MIT-Sloan takes a slightly different approach with its essays compared to most top schools. The admissions committee has stated explicitly in various admissions chats that Sloan’s application is unique in that it focuses exclusively on examples of candidates’ past behaviors. The committee is more interested in the details of an applicant’s story and his/her actions and decision-making than in the results/conclusion or in fact the candidate’s ultimate success.
The committee also requests that applicants use fairly current examples, ideally from the past three years. A successful accomplishment that occurred more than five years ago is less appealing to the committee than one that may not have turned out the way the applicant had intended, but still took place more recently.
In writing your essays, you would be well served to keep in mind the phrase “past behavior is a predictor of future success.”
Cover Letter
Prepare a cover letter (up to 500 words) seeking a place in the MIT Sloan MBA Program. Describe your accomplishments and include an example of how you had an impact on a group or organization. Your letter should conform to standard business correspondence and be addressed to Mr. Rod Garcia, Director of MBA Admissions.
You will note that unlike most schools, Sloan does not ask for MBA candidates to discuss either future goals or “why Sloan.” This is not an oversight! In keeping with its conviction that past behavior is the best predictor of future success, Sloan wants applicants to emphasize past actions and thought processes rather than long-term aspirations. Rather than paraphrasing what the admissions committee wants, we will let Admissions Director Rod Garcia (from an interview with the MIT-Sloan newspaper) tell you: “the admissions committee does not explicitly ask applicants for their future goals to prevent candidates from telling stories that they think the AdCom wants to hear.” According to Mr. Garcia, “That’s why we don’t ask the ‘Why Now?,’ ‘Why MBA,’ and ‘Why Sloan’ type of questions that every other business school asks because these questions are leading questions, i.e. they lead the interviewees to tell the interviewer what the interviewer wants to hear. So, to go around this trickery, we ask candidates to talk to us about past examples instead.”
Our advice? If you believe it necessary to include your goals in order to provide context, do so, but limit them to the extent possible. Similarly, mentioning Why Sloan is not expected nor encouraged, but if you feel a need to do so anyway, again, keep it brief, relevant and specific.
While the MIT cover letter differs from the typical personal statement, some “global” fundamentals still apply. Thus, we offer our “mbaMission Personal Statement Guide” to you, free of charge, via our online store. Please feel free to download your copy today.
Essays
We are interested in learning more about you and how you work, think, and act. For each essay, please provide a brief overview of the situation followed by a detailed description of your response. Please limit the experiences you discuss to those which have occurred in the past three years.
In each of the essays please describe in detail what you thought, felt, said, and did.
Essay 1: Please describe a time when you went beyond what was defined, expected, established, or popular. (500 words or fewer, limited to one page)
Typically, candidates consider times in which they possessed a bold vision and achieved ambitious goals, despite being discouraged by others, or times when no one had even realized an opportunity existed. While either circumstance is reasonable as a starting point, we suggest that candidates also consider instances when they revealed themselves to be independent thinkers, capable of finding their own path and/or adhering to morals and principles they hold dear. Regardless of which path you choose, by creating a clear picture of what was expected of you and then contrasting your choice—by describing your actions and outlining your reasoning and thoughts—you can present a compelling picture of yourself as a strong-minded and adventurous “hero.”
Essay 2: Please describe a time when you convinced an individual or group to accept one of your ideas. (500 words or fewer, limited to one page)
This essay is likely less about convincing and more about persuading. The admissions committee wants to gain a profound understanding of your people skills – with an emphasis on diplomacy. It is highly unlikely that the admissions committee wants to read about how you forced an opposing group to accept defeat. So, you will want to focus on how you encountered a problem and maneuvered to gain consensus and solve the problem, or how you conceived of an idea and advocated for it in order to achieve mutually beneficial ends. The classic “win-win” situation is the most likely result that you should attempt to reveal, but you might deviate and identify a complex situation where you are able to persuade others to mitigate losses (still, arguably “win-win”). Regardless of the situation, as the AdCom emphasizes, the focus is on your actions, less than the results themselves.
Essay 3: Please describe a time when you took responsibility for achieving an objective. (500 words or fewer, limited to one page)
This essay question is pretty open ended with respect to experiences from which you can choose, which will likely be a relief for those who felt constrained by the other two far more narrow questions above. Still, you should not simply paste in your favorite leadership story. In fact, while you can draw from many types of experiences, the admissions committee is looking for something specific in terms of your actions, as a member of the admissions committee stated in an online chat: “(In essay three)…we’re looking for an example of how well you are able to set a goal and achieve it. How do you do it? What type of plan do you put in place? How do you motivate others to help you achieve that goal too?” So, you will need to be very clear about how you “took responsibility”—that you did not just lead but that you communicated your intention to lead and thus created expectations for yourself. You can then explore how you achieved your goals and delivered on the expectations you created. (Note: You do not need to exclude instances in which you only partially achieved, or did not achieve, your goals, as long as you reveal the positive attributes of the experience.) At mbaMission, we recommend that candidates present their stories via a narrative structure. Do not just tell the reader what you accomplished, truly show the reader how you did it.
Supplemental Information (Optional)
You may use this section to address whatever else you want the Admissions Committee to know. (250 words or fewer, limited to one page)
Supplemental space is not the place to paste in a strong essay from another school or offer a few anecdotes that just did not fit in with your other essays. This is in fact the place to address any lingering questions that an admissions officer may have about your candidacy that have not yet been addressed – a poor grade or overall GPA, a low GMAT score, a gap in your work experience, etc. Via the mbaMission Guide to Optional Essays, we offer candidates direction and many examples of brief but effective optional statements which will give you your best opportunity to take on your problem areas.
Read the full article: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Sloan) Essay Analysis, 2010-2011