GSB-MBA - Business Administration (MBA)

The policies in this section apply to students who began the first-year MBA curriculum at the Stanford Graduate School of Business in the 2021-2022 academic year.

To earn an MBA, a student entering in the 2021-2022 academic year must be in good academic standing and fulfill the following list of requirements:

• Successfully complete (with passing grades) 98 units of academic credit at Stanford University

  • at least 74 must represent GSB units taken for a letter grade;

  • at least 86 units must be completed at the GSB; and

  • at least 86 units must be completed for a letter grade (not on a Pass/Fail, +/U, or CR/NC basis).

• Successfully complete (grade of LP or better, or +, when applicable) all required courses, defined as Core Requirements courses, in the first year.

• Successfully complete (grade of LP or better) at least 15 units of Distribution Requirements courses, and only one course from each subject area can count towards the requirement.

• Achieve a cumulative grade point average (GPA) for all GSB courses of not less than 2.65.

• Complete an approved Global Experience by the start of the Winter Quarter of the second year of the program.

• Enroll for six quarters, excluding summer, of full-tuition study at the GSB.

Students are expected to complete these requirements according to the timeline stated above and in six consecutive quarters, excluding summer. A different timeline requires approval from the MBA Program and is unlikely to be granted except for students who have received approval for a leave of absence, childbirth accommodation, or a joint or dual degree. Students who do not meet the requirements according to the timeline stated above and do not have approval from the MBA Program for a different timeline, are disqualified and subject to immediate dismissal. See the section on Consequences for Falling Out of Good Academic Standing and Academic Probation.

Core Curriculum

Core Requirements

All students in the MBA Program are required to take on the grading basis mandated and pass (with a grade of LP or higher, or +, when applicable) the Core Requirements courses in the first year. For students beginning the first-year MBA curriculum at the GSB in the 2021-2022 academic year, there are ten Core Requirements courses.

Data Analysis and Decision Making

General managers require a sophisticated understanding of what one can — and cannot — infer from data and how to use those inferences to make good decisions. Our courses in data analysis provide the analytical tools/techniques for using data to make appropriate inferences and good decisions.

Finance I

Finance I courses cover the foundations of finance with an emphasis on applications that are vital for corporate managers. We will consider the major financial decisions made by corporate managers both within the firm and in their interactions with investors.

Essential in most of these decisions is the process of valuation, which will be an important emphasis of the course. Topics include criteria for making investment decisions, valuation of financial assets and liabilities, relationships between risk and return, and capital structure choice.

Financial Accounting

Financial accounting is the measurement of economic activity for decision-making. Financial statements are a key product of this measurement process and an important component of firms’ financial reporting activities. The objective of the base- and accelerated-level courses is to develop students into informed users of financial statement information.

These courses focus on understanding the mapping between underlying economic events and financial statements, and on understanding how this mapping affects inferences about future profitability and liquidity. The advanced-level course assumes an understanding of concepts covered in the base-level course and is designed to enhance students’ understanding of financial statement information within the global financial reporting environment.

Leadership Labs

“Why would someone follow me?” In Leadership Laboratory, students consider the kind of leader they are, the kind of leader they want to be, and how to align leadership behavior with leadership goals.

The course is experiential. Students are thrown into situations such as role-plays and class exercises in which they must lead. Students receive feedback about their approach to leadership and have the opportunity to try out new skills and tools. Rather than offer a single model of leadership, this course entails a set of experiences from which students derive their own model of leadership.

Leading with Values

With leadership comes responsibility. This course explores ethical issues faced by managers and organizations and provides analytical frameworks to inform ethical decisions and strategies. Students will clarify their ethical stances and think through ethical dilemmas. They will practice sharing recommendations compellingly, discover the diversity of ethical viewpoints, and find out how to avoid the social and cognitive pitfalls that come with ethical leadership.

Managerial Skills

In Managerial Skills, students examine several common managerial challenges faced by executives. Together with faculty, students explore these topics using five case examples, each asking students to evaluate a series of situations, develop alternatives for their resolution, and ultimately recommend and implement a course of action from the point of view of the company’s owner/manager. The course focuses on small to mid-sized businesses as the context for these discussions to highlight the impact that key decisions and their implementation can have on the broader organization.

Managing Groups and Teams

Managing Groups and Teams examines the theory and practice of making teams work. The first goal of the course is to provide students with a conceptual framework for understanding group dynamics and their effects on team performance. The second goal is to help students develop practical skills for building and managing effective groups and teams.

Topics include choosing and implementing team structures that are best for accomplishing specific goals, diagnosing team performance problems, and designing appropriate interventions. Students can apply this learning while at Stanford GSB in study groups, project teams, and extracurricular groups, as well as in the business world.

Microeconomics

The discipline of microeconomics is the foundation of much of what you study in business school, as well as being a tool of analysis of specific market and nonmarket interactions. The base-level course provides you with the essential frameworks and concepts to study market equilibrium, firm and consumer behavior, and competitive interactions through the lens of microeconomics. The advanced-level option spends less time on the basics and instead applies those basics to specific contexts, such as auctions, price discrimination, and business strategy.

Optimization and Simulation Modeling

Disciplined thought is often based on analytical models: simplified, quantitative depictions of a complex reality that allow you to focus attention on a few key issues. Management runs on numbers and models. Whatever is your current level of modeling skills, improving those skills is a key to success. Even if you never construct models yourself, as a manager you will be a consumer of them; to be an intelligent consumer, you must know from experience the strengths and weaknesses of quantitative models.

Organizational Behavior

Organizational Behavior provides tools that help students learn to successfully lead individuals, groups, and organizations. In essence, the material serves as a practical guide to managing workplace behavior — your own and that of your coworkers. To explain key concepts, the course draws on robust social science research that highlights obstacles to effective leadership. These include the challenges of making sound decisions, motivating employees to implement your vision, influencing others to support your ideas, and dealing with difficult personalities.

Distribution Requirements

In addition to the Core Requirements courses, students are required to fulfill by the end of their first year the Distribution Requirement courses. There are nine subject areas of Distribution Requirements courses. A student must successfully complete at least 15 units of Distribution Requirements courses; only one course from each subject area can count towards the requirement. .

Finance II

Designed to follow Finance I, Finance II includes courses in three areas of focus:

• Corporate Finance will develop and extend standard tools and techniques of financial analysis, valuation, and model-building, and apply these methods to a wide range of cases.

• Capital Markets and Institutional Investing will focus on applications using live data related to asset allocation and hedging, as well as factor investing, delegated assets management, and manager selection.

• Corporations, Finance, and Governance in the Global Economy will focus on concise real-world situations around the globe to provide skills and tools for navigating issues related to valuation of cash flows and control; capital structure, governance, and ownership of both mature and entrepreneurial firms; restructuring; the roles of venture capital, private equity, and activists; and objectives of the firms, including social responsibility.

Human Resource Management

Human Resource Management introduces frameworks and analytical tools for organizational design, hiring, promotion, and human resource management processes. The course offerings address startup, growing, and global organizations in a range of industries.

Information Management

Knowledge of technology (computing, networks, software applications, etc.) is a prerequisite for a successful manager. Understanding the implications of technology for management, strategy, and organization is even more important. So rather than just look at a snapshot of the current status of different technologies (which will obviously change over time), the Information Management courses focus on management issues such as:

• How do information technologies create value?

• How do you implement them?

• How do they affect the structure of competition?

Macroeconomics

This course gives students the background they need to understand the broad movements in the global economy. Key topics include long-run economic growth, technological change, wage inequality, international trade, interest rates, inflation, exchange rates, and monetary policy. By the end of the course, students should be able to read and understand the discussions of economic issues in The Economist, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and publications of the Congressional Budget Office.

Managerial Accounting

To evaluate business strategies and outcomes, you must understand the many ways that firms account for, control, and manage costs. Courses in this area explore alternative costing methods and how the resulting cost information can be used for decision making, planning, and performance measurement.

Marketing

These courses introduce you to the substantive and procedural aspects of marketing management. You’ll learn about analyzing the needs and wants of potential customers, and creating and delivering goods and services profitably.

Operations

This area explores basic managerial issues arising in the operations of both manufacturing and service industries. You will learn about the challenges confronting operations managers and gain language, conceptual models, and analytical techniques that are useful in confronting such problems.

Strategic Leadership

These course options examine fundamental issues of general management and leadership within an organization. You will learn about setting an organization’s strategic direction, aligning structure to implement strategy, and leading individuals within the firm. You will study the interplay among formal structure, informal networks, and culture in shaping organizational performance.

Strategy Beyond Markets

Markets and the business environment are increasingly interrelated — conversely, the profit-maximizing activities of firms often give rise to issues that involve governments and the public. As a business leader, you will need to participate in complex decision making that involves the legal, political, and social environments of business. This course considers the strategic interactions of firms with important constituents, organizations, and institutions outside of markets.

In order to successfully complete a Distribution Requirements subject area, students must pass (with a grade of LP or higher) at least one course, selected from a list of courses that is communicated by the MBA Program on MyGSB. Students who fail to fulfill the above course requirements by the end of the first year will be disqualified and subject to immediate dismissal from the program.

Electives

Tailor your remaining coursework through electives, seminars, a joint or dual degree, and courses at other Stanford schools.

Restrictions are imposed on courses that count toward the 98-unit minimum. These limits are defined in the MBA Policies & Standards for students entering in 2021-2022.

Global Experience Requirement

The Global Experience Requirement (GER) ensures that every MBA student broadens their understanding of the global context of business during the course of the MBA Program through participation in and completion of a qualifying Global Experiences program. These experiences each draw upon the MBA education in a structured and intellectually rigorous way. The GER may not be exempted due to a student’s past experiences.

While university-sponsored travel restrictions as set forth in the Stanford Travel Policy continue to evolve, we anticipate that GSB-sponsored programs involving travel during the 2021-22 academic year will be limited as we thoughtfully and carefully resume travel. We anticipate that many students will fulfill the GER by participating in and completing the requirements of 2021-22 Global Experiences programs in a variety of formats that don’t include travel (e.g. a GSB global elective, GSBGEN 390 Independent Study, etc.). 

To fulfill the GER, a student must:

1. Complete a qualifying Global Experiences program prior to the start of the Winter Quarter of the second year (the first day of class in Winter Quarter of January 2023).

2. Ensure the Global Experience program in which the student participates is in “a country that is new.” This is defined as: any and all countries in a program's itinerary must be new to the student, meaning if the program focuses on 1-2 specific countries, the student may not have visited/lived in any of them for more than 90 days (cumulatively) after the age of six and prior to attending the GSB. Regionally or globally focused programs do not have this requirement.

Global Management Immersion Experience (GMIX)

GMIX provides you a unique opportunity to understand the culture, business environment, and social norms of a country that is new to you. You’ll spend at least four weeks during the summer working on a project for a sponsoring organization in an industry such as consumer products, international development, energy, finance, health care, media and entertainment, technology, or nonprofit. You can apply for projects sourced by the school or develop a unique GMIX focused on your specific interests.

Global Explorations

Spend a quarter as a member of an intensive group-learning experience run by student leaders. During your Global Exploration, you will examine a challenging global issue by talking with a diverse array of stakeholders (CEOs, small-business owners, early career professionals, government officials, and entrepreneurs). With your Global Explorations learning community of twenty to thirty students and a faculty member, you will participate in learning sessions as well as social and cultural elements that will help you gain new perspectives on and an in-depth understanding of the program’s academic theme.

Recent Global Explorations have explored the role of supply chain management on firms’ sustainability performance, AI’s transformation of the products and services we consume everyday, and innovation opportunities in healthcare and workforce development that exist due to rapidly changing societal demographics.

Stanford-Tsinghua Exchange Program (STEP)

During this academic exchange program between Stanford GSB and the Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management in Beijing, you will develop a deeper, more nuanced understanding of doing business in China, as well as China’s role in the global economy. You’ll enroll in a Stanford GSB elective course and collaborate with Tsinghua MBA students on academic projects of mutual interest. While typically, Stanford MBA students travel to Beijing over Thanksgiving week in November and Tsinghua students come to Stanford in late January/early February, we are currently hosting virtual deep-dive experiences for you to gain academic and business insights, build cultural context, and develop long-lasting relationships with your peers.

This exchange program between Stanford GSB and the Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management will help you develop a deeper, more nuanced understanding of doing business in China, as well as China’s role in the global economy.

Self-Directed Experiences

Interested in creating your own global internship? Or perhaps you want to develop an independent study project with a Stanford GSB faculty member? We provide the support you need to create an individualized global experience that fulfills your academic and career goals.