Stanford GSB Releases Stats on MBA Class of 2020

Stanford Graduate School Business is, according to Financial Times’s MBA rankings, the best MBA program in the world. So who is the typical Stanford MBA student?

To the extent that numbers can tell the story, Stanford GSB’s new Class of 2020 profile gives us some insight in to that question.

Introducing the class profile, Stanford is quick to highlight the diversity in its MBA class. It points out that this year’s crop of 419 MBA students represent 63 countries, 306 employers and 172 undergraduate institutions. All of these figures, Stanford says, are higher than last year.

In terms of the number of women and international students enrolling, Stanford is inching forward. According to the school, the percentages of these two groups are up “slightly” to 41 and 42 respectively.

And the school underscores the fact that humanities and social science majors have grown in their share of the MBA class. Forty-eight percent of Class of 2020 members hold degrees in these areas, compared with 34 for STEM fields and 18 for business. Fourteen percent have advanced degrees.

As you might expect for a school like Stanford GSB, incoming MBA students have excellent academic credentials. The average GPA is 3.72 and the average GMAT is 732.

Poets & Quants points out, however, that the average GMAT is actually down five points from last year, and suggests that this drop may be intentional. According to Poets & Quants, the school may have been a victim of its own success, with stellar GMAT averages scaring off promising applicants.

Stanford GSB also released averages for those who submitted GRE score: 165 on verbal and 165 on quantitative. Those who took the TOEFL averaged 113.

For a school in the heart of Silicon Valley, students who worked in tech are predictably well-represented. Seventeen percent of the Class of 2020 held jobs in this field before enrolling in the MBA program.

But that’s still not as much as consulting, at 19 percent, or investment, venture capital and private equity at 21 percent. Overall, students have anywhere from 0 to 11 years of work experience, with an average of 4.

Presenting the class profile, Stanford goes out of its way to emphasize that it chooses MBA students based on more than the numbers. The school says it has no admissions “quotas or targets” and evaluates “each applicant based on her or his own merit.”

This year, Stanford had 7,797 applicants to choose from. With that kind of competition, having a compelling personal story that’s about more than your stats becomes essential.

We can help you figure out whether your application has a convincing personal brand that will jump out to adcoms at schools like Stanford GSB, and what you can do to make your narrative as an applicant more focused. To get started, ask us for a free assessment!