Calling All Fall 2010 MIT Sloan Applicants

All my 3 essays are work-related and that's worrying me because there's no other avenue where I can expand on my extracurriculars.
I have some really notable XC's, but they're 4-5 years old.
Anyone else in the same boat??

Also, can current students or alumni voice their opinion, on what Adcom looks for in these essays?
Great writing skills or the content itself? For example, I'm in a very technical job and I'm trying to explain technical jargon in simple terms. I don't have a lot of scope for using flowery language and exquisite narration. It is what it is.
So my question is:

What's Sloan Adcom looking for? Content or Delivery?
thanks in advance.
-wg

from the on campus info session, the adcom said they want to the process behind how you think and execute. they don't care about your goals. more importantly is where you've been and how you got to where you are today, not necessarily where you're going.

Cover letter tips from MIT (career development center):
https://web.mit.edu/career/www/guide/coverletters.pdf

I am in the Sloan admissions chat right now, but they have divided it into 3 chat rooms based on user name. I will have a chat log saved from the 3rd chat room... is anyone else in the other 2 rooms?

From the chat (lots of questions about the cover letter):

how about resume? 50 lines including white space or 50 lines of content?
thanks
-wg

Are you all directly referring to your application "materials" (resume, essays, application sections, etc.) in your cover letter or are you being more indirect?

I've seen some examples where the author more or less starts off by saying something like "I've included my resume, all application materials ...", and later refers to those sections as he/she goes through their points.

I'm not sure if I like this or not, I was just going to start off with something like "I am writing to outline my qualifications for admission to the MIT Sloan class of ..." and then go on with what I want to say. At no point would I treat the letter as a narrative index/guide to my application materials.

Thoughts?

Hey all, just wanted to put up a quick post about my visit to Sloan last week. I met with a friend of a friend who's a second year in the LGO program. The morning was spent in a Economics for Strategy class, pretty interesting talk about game theory, Prisoner's dilemma type stuff. Lunch was spent in a seminar where a visiting speaker from Cisco talked about some topics that went right over my head. It was a good example of the quality of outside resources that Sloan can gather though. Also I had a chance to see most of the facilities, nothing too impressive and more than adequate (understand there is a new building coming soon).

Later in the afternoon, I had the chance to sit in on a Marketing class by Mark Ritson, who I now know is quite a rockstar prof. in the marketing/branding world. It was a video case on Levis that day so he didn't talk as much but I definitely got a sense of how good he is. There were actually almost a dozen students not enrolled in the class who sat in the back and in the aisles just to soak up his expertise. Overall, I definitely had a good impression of Sloan. The students were very professional and I could feel a sense of energy in them. Good luck to all the R1 applicants, I'm slowly getting started on mine since the LGO deadline isn't until Dec.

Is anyone using the optional essay to highlight the ECs? There is no place in the app where I can highlight them, except a small one line in the resume...

Are you all answering Why Sloan in the cover letter? Just curious as that's not in the prompt but was in a Clear Admit blog for the MIT Essays. I have a section of that currently but am having to cut down other areas that they specifically asked for and the Why Sloan section is relatively small. Any insight would be helpful.

In the chat earlier today, the adcom said to focus on introducing yourself more instead of saying why sloan. She specifically said it doesn't make sense to waste space citing specific clubs or courses of interest, and they assume you did due diligence before deciding to apply. That being said, I probably will keep a few "why sloan" elements in my letter just because it seems right for any cover letter. I think it may be wiser to show through your past actions in your essays that your personality matches the environment at Sloan instead of stating aspects of interest.

deleted

Boogs, to quote you:
"In the chat earlier today, the adcom said not to focus on introducing yourself more instead of saying why sloan."
I think you meant to say the adcom wants us TO focus on introducing ourselves more. You're pnctradicting yourself there
-wg

Posted from my mobile device

I'm dedicating approximately 100 words to Why Sloan.

Question about Essay 3: wondering if anyone else had the same thought and brought it up in a chat??
Please describe a time when you took responsibility for achieving an objective.
Does the adcom want the details of how i stood up and took responsibility, when no one else was willing to , which is 30% of essay for situation buildup, 40% of me making my case, 20% process followed in achieving result and 10% in result achieved.

OR

Do they want to know very little about the situation and more about the actual process and actual result achieved?

Any pointers on this?
thank you
-wg

WARNING: Dumb Question !!!
Is anyone posting the Essay question on top of the page? My essay is a page without the question, but stepping over without it.
Also, is it mentioned anywhere what size or font is necessary?
Can we cheat a bit by using size 11 to fit everything in one page?