According to its website, MIT Sloan is looking for individuals from all around the world, from a broad array of academic backgrounds, who value dignity and respect and demonstrate the following:
- Leadership and an ability to inspire others
- A collaborative spirit and focus on community
- Intellectual curiosity and analytical strength
- Creativity to generate new solutions to existing challenges
- Growth in both professional and personal endeavors
To uncover these attributes, the MIT Sloan MBA application continues to include its signature cover letter and resume requirements. It also retains the video component and organizational chart.
Ready to get to work on your MIT Sloan application? Read on.
MIT Sloan application essay tips
MIT Sloan MBA 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.
Taking the above into consideration, 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)
MIT helpfully provides insight into what it’s looking for in the cover letter. Like all cover letters, this one is a marketing document. If you apply for a job, you research the firm to learn what it values and is seeking. Based on your research, you send your resume with a cover letter designed to make you as attractive to the company as possible, one that shows you have what the firm wants.
Similarly, your MIT Sloan cover letter should show that you have what the program is looking for. Make your case for admission using your accomplishments, specifically those where you show the qualities mentioned earlier. How do the talents revealed in your examples demonstrate fit with the MIT Sloan program, its tight-knit community, and its innovative culture of doers? Your resume should reveal above-average progression on the job and increasing responsibility, as well as the creativity and spirit of contribution that MIT Sloan requires.
In making your case and mentioning your accomplishments, highlight your role and the impact on the entities you contributed to. Those results constitute “your stamp on the world” so far. Looking ahead, be sure to provide a complete picture by highlighting your career plans (MIT does not have a specific career goals short answer question), what you have accomplished that will help you get there, and what gaps you need to fill via your experience at Sloan.
Note: this is not an essay. Make sure your letter is formatted as a professional letter, with a date, address, header, salutation, and close.
MIT Sloan MBA Video Question 1
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
The video question allows a broader set of people at Sloan to gain insights into who you are “in person.” Historically, this was an opportunity available only to the person interviewing you later in the admissions process. Your goal here is this: deliver your response with poise and presence. I suggest you outline a 60-second statement that you would use to introduce yourself to your classmates (not the admissions committee members; they’re just important flies on the wall who happen to be listening in).
Don’t be too casual; your classmates are your future professional network and social group, but still be friendly and remember to smile. What would you tell them about yourself? What would show that you are already a member of MIT’s community – you just don’t happen to pay tuition yet?
Here are a few tips for the video part of this exercise. First, practice in front of a webcam to get used to talking to a little lens that has no affect, feedback, or expression. Recording yourself on video is different from talking on Zoom with other people. Second, I suggest you put a smiley face just above or below the camera to remind you to smile at appropriate points in your statement. Third, review your practice videos, looking for poise and presence. During some of the practices, maybe have a friend present to encourage you, but also practice without anyone else in the room. We at Accepted are happy to help you prepare, too.
For the real video statement, dress in business or business casual attire. If you’re not confident that your attire is appropriate, it probably isn’t; dress more conservatively. Make sure your location is quiet and that roommates, pets, and children are in a location where they won’t be heard or disturb you. Make sure your background is neutral and not a distraction. Blank walls make a great background.
MIT Sloan MBA Video Question #2
All MBA applicants will be prompted to respond to a randomly generated, open-ended question. The question is designed to help us get to know you better; to see how you express yourself and to assess fit with the MIT Sloan culture. It does not require prior preparation.
Video Essay 2 is part of your required application materials and will appear as a page within the application, once the other parts of your application are completed. Applicants are given 5 seconds to prepare for a 60-second response.
Unlike video question #1, you won’t know the question ahead of time. The goal of this essay is to hear you speak extemporaneously about a topic that is not supposed to trip you up. Given the 5 seconds provided for preparation before delivering your response, it is critical that you prepare by thinking through your “fit” with the Sloan program and how you will make a positive impact in the community.
MIT Sloan MBA organizational 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.
- If you are a consultant, entrepreneur, or affiliated with the military review our FAQs for suggestions on how to approach the organizational chart.
MIT Sloan’s organizational chart is a way of illustrating your role within your organization for the admissions team. The goal is to clearly show your line of reporting, including your peers, supervisors, supervisors’ peers, and any direct reports you might have. If you have received a promotion, make sure to highlight both your current and previous roles.
Not in a traditional organization? The admissions team suggests that it might be helpful for some applicants (e.g., entrepreneurs or contractors) to put themselves in the center of the chart and build out from there to the individuals they interact with regularly. A consultant, on the other hand, might select a specific project and identify the players involved in the project from both the consulting firm’s side and the client’s side.
MIT Sloan Optional Short answer question: You and Your Background
Applicants are invited to expand on their background by responding to the following optional 250 word short answer question:
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 life experiences and perspective. Please use this opportunity if you would like to share more about your background.
This is an opportunity for you to share more about yourself with the Admissions Committee, should you choose to do so.
The admissions committee is looking to understand life experiences that have impacted your development, character and motivation. Perhaps you faced challenging circumstances in your childhood. Reflect on how this experience has shaped your perspective and drive. Consider what aspects of your life influenced your personal values. Within a brief essay, MIT wants to learn about you beyond your academic and professional experience.
Remember, this is optional and serves as an opportunity for you to provide additional information to the committee if you choose to do so.
This optional short-answer question is a great place to share information about yourself that you couldn’t fit into other areas of the application. Notice, however, that this question does not mention your professional life. Most often, circumstances that truly shape who we are come from a situation that impacted us personally. Despite what we have achieved, we all have taken different paths to arrive at this point. Take time to reflect – what truly impacted you? For instance, did you face some sort of adversity, yet persevered? Share what you overcame. Have you made a difference in your community? Share how you have done so. In both cases, be sure to include how the situation helped to shape aspects of your identity. MIT Sloan wants to know more about your personal background and how its community will benefit from your being a part of it.
MIT Sloan application deadlines
| Deadline | Decision Date | |
| Round 1 | September 30, 2024 | December 12, 2024 |
| Round 2 | January 14, 2025 | April 4, 2025 |
| Round 3 | April 7, 2025 | May 15, 2025 |
*Applications must be submitted by 3:00 p.m. EST
***Disclaimer: Information is subject to change. Please check with MIT Sloan directly to verify its essay questions, instructions, and deadlines.***
MIT Sloan class profile
Here’s a look at the MIT Sloan Class of 2025 (data taken from the MIT Sloan website):
Class size: 409
Average years of work experience: 5
Women: 46%
International: 40%
Countries represented: 60
Underrepresented minority: 28%
Median undergraduate GPA: 3.61
Median GMAT: 730
GMAT range (middle 80%): 700-760
GRE Quant range (middle 80%): 157-168
GRE Verbal range (middle 80%): 155-167
Pre-MBA industry:
- Consulting: 26%
- Technology: 23%
- Financial Services: 17%
- Government, Education, Nonprofit: 10%
- Other: 7%
- Pharmaceutical, Healthcare, Biotech: 7%
- Manufacturing: 3%
- Automotive, Transportation, Defense: 2%
- Consumer Products, Retail: 2%
- Energy: 2%
- Media, Entertainment, Sports: 1%
Undergraduate majors:
- Engineering: 33%
- Economics: 18%
- Business: 16%
- Science and Math: 12%
- Computer Science: 6%
- Other: 6%
- Social Science: 5%
- Humanities: 3%
- Law: 1%
As the former executive director of admissions at Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School and assistant dean of admissions at Georgetown’s McDonough School and the University of Pittsburgh’s Katz School, Kelly Wilson has 23 years’ experience overseeing admissions committees and has reviewed more than 38,000 applications for the MBA and master’s programs in management of information systems, computational finance, business analytics, and product management. Want Kelly to help you get accepted? Click here to get in touch!
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