MBA: Stanford or Harvard?

unless you have a harvard undergrad, I would pick HBS every time assuming everything else equals.

Not to annoy you with various stats for HBS, but there is literally no downside, especially if you want to do a deferred entry, why don't you just stay in the Bay Area before MBA again? That wipes out the only geographical weakness you had in mind.

Either way, best of luck, you can't go wrong with Stanford GSB as it's an amazing school, and you probably can't go wrong NOT attending either school as well. But Harvard is like the brand to not make fun of, if you look at all sort of dimensions of data and perception biases.

In my opinion, the answers to your 2 and 3 are they are pretty equal. I would worry more about question 1.

In terms of entrepreneurship, being close to the valley is a huge advantage, and I guarantee that if you're in Boston you will not be going there as often (walking/Caltrain vs. flight). That being said, everyone and their Mama is starting a business at Stanford, but Harvard has way more students so it might be an equal number, but not an equal percentage. The reason I'm mentioning this is because I just graduated from an MBA program that doesn't have as many people interested in entrepreneurship. That was a huge benefit to me because I got a TON of resources for my community with little competition.

For me personally, I love not following the crowd so it was refreshing to be part of a small intimate startup scene. I doubt that would be the case at Stanford, and a little less so at Harvard, although from what I know a lot of people are interested in entrepreneurship there. If it were me, I would choose Stanford because of proximity to the valley, and proximity to startups/tech in the Bay, as you never know if you change your mind and want to work at a startup/tech company. My two cents.

Source: MBA graduate who interned in the bay last summer.

I did not have the luxury of this decision but when applying I was ranking Stanford>Harvard. I can't comment too much on the startup benefits of either school but really I think good ideas at either will get funded fairly equally and both can lead you to the valley after. Don't underweight the other parts of the experience including your fit with classmates/culture and flexible curriculum vs strict cohort. The flexibility of Stanford was a huge draw for me. You might prefer the same if you're working on launching a business at the same time; or, you may prefer that the cohort structure pulls you back to a set of classmates outside of the startup bschool culture. This is a big differentiator between the two schools in terms of fit.

You are in a fortunate situation, and you should be good to go at either school. I never got a MBA for opportunity cost reasons. Having worked in tech IB and 5 years ago founded a healthcare tech company, I would choose Stanford.

I've had a bunch of friends attend each school, and all but one of my GSB friends have started successful companies (the other guy did a search fund). I only know one startup founder from the HBS crowd. Most of those friends continued in finance or went corporate. My view is crafted from a limited data set, but that's what I've observed. I also hate the weather and Patriots fans in Boston so that makes it an easy choice.

One point you might want to consider - if you want to start a company, do you want to focus on enterprise or consumer startups? For consumer focused companies 100% you need to be in the Bay Area. For enterprise focused companies it's much less clear as the Boston VCs are more enterprise focused overall, although the Bay Area has plenty of that as well.

I know that this should be one of the last factors and will ultimately not the tip the scales one way or the other but I feel it should be mentioned.

Harvard doesn't count grad school alumni for legacy admissions, while Stanford does. If/when you have kids, they will have a greater chance of getting into Stanford as they will have legacy with GSB while Harvard wouldn't give two monkey shits that you went to HBS.

Repeating that this isn't even in the top 20 reasons to choose a school but I feel it should be mentioned as many of us value education and would want our future kids to have an easier time getting an elite education (especially as acceptance rates get absurdly low compared to just 20 years ago).

Saw this and remembered this thread:

Stanford offers best MBA for entrepreneurship

Stanford Graduate School of Business offers the best MBA for entrepreneurship, according to new data from the Financial Times.

The Californian school has topped the FT 2017 ranking of the best 50 MBA programmes for entrepreneurship for the third year in a row. Other US schools scored highly. The Sloan School of Management at MIT achieved second place ahead of the Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson College in third.

Research shows that more than a third (36 per cent) of Stanford MBA alumni from the class of 2013 started a company while studying or in the three years following graduation.

The school’s focus on innovation and its location in the heart of Silicon Valley play a part in its success. Another strength is its alumni network. “While the school gave me the fundamentals, I learnt from my peers and alumni, who have done start-ups themselves,” said one graduate responding to the FT survey.

Most of Stanford’s graduate entrepreneurs work on their start-ups full-time. More than three-quarters (76 per cent) derive most or all of their income from their business. “I’m most proud of going from just an idea to a company with 20+ employees,” another graduate said.

Alumni from Olin GSB are the most entrepreneurial overall — more than half (52 per cent) started a company after graduation. But less than half of these (45 per cent) derive their main income from their business.

Entrepreneurs from Stanford and Sloan were the most successful at raising funding from private investors. More than 80 per cent of them received at least a third of their equity from angel investors, crowdfunding or other sources.

The ranking is based on survey data collected from the MBA class of 2013 as part of the FT 2017 Global MBA ranking. Data from alumni inform 12 different criteria. These include the percentage of graduates who started their own company; the proportion of full-time entrepreneurs; and the level of help they received from their school and alumni network.

The FT revised its methodology this year to include the MBA programmes with more than 10 entrepreneurs among survey respondents, down from 15 the previous year. While this allowed the FT to double the number of schools ranked, it also means comparisons in ranked places over the period is not possible.

The enlarged ranking includes schools from 13 countries, up from eight in 2016. It is dominated by US schools, which account for nearly half of all ranked schools. The number of UK schools has also increased from three to 10.

British MBA graduates are the most entrepreneurial, with 35 per cent starting their own company, just ahead of graduates from Mexico (34 per cent). Just 11 per cent and 13 per cent of graduates from Japan and South Korea respectively created start-ups.

A quarter of entrepreneurs set up their companies overseas. A third of these are located in the US, the most popular destination. However, in relative terms, the UK has the most international scene with nearly half of British start-ups set up by foreign entrepreneurs.

The location of their MBA and the strength of the alumni network have a significant influence on where entrepreneurs set up their companies. About 70 per cent and nearly two-thirds of international entrepreneurs based in the US and in the UK already studied there. “Thanks to the alumni network I got my first big customer,” said a French graduate from London Business School based in the UK.