Stanford Takes Leap Into Online Education

The LEAD program’s selectivity will help ensure maximum benefits for participants, Witters says. “If you’re going to be using your peer group to get feedback, you need to know that that is a group of people whose feedback is going to be relevant to you,” Witters says.

The application requires submission of a two-minute video in which applicants describe what area of their company they want to change, and why they want to take the program.

SELECTIVE ADMISSIONS TO ENSURE HIGH-CALIBER PEER SUPPORT

Although GSB stands to gross some $1.6 million from LEAD fees, officials aren’t putting it on for the money, says school spokesperson Barbara Buell. “Online pedagogy is something they want to be leaders in,” Buell says. “There’s a value in that that is beyond that we need to make X per cent profit.”

Stanford announced last week that it’s encroaching on East Coast b-schools’ territory by opening its innovation-focused Ignite certificate program in New York City, using its new digital education equipment to beam GSB professors across the country by videoconference to join a handful delivering the program on site. The nine-week Ignite, according to GSB, attracts hundreds of applications for each program. The New York program costs $14,500 and is limited to 50 students. Ignite graduates tend to showcase their Stanford certificate prominently on resumes and Linkedin profiles.

Applicatons to LEAD are open through March 25.

DON’T MISS: WHARTON NOW OFFERING ONLINE EXEC ED

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