MIT Sloan School of Management MBA Essay Tips

On its website, MIT Sloan states that “MIT Sloan is simply more dedicated to creating effective innovation than any other leading school.” Innovation is key for MIT Sloan and seeks interesting students to build a class that can learn from each other and continue the tradition of innovation.

When approaching this set of essays, your task is to remain focused on your overall application strategy and choose two key stories that can showcase your achievements at school, work and extracurricular activities while demonstrating that you will contribute to MIT Sloan’s mission. This year MIT Sloan has removed the iconic cover letter requirement, and has added an extremely open ended aspect to the optional essay.

Essay 1: The mission of the MIT Sloan School of Management is to develop principled, innovative leaders who improve the world and generate ideas that advance management practice. Discuss how you will contribute toward advancing the mission based on examples of past work and activities. (500 words or fewer, limited to one page)

The two behavioral questions in the MIT Sloan application require you to describe your past accomplishments and experience on a very pragmatic level. A key part of the MIT Sloan set of essays is the focus on understanding how you work, think and act. The instructions ask you to provide a brief overview of the situation, and then follow the situation with a detailed description of what you did. This requires being very specific about your thoughts and actions as you respond to each essay question.

This question is seeking to understand how you develop and execute on ideas. A work or extracurricular example where you demonstrated the ability to generate strategy and execute upon it would be ideal here. How did you identify your idea? What did you do to develop it? What did you ultimately accomplish? This essay will demonstrate your intellectual capacity and curiosity, which are crucial attributes MIT Sloan is looking for in MBA admits.

Essay 2: Describe a time when you pushed yourself beyond your comfort zone. (500 words or fewer, limited to one page)

This essay is the second behavioral question in the set, consistent with MIT Sloan’s belief that past behavior is the best predictor of future performance. This essay gives you an opportunity to choose a personal, work or extracurricular example and to show an interesting side to your personality or background.

If you have had significant international experience this may be an ideal question to showcase how you adapted to a new culture. Or perhaps you pursued a sport or hobby that was difficult for you and were able to prove to yourself that you could master a new skill. Remember that the story is less important than what you thought, felt and did and that this essay is an opportunity to showcase your unique personal qualities.

Optional Question: The Admissions Committee invites you to share anything else you would like us to know about you, in any format.

This year MIT Sloan has created an entirely open ended optional essay and invited applicants to respond to the essay in any format desired. This allows you to do anything you need to with this space, including clarifying any concerns or highlighting interesting aspects of your background or profile.

This essay is an ideal opportunity to provide any information that you were unable to work into the other two essays and provide a new angle on your candidacy. If you have an unusual background, hobby or extracurricular experience, this may be an opportunity to provide that information to the admissions committee. With similar questions asked by other MBA programs in the past Stacy Blackman Consulting has advised candidates on everything from photo journalism projects to customized multimedia presentations. The format is far less important than the content, but it’s also true that images or presentations can provide a new perspective on your application.

Stumped by your MIT Sloan MBA application? Contact Stacy Blackman Consulting to learn how we can help.

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