Calling all MIT Sloan 2008 applicants

Your best bet is to stay in Boston then take the T to MIT. Check the Days Inn, I think the rates there are about as good as you will find close to the city...as long as you are looking for a bed and thats all that matters.

i have had a couple of people tell me that it is extremely difficult for indian engineers to get into sloan... opinions/comments?

that seemed to be a big topic on pagalguy last year

Has anyone started their essays for Sloan yet?

Just started mine last night. For the 4 "main" essays, how are people approaching them? Using only work experiences? Personal? Both? From my brainstorming I might use work as subjects for 2 of them, and personal/EC for the other two.

Also, for the "defend an idea" question, I'm kind of unclear what they mean. I assume they don't want people to write about defending something like a political belief. What I was going to write about was a time at work in which I was assigned to analyze and present some data and my boss challenged me on it saying it didn't present what our clients wanted. I know the question is asking less about the specific situation and is more interested in how you handled the situation, so that's how I am going to approach it.

Any thoughts?

Political issues are a touchy subject just like religion because you don't know the beliefs of your readers. Unless your work involve politics I would stay away from political debates.

I agree, but when they say "Talk about a time you defended an idea", it's sort of ambiguous. I will assume they mean defending an idea in professional context, and write about an example of that.

If you can come up with a solid work example I would aim for that...especially if your political type issue is polarizing or comes from one extreme or the other. If you were the middle road trying to fight an extreme that might work fine.

Yeah, I guess to me it seems like defending a specific methodology or way to present things at work isn't really an "idea", but maybe it's just semantics.

"4. Special circumstances related to your academic program which you would like to mention (up to 500 words). "

I assume this means circumstances related to your undergrad experience? Or are they talking about something totally different?

I've been writing all day and can't think anymore.

JJanders, that optional essay is if you have a low GPA, if you do they want to know why. If you are around the avg don't worry about it. They are one of the schools that specifies what to write in that optional essay...Think hard about this one if your GPA is within the a few tenths of the mean/median.

Answering this if you have a 3.5 GPA and say you would have had a 3.6 except for a bad semester freshman year and go on to write 500 words about adjusting to college...shows bad judgement to them since your GPA is fine.

Now if you have a 2.9 but with an upperward trend and were in very demanding major at a difficult school this essay will help you to eliminate any concerns they would have about your academics.

No matter what you don't want to come across as whiney or as making excuses for getting loaded all the time freshman year and never attending classes.



On a different topic...who else HATES MITs questions? 500 words feels impossible to give all of the details they want. My wife saw the questions and was like just apply to someplace else. Then again they must get a lot more bad essays than other schools so if you can answer these well you probably have a very good chance.

Yeah I'm having a bit of a problem staying within 500 words on most of them. I'm in the draft phase and have like 550 or more on some, so I'm going to have to whittle it down.

That's what I figured that optional essay was for, but then the next one is "Tell us anything else you'd like us to know" so I wasn't sure if the one I mentioned was looking for something specific.

My GPA is a 3.2, but I had a BAD sophomore year due to some family/financial issues...bad like I failed a few classes and took a year off after it to resolve the problems and regain my focus. If not for that year I probably would have had a 3.7 or 3.8.

I'm not sure it's something worth writing an essay about. A 3.2 certainly isn't bad, but when you look at my transcript you definitely think "Whoa, what happened there?". Luckily it was in my sophomore year and it's apparent I did exceptionally well in every other year, but I don't know.

Yeah, I woudl definitely write something if I was in your shoes. A bad class here or there can just be because of a professor or whatever. An entire year in which you did poorly should be cleared up...especially if you have a valid reason. I am sure they get plenty of people trying to explain away some bad grades with BS answers so being able to have a true and convincing story will help.

riverripper, I think as an engineer, it's actually slightly "easier" for us to get into MIT Sloan because of their focus on tech and vigorous curriculum. I know of a couple folks from my company who have gotten in and their experiences weren't any better or worse than yours or mine.

I'd just work on the essays, get them to be very good and submit!

I have heard before that MIT asks applicants to use only experiences from the last 2 or 2.5 years for essays. I looked all over the online application and did not see this statement.

Does anybody know if such a rule exists?

edit: Never mind. Found these instructions on the essay instructions section on the sloan web site. Is everyone strictly adhering to this rule?

Attempting to, yes

I don't intend to. Some where I have to plug in my Volleyball and Football involvement. I have n't played in the last 8 years.

Sorry if this is repeated info. I got an email about MIT Sloan MBA Admissions Events. This is the schedule

Tuesday, September 04, 2007 Houston, TX
Wednesday, September 05, 2007 Chicago, IL
Wednesday, September 05, 2007 Austin, TX
Thursday, September 06, 2007 Detroit, MI
Thursday, September 06, 2007 Dallas, TX
Monday, September 10, 2007 New York, NY
Tuesday, September 11, 2007 Cambridge, MA
Monday, September 17, 2007 Los Angeles, CA
Tuesday, September 18, 2007 Mountain View, CA
Tuesday, September 18, 2007 Newport Beach, CA
Wednesday, September 19, 2007 Denver, CO
Wednesday, September 19, 2007 San Francisco, CA
Thursday, September 20, 2007 Seattle, WA
Monday, September 24, 2007 Miami, FL
Monday, October 22, 2007 Washington, DC
Tuesday, October 23, 2007 New York, NY
Wednesday, October 24, 2007 Cambridge, MA

For further details (time and location) and for registration, please go to https://mitsloan.mit.edu/mba/admissions/ ... php?c=date