T H E 5 B E S T M B A P R O G R A M S F O R E N T R E P R E N E U R S H I P

B Y G E O F F R E Y B Y R U C H

I N T R O D U C T I O N

• What do all successful companies have in common? They were all either started or run by MBA candidates from top business schools.

• In today’s modern world where deadlines and reports are always at a constant demand, many young professionals are deciding to forego a 2-year hiatus with no salary and accrued student loans to learn, develop, and reflect on their path as a businessperson.

W H Y S H O U L D Y O U P U R S U E A N M B A ?

• When you think about the foundation of business, you are looking into a variety of factors, numbers, strategies, and concepts that cannot be fully covered in a single 2-hour session.

• If you are an individual who wants to get into the business world and wants to open up his or her own business, take into consideration what an MBA in Entrepreneurship could do for you.

O V E R V I E W

• Below, I have outlined five of the top MBA entrepreneurship programs in the nation.

• These schools, in addition to their national reputation, have set a high standard for success for their candidates.

T H E G R A D U AT E S C H O O L O F B U S I N E S S S TA N F O R D U N I V E R S I T Y

• Stanford University offers a variety of concentrations such as accounting, economics, finance, management, and of course entrepreneurship.

• At Stanford, leadership is one of the biggest focuses of the graduate program.

• Students grapple various tough management cases and simulations so that they can adapt and put their knowledge into real life situations.

• For entrepreneurship, Stanford provides its students with strong well-rounded insights on entrepreneurship, starting and scaling a business, and entrepreneurial principles when establishing a firm.

M A S S A C H U S E T T S I N S T I T U T E O F T E C H N O L O G Y ( S L O A N )

• Their academic courses are inherently global in nature, in which their students are provided dozens of opportunities to travel and study abroad.

• Studying abroad gives Sloan candidates the advantage of understanding different international markets.

• For the Entrepreneurship & Innovation program at Sloan, E&I brings like-minded students together very early in the program to integrate and learn about startup business concepts and theories.

• These concepts are then covered in a condensed set of classes for the first and second semester to maximize the students’ abilities to get started right away. Their belief is to jump-start the individual in building their entrepreneurial career.

H A R VA R D U N I V E R S I T Y ( H B S )

• Here, entrepreneur candidates understand the essential value of experience both in-and-out of the classroom.

• Their courses provide the foundation for understanding the process of a business, the finances behind each purchase or sale, and the overall holistic context of an entrepreneur.

• The courses themselves bridge the gap from the theoretical to practical, and offer invaluable takeaways for the real world through well detailed case studies or various competitions like their annual Venture competition.

U N I V E R S I T Y O F C A L I F O R N I A - B E R K E L E Y ( H A A S )

• Haas School of Business is one of the world’s leading centers for study and practice of entrepreneurship.

• The program offers its MBA candidates the training and ecosystem to launch a scalable enterprise through experiential learning structured with accelerators, mentorships, peer support, and other various resources.

• The program focuses heavily on social entrepreneurship, venture capital, private equity, venture finance, and social lean Launchpad.

U N I V E R S I T Y O F P E N N S Y LVA N I A ( W H A RT O N )

• The Wharton School was the United States first business school and now has the largest alumni network in the country.

• For entrepreneurship, their students learn how to make critical and strategic decisions, lead a team, and create new and innovative ideas.

• The Wharton entrepreneurship resources advise their students and keep them on track in building the necessary network to succeed in the future.