What the world’s hottest MBA courses reveal about 21st-century business

STANFORD UNIVERSITY’SGSBGSB mba HBS Graduate School of Business () exhorts its students to dream big. When one of its alumni in the class of 2006, Rishi Sunak, became Britain’s prime minister last year, the dean welcomed the news as if it had always been inevitable. “Rishi’s experience at Stanford raised his aspirations,” he proclaimed in a school-wide email. The prides itself on offering the world’s most selective programme. Its class of 420 students is less than half the size of that of its arch-rival, Harvard Business School—and represents just 6% of applicants, compared with 10% or so for . Although not all of them can be heads of government, many will follow alumni such as Asia’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani, or Detroit’s mightiest woman, Mary Barra of General Motors, into corporate stardom.