When people think of great technical schools, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology immediately leaps to mind.
Ever since the school was established in 1861, it has been synonymous with technological research and innovation, producing some of the greatest scientific and medical minds in the world.
What people may not know is that MIT is also home to one of the world’s business schools. The Sloan School of Management at MIT provides some of the best training in modern economic applications and theory.
Since Sloan’s founding in 1914, the school has risen to become one of the top business institutions in the United States.
The secret of Sloan’s success is partly duet to its action learning approach, which emphasizes real-world learning and hands-on applications.
Students participate in Action Learning Labs, which combine lectures and case studies with team projects and experiential learning. This approach makes students ready to enter the business world immediately upon graduation.
Sloan has also earned renown thanks to its research centers. These programs and centers bring together students and experienced professionals, allowing learners to gain hands-on experience as they work to address some of the business world’s greatest challenges.
For example, in the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence, students from the Sloan School work alongside those in the MIT Media Lab, the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, and the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences.
These collaborations allow students to study the fundamentals of cognition and organization, leading to improved management practices.
With these and many other resources on offer, it’s clear that MIT Sloan is an excellent choice for any future business leader.
MIT Sloan Acceptance Rate
In 2017 alone, 5,798 students applied to join the program. And yet, out of that vast group, only 11.5% were given offers of admission.
Yes, you read that right. MIT Sloan is known as one of the most exclusive, hard-to-enter business schools in the world.
For a bit of context, the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania accepts 19.2% of its applicants. The Booth School at the University of Chicago takes 20.8%.
Sure, some have even greater demands – the Harvard Business School accepts 11%, and the Stanford University Graduate School of Business takes 6.0% of its applicants. But Sloan is among the most restrictive, rejecting just under 9 out of every ten students who apply to the school.
That said, you should take some hope of the fact that 11.5% of 5,798 is actually a lot of people. That’s 670 students who do get admitted into MIT Sloan every year. For all of its exclusivity, the school does seek out hundreds of people every year.
MIT Sloan Tuition
If you spend just a little bit of time googling graduate schools, you’ll undoubtedly find that studying beyond undergraduate school costs a lot of money. That’s certainly true of an elite school like MIT Sloan.
According to numbers released by the school, students entering Sloan should plan to pay $117,998 every year that they study. That total comes from a breakdown that includes $78,954 every year in tuition.
Without question, that’s a lot of money. But when looking in the context of other elite business schools, you’ll see that Sloan is in line with the other institutions of its class.
For example, the Tuck School of Business charges $77,500 each year in tuition, while the Harvard Business School charges $73,440 each year for tuition.
Furthermore, it’s essential to keep in mind that not all of those expenses are set in stone. To be sure, some things like the tuition or the $2,568 charged each year for fees. But other parts of the budget put forward by the school can be adjusted better to meet a student’s individual needs and abilities.
For example, MIT Sloan recommends planning to spend $15,700 each year on housing. But that number can be cut in half or a third with roommates, and even down to zero if one lives with family. Likewise, the school recommends $2,250 a year for transportation, but that can be changed if a student bikes or walks to classes.
MIT Sloan Requirements
With an acceptance rate of only 11.5%, MIT Sloan is one of the most exclusive business schools in the world. That means it takes a lot to be among those 670 people who get accepted into the program and not one of the 5,798 who get rejected.
To start with, anyone who wants to get into MIT Sloan must have excellent grades. On average, students going into MIT Sloan have a GPA of 3.6 on a 4.0 scale. While that grade does allow for a couple of B’s in there, the overwhelming majority of the grades must be A’s.
In particular, students should strive to earn those A’s in classes that will prepare them for success in business school. That means students should get their A’s in classes like math and English.
Additionally, MIT Sloan expects students to submit their scores on the Graduate Management Admissions Test (GMAT).
The GMAT covers all of the competencies students need to have developed during their undergraduate careers, such as analytical thinking, quantitative reasoning, verbal skills, and more.
MIT Sloan students average a score between 690 and 760. As you might guess, that’s a pretty broad range, from a strong showing to an absolutely perfect grade.
MIT Sloan Notable Alumni
Because of the high level of prestige that MIT Sloan enjoys, it’s the destination and launching pad for many of the greatest business leaders in history. Thanks to the excellent training and connections the school provides, students who graduate from the school go on to impressive careers.
Robin Chase took her training from Sloan into her career as an entrepreneur in the transportation industry. First, Chase founded Buzzcar, and later the company Zipcar, both of which redefined what transportation could be. Since then, Chase has served on the board for the World Resources Institute and Tucows Inc.
After earning his MBA from MIT Sloan in 1983, John W. Thompson went on to work at IBM, eventually becoming the CEO of the tech firm Symantec.
So successful has Thompson been that when Microsoft founder Bill Gates retired in 2014, he chose Thompson to be the tech giant’s next CEO. In addition, Thompson has served on the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission of 2009 and is a co-owner of an NBA team, the Golden State Warriors.
Despite its great business training, MIT Sloan has also been the school of choice for leaders and successes in other fields. Former Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan graduated from Sloan in 1972.
Daryl Morey, General Manager of the NBA team the Houston Rockets, is a Sloan alumnus, as is Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
MIT Sloan Ranking
Why does MIT Sloan receive thousands of applications every year? How can it train such amazing business leaders? In short, by being one of the top-ranked business graduate schools in the nation.
According to nearly every observing outlet in the world, MIT Sloan belongs among the top ten business schools in the world.
Fortune Education places Sloan in the number eight spot, right above Yale University and the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth University. Bloomberg Business Week agrees, putting Sloan in the 8th spot, below Columbia University and University of California at Berkeley, but above the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia.
But the most important observing outlet is U.S. News & World Report. More than any other magazine, U.S. News does a comprehensive look at schools in a field and analyzes them according to a complex set of criteria.
For that reason, it’s particularly impressive that U.S. News places Sloan in 5th place on its list of best business schools.
Sloan does even better on the magazine’s more focused rankings, giving the school a number three spot in schools for entrepreneurship, a number two spot for information systems, and in the top spot for project management and production/operations.
Should You Attend MIT Sloan?
If this question were, “Is the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology a good business school?” then the answer would be a simple and unequivocal “yes!”
As we’ve seen, MIT Sloan falls among the top ten business schools in the world and is respected by every great ranking outlet. The school has trained many of the world’s most influential leaders in commerce and politics, and its faculty consists of winners of the field’s most coveted awards.
Not only does every graduate of MIT Sloan have access to invaluable career connections, but they also leave the school with an unparalleled education.
But, of course, the question at hand is this: “Should you attend MIT Sloan?”
And that’s a much harder question to answer. For as great a school as MIT Sloan certainly is, it’s also a very difficult school to attend. Not only is it extremely expensive to attend Sloan, but it’s very hard to get in.
To be accepted into the school, applicants need to work extremely hard in their undergraduate studies, earning the highest possible grades and scoring well on standardized tests. They’ll need to secure the best letters of recommendation and have highly impressive work experiences.
For those unafraid of such challenges, MIT Sloan is, without a doubt, a great choice of school. But only you know if the reward is worth the cost.
