2021-22 MIT Sloan MBA. Interview Questions & Guide.

MIT Sloan MBA Interview Overview.
MIT Sloan MBA & LGO Pre-Interview Essay.
Sign up for a MIT Sloan MBA Mock Interview.
Examples of MIT Sloan MBA Interview Questions.
MIT Sloan (Leaders for Global Operations) LGO Interview Questions.
MIT Sloan Behavioral Event-based Interviews BEI.

---

MIT Sloan MBA Interview Overview.

Interview logistics

MIT Sloan interviews are by invitation only. The Sloan admissions committee invites about 25% of its MBA applicants to interview each year. If you receive an invitation to MIT Sloan, you will be interviewed by a member of the admissions committee either on the MIT Sloan campus or in a hub city..

Influence of interview on admissions decision? High.

When a school relies primarily on students and alumni to conduct interviews, the interview carries less weight in the admissions decision process (relative to admissions committee-led interviews). By extension, the written application takes on greater importance. MBA programs with student or alumni-led interviews include: Berkeley Haas, Chicago Booth, Columbia, Dartmouth Tuck, Duke Fuqua, INSEAD, Kellogg, London Business School, Michigan Ross, Stanford, UCLA Anderson, Wharton, and Yale.

When a school relies exclusively (or nearly exclusively) on a small group of trained admissions committee members to conduct interviews (as does MIT Sloan), the interview plays a greater role in the admissions process (relative to student/alumni-led interviews). MBA programs with admissions committee-led interviews include: Harvard Business School, MIT Sloan, UVA Darden and NYU Stern.

---

MIT Sloan MBA Pre-Interview Essay.

Need help with your MIT Sloan pre-interview essay? If you plan to write the essay yourself and would like strategic feedback the Content Review Service may be a good fit ($20/100 words submitted). If you’re not a strong writer and would like the post-interview reflection written for you, then look into the a la carte Essay Writing Service (MIT Sloan’s pre-interview essay is considered a short essay and runs $300).

MIT Sloan asks candidates invited to interview to complete a short essay and submit it at least 24 hours before their interview.

The prompt during the 2018-19 season was: In 250 words or less, please describe how you, as a member of the MIT Sloan community, would work to create a campus that is welcoming, inclusive and increasingly diverse.

This essay is asking about actual diversity issues (LGBTQ, Women, Minorities). The biggest mistake I noticed last year is that a lot of interviewees were misinterpreting the word ‘diversity’. They would write about how their professional experience in X industry or their interest in the stock market would contribute to diversity on campus. That’s probably not what the MIT Sloan admissions committee was look for.

Sign up for a MIT Sloan Mock MBA Interview.

While each MBA program has a slightly different approach to the types of questions asked in interview, generally speaking there are no big surprises. The goal of your MIT Sloan interviewer isn’t to throw you curve balls but to offer up questions that give you the opportunity to highlight your professional and personal accomplishments, your strengths/weaknesses, your decision to pursue an MBA and why MIT Sloan is of interest to you in particular.

MIT Sloan has long been of the opinion that past behavior is an excellent predictor of future behavior. That’s why the school likes to focus on asking behavioral event-based interview questions like Tell me about a time when a team you were on struggled. Tell me about a time when you didn’t see eye to eye with your boss.

MIT Sloan’s trained admissions officers will spend time reading through your application (resume, essays and recommendations) before interviewing you. If there is an obvious weakness or point of interrogation in an application, there will usually be one behavioral interview question which addresses it. For example, Tell me about a time you had to ask for help. if your resume paints you as overly self-sufficient.

With an impending MIT Sloan MBA interview, you may be tempted to scour the internet and amass an exhaustive list of interview questions. What will you do with all those questions? Most MIT Sloan MBA interviewees will think through answers to each and every one in their head. Sometimes they’ll write out their exact answers on paper and then practice them verbatim. The problem with those approaches is that the first one isn’t very efficient and then second one will leave you sounding robotic when you rattle off your answer out loud.

When I work with MIT Sloan MBA candidates we do delve into more traditional MBA interview questions like Tell me about yourself? What are your goals? Why MBA? Why school X?, Strengths/Weakness? but the main focus is on behavioral questions Tell me about a time when…? to develop a core set of stories. Most people have just 4-6 core stories. I teach clients to leverage a single story to answer multiple interview questions.

---

Examples of MIT Sloan MBA Interview Questions.

Below you’ll find mock interview sequences from MIT Sloan MBA interviews. Studying the sequences will give you a sense of what sort of questions tend to come up. As you may know, MIT Sloan believes that candidates’ past behavior and attitudes is the best predictor of their future behavior and attitudes. Therefore, its interviews tend to emphasize behavioral questions. At Sloan, behavioral questions tend to center on topics such as: Conflict, disagreement, disappointment, failure, leadership, motivating others, teamwork, making an impact, mentoring, receiving feedback, dealing with change and persuasion.

Example 1. MIT Sloan MBA Interview Questions.

1. Any updates since you submitted your application?
2. I saw that you’ve been on assignment in Rio de Janeiro for two years now. What do you suggest I add to my itinerary if I visit Rio?
3. Tell me about your green packaging initiative. How did you convince management to finance it?
4. Why an MBA, and why now?
5. Outside of courses, what else are you interested in at MIT Sloan?
6. Do you feel that you’ve had leadership opportunities at work (even though you don’t have any direct reports)?
7. (Behavioral Question) Tell me about a time when you had to work with someone who didn’t like you.
8. (Behavioral Question) Tell me about a time when you feel you positively impacted an outcome.
9. (Behavioral Question) Tell me about a time someone thanked you.
10. (Behavioral Question) Tell me about a time when you ended up changing your opinion.
11. With so many extracurricular activities on your plate, how are you able to balance your commitments?
12. What would have been a great question to have asked you?
13. Do you have questions for me?

Example 2. MIT Sloan MBA Interview Questions.

1. Any updates since you submitted your application?
2. Tell me about your volunteer work with Lucha Latina? How did you persuade the board to invest in creating a financial education course?
3. Things seem to be going well for you professionally, what prompted you to begin thinking about an MBA and why do you think now might be the right time to go back to school?
4. MIT’s Sloan’s mission is to develop principled, innovative leaders. Could you tell me about a time
5. (Behavioral Question) At Sloan we Sloan obviously emphasizes innovation – tell me about a cool, new technological innovation you’ve learned about recently
6. (Behavioral Question) Tell me about a time when your expectations weren’t met, how did you react and what did you do as a result?
7. (Behavioral Question) Tell me about a time when you feel you made a positive impact.
8. (Behavioral Question) Tell me about a time when someone told you ‘no’.
9. Tell me about something you’re involved with outside of work.
10. Do you have any questions for me?

Example 3. MIT Sloan MBA Interview Questions.

1. Any updates since you submitted your application?
2. What was it like transitioning from being a physics major at university to a first job in marketing?
3. Have you mentored anyone? (Follow-up question) What specifically did you do to ensure that you were a good mentor to junior analysts?
4. (Behavioral Question) Tell me about a time when you felt like you really affected the outcome of something.
5. (Behavioral Question) Tell me about a time when you had a vision that you weren’t able to convince others of.
6. (Behavioral Question) Have you ever mentored someone at work?
7. (Behavioral Question) Tell me about a time when you sensed someone was unhappy.
8.  (Behavioral Question) You seem like a really nice person, have you ever been on a team where people didn’t get along?
9. Do you have any questions for me?

Example 4. MIT Sloan MBA Interview Questions.

1. Any updates since you submitted your application?
2. How on earth did you end up with two high school diplomas (one from the U.S. and another from Spain)?
3. Why do you want continue on an entrepreneurial path and what skills or characteristics do you think being a successful entrepreneur requires?
4. You’ve already started one successful company, how can MIT Sloan help you on your journey?
5. In the last twelve months, what is the accomplishment that you’d most like the admissions committee to take into consideration?
6. (Behavioral Question) Tell me about a time when you didn’t see eye to eye with someone or a group of people.
7. (Behavioral Question) Tell me about a time when you received constructive feedback when you weren’t expecting it.
8. (Behavioral Question) Tell me about a time when you needed to convince someone of something.
9. What question did you wish I would have asked?
10. Do you have any questions for me?

Example 5. MIT Sloan MBA Interview Questions.

1. Any updates since you submitted your application?
2. Why did you choose to attend Macalester College – isn’t Minnesota too cold for someone from Texas?
3. Why an MBA? Why didn’t you apply to LGO?
4. (Behavioral Question) Tell me about a time you were successful in resolving a conflict that arose.
5. (Behavioral Question) Tell me about a time when you needed to infuse motivation into a team.
6. (Behavioral Question) Tell me about a time you gave someone valuable advice.
7. (Behavioral Question) Tell me about a time you received unexpected feedback?
8. What else did you expect to cover that we didn’t?
9. ‘Whose idea was that?’ was a follow up to many of the questions
10. Do you have any questions for me?

MIT Sloan (Leaders for Global Operations) LGO Interview Questions.

Below you’ll find mock interview sequences from MIT Sloan LGO interviews. Studying the sequences will give you a sense of what sort of questions tend to come up.

During your LGO interview, you should be prepared to answer the questions that frequently come up in LGO interviews:

• Why MIT?
• Why MIT Sloan?
• Why an MBA/Engineering degree? Why now?
• Why LGO?
• Why department X? (whichever LGO core you applied to)
• Which partner companies would you like to work for? Why?

Example 1. MIT Sloan LGO Interview Questions.

1. Any updates since you submitted your application?
2. Is there anything you would like me to highlight to the admissions committee? It can be something already on your resume or not.
3. What made you decide to found your own nonprofit in college?
4. Why LGO and why the specific interest in the Chemical Engineering Core?
5. Which partner companies would you most like to work for and why?
6. (Behavioral Question) Tell me about a time when you challenged someone’s point of view.
7. (Behavioral Question) Tell me about a time you took someone under your wing.
8. (Behvaioral Question) Tell me about a time when saying ‘I’m sorry’ was appropriate.
9. (Behavioral Question) Tell me about a time when you had to work with someone who lacked technical expertise.
10. What do you like to do for fun?
11. Any questions or concerns?

Example 2. MIT Sloan LGO Interview Questions.

1. Any updates since you submitted your application?
2. Why are you a New York Yankees fan?
3. One of your recommenders described you as a quiet leader. What are your thoughts on that?
4.  (Behavioral Question) Tell me about a time when you decided to set a goal for yourself.
5. (Behavioral Question) Tell me about a time you led a project at work.
6. How did you realize that the team was struggling in silence (follow-up question).
7. Who do you get advice from at work?
8. What advice would you give a new hire about prioritizing his or her work at Amazon?
9. (Behavioral Question) Tell me about a time when you failed.
10. (Behavioral Question) Tell me about a time when you feel you made a positive impact on a culture (team culture, company culture).
11. Why MIT Sloan?
12. Why LGO?
13. Which partner companies are you most interested in?
14. Anything you thought I might bring up that I didn’t?
15. Any questions for me?

Example 3. MIT Sloan LGO Interview Questions.

1. Any updates since you submitted your application?
2. In the last six months, what are you most proud of?
3. It seems like you’re doing very well for yourself at Nike with a lot of responsibility for important projects. Walk me through your thought process around applying to LGO.
4. Why not apply to a more traditional MBA program?
5. (Behavioral Question) Moving from China to Mexico must have been a big change for you. Can you tell me about a time when you had to integrate a group or team that was already established?
6. How did you convince people to change their production strategy? Did you meet with push back?
7. (Behavioral Question) Tell me about a time when someone said something and that made you change your plan or behavior.
8. (Behavioral Question) Tell me about a time when your pushed for an idea or initiative that wasn’t accepted by others.
9. One of your recommenders wrote that you were an excellent team player, but also very autonomous. Why do you think she would say that?
10. (Behavioral Question) Tell me about a time you received unexpected feedback?
11. Questions for me?

MIT Sloan Behavioral Event-based Interviews BEI.

Type of Interview

The MIT Sloan MBA Admissions Committee conducts Behavioral Event-Based Interviews. The concept behind Behavioral Event Interviews (BEI) is past behavior is a reliable indicator of future response in a similar situation. BEI is different from the traditional screening interviews:

• Instead of asking how you would behave in a particular situation, the interviewer will ask you how you did behave.
• Expect your interviewer to question and probe your answers.
• The interviewer will ask you to provide details and will not allow you to theorize or generalize about several events.
• The interview will be a structured process that will concentrate on areas that are important to the interviewer, rather than allowing you to concentrate on areas that you may feel are important.
• You may not get a chance to deliver any prepared stories.
• Most interviewers will be taking copious notes throughout the interview.

What the admissions committee is looking for

The interviewer will be looking for concrete and specific examples revealing one or several of the following traits during the interview:

• Influencing others: the ability to influence a person, group or organization.
• Relationship building: the ability to build and maintain professional relationships.
• Drive: the ability to set an objective and achieve it.

Preparing for BEI

• Recall a recent situation that showed favorable behaviors or actions, especially involving work experience, leadership, professional relationships, teamwork, planning, etc.
• Prepare short descriptions of each situation; be ready to give details when asked.
• Be sure the story has a beginning, a middle and an end.
• Be honest; don’t embellish or omit any part of the story.
• Be specific. Don’t generalize about several events; give a detailed accounting of one event. The interviewer will not give you the benefit of the doubt if there is something missing from your story.