This week, Stanford launched a new photo diary series on its MBA admissions blog. Fifteen second-year students documented several days of their lives on campus during the fall 2011 quarter. Through photos and short journal entries, the students paint a picture of how a typical week shapes up – sharing everything from what they discussed in particular classes to which recruiting events they found most useful.

Stanford’s social scene unfolds as well, as students share about parties, dinners out, golf games, dorms and off-campus apartments and more. The admissions team clearly sought to provide as many diverse perspectives as possible: The 15 students herald from Michigan, Malaysia, the Netherlands, California, Massachusetts and Israel, just to name a few. And their professional backgrounds range, too, from financial analyst to eighth grade science teacher to management consultant to design engineer.

So if Stanford GSB is a school you are considering – or in the process of applying to – don’t miss this chance to hear straight from current students what the MBA program is like.

To view the “A Day in the Life of Stanford GSB Students” photo diary series, click here.

HBS came in at number two, followed by Wharton at number three. London Business School, meanwhile, fell from joint first to fourth, mirroring a general trend in which U.S. schools fared marginally better than their European counterparts. Falling salaries among alumni from European schools – an impact of the recent economic turmoil in Europe – account in part for this trend, the FT reports.

The FT ranking is calculated using data gathered from participating schools and alumni from the class that graduates three years before the survey. Stanford 2008 graduates had the highest sector-weighted average salary in this year’s rankings – $192,179 per year – a designation the California school has snagged eight times in the ranking’s 14-year history. Stanford also shot up this year in the ranking’s measurement of alumni career progress and “aims achieved,” helping it take the number one spot for the first time.

The top ten schools in this year’s ranking are as follow:

Stanford GSB (1)
Harvard Business School (2)
Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania (3)
London Business School(4)
Columbia Business School (5)
INSEAD (6)
MIT Sloan School of Management (7)
IE Business School (8)
IESE Business School (9)
Hong Kong UST Business School (10)

For the full FT 2012 Global MBA rankings, click here.

Haas created the new diversity position as part of a school-wide Equity, Inclusion and Diversity Plan developed last year. The plan calls for increasing diversity among faculty, students and staff; attracting a more diverse applicant pool and involving alumni in diversity efforts. Abrams, who is credited with significantly enhancing the diversity of the Stanford undergraduate population as well as helping Stanford’s MBA program become the most ethnically diverse of the nation’s top business schools, will oversee execution of Haas’s diversity strategy throughout the student lifecycle, from recruiting to alumni engagement.

“The creation of this position underscores the priority we put on increasing diversity and inclusion here at Berkeley-Haas.” Haas Dean Richard Lyons said in a statement. “Diversity – and the varied experiences and viewpoints that come with it – drives richer, more innovative thinking. It’s an important ingredient for advancing our mission of developing leaders who redefine how we do business.”

For more on this story, click here.

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“It was exactly on time (45 minutes) and I was given 4 behavioural questions. Overall, it felt neutral although the interviewer did comment that my skill set was well aligned with my target career.

1. Tell me about a time when you saw an opportunity others didn’t.
2. Tell me about a time when you faced a roadblock in completing a project.
3. Why MBA?
4. Why Stanford?
5. Tell me about a time you pursued an initiative beyond my job authority.
6. When were you effective on a team when you were not in charge?”

To see more MBA admissions interview reports, check out the Clear Admit Wiki – a free resource with hundreds of real, documented interview experiences from b-school applicants. Also, if you’d like to help your fellow applicants by adding your experiences, please send us your interview field report and we’ll post it to the wiki. Finally, if you’d like even more helpful hints and detailed analysis on how to ace your interview, check out our line of Interview Guides, which demystify the most common questions asked by the leading programs and offer step-by-step guidance for a successful interview.

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to the Clear Admit Wiki and best of luck to those undergoing admissions interviews!

Admissions directors at top programs concur, stressing that applicants should strive to be honest, clear and self-reflective without becoming too self-promotional. “Humility is the magic word, and it is a quality that is not diametrically opposed to confidence,” Dee Leopold, director of admissions at Harvard Business School, told Forbes. Applicants should certainly share their achievements, she continues, but in a way that is honest and clear.

At Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB), Assistant Dean of MBA Admissions Derrick Bolton advises prospective applicants to write their applications as though they were writing for themselves and not going to turn them in. “You don’t need to lie to yourself. Self-reflection allows you to think about the things that bring meaning to you, and the knowledge and experience you need to aspire to be the person you want to become,” he said. Acknowledging that it can be easy for applicants to slip into boastfulness when worrying about setting themselves apart from others, he encourages them to concentrate instead on telling who they are. “The GSB will be able to discern and judge merit based on the accurate telling of your story,” he told Forbes.

While some think that schools like Harvard and Stanford are actually seeing aggressive, hyper-confident students, that’s not actually true, Richmond cautions. “While a certain amount of self-confidence, charisma and character are clearly assets to any MBA applicant,” he explains, “it’s never a good idea to go overboard, as this will not translate to admissions success.”

For the complete Forbes article, click here.

It’s “kind of a ‘no-fly zone’ where organized extracurricular activities are put off until after midterm exams,” writes Allison Davis, associate director of MBA admissions, in a recent post to the Stanford MBA Admissions Blog. “The idea is that incoming students can get used to being back in school without having to juggle a full calendar,” Davis continues.

EAP came to a close at the GSB on November 1st, and without missing a beat students organized a huge Student Activities Fair on November 2nd, where all the student clubs came out to recruit. More than 70 clubs were represented, ranging from the Africa Business Club, the Energy Club, the Rugby Club, and even GSB Dogs – a group for GSB dogs, dog owners and dog lovers.  

Beyond providing an introduction to the staggering array of clubs and activities available to join, the fair also gave students a chance to sign up to be matched with alumni mentors, to join the Women’s Entrepreneurship Mentoring Program, or to become an Arbuckle Leadership Fellow, where they’ll get advanced leadership training and coach other students.

Of course, all of these options can contribute to another acronym at the GSB, Davis warns, something called FOMO or “fear of missing out.” As at so many top business schools, students at Stanford GSB sometimes struggle with how to decide how to spend their time, she says. About the Student Activities Fair, “It was a veritable smorgasbord and reminded me how much of the richness of the learning here occurs outside the classroom,” says Davis.

According to King and his wife, their interest in developing economies was an outgrowth of hosting some of Stanford’s international students in their home, including a Chinese student who was instrumental in founding Baidu, a Chinese-language search engine. King’s venture investment firm, Peninsular Capital, provided seed money to Baidu, which has since grown into an internet giant employing more than 10,000 people in China.

King says that providing seed money or microfinancing will not be the primary focus of this new venture with Stanford GSB, which will instead focus on growing established businesses. “One of the challenges is to take businesses to scale,” King told the FT. “It’s the on-the-ground work that really excites me.”

The new institute will work with not-for-profit organizations, NGOs and entrepreneurs in developing countries, and Stanford MBA students will be encouraged to participate in related projects between their first and second years of study, according to the FT report. In addition to this on-the-ground work, the institute also will focus on academic research and teaching through courses for Stanford students and alumni as well as for entrepreneurs from developing countries, whose study in California the institute will fund.

“The end goal here is poverty alleviation and capacity building for Stanford University,” Dean Garth Saloner told the FT. He added that the multidisciplinary approach of the center – although housed at the business school, every department of the university could be involved – distinguishes it from other initiatives. “I do think directionally that this (alleviating poverty in developing economies) is the sort of activity that people do not usually associate with a business school,” he said.

The FT article notes that Stanford has been leading the way among top business school in developing interdisciplinary teaching in response to growing recognition that public policy, law and regulation increasingly inform business decisions. According to the FT report, one in six Stanford MBA students are part of a double degree program, also working toward degrees in engineering, law, or public policy. Saloner told the FT that he hopes to increase that number to one in four.

The FT reports that the agreement between Stanford GSB and the Kings took 18 months to negotiate. The Kings have given $100 million to fund the institute and committed an additional $50 million in matched funding in an effort to involve other donors in the project.

For the complete Financial Times article, click here.