WARNING: Information in this write up was provided by Sloan alumni and has not been verified for correctness.
Before heading out to the airport, I had lunch with some Sloanies. It was refreshing to do something other than writing essays or obsessing getting in. At some point the conversation went in the direction of how MBA applications are evaluated at Sloan.
Here’s the info they shared with me. I thought you guys might like to know.
After you application is submitted, it is reviewed for completeness. You should have received an email telling you either that your application is complete or that it is missing certain materials.
Lets say your application is complete, it will be printed and filed. Here are the steps that ensue hereon.
1: Applicants are sorted into buckets: finance, consulting, IT, non traditional etc.
2: Rod Garcia then does a quick review of your application materials and stats. I am told he pays close attention to your cover letter, recommendations, GPA and GMAT. At this point you receive a thumbs up or down.
3: Another member of the adcom committee will read your application next. They will look through your entire application and provide a thumbs up or down. I am told that if Rod Garcia didn’t like your application and one of the readers was a temp reader, you could be in trouble because sometimes they get influenced by Rod’s verdict. It’s usually a good thing if both readers are fulltime adcom members because this reduces the chance of groupthink.
4: If you’ve received two thumbs down, you can be certain you’re out of the running. You can be very certain that you will be interviewed if both readers liked your application. If your application was given a thumbs up by one reader and down by another, a third reader will look at your application. If they like your application, you go into the maybe pile.
5: Next the committee sits down to decide who to invite for the interview. A lot of things go into how this decision is made. They look at macro trends such as application numbers, the make up of the class, employability of applicants across all buckets etc to decide how many interviews to allocate to each bucket.
The applications that have two thumbs up are non-issues. The applications that were read by a third reader are the ones that are discussed and filtered.
6: At this point interview invites are sent out to the applicants who make the cut, while others are dinged.
I had to run to BOS, so I told my friends that we’ll have to pick up the conversation another time, but wanted to share what I heard from them with the community.
Just remember, the process may have changed, and/or might be totally different from what I was told. These guys graduated in ‘08 and ‘09. Take it with a grain of salt and make the most of your weekend!
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