MIT Sloan

Hello

Continuing my series of business school visits, let me tell you about the MIT Sloan information session that I visited 2 weeks ago.

The event took place at the Nomura building (there are strong ties between Sloan and the Japanese bank) @ Central London. I arrive at six on a Friday, and there are drinks to welcome us. The presentation begins with senior people from the Adcom giving a brief introduction to the school & telling us about their trek across Europe giving information sessions. The Head of Nomura HR briefly talks about the strong relationship between the two institutions, and that Nomura will be looking for Sloanies when they graduate!

After the introductions, the presentation begins. We start with information about the school and its culture. A few things to highlight here. MIT has a flexible & bespoke curriculum after the first semester core. There is also an emphasis placed on the G-Lab and other famous MIT tracks. The integrated campus is another plus point, with Sloanies able to interact with other parts of MIT.

This is followed by information on the admission's process. Nothing new to say here other than (i) The MIT Cover letter question is unique so don't copy and paste from your other essays and (ii) Don't go over the (requested) 2 professional recommendations (bummer! My peer reference is great!).

The talk is interspersed with videos from current students. Since these videos are run off a laptop, a reminder pops up for renewing the anti-virus software halfway through. This draws a couple of laughs from the audience.......

Next is the familiar Q&A session with alumni. With........at least 15 students! They stand in a row and talk about their background/experiences. A very mixed and diverse group of alumni, all doing various different things (with investment banking & consultancy prevalent again). One alumni tells a funny story about driving Krugman (the famous Economist) and his wife to a dinner. Apparently Krugman instructed the alumni to drive through a tight spot........and the car got scraped. Surreal! Drinks follow.

Overall, another useful information event which highlighted the strengths of Sloan and provided some handy tips for the app process. It also felt slightly more informal than the HBS/Stanford sessions. However I think there were too many alumni on the Q&A panel. I would have preferred a more in depth Q&A session with say 5 or 6 alumni, and then invite the others to drinks after. I guess they wanted to have everyone involved!

Finalising my Sloan application as we speak......

Google & Other Thoughts

Having grown up with the internet - from Netscape to Yahoo to Google - I was curious how highly ranked my blog was when using Google Search:

Searching using the words "best mba blog ever" - resulted in the front page (second entry) - not bad........
Searching using "best mba blog" - not front page - in fact nowhere to be seen........
Using PageRank (Google's search algorithm based on links etc.) - a big fat zero. Not good.

Edit: Searching using "best mba blog" on google blog search - front page! encouraging!

I probably can do more to get my blog "out there" into the interweb - but unsure how. I currently leave the address in my signature while posting on various MBA-related forums and websites but that is pretty much it. Any experienced bloggers have any ideas? If you are currently reading this blog, how did you find it?

Talking about google search - here is a rather nifty blog I found called essay snark. If you are brave, send your business school essay in and have it reviewed (or in some cases destroyed) by an MBA admissions consultant for free. I can say with (some) degree of certainty that my essays are better than those currently posted on essay snark (!) - but still awaiting decision from various adcoms.

Fingers crossed.

BL

Stanford Business School

Hello once again. Hope you are all well.

Following the HBS information session, I went to the Stanford information session 2 weeks ago at the BP building in St James Square. I was curious to see whether (i) the Stanford alumni were noticeably different to their HBS counterparts and (ii) how the overall information session would compare to the ones I previously attended.

As I entered the BP building (very nice location near Green Park) - I notice sandwiches! Surprisingly I didn't eat one as I was too busy talking to other applicants but a nice touch from Stanford.

The crowd was slightly smaller than the number of attendees at the HBS event. Perhaps reflective of the school itself. Stanford admits around 350 students, compared to 900 at HBS. It is a small school by design. From memory, I believe Stanford has around 3500-4000 applicants for 350 places. So yes I'm afraid......extremely competitive! For the uninitiated, Stanford is a top 5 business school in California famed for its entrepreneurship and strength in technology/media/innovation (amongst many other strengths).

The session begins with an explanation of life at Stanford, the curriculum and the application process. Interestingly quite a bit of time was spent on tips for the application process - more so than HBS in my opinion. Very useful for people thinking about applying and just starting their MBA "journey". Again there were some videos showing current students, interesting & genuine but perhaps not as flash as the HBS one.

Moving onto the Q&A panel with the Stanford alumni - I hear "investment banking" & "consultancy" from five of the six individuals when asked to describe their background. Now at this juncture some members of the audience who are not from a finance background, voice their concerns about how competitive their application will be given the composition of the panel. The moderator reassures them that the panel is not representative of the diversity in the Stanford classroom. I am inclined to agree with the moderator here, especially when looking at the statistical breakdown of classes on the Stanford website; but perhaps they could have chosen a more diverse panel? Or are investment bankers naturally the most willing to help? Hehe. From my own point of view, I am heartened by the panel as I am from an IB background. However I acknowledge that my app falls within the "IB pool" and will be ridiculously competitive. I hope I have done enough in my essays to stand out!

The alumni were impressive as usual. As they recounted their stories about their time at Stanford, I could see genuine joy in their faces. They clearly had a wonderful time and stressed the opportunities to try new careers, visit exotic locations, the strong ties with Silicon Valley and of course the Cali weather! I get the impression that the MBA programme is pretty much flat out, and you will be constantly busy. Sounds good to me. In comparison to the HBS alumni - I don't see much difference. Perhaps more international representation (i.e. Europeans, Americans and English) than the predominantly English panel at HBS. But in terms of personality they were all very bright, engaging and articulate. Drinks follow the event.

I have actually submitted both my HBS and Stanford applications this week for Round 1. More on this in future posts!