Today’s Fridays from the Frontline column comes to us from Andrew Foster, a student pursuing an MBA at MIT Sloan School of Management concurrently with an MS in civil engineering as part of that school’s engineering dual-degree program. As Foster shared in a recent post on the MIT Sloan student blog, he wasn’t sure what being an LGBT MBA candidate would feel like. Having completed undergrad at California’s Pomona College, he wrote, “I feared that there was no way any MBA program could be as gay-friendly as my alma mater.”
As he prepared to apply to business school, he decided to attend the Reaching Out MBA (ROMBA) conference, held that year in Texas. There he was pleased to find representatives from all of his target schools actively engaged in recruiting LGBT MBA candidates. But one school—the one he eventually chose—stood out from the rest.
Read on to learn why he was drawn to MIT Sloan and what his experience as an LGBT MBA candidate there has been. Our thanks to Foster and Sloan for allowing us to share his post with the Clear Admit audience.
The following post has been republished in its entirety from its original source, “MIT Sloan Student Blog: MBA Class of 2019.”
Being LGBT at MIT Sloan
by Andrew Foster, MBA ‘19
When I started to apply to business school, I wasn’t sure what being an LGBT MBA candidate would feel like. I did my undergrad at Pomona College, a liberal arts school in California, and I feared that there was no way any MBA program could be as gay-friendly as my alma mater.
These doubts are what prompted my roommate and me to take a crowded (but very cheap!) Spirit Airlines flight from California to Texas to check out the Reaching Out MBA (ROMBA) conference. I soon found myself bouncing between coffee chats with my target MBA programs. All the top programs were there, and I was happy to see their representatives so engaged in recruiting LGBT MBA candidates.
My last coffee chat was with MIT. Unlike the other programs, which all had just a single admissions officer, MIT had three energetic LGBT MBA candidates. I could tell that they loved MIT. They talked about how welcoming the MIT and Boston communities were. They even connected me with a current student in the engineering dual degree program I was interested in. They also encouraged me to apply for the ROMBA fellowship, which provides MBA scholarships.
One year later, I’m thrilled to be going back to the ROMBA conference as an MIT MBA candidate and ROMBA fellow. Those connections I made last year played a huge role in getting me excited about pursuing an MBA in general and about going to MIT specifically. I’m grateful for these LGBT MBA candidates who’ve come before me, and I’m now paying some of that goodwill forward.
I’ve joined the leadership of the LGBT @ Sloan group and I’m currently working to make our alumni community even stronger. I’m looking forward to helping plan LGBT @ Sloan’s spring social event, which is open to all and is one of the best-attended events of the semester. I’ve only been at MIT for a few months, but I’m already so proud to be at an institution that embraces diversity as much as it embraces technology and innovation.
