3. Academic degrees

Avoid abbreviations in text, particularly for external audiences, because some are not widely understood; use bachelor’s degree, master’s degree, doctorate, etc. Abbreviations such as BA, MS, and PhD are widely understood in academic and internal contexts; externally, in lists or where the need to identify many individuals by degree would make the preferred form cumbersome, abbreviations may be suitable. Do not use periods in abbreviating academic degrees (this is contrary to AP style).

Include year only when the person has earned the degree; for example, Janey Stanford, BS ’20, Leland Smith, MBA ’19; Collis Huntington, PhD ’21. Although some programs at Stanford for their internal use include cohort/class year in identifying students, this is generally not appropriate for News stories. Identify undergraduates as first-year students or frosh, sophomores, juniors or seniors as appropriate. Graduate and professional students generally are identified by program, their year in the program may or may not be included, depending on relevance: master’s student in electrical engineering, doctoral student in history, second-year MBA student, graduate student working toward a joint MBA and MS in Environment and Resources. Avoid using the term candidate when referring to graduate students – the general reading public likely doesn’t realize that a graduate student has to advance to candidacy by fulfilling certain requirements and we don’t want to accidentally call someone a candidate who hasn’t fulfilled the requirements.