2012 MIT Sloan Leaders for Global Operations (LGO) Thread

An Update: an international (Mexican) on BTG has received an invite..

Rajadi - What is the link to that Beat the Gmat forum? thanks!

Yesterday night had a dream that Leah gave me an interview invite! Its getting on my nerves now.. hope LGO is listening

lol. I hope we do get a call. I really think my app was good and I wouldnt change anything. This was my sincerest best effort. If this one doesnt get me in, then nothing can.

By the way, whats the address for LGO? I am thinking on sending a gift basket.

As I understand, internationals can expect invites all the way up to end-Feb
Long wait... but Interviewfest is around the corner in the coming week, would be good to hear about it ...

To the lucky people who interviewed today, how did it go? good luck to the ones going on Monday!

Interviewfest went very well. The discussion panels were very informative and they overall did a great job getting students to interact with applicants. The interview was also very low threat. My interviewer at least made me quite comfortable and we were able to basically just have a conversation. Hopefully things went well.

Also, a lot of people seem to be interested in international invites - I saw 1x applicant from Spain, Mexico, Israel, China, and Columbia when I was there. I think there are some more, but cannot recall.

Thanks dayABR11 for the information. All the best for admission. Can you say who were the interviewers, current students or faculty or Adcom? Did they ask some technial questions related to your field of engineering?
I think I know the Mexican, had met him at Ambassador Day. Did you attend it? Looks like a lot of internationals called for interviewfest, unlike what happened in the previous years. Don't know how to read it

I heard that those who are not accepted by the LGO program will be considered for the R2 regular MBA. Does anyone know when these packages will be handed over by the LGO adcom to the MBA adcom? After LGO decision date? If this is the case, won't that be too late as the decision date of R2 MBA is Apr 2?

For everyone wondering about international applicants,
I was pleasantly surprised to see how international the program is. From what I had read before, I thought LGO was only focused on American manufacturing. It seems that more and more of the internship opportunities with partner companies are becoming international (however no specific language requirements, just preferences) and even some of the partners are now foreign based companies. They mentioned that there are a few internships that accept only US citizens, but this is not a question of work visa. The internships that require US citizens were just for companies that are defense contractors working on military projects (Raytheon, for example). It sounds like being a corporate sponsored student was even more limiting than being international.

As for the applicants, I didn’t probe to ask what type of papers most people had, but I did meet several international applicants. Judging by accents alone it seemed that about 15% (maybe 20%) didn’t speak English as their first language, and this diversity seemed similar in the class of 2012 as well. All of the applicants were absolutely outstanding. I was very impressed with everyone’s experience, and mostly with how down to earth and amicable everyone was. Those two aspects made the program very appealing, but at the same time made it seem that my chances of getting in were slim. There wasn’t a single person I didn’t think could get in, and there was no one that I didn’t want to get in, it was a really strong group.

One other thing, I heard that next year fellowship money will be distributed according to engineering focus (not how it was previously distributed), the more students that are in the same track, the more who will share the funds. Each track will receive different amounts since some are much more popular, but being in a unique engineering track seems like it might have a slight advantage and a bit less competition, but that is something new that we will find out in the 2014 class.

Thanks iamvolitant for the information. Its good to see a good brief of interviewfest. All the best for the admissions. Could share more info about the actual interview itself?

Another year, another interview with the LGO program.

In 2010 I thought I nailed the interview only to get placed on the waitlist; I then didn't get into either LGO or Sloan. (No one got off the waitlist that year). Decided to revamp myself and worked harder.

Fast forward two years

Applied again and went through the entire process again. This time I had to interview with the Admissions Director! I BOMBED and won't be expecting a call. After I wrote the thank you note that took me 30 minutes to physically write (in cursive), I have resigned myself to move on from this program and school. It is time to turn the page and come up with a new plan as I can take it too personally.

For those interested I can write you personally about what questions were asked, and how she acted and probed further. After talking with other LGO's, I found that this was her style so I am not sure what will come of it. Good luck to all the other candidates.

Everyone I talked to seemed to think their interview was very laid back and casual. I think most of the interviewers were adcom members and administrators from Sloan, and maybe a few who were specifically from LGO (as far as I could tell from what others told me).

As for my interview, it seemed a little different, so I wouldn’t go off of my experience.
I didn’t get a single behavioral question (like I was told to expect) so that kind of threw me off. It started with “tell me about yourself”. The interviewer had read my application in great detail and remembered many small things from my heap of essays, even when we were talking in the hallway and away from the computer/my resume. So that made me feel very comfortable.
My interviewer focused almost entirely on the engineering field I picked, asked what I liked about it, asked which partners I would like to intern with, asked a lot of my opinions about the industry, gave me an opinion about the industry with which I disagreed, then asked me to give the reasons why I disagreed. Asked for my greatest strength. Then asked for my greatest regret. (not expecting this question, weakness would have been easier to answer)
Overall very easy to talk to, and gave several “that’s good” or “I like that” comments to some ideas that I offered. Then asked for my questions but couldn’t answer anything specific to LGO, we talked a little longer about those. Then after about 30 minutes of interview I had no more questions and we were going to end when on the way out I mentioned something that caught the interviewers attention. We then sat back down and got into a deep conversation about it and talked another 20 minutes in a very friend-to-friend manner (interviewer was very interested but didn’t take a single note during these 20 minutes) we left the room together and spoke a little more in the hallway on our way out.

I don’t know what to expect after the interview. I re-evaluated at least 100x how I could have better explained everything, but that definitely isn’t helping. I do feel that I was at least memorable, for better or for worse. So we’ll see what happens.

Also, discussion about these GMAT club forums came up very often when speaking with current and prospective students. Everyone described it like a group of overly obsessive applicants who all stress about ridiculous stuff like what time zones invites go out in, which is semi accurate :D and it seemed like it’s a guilty indulgence or bad habit and we were all ashamed to admit we ever used it, so I weirdly feel almost embarrassed to come home and divulge to everyone.

But I think that if I were in someone else’s shoes and I missed the interviewfest I would really appreciate someone sharing their experiences. So although I feel a little embarrassed and I’ve thought about deleting my account, I thought It might be nice to share my experience with others, I hope they’re helpful to someone else.

I too was amused by how often GMATclub came up in conversations at InterviewFest.

It seems like many current and prospective students discovered the website during their application process and will admit to frequenting it after some good-natured ribbing about how obsessive things can become around here.

I had a pretty typical Sloan-style interview in that I was asked ~5-7 behavioral questions. My interviewer would often use my response to a behavioral question as an immediate lead-in to another question.

Perhaps my biggest regret was only having a mediocre response when given a final opportunity to sell myself at the end of the interview.

Overall, the InterviewFest experience was great. The interviewer did an excellent job helping me relax (I was quite nervous at the beginning of the interview), nearly everyone I met was friendly, and the current students were very welcoming and fielded everyone's questions with great (sometimes brutal) honesty.

I truly received the impression that vast majority of people at InterviewFest are strong enough to be admitted; MIT is not wasting anyone's time and money when they ask them to fly to Boston. I really have no idea how the committee will go about making final decisions (e.g. will it come down to fit/personality or small differences in flaws/strengths), but I wish everyone the best of luck.

I believe it is over for students who haven't received an interview invite!!

I thought my interview went well, but it's always hard to tell. The interview format was very comfortable and relaxing, only one or two behavioral questions (the one that sticks out in my mind was "Tell me a time when you've had to challenge the decision of a superior."). My interviewer was a part of the LGO adcom.

I agree with everyone else here - all the applicants I talked to were personable and had very impressive work experience. There was nobody who I met who I thought didn't belong or would not be a good fit. When I spoke to some current LGO students, they told me the interviews are more to determine whether the applicants are personable and a good fit for LGO rather than trying to figure out if the applicants are qualified/competent.

As for the change in fellowships, I believe all programs except Engineering Systems guarantees at least 65% of tuition and up to 100%. For Engineering Systems, 40% of tuition is guaranteed to be paid for but I'm not sure how high it could be. I guess it depends on the number of students taking it. I wish I had known about the change before I submitted my application because I was on the fence between Engineering Systems and Computer Science and I ultimately went with the former.

Also, from a rough count I did it looked like there were 35-40 applicants there on Monday. Assuming the same number on Friday, then about 70-80 people interviewed during the interview fest. I thought they typically interviewed about 100 candidates during interview fest, so maybe I missed some people in my count or more people came on Friday.

This is kind of reassuring, I think friday was similar, but then again there was never a moment when I saw all the applicants in the same room together, So it was hard to tell.
There are also prospective students who interviewed on Tuesday, but I know a lot of them still came to the fest activities on Friday and Monday.

A few of my thoughts from InterviewFest…

- Really great to meet current and prospective students. Everyone was quite impressive and very down to earth. It definitely made me want to get into the program even more, as I could see myself becoming good friends with these people. There was karaoke on Saturday night, which just shows they don’t take themselves too seriously.

- I had visited before and already had a good idea what the program was about, but this time I got to see a few internship presentations for the class of 2012, and pick up a booklet with abstracts for the class. That was really helpful in understanding the kinds of projects LGOs were working on and the kinds of internships that were available.

- I was surprised to see as many international applicants as I did. I met people from Korea, Germany, Israel, Mexico, even Australia, and there were probably more I don’t remember. During my interview, I asked about how the recession has affected turnover of sponsor companies, and she responded that is was a blessing in disguise because it made LGO look outside to more international and more non-traditional companies, so I wonder if that's driven more international students.

- I tried not to get ahead of myself and start thinking about housing, but it did come up a few times. You are at MIT for 9-12 months (depending on whether you do on- or off-cycle internships) then gone for 6+ months (unless you stay local) then back for 5 months. It’s a lot of moving, and makes it hard to sign a lease. On campus housing is an option, but most people seem to live off campus.

- Another thing I realized was that because of the 6 month internship, most students were away during fall recruiting season, and so many had to do recruiting from far away, or occasionally fly back to MIT. I would love to do an international internship, but that is definitely something to keep in mind. That being said, it sounds like LGOs had no problem finding jobs. I think nearly all the class of 2012 had already accepted job offers.

- As for the interview itself, it was typical Sloan behavior interview. My interviewer was Sloan/LGO adcom, though I had heard some others were contracted out and not necessarily affiliated from Sloan. Personally, I think I boned it—I’m not a good interviewer and some of her follow up questions I just did not have good answers to. While others had said theirs were very conversational, I felt mine was very interview-like. They also ask why LGO, and what sponsor companies you would be interested in working with. I scoured the student blogs for interview advice, but I can't post links yet.

- It seemed more often than not people I spoke to were only applying to LGO and not any other programs. Also heard last year they accept 53 and 50 enrolled. That's ridiculous yield. I have no idea how they make admissions decisions, it doesn't seem like having a strong interest in LGO is enough of a differentiator.

Now the waiting game begins...

Wonder what is going on in the admission's office right now. Who are they arguing about, who already got in, and conversely, who is getting the ding letter. Anyone else on this list do their interview with the admissions director?

Three more weeks....