The Application Process

Hey,
I have been an avid reader of this website but have never posted so figured I would give that a shot. First of all a little about myself.
1) Expected gmat score ...650-680
2) undergrad ...bachelors in mechanical engineering..univ of madras 75%
3)grad school... university of utah....horrible experience would rather not talk about it
4) work experience... one year as a design engineer working with assembly and fabrication
two years as a deisgn engineer working for a packaging machinery firm. Have worked on 5 projects since hire and have patents on 4 of them.

So there is a little about me. I should mention my wife is from the united states so I have my green card dont really know if that helps as opposed to applying as an international student. I am applying to the LFM program at MIT which focuses on tapping into your engineering skills with a management perspective. I love new product development and how the recent manufacturing shift from united states to india and china have affected new product design and development in the united states. In fact 3 of my patents have come from new product development where the application of the equipment to these processes are unique. It is a long shot getting into MIT given my past but for the last 3 yrs I have made significant progress . Leads me to say I have read a lot of questions here and I dont think anyone should loose hope about their application. You are here talking about it and putting in the effort which counts for a lot. I have always said...If I can goto bed at night knowing I put in my 100% I'm good. Thought I would put this post up and hopefully more as I get ready to submit my application.

P.S. I am going to mit sloan for an informational session on the 27th of October Hope to talk to a professor or two about my passions my mistakes etc. Will keep you all posted.

no bodys got an opinion on my posting? hmm strange

So I am back from Boston. Anyways I got to boston on sunday night and reported to MIT at about 830 in the morning.The lfm program is located close to Sloan. First impression very impressive..lush green with a colonial look very old school feel to the whole thing. Anyways first met with a few prospective students...one of them was from boeing another from procter and gamble and the third from ups. Next went on to speak to current students trying to get most of your questions answered....a few questions were ...how is globalization affecting your ciriculum ....do you graduate with the intend of being managers with an engineering background or engineers with manaregial capacity....why lfm...etc. then a student panel...few more questions followed by a campus tour...then spoke to the director of the lfm program and the director in charge of admissions. Learnt to get into the LFM program you have to be accepted by
1)sloan school of management
2)mit engineering dept
3)lfm program
well i think its hard enough to get into one program at mit so much for three of them. so anyways took a break for lunch and had a chance to sit in on a lecture.I choose manufacturing processes heavy lunch made it kinda hard to stay awake during the lecture. This was followed by a seminar hosted by gm and then to wrap things up an informational session with current and past students to answer questions.

Great post.

Need your contact to talk about it more.

So I have finally started working on my essays. Sloan has a cover letter along with a resume. 4 essays and the LFM program has 2 essays. Most of them are 500 words or one page and the 2 lfm essays are about 250 words. So me and my wife sat down and worked on my resume and cover letter. It took me about 6 hours of writing to finish those. It may be due to the fact that Sloan's cover letter asks for a few accomplishments from your job and how you have had an impact on a group and all this in less that 500 words. I went over but by about 30-40 words. Then spend another 4 hours on why lfm essay. Now that one has a word limit of 250 words. Did I mention I am supposed to include how it would help my future plans in the same essay too. Everytime I think about what I have written I feel I havent made my point and need to add additonal information but then with 250 it is hard because I have to pick and choose what the important points are. Well next is why the engineering area and how that affects my future plans. will keep you updated. Chugging away at the deadline which is dec 15th and I have 5 essays to complete.

So since my last post I havent really accomplished much. Work has been crazy and drains you of every ounce of life. Come back and I have a 20 month old son so all said and done at about 10:30 pm I am completely wiped out. But life goes on right. I have been stuck on explain how you defended an idea. But the key here is what you thought felt and said ....so from my understanding the results dont really matter ..focus on what you thought said and did....well 500 words to do this in..but I hope to get it done in under 400 cause I do not want to drag it out being redundant well there are only so many time i can tell them i was frustrated before the adcom starts getting frustrated so I hope to have this essay done tonight and supplemental essay done by monday. That leaves me with 3 essays and a 2 weeks I should be ok. Well atleast I hope I should dont really have a choice so might as well keep my mood upbeat. Oh and I think I have spend about 15 hours on essays so far....and another 20 to go...

Hi sckvck,

Your posts are great. I've been following them closely since you started. Keep up the good work and all the best with the application.

-BM-

yeah following it... great thread.
all the best !

Thanks for the comments guys..went for the longest time thinking people thought I was crazy for trying to apply to Sloan but hey what is the worst that could happen.. So I have been getting people to proof read and give me comments on my essays...It is frustrating when you think you have it all done and people point of obvious errors ...I feel you get one dimensional and the feedback really helps. So I finished my how to defend an idea . I struggled with that one...really really hard...and I am sure I could use some tweaking but I have to work on other essays so I will wait for my comments to flow through before getting back on that one...Topic of the day is..drumroll....supplemental or tell us what you want us to know about you.Now my past has been very shady my undergraduate is not too shabby but my grad school experience was pretty bad..booze, women, good times...so I need to show them a shift in focus being a father and husband has brought about..am i devulging too much here oh well..I kinda see why the want your essays because they want to see if you can communicate effectively within the word limit specified. And a piece of advise I spoke to somebody at Sloan and they told me to stick to the word limit. They will let you finish your thought but max 10 words over limit cause anything over shows them you are not effectively following their rules..Please keep that in mind. Also guys I have read about strong recommendation ..but what makes a strong recommendation? I have great endorsments from the gm, eng manager etc but what makes a recommendation great...I think from what they told me they have written good things about my character, work ethic and communication skills is that a good recommendation or a strong recommendation????....Well thats all for now hope you guys had a great thanksgiving I am going back to my cubby hole and thinking about how to tell them I was a screw up but deserve another chance!

YO YO ....been a while since I have last posted. So figured I would go at it again. LFM has a deadline of december 15th and I have 3 essays to go . Throughout my application process I have been trying hard not to get attached. Sloan is a strech for me. I understand that. Well I belive a snowball has a greater chance in hell.Which is 0.00000000019% in case you were wondering. Well but when you spend the time filling out this application, it is hard not to wish you would get in. Well enough Oprah material for today .So no one replied to my good recommendation post so I am going to guess nobody wants to respond. ok.so that is for now...

P.S remember about 72% of all stats are made up!....

As to what makes a good recommendation:

I am told it helps if your recommenders can include specific details about what you did, how you did it, and are enthusiastic in their endorsements.

I believe it also helps if what your recommenders write about you reinforce some of what you had to say about yourself in your application.

All the best in your applications!

Thanks bbah well I think I have decent recommendations to say the least. So boys and girls its the final week I have 3 essays to complete and some minor touch up on everything else and D day is hopefully sunday for me. I hope to have my application in Sunday by midnight.So I have been getting emails from BYU Marriott School of Business and University of Utah David Eccles school of Business. Both located in Salt Lake City Utah. Actually BYU is ranked in the top 20 and offer a dual degree program. I am very inclined to apply to BYU but to the full time program.Oh btw my general manager had an intresting offer for me. He told me if I stayed back and worked for the company and took the night school route he would arrange the company to pay 100% of my tution and once I am done pay me competitive wages to address my degree. I have a family, and this sounds like a great offer as opposed to taking a break from work and being broke again. Deviating from the subject at hand for a minute I have noticed about 733 ppl have read my posts but I have had 3 replies to date. hmmm I would appreciate it if more people respond to my posts. You could tell me how hilarious I am and what a great writer I am or you could tell me I was freaking crazy . Back to the topic on hand I can see light at the end of the tunnel. Do not know if it is a train heading towards me(most likely) or ...well I am not even going to go there. I am plenty positive it is a train. So what am I going to do with my time now. Come Sunday and when it is all said and done... What am I going to do with my free time. Get back to lifting at the gym, go back to my jujitsu lessons watch football on sundays or my lakers play . but first things first .....I might have to take my family out to dinner. I will keep you posted ...Oh you could leave me suggestions about where to take them for dinner..How about that will that get a few ppl out of the bushes. Only time will tell!

scvck,

As I understand it, you need 3 recommendations to apply to LFM, one of which should be from your academic institution. Who did you ask to get this done (thesis professor, etc.?)? To what extent does this person know you?

I'm just curious to know how others are handling this requirement.

-BM-

Hey Blue,
From my understanding one of the recommendation has to show your technical ability. It could be from an academic source or from your engineering manager,a co-worker who can speak of your technical ability. I got one from my engineering manager who hopefully has spoken about my technical ability.So am i safe to assume you are applying to LFM too? Would it ok if I asked you what your profile looks like? . Just curious is all. Also did you make it to any of their informational sessions?

hi scvck,

I would have loved to apply this year, but unfortunately my GMAT didnt turn out that well (I really needed the GMAT to be high enough to counter balance my not-so-great UG). So I decided to redo the GMAT first and then decide what to do (hopefully will apply next year).

About me:
-South-east asian, 30
-BEng Communications & Electronics Eng. (UK)
-MSc in Communications Technology (Germany)
-I have been working (in the UK) in product transfer/NPI in the last 3 years. My work has primarily been around offshore/supplier management.
-Before my MSc, I was working for a big American test equipment company in my home country as a graduate product engineer.

I did go to the info session in London in Sept, but it was primarily for the standard MBA applicants. However, I did get in touch with Vicky Mach from the LFM office regarding applications etc. I live in the UK now, and its not easy for me to visit MIT, especially with the visa arrangments and all..

As much as I'd like to apply to this programme, I do believe my chances are pretty slim when I compare my profile to some of the current LFM students (through their blogs).

-BM-