MIT Sloan MBA News

Get the latest MBA news from MIT Sloan.

Published: November 23, 2015

LiveWire Data Offers Insight into MIT Sloan, Stanford GSB Interview Invitations

In recent weeks, Clear Admit’s MBA LiveWire has continued to be on fire with submissions from applicants making their way through the Round 1 application process at top schools. We’ve received reports regarding a great many schools—including Columbia Business School, Oxford’s Said Business School, NYU Stern and Cornell’s Johnson School. For today, though, our data analysis will focus on MIT Sloan and Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB), whose interview invitations and rejections have given scores of LiveWire participants cause for elation or despair. Read more

Published: November 17, 2015

Bloomberg BusinessWeek Rankings Data Reveal High Cost of MBA Networking

While most who are contemplating an MBA at a leading business school are well aware of the steep costs of tuition and foregone earnings, the budget line item for “extras” is sometimes overlooked. Bloomberg BusinessWeek, as part of its annual ranking of full-time MBA programs, asked students from the Class of 2015 just what they spend on nonessential items. The findings? The more prestigious the school, the higher the cost of networking. Harvard Business School (HBS), which was number one in Bloomberg BW’s most recent overall rankings, also topped the charts in terms of students’ median expenditure on nonessential items, at $16,290. Read more

Published: November 13, 2015

How to Ace the Top Five MBA Admissions Interview Questions

Interviews, interviews, interviews...it’s all anyone seems to be talking about these days, and with good reason. Harvard Business School, Wharton, MIT Sloan and INSEAD are just a few of the schools that are busy interviewing Round 1 applicants as we speak. Instead of making yourself crazy with worry, why not buckle down and perfect your answers to the questions you are most likely to be asked? To help you prepare, we’ve scoured our Interview Guides and Interview Archive to compile our very own Top Five list of the questions that most often make their way into MBA admissions interviews at leading schools. Read more

Published: November 10, 2015

Veterans at MIT Sloan on How Their Service Prepared Them for Business School

What does a Navy fast-attack submarine officer who spent months at a time at the bottom of the ocean have to contribute to class conversation at an elite business school? Plenty, it turns out. Brian Kirk, 28, graduated from Penn State with a degree in mechanical engineering before attending Officer Training School in Rhode Island to earn his commission in the U.S. Navy. After a year and half in the Navy’s nuclear training pipeline, he served on board the USS Louisville as part of a western Pacific deployment and in its home port of Pearl Harbor. There was not a single GMAT prep course in his path. And yet, today, he is a member of the MBA Class of 2016 at MIT Sloan School of Management—where he fits right in. Several factors led Kirk to service in the Navy. “It was something I felt compelled to do,” he says. “I felt like I needed to serve in some regard to support this country and the Constitution that I believed in so much.” But he also wanted to see the world, and there was a degree of sexiness and bravado that appealed to him, too. Read more

Published: November 8, 2015

New Forté Data Shows Impressive Gains in Female MBA Enrollment

Women make up at least 40 percent of the MBA class at 12 leading U.S. business schools this year, compared to just five last year, according to new data released today by the Forté Foundation, a nonprofit consortium of business schools and companies working to increase opportunities for women in business. “In 2011, less than a third of MBA students were women. Today we’re inching closer to 40 percent in the United States and working to close the gap significantly in another five years,” says Forté Executive Director Elissa Sangster. “Every percentage point gain is not only hard earned, but something to celebrate, and should go a long way in building the senior leadership pipeline at companies and on boards,” she continues. Read more

Published: October 28, 2015

Understanding the MBA Admissions Interview, Part IV

We’ve tackled open versus invitation-only, blind versus non-blind and the newer team-based discussion interview. What’s left? In this, our final post in our MBA admissions interview series, we’re going to take a closer look at a few of the anomalies in the interview arena—special approaches thus far embraced by just one or two schools. Of course, the team-based discussion was itself an anomaly not so many years ago, so these could also be harbingers of the next big thing. Read more

Published: October 21, 2015

MIT Sloan Launches Inclusive Innovation Competition to Improve Economic Opportunity for All Workers

As tempting as it may be to believe that a rising tide of technological innovation will lift all boats, too often low and middle income workers are left behind—or even harmed by advances that otherwise benefit business, economy and society. To meet the challenge of “inclusive innovation”—innovation that improves economic opportunity for all—MIT Sloan School of Management earlier this month launched a new competition designed to crowd source entrepreneurial and innovative energy toward this end. The MIT Inclusive Innovation Competition (IIC), funded by the Rockefeller and Joyce Foundations, was announced on October 7th as part of the launch of Solve, a new cross-disciplinary program at MIT to address the greatest challenges facing the world today. IIC is a joint effort of MIT’s Initiative on the Digital Economy (IDE) and the MIT Innovation Initiative (MITii). Read more

Published: October 11, 2015

MIT Sloan Admissions Committee Shares Round 1 Updates

In case you missed it, MIT Sloan School of Management last week shared updates from its Admissions Committee, which is busy reviewing Round 1 applications. The committee will begin sending out interview invitations in mid-October (that’s this week!) and will continue through November 9th. Every applicant, whether invited to interview or not, will receive an updated status on that date. The interview period is slated to begin October 26th and continue through December 4th, the school reports. Applicants will have the choice between interviewing on campus in Cambridge or in a city near where they currently live. The Admissions Committee plans to visit approximately 15 cities, both within the United States and abroad, to conduct off-campus interviews. “We will give applicants as much notice as possible when scheduling interviews,” reads the website. Read more

Published: October 1, 2015

Fridays from the Frontline: MIT Sloan MBA Student, Veteran Discusses Humility and Success

It’s Friday, and once again we’re bringing you insights straight from current MBA applicants and students as part of our Fridays from the Frontline column. Our contributor this week, MIT Sloan School of Management second-year Brian Kirk (pictured above, second from left), knows his fair share about the frontline, both figurative and real, having served as a U.S. Navy submariner prior to business school. In the post that follows, he offers some incredible insights about humility and its impact on success, drawn both from his time at Sloan and his military service. Worth the read. Kirk and other leaders of the MIT Sloan Veterans Association just hosted Veteran's Ambassadors Day, a day of programming and activities for prospective MBA applicants from the armed forces. They are planning a second Ambassadors Day in the spring, so if you are an active duty service person or veteran considering business school, check it out. Read more

Published: September 28, 2015

Career Services Q&A: Sue Kline of MIT Sloan’s Career Development Office

What does the job search look like for MBA students? How does it unfold at each individual school? The Clear Admit Career Services Q&A Series is designed to answer those questions and more—and we’re kicking off the newest round with an interview with Sue Kline, co-senior director of the Career Development Office (CDO) at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Kline kicked off her own career working as part of Sloan’s CDO more than 30 years ago. Five years in, she left to pursue a graduate degree and then worked for more than a decade in human relations at Boston Consulting Group and Hewlett-Packard, learning the industry side of things intimately before coming home again to Sloan 14 years ago. Read more

Published: September 1, 2015

The Inside Scoop on the Forté Forums: Great Networking for Prospective Female MBA Applicants

From Atlanta to Seattle and back, Forté Forums have been taking place around the country, giving prospective female MBA applicants a terrific opportunity to connect with admissions staff from dozens of leading business schools, hear from current students and alumnae and meet fellow applicants. The Forté Forums are an annual event series put on by the Forté Foundation, a consortium of leading companies and business schools committed to helping launch women into fulfilling careers in business. Taking place in 10 U.S. cities as well as Toronto and London, these free events kicked off on August 17th and will culminate with a final event in October. To truly understand what prospective female MBA applicants can hope to gain from attending a forum, we dropped in on one ourselves late last month in Boston. The cluster of professionally dressed young women in the lobby of the Liberty Mutual Building on St. James Avenue provided a preview of what we would discover upstairs. After a brief and efficient check-in process, attendees were given a package of materials and welcomed into a large banquet hall, where admissions staff, current students and alumnae from leading business schools stood ready to answer their questions. Read more

Published: July 17, 2015

MIT Sloan Admissions to Host Women’s Week, August 3rd – 6th

The MIT Sloan School of Management admissions team has planned a week of events in early August designed to showcase the diverse paths and accomplishments of its women students and graduates to prospective female applicants. The week, which will take place from August 3rd through 6th, will include a Google Hangout open to prospective applicants anywhere in the world, as well as alumnae panels in five U.S. cities. “Our female students bring unique backgrounds, perspectives and beliefs to MIT Sloan, building a diverse campus community filled with opportunity,” reads an announcement about the events on the school’s website. “Their collective experiences create a rich educational experience and fuel the experimentation and transformation that develop principled, innovative leaders who improve the world.” Read more

Published: June 7, 2015

Why Mission Matters at MIT Sloan School of Management

Spoiler Alert co-founders Ricky Ashenfelter and Emily MalinaPhoto credit: Mimi Phan/MIT Sloan How important is a business school’s mission statement to the experience of its students? According to recent graduates of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Sloan School of Management, the school’s mission—to develop principled, innovative leaders who improve the world and to generate ideas that advance management practice—influenced where they chose to attend business school, the experiences they had there and the future path of their careers. Ricky Ashenfelter knew he wanted a school in a market that had a lot of entrepreneurial ventures, which led him to focus his search on San Francisco and Boston. But more than that, he also wanted a school that valued and would offer coursework tied to energy and sustainability. That narrowed his focus further to MIT Sloan, the University of California at Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and Stanford Graduate School of Business, he says. “What I liked most about Sloan was that it was part of a larger MIT ecosystem, which was not the case for many business schools,” Ashenfelter says. And so he left his consulting job at Deloitte and headed for Boston hoping to find solutions to the problems of food waste in business supply chains. Read more

Published: May 11, 2015

MIT Sloan Admissions Director Provides Insight into New Essay Question, Third Round

In an interview today with Clear Admit, the admissions director at the MIT Sloan School of Management shared the reasoning behind the school’s decision to add an additional round to its admissions process and reduce the number of required essays applicants must answer to just one. For the first time in its history, MIT Sloan will give applicants the opportunity to apply as part of a third admissions round, which will feature a deadline of April 11th and a notification date of May 18th. The change comes in response to requests from multiple applicants, according to MIT Sloan Admissions Director Dawna Levenson. “Many of our peer schools, if not all of them, have a Round 3,” says Levenson. By adding a third round, she says, MIT Sloan provides greater options to prospective applicants whose work situation may have changed after earlier round deadlines passed, for example. Read more

Published: April 1, 2015

MIT Sloan Gears Up for April Ambassadors Days

MIT Sloan School of Management features its interactive, customizable Ambassadors Program each fall and spring for prospective students, hosted by current students. The Ambassadors Program runs on Mondays and Thursdays throughout MIT Sloan’s spring semester, giving visiting prospective students the chance to choose from a range of options to design the visit that best fits their schedule and interests. A full Ambassadors day beings with registration, followed by coffee with current students, attendance in a class, an information session with an Admissions representative, a second opportunity to attend a class, and then two campus tour options. Those who register are invited to pick and choose from the available sessions as they like. (Note, visitors are asked to attend only one class, but are given two time slots for ease of scheduling. Classes available to visitors change each day, and visitors may select the time of their class visit, but not the specific class.) Read more

Published: February 1, 2015

MIT Sloan MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 1 / AdCom / Off Campus

A recent MIT Sloan applicant provided us with a list of their MIT Sloan MBA admissions interview questions: It was 30 minutes long. The interviewer was very positive, smiled a lot, and made me feel at ease. She explained to me who she was and how the interview related to the admissions process. During the interview, she drilled down into my answers to extract more details. The questions asked (in no particular order) were: Read more

Published: February 1, 2015

MIT Sloan Interview Report: Round 1/ Admissions Officer / Skype

The following MIT Sloan interview report was submitted to Clear Admit by a Round 1 applicant. Good luck to them! It was 30 minutes long. The interviewer was very positive, smiled a lot, and made me feel at ease. She explained to me who she was and how the interview related to the admissions process. During the interview, she drilled down into my answers to extract more details. The questions asked (in no particular order) were: – What about the LGO program piqued your interest? – Why do you want to get into management and operations? Read more

Published: January 18, 2015

MIT Sloan MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 1 / AdCom / On Campus

The following is a recent applicant’s description of their MIT Sloan MBA admissions interview: Went smoothly. Lasted about 45 mins. Got admitted. The interviewer hardly smiled. Difficult to read. So don't be discouraged by the lack of smile. Read more

Published: January 4, 2015

MIT Sloan School of Management Announces New LGBT MBA Fellowship

As part of its commitment to fostering a diverse MBA class, MIT Sloan School of Management will award a new fellowship for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) students to one or more members of the class of 2017, the school announced last week. The new Reaching Out LGBT MBA Fellowship will be worth at least $10,000 per year. “This is the first year that MIT Sloan will award this specific fellowship,” Jeff Carbone, associate director of admissions, said in an article on the MIT Sloan website. He added that the decision to offer the fellowship was a simple one, “because we look for diversity in all forms.” Read more

Published: December 7, 2014

MIT Sloan MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 1 / AdCom / On Campus

The following is a recent applicant's description of their MIT Sloan MBA admissions interview: The interview was very casual and friendly. The interviewer never made me feel uncomfortable or tried to trip me up and the time flew by. It seemed like she just wanted to get to know a little more about me and how I carry myself in various situations.Interviewers: 1Location: On campusLength: ~40 minutesQuestions:Tell me about a time when you said “no” to someone at work. How did it turn out?Why MBA? Why Sloan? Read more

Published: November 17, 2014

MIT Sloan MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 1 / AdCom / On Campus

A recent MIT Sloan applicant provided us with a list of their MIT Sloan MBA admissions interview questions: I had my MIT interview today. Not too many curveballs. Here are the questions I got: – Tell me what you do at your current role as if I was sitting next to you on an airplane – Tell me about a time you were overwhelmed – Tell me about a time when your expectations were not met – Why an MBA and why Sloan – Tell me something you’re proud of Read more

Published: November 11, 2014

MIT Sloan MBA Admissions Interview Report: Round 1 / Adcom / On Campus

An applicant shares their MIT Sloan MBA admissions interview questions below. I finished the interview!It went smoothly. My interviewer was very smiling and friendly.Questions asked were:Anything new since you submitted your application?What do you do as an auditor?How did you end up in (a different country)?How did you adapt?Tell me about a time you had to deal with inefficiency in Read more

Published: November 4, 2014

MIT Sloan MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 1

Here is a summary of an MIT Sloan interview sent to us by a Round 1 applicant. She shares her MIT Sloan MBA interview questions below: What has changed since your submission? What are you most proud of at your current job in the past year? Difficulties around getting something implemented? (follow up on the thing I was proud of…) Talk about your career choices since leaving college? When have you strongly differed in opinion from someone? What is an example of something really difficult you’ve had to go through, or important event in the last 5-7 Read more

Published: October 30, 2014

Stanford Graduate School of Business Calls It Quits for MBA Admission Blog

Don’t look for future posts on the Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB) MBA Admissions Blog. In a final entry earlier this week, the school announced that it was saying goodbye to its blog. All prior blog content will remain accessible through mid-December, after which prospective applicants will need to keep up with news and developments regarding Stanford MBA admissions via other means. “Our blog has begun to resemble a Tesla at a gas station,” wrote admissions staffer Victoria Hendel De La O as part of a final post on October 29th. She attributed the decline of the blog to the school’s increasing reliance on other forms of social media to communicate updates. Indeed, posts to the Stanford MBA Admissions blog have grown increasingly infrequent over the past year – with the last post going up back in June. Read more

Published: October 22, 2014

U.S. News & World Report Ranks Business Schools by Graduates’ Indebtedness

Rankings of graduate management education programs abound, each with their own particular criteria for assessing which business schools ultimately come out on top. Separate from its overall business school rankings, U.S. News & World Report recently used data collected from schools to determine the top 10 programs from which MBA students graduate with the most debt. The number one spot goes to Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, where full-time MBA students from the 2013 class who borrowed for business school had an average indebtedness of $108,186. Fuqua’s full-time MBA students had more debt than any of the other 86 ranked institutions, according to data submitted to U.S. News. Read more

MIT Sloan

CLASS SIZE: 433

Women: 49%

Median GMAT: 730

Median GPA: 3.7

Livewire Decisionwire Interview Reports Essay Topic Analysis MBA Admissions Deadlines View Full Profile

MBA Applywire

November 20, 2024 9:42pm ET

Applying: Babson / Olin, , Carnegie Mellon / Tepper, Emory / Goizueta, Rice / Jones, Rochester / Simon, SMU Cox, UCI Merage, Washington U. / Olin

Intake Year: 2025

Pre-MBA Career: Technology - Entrepreneurship

Post-MBA Target Industry: Consulting, Technology, Entrepreneurship

GRE: 333

GPA: 2.56

Years of Work Experience: 5

Location: Lagos

Notes:

I just got rejected for WashU Olin and I have an interview invitation with Questrom. GPA continues to bother me but I addressed it in my supporting essays.

November 19, 2024 12:51pm ET

Applying: Berkeley / Haas, Cornell / Johnson, Dartmouth / Tuck, Duke / Fuqua, INSEAD, Michigan / Ross, MIT Sloan, Northwestern / Kellogg, U. Chicago Booth, UPenn / Wharton, Yale SOM

Intake Year: 2025

Pre-MBA Career: Tech in government

Post-MBA Target Industry: Consulting, Entrepreneurship Companies: Bain , McKinsey

GRE: 319

GPA: 2.9

Years of Work Experience: 7

Notes:

I got cancer when I was undergrad that's why my undergrad GPA is low. After MBA I want to work in consulting then make a social impact in Africa through entrepreneurship

November 19, 2024 12:06pm ET

Applying: Duke / Fuqua, Harvard Business School, Michigan / Ross, Northwestern / Kellogg, Stanford GSB, U. Chicago Booth, U. Washington / Foster, UNC Kenan-Flagler, UT Austin / McCombs, UVA / Darden

Pre-MBA Career: Wealth Management and Military

Post-MBA Target Industry: Consulting, Asset Management, inc. HF, Other Companies: Bain , BCG , Deloitte , McKinsey , Goldman Sachs , JP Morgan Asset Management , State Street , Vanguard

GPA: 3.80

Years of Work Experience: 7

Location: San Diego

Post MBA Location: Chicago, Seattle, Minneapolis, Charlotte

Notes:

UG Degree: BBA Financial Markets at an Accredited Institution.

Civilian Work History: 3 years as Wealth Advisor under an RIA in Minneapolis and Denver. Total AUM of ~$350-400M, served as a salaried advisor in a primary and secondary capacity. Holistic services to include investment management, estate planning, retirement planning, insurance planning, tax planning, etc.

Military History: 4 years as a supply/logistics officer heading efforts for air/ground mobility, defense contracting, supply and procurement, and fiscal budget management while located at various bases within CONUS and multiple forward deployed locations.

Professional Certifications: Obtained Certified Financial Planner designation (2022) and Series 65 (2019).

November 18, 2024 12:50am ET

Applying: Columbia, Dartmouth / Tuck, Duke / Fuqua, Emory / Goizueta, NYU Stern, UNC Kenan-Flagler, Yale SOM

Intake Year: 2025

Pre-MBA Career: Consulting

Post-MBA Target Industry: Investment Banking Companies: Bank of America , Barclays , Citibank , Credit Suisse , Goldman Sachs , JP Morgan Chase

GRE: 323

GPA: 3.32

Years of Work Experience: 7

Notes:

Education:
- Combined Major in Economics and Statistics
- CFA Charterholder (passed all three levels on the first attempt)

Professional Experience:
- Manager at a Big 4 firm Specializing in capital projects and infrastructure, with a role similar to investment banking
- Seven years of experience, mainly in financial services in Ghana

Extracurricular Activities:
- Pro bono capital-raising services for SMEs
- Aspiring to run a full advisory firm for SMEs in the future
- CFA exam coaching and tutorial classes for candidates
- Founder of a travel and tour club offering affordable trips to explore beautiful and historic scenes in Ghana

Will being 32 years old affect the attractiveness of my candidacy?

November 17, 2024 9:24am ET

Applying: Columbia, , Georgetown / McDonough, Harvard Business School, INSEAD, NYU Stern, Oxford / Saïd, Stanford GSB, UCLA Anderson, Yale SOM

Pre-MBA Career: Higher Education

Post-MBA Target Industry: Consulting, Technology, Investment Banking, Venture Capital, Private Equity, Media, Undecided Companies: Bain , BCG , McKinsey , JP Morgan , Morgan Stanley , JP Morgan Chase , Apple , Google , Microsoft , Andressen Horowitz , Charles River , Sequoia Capital , Blackstone , KKR , 21st Century Fox , Comcast , Walt Disney

GPA: 3.97

Years of Work Experience: 5

Location: Denver, Colorado

Post MBA Location: New York City

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MBA LiveWire

November 23, 2024 7:37am ET

Accepted to NYU Stern

Round: Round 1

Received via portal on November 21, 2024

GPA: 6.42

GMAT: 760

Program Type: Traditional Two-Year

Target Career: Technology

Application Location: India

November 23, 2024 12:41am ET

Accepted to SMU Cox

Round: Round 1

Received via email November 22, 2024

GPA: 3.6

GRE: 331

Program Type: Traditional Two-Year

Target Career: Marketing

Application Location: Delta, Nigeria

November 22, 2024 11:09pm ET

Accepted to NYU Stern

Round: Round 1

Received via portal November 22, 2024

GPA: 3.65

Program Type: One Year Program

Target Career: Technology

Application Location: NY

Note:

Submitted on 9/1, interview invite on 10/8, interviewed on 10/30. No phone call but portal updated on 11/22 around 1pm est. No scholarship..

November 22, 2024 8:42pm ET

Accepted to SMU Cox

Round: Round 1

Received via phone November 22, 2024

GPA: 3.9

Program Type: Traditional Two-Year

Target Career: Consulting

Application Location: Mississippi

November 22, 2024 8:34pm ET

Rejected at SMU Cox

Round: Round 1

Received via portal on November 21, 2024

GPA: 3.89/4

Program Type: Traditional Two-Year

Target Career: Consulting

Application Location: Asia

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