Derrick Bolton Interview

There is a new Derrick Bolton (Stanford GSB Admissions Director) interview published in Business Week this month. Interesting new info (for me):

1. Applications being way up is a myth.
2. 21% of the class of '08 accepted a job abroad up from 14% of the class of 07. (Let's see if this emerging trend continues in '09)
3. The new curriculum has twice as many international course offerings.
4. The new Phil Knight campus WILL open during the 2010-11 school year! (Recently, it looked like the opening date might be pushed back to fall 2011)
5. Internship search for class of 2010 has been similar to that of prior classes. (No hard numbers offered)
6. Stanford GSB accepts the GRE as an alternative to the GMAT. (Actually I knew that, but I thought it was worth mentioning)

Mildly outlandish statement: "[The Stanford GSB curriculum overhaul has] been among the most exciting developments in management education in probably the last 20 or 30 years." Way to set expectations high, DB! (PS - is "mildly outlandish" an oxymoron?)

Annoying attempt to pull in younger applicants: "As a school, we see a lot of people waiting because they think business schools want them to wait. [They] think they won't be competitive until they have four or five years of work experience. And that's not true."

I am one of those stubborn people who thinks that experienced classmates are a huge asset in business school. One of the things I liked about Wharton is the higher average age and work experience of its matriculating students. The average number of years of work experience at Wharton is six, with just 2% of students having 0-2 years of work experience and 40% having 7+ years of work experience. By contrast, Stanford's median work experience is 4 years; HBS's average is 4 years. (More detailed HBS age distribution info here. Scroll down to the Oct 1, 2008 entry)

Great answer in response to the question, "As Stanford moves ahead, what is the biggest challenge it faces?":

...If you look at students who are applying to medical school or law school, they're applying for the education. There's certainly a credential element there, but when you talk to those students and look at the publications from those schools, they're about the education. Business schools have in the last couple of decades gone astray and really put too much emphasis on the post-school benefits and not enough on what transpires while you're there. I think our industry overall has made a really big mistake of overemphasizing those ancillary benefits. Applicants have interpreted that as being the reason you go to school. That's probably the thing I worry about the most at Stanford. How do I make sure that we're picking people who and want to take this [education] and make themselves better people, managers, and leaders, in support of our society?...