Questions on MIT's Business School

sakky
Sun, 01 Aug 2010 03:20:13 +0000

4. Anything unique about it that seperates it from other business schools such as a trading system?



I suppose that depends on which other business schools you are comparing it to.

MIT Sloan is a top-ranked management research school that also happens to offer an undergraduate program, a distinction that it shares with only a few other schools such as Wharton, Berkeley Haas, and Michigan Ross. Hence, if your goal is to earn a PhD in business/management and enter management academia, MIT Sloan is an excellent choice. Admittedly, this is a goal pursued by only a small fraction of business/mgmt undergraduates.

MIT Sloan offers undergraduate recruiting access to top consulting and finance firms of which amongst other undergraduate business programs is rivaled only by Wharton.

Perhaps Sloan’s greatest distinguishing feature is its lack of barriers to entry - any undergraduate who wants to declare course 15 is free to do so. That contrasts markedly with programs such as Berkeley Haas that require that you first matriculate at the greater university and only later apply to the specific business program with no guarantee of acceptance. Generally, only 50-60% of Berkeley students who apply to the business program are actually admitted to the major, hence necessitating that the remaining 40-50% major in something that they don’t really want. Michigan Ross provides only a weak guarantee to high school seniors in that admission to the business program can be assured provided that you attain certain performance thresholds in your freshman year, which you might not meet. Non-Wharton Penn students who want to switch to the program must invoke an internal transfer process with no guarantee of success.



I heard that Course XV majors have the stereotype of being the ones who weren’t competent enough to do Course XIV or an engineering major. Is this stereotype actually present, and does it have any truth behind it?



Yes and yes. I’ve never heard of a former Sloan student who found the material too difficult and therefore had to switch to an ‘easier’ course such as engineering or economics. But vice versa does happen.