So You Want to Go to Sloan...

Whether you graduated last year or twenty years ago, when the subject of MIT admissions comes up there's one question that often gets asked:

Could I still get in?

This line of thinking was the source of some amusement last year when we at Slice published a blog post about an 1869 admissions exam (read: Could You Have Gotten into MIT in 1869?) The historical perspective is interesting, but what about today? And what about a specific school at MIT, say, Sloan School of Management? In fact, a sizable number of people who pursue undergraduate degrees from MIT end up circling back for graduate work at Sloan. It is incredibly competitive; for every available seat in the incoming class about 12 people apply.

Business Week recently published a Q&A with Soan's MBA admissions director, Rod Garcia. Garcia talked about how Sloan evaluates candidates and offered some tips for applicants. Among his advice:

Two things will make someone stand out. One is what we call demonstrated abilities or demonstrated success, the things that are clearly visible when you look at the application—that is grades, your score on the test, your work experience, reputation of the company, quality of the school, quality of the degree," said Garcia. "And then there are things that are not easily visible, and these are what we call "beneath the water." The beneath the water characteristics are ones that are a little bit more difficult to find. [One characteristic is] trust-building skills, so you look for evidence of candidates who are good at building trust, mentoring, coaching, advancing relationships.

Read the rest of the Business Week article.

For more information about the MBA application process, visit the "apply" section of the Sloan website.

TechTV also has an interesting video (more audio than video) about one student's application experience. Check it out: [vodpod id=Video.4703271&w=425&h=350&fv=allowFullScreen%3Dtrue%26bgcolor%3D%23000000%26autoPlay%3Dfalse%26]