MIT Sloan School of Management MBA Admissions Interview
The
MIT Sloan School
of Management is an integral part of MIT's rich intellectual tradition of
education and research and the business school ranks amongst the world’s leading
MBA programs.
The School traces its beginnings back to 1914
when it was the engineering
administration curriculum in the MIT Department of Economics and Statistics. In
1925, a master's degree in
management was established and, in 1931, the world's first
university-based executive education program -- the MIT Sloan
Fellows -- was created. The MIT School of Industrial Management
was formally established in 1952. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, a 1972 Sloan alumnus,
delivered the opening address at the School's recent 50th
anniversary celebration.
Some of MIT Sloan School's most unique aspects include:
-
The MIT Sloan Leadership
Model
-
The MIT $50K Competition
-
Global E-Lab
-
Biomedical Enterprise Program
-
Center for eBusiness at MIT
-
MIT Sloan China Project
Below is the three-page transcript of our
interview with Rod Garcia, Director of MBA Admissions, on
May 10, 2004.
What new changes are occurring on
campus and how is Sloan evolving?
Our new curriculum has brought more
flexibility to the student's experience, with 75% of the
courses electives and few required courses to complete
beyond the one semester core.
Each semester now has a 6-1-6 schedule
with the middle period being Sloan Innovation Period where
students get to attend faculty seminars on their cutting
edge research; stuff that won't be in the textbooks for
years. And our experiential courses like Global
Entrepreneurship Lab -- where students travel to over 30
companies in 15 countries -- are enormously popular.
I think you’ll see even more
integration between theory and practice. It is an area
where we are uniquely positioned to add value.
Last year, applications for your
full-time program declined by what percentage?
Declines of 15-20% were common across
all our peer schools.
Are you seeing any early indications
of how this year's application volume may compare to the
2002-2003 season?
I don't have the final statistics yet but applications
are down this year. There are several explanations for
this. First is the prolonged weak economy. In a
weak economy, people quit their jobs and go to graduate
school and in a prolonged weak economy, there are fewer
people left in the pipeline. Demographics also have
something to do with the pipelines. Remember declines
in college applications some 8-10 years ago? This age
group is now applying to business schools. And finally
more and more candidates are applying to fewer schools and
fewer applicants are applying to multiple schools.
How about the demographic makeup of
the applicant pool?
In our particular case, we've seen increases in
applications from certain parts of the world (Asia) but
we've also seen decreases in other parts (Latin America).
What general advice would you like
applicants considering Sloan to know?
Be yourself. Spend more time than you
think you need thinking of what you’ve done, how you've done
it, worked with people, came up with ideas, etc. We want to
know about your process as much or more than the results
you've had.
You'll see our questions are designed
to elicit the details of your experience. Don't give us big
picture statements -- give us the closeup of who you are.
When do you encourage applicants to
apply?
When they are ready. We have admits
with 0 years of full-time experience and admits with 20.
Are there any specific
characteristics that you target in the applications to help
you identify the 'best fit' candidates?
Yes, we have 11 characteristics that help
us focus in on the core qualities of success. I won't name
them here but they are what might be expected in a top-tier
MBA candidate. The difference in our process is that our
admissions staff works very closely together to determine
benchmarks of success and potential. We feel we have great
repeatability across readers and interviewers.
What should applicants most heavily
emphasize in their work experience?
Progression is often overlooked -- not
titles but levels of responsibility, significance of
projects etc. Also, outside of work activities often have
major potential to make a positive impact on us.
Page 1
2
3
|
