Yesterday I went to MIT-Sloan's information session in Boston. It was
quite a big event and many prospective applicants showed up. One thing
that I noticed was that at the other 3 info sessions that I've attended
- those of Harvard, Stanford and Kellogg - there were a number of
students who showed up in all 3 events, but those students were not
present at Sloan's info session. So I think that MIT has a bit different
applicant pool than Harvard, Stanford and Kellogg do.
The admission officer started her
presentation by telling about MIT's motto - "Mens et Manus" which in
Latin means "Mind and Hand" - and said that Sloan wants to develop
innovative leaders who combine theory and practice to build
companies/products that greatly impact the society. By the way,
innovation is a big theme at MIT and it was stressed during the whole
event. After
that, the officer discussed the factors that make Sloan's MBA program
unique among other top programs. First, Sloan's program is very flexible
as the core courses last just one semester (in most schools it's 2
semesters) so students have more choices in picking their desired classes.
Second, Sloan is part of MIT - the best engineering school and one of
the best universities of the world - and that creates many unique
opportunities. Third, Sloan students can write a thesis (about 10% do)
if they want. There were 2 other uniqueness factors but I unfortunately don't remember
them. Then we
were shown a video made my students that was titled (if I remember
correctly) "A day in a life of a Sloanie". It was really cool movie
with background rock music tunes (which sometimes turned into rap)
describing interesting student experiences. The movie was followed by a
question-answer session with a panel of about 10 alumni. After that
another admission officer gave us some interesting admission tips. Here
they are: 1.
You probably have a slightly higher chance of being admitted in R1 than
you do in R2. But the admission officer cautioned not to rush the
application and submit it when you think it's truly ready.
2. Essays: Bad essays are those
that describe in length the initial "situation", then shortly describe
what the applicant did and then describe in great detail the final
outcome. The good essays quickly describe the initial and final
"situations" and describe in great detail applicant's actions and
thoughts during the whole process.
3. Recommendation: The primary
purpose of recommendations is to get a confirmation of what you wrote in
the essays. The best recommendations confirm what the applicant has
written but do that from a different angle and perhaps with some
additional information. The admission officer strongly advised not to
write your own recommendation since that would simply be a "missed
opportunity".
Those 3 are the important themes that I remember from his really
interesting (and not official party line) presentation. I'm going to
attend Sloan's Ambassador Program today and I'll write about shortly.
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