EssaySnark

2022 MBA Essay Questions: MIT Sloan


2022-2023 MIT Sloan Full-Time MBA Application – Class of 2025

MIT Round 2 is 4 months, 1 week ago (January 18).

This is one of the later Round 2 deadlines for all major schools. There is also an “extended” Round 2 deadline of 2/23/23 offered only to those who were recently laid off.

 

 

Here are the requirements for the Class of 2025 application to MIT Sloan.

1. You must provide an org chart for your current company. Or, if you’re a consultant, for the client you’re working on for your primary project. This turned out to be not that difficult for most BSers to put together last year, though we did get some real doozies of spaghetti-mess undecipherable diagrams when we helped folks out with the Essay Decimator essay review process. There was a lack of clarity and too many assumptions made in some, and in others, too much detail. Those are the big things to watch for when you evaluate if the chart you’ve put together is communicating what it needs to.

The org chart can be quite valuable to the admissions committee, particularly in understanding lines of relationship to recommenders and references. Remember that you should always be submitting recommendations from those in a position of seniority to you. By identifying your recommenders on the org chart, you help the adcom instantly appreciate where you sit in the organization, versus where these other folks do, and the relationships between. This is a great asset in conjunction with the resume, and it helps them to evaluate candidates in context. Here’s the sample org chart that MIT includes as a reference within their online application. Model yours on that and you’ll be fine.

2. MIT has a video requirement too! And not an easy one, like answering some questions in front of your webcam, the way that Kellogg and Yale do it. You have this whole project of constructing a one-minute video.

3. You also need to designate two references that MIT may contact along with the standard recommender – just one recommender for the MBA application (choose your current direct supervisor if at all possible!). The extra references is a unique requirement though, which deserves some consideration.

4. And finally, MIT asks for a cover letter rather than a traditional essay.
 

Don’t worry, the ‘Snark’s got your back. Our MIT Essay Guide walks you through a framework for how to tackle the org chart, including what tools to use to build it, or whether you should try to lift the existing org chart your company has — which is okey-dokey by the adcom, and it’ll really depend on how it presents YOU and the level of complexity and company-specific nonsense that is already there, which won’t necessarily add value in this specific context. And yes, who should you tap for the formal written recommendation, and who should you nominate for the two separate references, plus considerations on the test waiver process, and the new short-answer question.

Here are your assignments that MIT asks you to deliver for this application – generally in order from easiest to trickiest:

Org Chart
To help us better understand your current role and the impact that you have on your team and department, please submit an organizational chart. We should be able to clearly understand the internal structure of your organization, where you sit in your organization, and your line of reporting.

Organizational charts should not be more than two pages and keep the following in mind:

  • Give us as much detail as possible (names, titles, etc.) but it’s ok to redact names if you need to.
  • Please circle your role in red so that your position is easily identifiable.
  • Make sure we can easily identify where you are, to whom you report, and if applicable, who reports to you.
  • If your recommender or references are on your organizational chart (they may not be, and that’s ok!), please highlight them for us.
  • Most applicants only submit one page. However, you are welcome to submit a second if you recently changed positions or companies.
  • If you are a consultant, entrepreneur, or affiliated with the military review our FAQs for suggestions on how to approach the organizational chart.

Bonus help! Here’s a sample org chart that MIT is providing (current as of June 2022; they’ve gone back and forth with providing a sample, this one has now been updated). You can model yours off this or use what your company already uses, or create your own.

Another noteworthy change: They used to have a statement in the instructions that the employment data you enter into the app needed to match the org chart. That’s still a good check to use, to validate that your information will make sense to an outsider who’s reviewing it!

Also: Ideally, at least one of your recommender or reference names will be on the org chart. As they say in the instructions, it’s not required, especially if you haven’t informed your company that you’re applying to bschool and so aren’t getting a rec from your current supervisor, but it can be a more cohesive application strategy when all the pieces are presented in these different assets of your application.

Video Statement
Introduce yourself to your future classmates. Here’s your chance to put a face with a name, let your personality shine through, be conversational, be yourself. We can’t wait to meet you!

Videos should adhere to the following guidelines:

  • No more than 1 minute (60 seconds) in length
  • Single take (no editing)
  • Speaking directly to the camera
  • Do not include background music or subtitles

Note: While we ask you to introduce yourself to your future classmates in this video, the video will not be shared and is for use in the application process only.

Those instructions seem pretty clear, right? There’s still some strategy that goes into this, and obviously lots of planning, too – and you’ll probably do many, many takes before you get it down! The main advice we can offer? DO NOT READ FROM A SCRIPT and also don’t memorize. Again, our SnarkStrategies Guide for MIT Sloan walks through how to approach this!

Cover Letter
MIT Sloan seeks students whose personal characteristics demonstrate that they will make the most of the incredible opportunities at MIT, both academic and non-academic. We are on a quest to find those whose presence will enhance the experience of other students. We seek thoughtful leaders with exceptional intellectual abilities and the drive and determination to put their stamp on the world. We welcome people who are independent, authentic, and fearlessly creative — true doers. We want people who can redefine solutions to conventional problems, and strive to preempt unconventional dilemmas with cutting-edge ideas. We demand integrity and respect passion.

Please submit a cover letter seeking a place in the MIT Sloan MBA Program. Your letter should conform to a standard business correspondence, include one or more PROFESSIONAL examples that illustrate why you meet the desired criteria above, and be addressed to the Admissions Committee (300 words or fewer, excluding address and salutation).

Emphasis on PROFESSIONAL added by The ‘Snark! Because that qualifier it gives you direct guidance on what to focus on!

Also: Dang that first paragraph has some lofty language!!!!!! Yes, MIT is very, very selective in who they accept; that set of instructions is a tip-off to how choosy they are. The bar is set high, and this cover letter is one of the most important parts of your entire Sloan MBA application!

Short-Answer (optional, up to 250 words)
How has the world you come from shaped who you are today? For example, your family, culture, community, all help to shape aspects of your identity, please use this opportunity if you would like to share more about your background.

Even though it’s optional, and even though it’s short, we definitely encourage everyone to tackle this! You can add some new element here on who you are based on some part of your past. A 250-word answer with a crisp and vivid example of lived experience can be truly impactful to the reader.

 

The bottom line is that this is going to be a CHALLENGING application. There is almost nothing in this set of requirements that you can lift from any other school.

Just like our advice for HBS due to its difficulty: We do not suggest doing MIT as your first application project. These requirements are just too hard! And the word count too short. You will struggle more than necessary if you do.

Our Accomplishments & Achievements App Accelerator might be a good place to begin. That’ll help you sort through your raw material and learn how best to present it to the schools, MIT especially.

You’ll need to take a holistic approach to all of these main components, with the exception of the org chart, since that’s just going to be a representation of reality and there’s limited strategizing you can do with that — not that other aspects of the app aren’t also “reality” but those are where you construct your messaging, and use your own understanding of your strengths and qualities to put a particular presentation of yourself into the adcom’s hands. The org chart is not a trivial task, but it also should not play a part in the whole ideation process of constructing your approach.

We’ll offer you this from Twitter’s Professor Snarky (no relation):


 

But wait! There’s more! 🙂

If you get invited to interview then you’ll need to submit a separate essay in conjunction with the interview. The essence of this question is that they’re asking for a story where you’ve being successful in some capacity that demonstrates how you’re in sync with their mission — and the prompt is not easy to unpack!

The mission of the MIT Sloan School of Management is to develop principled, innovative leaders who improve the world and to generate ideas that advance management practice. We believe that a commitment to diversity, inclusion, equity, and well-being is a key component of both principled leadership and sound management practice. 250 words or less, please please (sic) describe a time when you contributed toward making a work environment or organization more welcoming, inclusive, and diverse.

As we have advised for years, we recommend that BSers write this essay when they write their cover letter. Our essay guide explains why, and how. One reason why? Because often BSers start with Story A in the CL and Story B in the Mission essay, and after tearing their hair out for a week or so, finally realize that the two stories should be swapped. Which is yet another reason why it’s so strategic to work on them together. Be open to totally juggling around your ideas as you go through this.

Full app requirements available at the MIT website and a full explanation of your best approach to those are found in our EssaySnark MIT MBA app guide.

 
 

There’s been a number of posts on the EssaySnark blahg about the MIT Sloan cover letter and resume – see the Snark Info on Sloan section below for some highlights.

We recommend getting up to Boston to experience Sloan for yourself, and if not, then be sure to get in front of the adcom in one of their traveling sessions if at all possible. This really will help you quite a bit.

 
 

For some additional insights into MIT Sloan, we live-tweeted an MIT admissions chat in late August 2015 that’s still very relevant

Pick up the 2019 MIT essay guide to learn how to approach the app! It’s going to give you a great head start, with everything you need to tackle the cover letter, plan your video submission, figure out your org chart upload, and plenty more.


 

Your approach for MIT must be different – as you can see, they evaluate your application based on criteria that are unique to them. If you want to understand even further how this works, please pick up the SnarkStrategies Guide for MIT – it will help you grasp WHY they ask for what they do, and what they do with it once they have it in front of them.

 
 

MIT 2022 Full-Time MBA Dates and Deadlines

You can see the details on the MIT MBA admissions info page .

  • Regular MBA and LGO Round 1: September 29, 2022 – Thankfully, this later date means you will likely have had other apps under your belt and you’ll be in a better position to figure out how to handle these unique requirements (though burnout is a real risk; don’t push all the work out til the last minute, you need time for brainstorming and reflecting, so that new ideas get a chance to percolate). Also, please remember that while Rd 1 is always recommended, it is REALLY recommended at MIT based on how they manage their process. Rd 1 interview invitations are expected to start going out regularly through October, and then in early November, applicants they won’t be moving forward with will be released. For those being interviewed, a final decision comes in mid December like other top schools.
  • Regular MBA Round 2: January 18, 2023 – Perhaps the latest Round 2 deadline of all – huzzah, MIT Sloan! Round 2 interview invitations will likely go out in a few waves the last week of February through the first week of March, which those who won’t be moving forward will be released (exact dates to be announced separately by MIT). Interviews will be conducted by the adcom in international locations throughout March.

Side note: Please don’t get confused by MIT Sloan’s Early Admissions program — this is not any sort of early-submit application option, such as Early Decision offered by Columbia. Instead, Early Admission is Sloan’s flavor of deferred-start program offered to current college students who are applying for business school before they graduate.

There’s an additional option to apply to MIT LGO in December; check MIT’s LGO application info for details.

Please note that MIT had only two rounds for admission up through the 2015-2016 application cycle, so it’s possible that you could read posts from the ‘Snarchives that are outdated in how they talk about timing of an application strategy for this school. Always check to see that the information you’re consuming here and elsewhere is current and applicable to this year!

We REALLY do not recommend a Round 3 application to this school. It will be MUCH HARDER to figure out your reapplicant strategy for Round 1 in Fall 2023 if you don’t make it in the first time, and there are very low chances of an admit at that last stage of the admissions cycle at this school especially. If you opt for it anyway, then you should definitely pick up our MIT application guide to assist (and we’d also suggest the full Essay Decimator too).

For interviewing: EssaySnark’s got your back! MIT Interview support is available through our Interview Express Essay Review for your “mission” essay!

 
EssaySnark's Strategies for the 2022 MIT Sloan MBA Application
The 2022 MIT Application Guide is ready to go to help you with your application requirements to Sloan! We recommend starting early with MIT especially (though you probably shouldn’t try to do this as your first application!). Take advantage of these detailed discussions of what to do and how to maximize your chances at this competitive school.


One Recommendation and Contact Info for Two References

1 MIT only wants ONE formal written recommendation. They use standardized recommender questions for that — the same version of the questions as Stanford. But you also need to provide contact info for two more people who will serve as references!

So, three people total, two of whom they may or may not be contacting at some undefined time…. Hmmm.

Here are the actual instructions on the two contact names:

Additional References
MBA Applicants must provide contact information for two additional references. We request the names and contact information (phone and email) for each additional reference as well as where they work and their relationship to you. Similar to the role of a Recommender, these additional reference contacts should be able to speak to your professional and/or academic background. A member of the Admissions Committee may reach out to these references at any time during the evaluation process, should we have additional questions about your background and/or experiences.

Will they actually contact your references?

It’s possible…. However the applicants we worked with so far have reported that their references were not contacted. Maybe if your pitch is comprehensive enough, and covers all the bases, and is logical and consistent and congruent, they don’t have need for such extra follow-up?
 

So who do you choose?

For the written recommendation: If at all possible, we really suggest getting your current supervisor to write for you. There are always exceptions that would make that person not ideal — and you should optimize the decision based on how much they will go to bat for you! Not their title. This really is about tapping your relationships. No matter what, it needs to be someone senior to you, ideally in your current company. Again, there are exceptions to the “current company” but not the “senior to you” part. This should be treated the same as recommendations to your other schools.

For the two additional contacts: These should be people who know you well!!! The most important part is, if this person is called up out of the blue from someone at MIT, that they’ll be able to speak fluently about your qualifications, character, contributions, and even your personality or interpersonal skills. This person needs to know you!! They also need to speak English. And, they need to be someone you trust, who you know to be a supporter, who will have your back if the adcom picks up the phone.

If you need help figuring out your strategy for these tricky questions, and who to use for these parts of the Sloan app and who to tap for other schools too, our Letters of Recommendation App Accelerator is designed exactly for this!

 

MIT Links, Important App Info, and Some Snark

official school pages:

 
 

EssaySnark’s posts on MIT:

 

We go into great detail in the Sloan essay guide on how to handle the questions that this school asks. Start there. Then, if you want an MIT essay reviewed – for free! – on the blahg, try sending it over! If you’re looking for personalized and private help, then our standard Essay Decimator is ideal (we suggest writing BOTH ESSAYS together at once; that way, you can get your entire pitch critiqued, and you’ll be ahead of the game when it’s time for that interview invite to come along!).
 

That MIT Sloan MBA Application guide will be a huge help to you – we promise!!

 
 

[Index of essay questions by business school]