How does MIT Sloan review applications? True to the rigorous analytic nature of its curriculum—in a rigorous analytic fashion! When the admissions office receives an application, the candidate’s information is loaded into a database and the application is printed. Rod Garcia, who has been MIT Sloan’s admissions director for the past decade, first reviews every application online, then distributes the applications randomly among the school’s admissions readers, all of whom are either internal admissions staff members or contract readers. After picking up a batch of applications, readers review, score, and then return them one week later. The scores are entered into the database, where Garcia reviews them to determine which candidates will be interviewed.
After the selected candidates have been interviewed, their applications are scored again, and the committee then decides which individuals to admit. Application scoring is based on nine attributes, which Sloan divides into two major groups: demonstrated success (e.g., GPA, GMAT, work accomplishments) and leadership (e.g., high competency in creativity, relationship building, goal setting, influencing). Each attribute group is scored separately, and the two scores are added together. At mbaMission, we always tell candidates that MBA admissions is not a science—yet at MIT Sloan, a little science comes into play after all…
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