Disclosing ADHD in Business School Application (MIT Sloan)

A few weeks ago, I was looking for advice on whether or not to disclose my recently diagnosed ADHD to my business school application. I went ahead and disclosed ADHD in my application for Master of Management program at MIT Sloan (MSMS) despite advice from an MIT Sloan faculty member to the contrary.

I just received a decline from MIT Sloan Master of Science in Management Studies (MSMS) Program and my advice to anyone applying to a business school is to be very careful about disclosing any disabilities (ADHD, Autism or any other learning disabilities).

Why??

1) It is likely that Admission committees don't have much awareness around ADHD and while they will happily accomodate someone with a physical disability, they will consider ADHD as a shortcoming on the part of the applicant rather than considering it a disability on the same level. This is the exact advice I received from my contact person in MIT Sloan faculty prior to making my application in addition to advice from two other business school professors - I ignored the advice and paid the price.

2) Unfortunately, there has been a lot of negative press against ADHD and this has resulted in people developing biases against people with ADHD instead of appreciating the struggle ADHDers have to put through. A mere mention of ADHD can stigmatized a perfect applicaion as it happened in my case.

3) When you disclose ADHD, school has no idea how to accomodate you even if you don't ask for accomodations. They don't want to find themselves short of not being able to fullfil your needs and hence they take the easy way out by eliminating you completely from the process. Unfortunately, we are still in industrial ages when it comes to recognizing diversity in mental performance. I thought MIT Sloan was going to be different but I was wrong.

So why did I choose to disclose my ADHD in my application?

ADHD has never impacted my career and academic success but after being diagnosed last year I made a huge progress in my relationships and personal life. I have been immensely proud of mysef before and after ADHD diagnosis and I didn't want to hide this 'big part of who I am' from admission committee. MIT claims to be an 'Entreprenuer friendly' school and I thought they would be more respectful to ADHD traits than any other school. I also felt this was going to be a litmus test of whether MIT Sloan was the right place for me. If a school is not going to respect who I am, they don't deserve to have me. For this reason, I am not even a little bit disappointed.

Shoud you disclose your ADHD in your application?

I would say Yes. This means reducing your chances dramatically but you get an amazing opportunity to test the 'value system' of that particular school. If they are going to mark you down for your disability, you don't want to be there. A lot of schools talk about developing humility as a major trait in their MBAs and pride themselves on all that talk about 'values', 'ethics' and 'honesty' but would rather admit someone who lied in their essays than someone who showed humility and honesty.

Could there be something else that contributed to MIT Sloan refusing me a place?

I don't know. May be there was something else and I sincerely hope it was something else. One of my referees has served on many MBA admission committees and her partner is a busienss school dean. They both thought I had a fantastic chance of getting into MIT Sloan MSMS program. I also had a very strong thesis proposal which is based on a real bootstrapped start up which just got valued for over $2.5 million last week.

In the end, my advice for anyone contemplating to disclose ADHD is to think hard about your decision. If you have made this far despite your life-long disability, you are truly gifted and may be already too good for 'short-sighted' business schools. If you get a decline, this is NOT going to be the first time you are going to pay a price for your bad genes but you already know how to overcome rejections more than anyone

Are business schools/MBA a good fit for ADHD minds?

It depends on the school and their acceptance for thinking diversity. ADHD folks make up a large portion of successful entreprenuers and MBA schools should be targeting applicants with entreprenuerial tendencies but unfortunately there is more talk and less do when it comes to schools. They badly need you to sustain 'innovation' but they are not smart enough yet.

Enjoy

KB