Stanford MBAs have organized the third annual Dream Big Lead Boldly workshop, a free, one-day virtual event to help demystify the MBA experience for students and young professionals who identify as Black. It will take place Sunday, May 21. DBLB photo
Stanford Graduate School of School of Business has a good reputation for diversity in its MBA, with about a third of its most recent student intake comprised of minority students, according to the latest data from U.S. News & World Report. The largest non-white group in the GSB’s MBA is Asian students, at nearly 16% of the Class of 2024, followed by Hispanic students, a little more than 8%.
About 5% of MBA students at Stanford Graduate School of Business are Black, which is in line with Stanford’s peer schools: Harvard Business School has 7.3% Black students in its MBA; Wharton has 7%; Chicago Booth School of Business has 4.2%. The numbers are similar outside of the M7 schools: The Ross School of Business MBA program at the University of Michigan has 6.4% Black students; UC-Berkeley Haas School of Business has 4.1%; Duke Fuqua School of Business has 6.2%.
What these numbers show is that Black applicants who want to get an MBA from a top business school can expect to be an even smaller minority in the halls of learning. That’s just one of the challenges Stanford’s Black MBAs have sought to address with Dream Big, Lead Boldly, an initiative that aims to “demystify the MBA experience for Black undergrads and young professionals,” with a goal of increasing diversity in the MBA applicant pool and equity in the application process for business schools globally. The third annual student-led DBLB virtual workshop takes place May 21.
MROE THAN 100 SCHOOLS TO BE REPRESENTED BY ATTENDEES
Simone Hill Okafor will be the keynote speaker at the May 21 Dream Big Lead Boldly event
The free, one-day DBLB workshop will feature keynote speaker Simone Hill Okafor, CEO of Melanated Futures Group who currently leads Omidyar Network's diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. Among the more than 100 schools that will be represented by attendees include HBCU powerhouses Howard University, Morehouse College, Alabama State University, Florida Agricultural & Mechanical University, and North Carolina A&T State University. Global schools will be represented too, including Northern Caribbean University of Jamaica) and Stellenbosch University of South Africa.
The 2023 Dream Big Lead Boldly leadership team is composed of 20 MBA students from a wide range of backgrounds who are "unified by the common interest of democratizing access to resources that help students decide if business school is the right path for them," according to a statement from the team.