[katzgrau]

Well, perhaps ...

1. There is more opportunity for Stanford students to pursue graduate degrees, leading many to forgo the entrepreneurial route

2. Stanford students receive better job offers upon graduation, leading many to forgo the entrepreneurial route

3. Stanford attracts more international students who come from countries less encouraging of entrepreneurship

Regarding the first two, I could probably think of 10 more positive reasons the numbers might be what they are. What's perceived as a positive for Olin may actually be due to an inarguably positive thing for Stanford

[throwawayjava]

1. Surprisingly, students from small private colleges like Olin are more likely to pursue graduate degrees. IDK if this holds for Olin specifically.

2. Olin is a great school. I doubt undergraduates from Olin are paid substantially differently from those at Stanford. There is probably data on this.

3. Seems the most likely explanation. Or just random chance.

[keerthiko]

Exactly, all 3 of your conclusions are true :)

1) My class had 30+% go into PhD programs, with over half of them receiving Fulbright/NSF/comparable prestigious research grants.

2) Earlier Olin classes graduated a larger percentage of people to take on high-paying jobs at Google/MS/IBM (and later FB/Twitter). It has shifted towards more academia and entrepreneurs

3) As one of (only) four international students in the first class (5% of the incoming class), yes, fewer international students. Yes, international students come from cultures less encouraging of entrepreneurship. While I'm definitely from one of those, being at Olin brought me around to entrepreneurship -- I wasn't interested until nearing graduation, reinforcing the article's point that Olin nurtures and graduates founders more effectively than other schools. I would almost certainly have worked a high-paying software dev job if I attended Stanford instead.

[pataoAoC]

Perhaps, but regarding the first 2...

1. Top graduate schools for Olin grads (in order): MIT, Stanford, Harvard, Carnegie Mellon, UC-Berkeley, Cornell. It doesn't seem like people that want to go to grad school are struggling for opportunity.

2. Top employers (in order) for Olin grads: Google, Microsoft, athenahealth, Apple. I'm not sure a better list could be drawn up over the past few years.

http://www.olin.edu/collaborate/careers-graduate-studies/res...

I think [3] could be quite true, and I'm sure there are other potential explanations as well.