Waitlisted by MIT Sloan, What a Chinese Water Torture!

potato

I will choose IT related areas, more fit for me and that's the reason why I apply for MIT. Agree with zouweiyao, we should push them and I got the similar information from my colleague who once helped in the admission office of Michigan.

vagabond

Deadly need the help or advice from MIT Sloan insiders, such as staff, alumni and current students. Can someone has contact with them, especially for current Chinese students. I plan to visit Sloan again next month. Appreciate it very much!

I know current students for other top schools may keep in contact with Chinese Sloanies from time to time. Can you provide a clue? One email box may save me from sufferings for months. Take a bow in advance.

dashasha

以下是引用vagabond在2005-1-20 5:53:00的发言：

Am pretty upset and just want to cry and scream out.

Dashasha: Do you know what in detail your Sloan friend had done in boosting up his candidacy? Or please give me his contact and I'll directly consult with him myself. Thanks in advance.

I think we three all applied to MIT Sloan in the first round.

DREAMERINSH: I think in creativity I would have little space to be challenged. My weakest part may lie in AdCom viewpoint that my career goals are EXTREMELY HARD to reach. Hope I can have a chance to make it up.

My friend is working in China now and I haven't contacted him for a while. I'll try to get in touch with him and we'll see what he'll reply.

vagabond

Thanks for your help, big shrimp.

shanshui

这是BW上一位俄罗斯老兄MIT waitlist的经验，三位分享。
不知道Sloan是不是几位的first priority？好像搞Finance的是不是Wharton更好些。我是搞技术的，MIT可是我的dream school，只是不知道他准备招几个人。

I did not feel pain getting denials from other schools after that and was absolutely prepared to get another ding from MIT. So I was very surprised to learn I was waitlisted there. Chicago had asked me to pay a deposit by May 1, so I had about two months to convince Sloan that I was worth being a student.

Chicago is a great starting point for a career in established corporations, while MIT Sloan has unique brand recognition among technology companies. After six years of experience with leading management consulting companies, I was looking forward to working in a less structured environment.

MIT (Sloan)   

My clear impression of MIT was that it is a place where a bunch of geniuses got money to do whatever they want. Sounds like a startup? Yes. MIT is a big startup. Sloan's huge advantage over other top business schools is its integration with a bigger MIT. In my eyes, Sloan - MIT relations are similar to those between startup and a venture fund. No other school has such proposition to offer students. It sounded like a perfect match for me, so I concentrated my efforts on getting in.

From my experience, I want to share three pieces of advice with waitlisted candidates:

1. Study the school's waitlist policy scrupulously. Some schools encourage candidates to submit additional information, some do not. MIT encourages applicants to organize a support campaign and submit additional recommendations.

2. Find contacts at the school. From my knowledge, the admissions committee is always receptive to the opinions of school alumni and students. I found two Sloan alums in Moscow and gave them reason to believe that I would be a good student.

3. Prepare a clear assault plan. Understand what issues were not covered enough in your information package and decide who would be the best person to speak to about your strengths. Find ten best friends who can write you a support letter and explain what aspect of your personality they should speak about. I asked my friends to concentrate on my personal qualities, as my professional ones were well described in my application.

I contacted Alex Denissov, a Russian student at MIT, who was in a similar situation last year and got off the waitlist. I explained my strategy to him and asked for help in finding Sloan alums in Moscow who might interview me and be willing to send a support letter to Rod Garcia, Sloan's Director of Admissions. He found two alums and helped me contact them.

I was surprised that both alums were eager to offer informal interviews. I want to thank Nestor Andriuk and Sergei Drojjin for supporting my application and helping me get into Sloan. I truly believe that their recommendations were critical to my admission.

Again, I can't express just how thankful I am to my wife Olena for writing me a support letter. The very next day I received an invitation for an interview with David Capodilupo, Director of the MBA Program.

David was coming to Moscow and I did my best to grab the first time slot. I remember asking if David had a 6 a.m. time slot. Only when I was assured that David was not going to start interviewing before 8:30, did I agree to this time.

My interview was extremely easy-going. I didn't experience any of the artificial stress situations that I had prepared for after reading interview feedback on the BusinessWeek Online B-school forums. David asked me a lot about my creativity and how I demonstrated it. I had the impression that he was paying more attention to how I spoke about my achievements than what those achievements actually were. Nevertheless, David asked very detailed questions about situations and conflicts I'd faced and the ways in which I solved them.

Some of the students I spoke with mentioned that they'd received positive feedback from their interviewers, such as continuing discussion without taking any further notes or small encouragements not to worry anymore. I had a great time talking to David, but had no idea what David's conclusion was. Before saying goodbye, he told me that I didn't need to take any further actions and that I would be informed of the decision with round two candidates.

The journey began with stress and uncertainty.

Visa difficulties.

In the end, I was admitted at MIT Sloan,

vagabond

Great Stuff!

MIT Sloan holds a school-wide party on a weekly basis called "C-Function", in order to provide the Sloan Community with a social friend-making milieu. Can anyone here tell me when it is held? Every Thursday? I plan to attend one to scoop some constructive advices. Thanks in advance.

vagabond

Waiting List Operation, Quoted from Business Week by LBS_2nd_year

Hi there,

To all of the waitlisted candidates - don't loose hope! As you have probably read in some of the previous posts, every year there is a significant number of candidates moved from the waitlist to the accepted camp.

What happens now: the next waitlist review will be 25th February - as some of the admits decide no to accept their offer, a number of waitlistees will be offered places then.

Another waitlist review will be 25th March - once more, a number of waitlistees will be accepted then. As the R2 starts wrapping up, more people join the waitlist, but also more people will be moved off the waitlist as the programme office get better idea about acceptance rates (olet's face it, many of the top candidates will be offered a number of places across different schools).

I have no numbers as to how many will eventually be moved off the waiting list, but according to programme office it is a significant number.

In terms of what to do - there isn't really much you can do right now apart from waiting - if you happen to be in the UK at some point, come to one of the info sessions (run once amonth) or th one of the drop-in sessions (run twice-a-week) and speak to the admission staff, let them know you are really serious about the school, etc.

I wouldn't recommend sending numerous e-mails / letters, etc - unless  there has been some significant change in your life relevant to your application (promotion, significant achievement, etc.) or you think there is an additional fact that you haven't mentioned in your original application that would significantly enhance your chances, don't  overload the admissions staff with correspondence - they are busy with R2 applications right now.

Anyway, hope this helps somewhat, best of luck to all of you.

potato

so much valuable information here, thanks all pal.

HRperson

you both waitlisted with interview or without interview? quite some people in Biz week WLed without interview. feel strange

jnlvo

我相信你们中一定有人能进MIT，希望是全部。有志者事竟成！到时要好好向你们取经学习。