More than 120 MIT Sloan School of Management MBA students will get an on-the-ground look at the current economic  recovery beginning this week as they visit dozens of cutting-edge companies in Silicon Valley, Seattle and the Boston area during their annual job-hunting, network-building MIT Sloan Tech Treks.

Such treks provide MIT Sloan students with a valuable opportunity to network with alumni in the technology industry; from the banking world of New York to the governmental and nonprofit organizations of Washington, D.C., or the media and entertainment industry in Las Vegas, Treks may occur anywhere there is a rich vein of business to explore.

As they embark on their separate trips, some of the MBAs expressed cautious optimism that job prospects are improving, especially in technology. “One of the companies we tried to book last year gave us the cold shoulder, which I assume was because they didn’t have any open positions,” says Ryan Thurston, who is joining the Trek to Seattle.

“This year, the same company is at least willing to sit down and discuss a visit,” Thurston says.

While the Trekkers will visit major players such as Microsoft and Amazon, they will also meet MIT Sloan alumni and others at lesser-known companies, such as Seattle’s Madrona Venture Group, which invests in smaller, seed-stage companies seeking to grow.

“Visiting such a range of companies will give Trek participants a good sense of what the Pacific Northwest offers in terms of technology and job opportunities,” says Thurston. The Seattle trekkers will sponsor a venture capital panel and “startup mixer” to give participants more insight into the region’s entrepreneurial community.

Manjul Sahay, an engineer by education who turned toward being an entrepreneur right after college, is looking forward to meeting with companies in Silicon Valley. “I want to experience first-hand the famous start-up culture of this area,” says Sahay. Among the companies included in the Silicon Valley trek are Facebook, Google, eBay and LinkedIn.

MIT Sloan students participating in the Boston area trek will also meet with a wide range of companies, including Novell, Nokia, Akamai, and Skyhook Wireless. Boston Trekker Mayank Kapoor, who hopes to work for a technology company as a product manager after graduating MIT Sloan, also anticipates a more favorable jobs climate, at least in technology.

“Technology companies are definitely upbeat about the economy,” says Kapoor. “In their presentations, they are telling us how their revenues and profits are growing this year compared to previous years. And they are actively looking to hire people as well.”

Elite business schools are locked in an “arms race” of building bigger and more elaborate business campuses to recruit the best students and faculty and climb magazine rankings, says Yale School of Management finance professor Matthew Spiegel in a recent Bloomberg article exploring how Harvard Business School drives Yale and MIT Sloan‘s “edifice complex.”

In this case, Yale is keeping up with the Jones with a $180 million project designed by Lord Norman Foster, architect of London’s famed “Gherkin” building. The new SOM complex will open in 2013 and help level the playing field among top MBA programs.

“You can’t be in a dump if everyone else is in a spectacular building,” says dean Sharon Oster.

The fervor for high-profile expansion projects isn’t new. Bloomberg reports the trend took off after the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania opened its 324,000-square foot, $140 million Jon M. Huntsman Hall in 2002; ever since, rival business schools have scrambled to keep up.

For example:

• University of Chicago opened its $125 million Harper Center in 2004
• Ross School of Business opened a 270,000-square feet, $145 million building in 2009
• MIT Sloan School of Management will open new facilities this year
• Stanford Graduate School of Business will open the  $350 million Knight Management Center in 2011
• Columbia Business School and Kellogg School of Management also have plans for new buildings in the works

New buildings mean more office space for faculty and more classrooms for profitable executive education programs, Bloomberg reports, and larger schools can also enroll more students, who pay as much as $80,000 per year in tuition, room and board and other expenses.

While a business school’s physical condition isn’t the most important consideration, “you do consider the facility, you do consider what school will allow you to access the latest technology,” says a prospective applicant from Los Angeles to Columbia, Stern School of Business and McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University.

But the real payoff comes from wealthy alumni, whose donations pave the way for these super structures. “The better the experience people have, the better they feel about the place, the more likely it will be that they would support it at some point,” says Robert Dolan, dean of the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business.

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If you had to describe the MIT Sloan MBA program in one word, that word would be innovation. MIT Sloan is a place where practical business concerns intersect with vision and inspiration, often of the tech variety. As the website states: “Like MIT itself, MIT Sloan is a place for visionary pragmatists and for people with the determination to change the world with the passion to make it happen.”

MIT Sloan recently posted the admissions essays and deadlines for this year’s applicants. Note that reapplicants are expected to apply in Round 1. For admissons essay advice for this set of MIT Sloan MBA essays, read on for this week’s Tuesday Tips.

Because MIT Sloan does not require the standard “career goals” essay, your work background will be mainly communicated through the required resume and cover letter. The resume should be approached in a similar way to other MBA application resumes. Avoid industry lingo, communicate your measurable achievements, and focus on aspects of your job that involve leadership and teamwork.

When choosing examples for the MIT Sloan essays, it will be especially important to return to your overall application strategy and think about the aspects of your professional, extracurricular and personal life you want to communicate. In addition, remember to choose examples from the last three years of your life, as specifically directed in the instructions, for the most relevant and recent examples.

MIT Sloan Cover Letter
Prepare a cover letter (up to 500 words) seeking a place in the MIT Sloan MBA Program. Describe your accomplishments and include an example of how you had an impact on a group or organization. Your letter should conform to standard business correspondence and be addressed to Mr. Rod Garcia, Director of MBA Admissions.

Exactly like a cover letter you would compose for a job application, the MIT Sloan cover letter should make a strong case for your selection into the class of 2012. You will want to introduce yourself and why you are seeking admission. The cover letter is also your opportunity to make the case for your fit with MIT Sloan. Note that the cover letter format will require a recruiting and marketing approach that focuses on key points that will make you a great MIT Sloan student, rather than the narrative style of the typical career goals type of essay. To learn more about the school, there are resources such as student blogs, campus visits and admissions events around the world.
The instructions ask specifically for key accomplishments and your impact on an organization, which should be concise and focused examples that support your reasons for applying and why you should be accepted into the class.

MIT Sloan Essay 1: Please describe a time when you went beyond what was defined, expected, established, or popular. (500 words or fewer, limited to one page)
This question can be used to describe a situation when you exceeded everyone’s expectations, or one when you pursued a path that was not established or popular. This will demonstrate your ability to motivate yourself and show what drives you to accomplish above and beyond your job description or responsibilities.
All of the 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.

MIT Sloan Essay 2: Please describe a time when you convinced an individual or group to accept one of your ideas. (500 words or fewer, limited to one page)
Essay 2 is the only MIT Sloan MBA essay question that is new for this year’s admissions application. A work or extracurricular example where you demonstrated emotional intelligence would be ideal here. When did you realize you needed to convince someone to accept your ideas? What was your strategy and how did you read group or individual dynamics to successfully sell in your concept? This essay will demonstrate your ability to lead from within a group, or to manage up in situations when you are not in charge.

MIT Sloan Essay 3: Please describe a time when you took responsibility for achieving an objective. (500 words or less, limited to one page)
This MIT Sloan essay seeks to understand your methods of setting goals and achieving them. When you accept responsibility for an outcome, you are committing yourself to the endeavor and declaring that you will achieve it. While the question does not require an outcome, the best essay will demonstrate a situation where you took responsibility for an outcome and explain why you did so, what happened, and the result. This example should typify your approach to any achievement, and demonstrate what you might commit yourself to and why.

MIT Sloan Supplemental Information (Optional)
You may use this section to address whatever else you want the Admissions Committee to know. (250 words or fewer, limited to one page)

If there are any areas of concern, this is the correct place to address them. Strike an upbeat tone here and avoid excuses. Explain your issue clearly and focus most of the essay on the correction for the issue. For example, if you had a disciplinary issue in college, spend most of the issue demonstrating that you learned from the experience and have been an ideal citizen ever since.
If you do not have a weakness to address here, it’s an ideal opportunity to provide any information that you were unable to work into the other three essays. If you have an unusual background, hobby or extracurricular experience, this may be an opportunity to provide that information to the adcomm.

Earlier this week, a tweet from MIT Sloan School of Management alerted followers to the school’s new graduate sustainability certificate, which aims to teach students how to balance economic growth with environmental sustainability.

By considering effective strategies at multiple levels–individual, organizational, community, global–the new Certificate in Sustainable Business views sustainability across many systems. The interdependent dynamics of economic, societal, and environmental systems, the school explains, means success overall is influenced by success across all areas.

According to the news release, the required core and elective courses in the Certificate Program explicitly leverage Sloan’s strengths in process improvement; organizational learning and adaptation; entrepreneurship and commercialization; the dynamics of organizational and social change; and the interactions of markets, firms and organizations, while linking to MIT’s strengths in science and technology through implementation.

For more on the required core courses, benefits and admissions requirements, click here.

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Registrants of the upcoming MBA Tour events in New York City and Washington D.C. will have a chance to win one of Stacy Blackman Consulting’s fantastic MBA essay guides. Once you’ve signed up for one of the events, email matthew@onqcom[email protected] with your full name, and you’ll be entered to win!

The Financial Times recently offered an interesting analysis of one-year MBA programs as they grow in popularity across Europe and Asia. The INSEAD MBA celebrated its 50th anniversary September 12 and is the forebearer of this movement, which may be gaining ground here in the U.S. as well.

In 2004, there were just six one-year programs ranked in the top 50 of the Financial Times global rankings; in 2009, 15 of the top 50 programs ran for 12 months or less, FT reveals. But is the U.S. ready to embrace the accelerated model? Not everyone agrees.

Tom Robertson, dean of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania tells FT that “The US is a two-year market,” adding “If we saw the evidence that the market was moving away from two years, then we would lead the way.”

However, Stanford Graduate School of Business and MIT Sloan School of Management already teach the one-year Sloan program, and the Kellogg School at Northwestern University runs both a one-year and a two-year MBA. Thunderbird School of Global Management in Arizona also runs a one-year degree alongside the more traditional model.

The choice between one year or two may come down to whether candidates are career accelerators or career changers, says Sunil Chopra, interim dean at Kellogg, adding that there is little evidence that recruiters have a preference for the two-year over the one-year program.

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For a concise, thoughtful guide that will help you navigate the MBA admissions process with greater success, order our NEW book, The MBA Application Roadmap.

MIT Sloan is a place where practical business concerns intersect with vision and inspiration, often of the tech variety. As the website states: “Like MIT itself, MIT Sloan draws its power from a paradox: it is a place for visionary pragmatists, for hands-on thinkers, for people who dream of changing the world and have the plan and the passion to make it happen. True to MIT’s motto of mens et manus (“mind and hand”), MIT Sloan is the world leader in combing theory and practical application to both enhance careers and improve the world.”

Because Sloan does not require the standard “career goals” essay, your work background will be mainly communicated through the required resume and cover letter. The resume should be approached in a similar way to other MBA application resumes. Avoid industry lingo, communicate your measurable achievements, and focus on aspects of your job that involve leadership and teamwork.

When choosing examples for the MIT Sloan essays, it will be especially important to return to your overall application strategy and think about the aspects of your professional, extracurricular and personal life you want to communicate. In addition, remember to choose examples from the last three years of your life for the most relevant and recent examples.

MIT Sloan Cover Letter
Prepare a cover letter (up to 500 words) seeking a place in the MIT Sloan MBA Program. Describe your accomplishments and include an example of how you had an impact on a group or organization. Your letter should conform to standard business correspondence and be addressed to Mr. Rod Garcia, Director of MBA Admissions

Exactly like a cover letter you would compose for a job application, the MIT Sloan cover letter should make a strong case for your selection into the class of 2012. You will want to introduce yourself and why you are seeking admission. The cover letter is also your opportunity to make the case for your fit with MIT Sloan. Note that the cover letter format will require a recruiting and marketing approach that focuses on key points that will make you a great MIT Sloan student, rather than the narrative style of the typical career goals type of essay. To learn more about the school, there are resources such as student blogs, campus visits and admissions events around the world.

The instructions ask specifically for key accomplishments and your impact on an organization, which should be concise and focused examples that support your reasons for applying and why you should be accepted into the class.

MIT Sloan Essay 1: Please describe a time when you went beyond what was defined, expected, established, or popular. (500 words or less, limited to one page)

This question can be used to describe a situation when you exceeded everyone’s expectations, or one when you pursued a path that was not established or popular. This will demonstrate your ability to motivate yourself and what drives you to accomplish above and beyond your job description or responsibilities.

All of the 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. This requires being very specific about your thoughts and actions as you respond to each essay question.

MIT Sloan Essay 2: Please describe a time when you coached, trained, or mentored a person or group. (500 words or less, limited to one page)

A work or extracurricular example where you demonstrated strong leadership would be ideal here. You can approach this question from several different directions: leading a person who reports to you, mentoring someone outside of your direct reporting relationship, or leading or coaching a group.

Whatever example you choose, make sure you are specific about the interactions and your approach to the task. What kind of leader are you? How do you help others to reach their potential?

MIT Sloan Essay 3: Please describe a time when you took responsibility for achieving an objective. (500 words or less, limited to one page)

This MIT Sloan essay seeks to understand your methods of setting goals and achieving them. When you accept responsibility for an outcome, you are committing yourself to the endeavor and declaring that you will achieve it. While the question does not require an outcome, the best essay will demonstrate a situation where you took responsibility for an outcome and explain why you did so, what happened, and the result. This example should typify your approach to any achievement, and demonstrate what you might commit yourself to and why.

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