepreneurship and just want to explore what it’s like, it’s easier to test it out at the GSB. You just might need to go more out of your way to do it at HBS. However, if you are serious about starting something, HBS is likely to give you the flexibility to focus on your idea.
3. How do you like to learn? Cases or Diverse Methods?
HBS is the case method. The vast majority of classes both years are taught in the case method and HBS does it supremely well. The first year, you take every case with the same section of people which creates a strong environment of norms. The repetition and norms force you to learn how to make a concise and impactful comment at the right time to advance the conversation and neither over nor under-contributing. Whether you’ve never seen a balance sheet in your life or you’ve been doing private equity for 5 years, everyone is in the same classroom for every class which means there is almost always at least one expert in the room. While HBS did offer great experiences in experiential classes like FIELD, Authentic Leadership Development, and Private Equity Projects, the case method was certainly the defining academic experience at HBS.
Don’t think you won’t do cases at Stanford. A significant portion of classes at Stanford are still cases but there is a mixture of both lecture and experiential learning in the curriculum. Since there are fewer case classes, the case method is much less formalized and ritualized at Stanford. Discussions tend to be less adversarial or argumentative which is encouraged at HBS. Professors are more likely to answer student questions directly instead of directing them to other students. In both schools, however, students and professors don’t like it when you raise your hand too often, not allowing other classmates to speak.
At the GSB, you do have more flexibility in terms of your courses for your first year. Foundational courses are separated by prior background experience and assessed through placement tests. This means that if you have been in Investment Banking for 4 years you do not need to be in the same class as someone who has never seen a balance sheet before, allowing you to take a more advanced course in finance. Also, you are able to choose your electives starting the winter quarter in January of your first year.
4. What kind of social life do you want? Section focused or a small class size?
Not all sections are created equal.
Both HBS and GSB have sections, assigned groups of about 75 (GSB) to 95 (HBS) students from a diversity of backgrounds that share some classes together. The similarities diverge there. At HBS, the section is your HBS family and identity for life. You have every class with the same exact people every day of first year. Social events are very often and regularly coordinated by the section which immediately gives you a social group. People definitely make friends in clubs or other activities but a lot of the social life at HBS is coordinated around the section. This also makes it easier for significant others who see the same familiar set of classmates at most events.
Clubs also play a more significant role in HBS social life. From the first week, clubs throw many of the largest parties, open to all, and often on Wednesday evenings (in business school everyone is traveling on the weekends). As in all things, people of like interests tend to congregate and many of the student clubs are very good about providing opportunities to meet other members. Some clubs are nearly purely social.
In contrast, at the GSB clubs play a minor role in social life because of the Academic Adjustment Period (AAP) which forbids club recruiting and events in the first few months of school. Realistically this means most clubs don’t have their kick-off meetings until December when second years are getting ready to check out and first years are starting to worry about finals.
Social life at GSB is more dispersed. Though the section experience is not as intimate, there are several school wide social organizations that contribute to the social experience. There are weekly drinks at FOAM (Friends of Arjay Miller), where students pay a yearly price for all you can drink beer or wine as well as a weekly Beer Pong for Leaders (BPL) league. The school makes an effort to encourage small group dinners at any time in the year, even funding dinners hosted by students which open a lottery to all students, both MBA1s and MBA2s. Whereas at HBS small group dinners are typically organized by sections or clubs irregularly and by the Student Association as Safari Dinners once a semester, the small group dinner scene is a more constant fixture at the GSB.
Although the social scene at the GSB may be more dispersed, the small class size at the GSB means that you are likely to know everyone in your class by the end of your two years. But at HBS, it’s unlikely that you’ll meet all 900 of your classmates by the time you graduate, but you will get at least super close to your section.
We’ll delve much deeper into these topics separately, but we hope this gives some perspective into making your decision. For those of you who already went to HBS/GSB, what do you think? What are other similarities or differences? Comment or email us at dualadmit {at} gmail (dot) com!
Cheers,
Carol and Jeffrey
References:
